PR and Surveys: Looking for Best Practices

AIMS member Robert Mendelson, Executive VP at Select Blinds Canada sends in the following question...

We're thinking of conducting a survey for PR purposes--we'll publish the results in hopes of them getting picked up by media outlets across Canada and getting our name/site mentioned as often as possible as the sponsors of the survey.

Can anyone who has done this before provide some guidance as to best practices, pitfalls to avoid, checklists for execution, recommendations for getting the survey results out with maximum impact, etc?

Anyone have any suggestions/guidance for Robert?

Comments

[oliver bendzsa]

Dear Robert:

Traditional media outlets tend to follow well established practices when considering what to cover. Conducting a survey, publishing the results and announcing the findings will probably not breakthrough the consciousness of traditional media if the story is not truly newsworthy. You may want to rate your story using this tool: http://library.thinkquest.org/18806/pressbase/resourcebook/newsworthy.shtml

If you do have research of broad appeal then you should consider the credibility of the source. Research that is free of commercial self promotion is very important to traditional media. Having a professional research firm to build the survey can be helpful starting point because the media may see the firm as somewhat independent of the sponsor. The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association can help point you towards a reliable firm: http://www.mria-arim.ca

Finally, if you’ve been following recent trends (for example Time Magazine’s person of the year: http://www.time.com) you may be able to get the results of your survey published using non-traditional media or more niche sources. Have you considered engaging the social media channel that follows the trends in interior design and home improvement? While not mass in their appeal, they would readily respond to research targeted at their interests. In fact, if you engaged the channel in advance of the survey, they might be able to help you a) build the questions and b) promote the survey to your target demographic.

In my experience, the social media network is interested and engaged and looking for good, reliable content. Ironically, if you successfully use the non-traditional channel, the traditional media channel will find that story highly newsworthy. Hopefully, this provides you some food-for-thought. Oliver.

[Howard Firestone]

Robert - Leave research to the pro's. Am sure if I suggested to you that I was going to go to the fabric store and make my own window coverings you'd say let the people who do this full time make the blinds - research is no different. You can always go to survey monkey or zoomerrang and put together a "do-it-yourself" study BUT do you know the right questions required to illicit the feedback you need to enhance your visitor's overall experience???

Me thinks not.

[john]

go to www.onepoll.com