Be honest, which is more compelling:
All my clients are completely satisfied, or
All my clients are 100% satisfied.
B. Always B. It’s in your face, it’s impossible to misconstrue, and it puts your point across in a commanding and credible manner.
We know stats are effective but, for most of us, it’s not lack of wanting them that makes them non-existent; it’s cost.
When working in-house I commissioned batches of research to various companies, but, for around 20 questions, it set the businesses back between £3,000-4,000 a pop.
For most SMEs and start-ups that’s just not feasible, so, here’s how you can reap the statistical rewards without spending a penny.
1. Use other people’s
Your first and most obvious choice is to sponge off other people. They say there’s no such thing as a new idea, so, odds are, someone’s already conducted a bit of research on something very similar to what you’re after.
Before you go pinching stats willy-nilly though, consider:
Where they’re from. If your market’s specifically UK-based, are the opinions of Australians relevant?
Who they’re from. If you’re using someone else’s stats you’ll have to reference them (I’ll touch on that a bit more soon) and the last thing you want to do is hand-deliver a prospect to your competitor.
When they’re from. Opinions and trends change over time, so trying to convince people with data that’s a decade old won’t always do - of course, this will largely depend on the context though.
As with anything to do with your business credibility is key, so, make sure your statistics are from a reliable source. If you’re writing something health-related, for example, the NHS is probably a good place to start, or if it’s content-related head to the Content Marketing Institute, or if you’re in the IT industry Forrester might be your go-to...you get the gist.
If you don’t have a resource in mind, don’t worry. Start with a simple Google search, scout out the results, and keep refining your query till you find what you want.
Referencing your source
Citing the source of your stats is important to add trust and validate you’ve not just picked the numbers out of thin air. Here are a few ways you can go about it:
1. Give them a link Small businesses with a blog get 126% more lead growth than those without.
2. Give them a mention According to The W.E.S.T Program, 77% of internet users read blogs.
3. Cite them at the end of your article
Creating blogs is a top inbound marketing priority for 60% of marketers*.
---- The rest of your article ---- *According to research by HubSpot.
2. Use internal insights
Okay so this first bit isn’t a stat per se, but bear with me.
Most businesses are sitting on a gold mine of data, it just takes a bit of creativity to figure out where it’s sitting, what can be used, and how to spin it.
When I was working in-house at Citation I’d commissioned a couple of batches of research, then, about seven or eight months after I’d been there I was having a casual chat with the lady in charge of their employment law advice line when some unintentional, internal nuggets came about.
The first was around some of the crazy (but real!) excuses people gave for pulling sickies, and the second was weird and wonderful reasons employees gave for rocking up to work late.
A light instantly flicked in my mind and here’s how easy it was to turn it into PR coverage across several online publications:
I sent an email round to the whole HR and employment law team and asked them to share the bonkers stories they’d heard.
I collated a list of the best ones.
I briefed my shortlist into the design team and asked them to turn it into an infographic.
I wrote a complimentary press release and fired it out to a few journalists.
These were the end products:
It didn’t cost a penny, it didn’t take much time, it utilised information that would’ve otherwise gone to waste, and it gained the company local and national media exposure.
After this success, I sent another email round to the consultants and opened my mailbox up to any future, interesting ideas - some of them had legs, some didn’t, but it kept the momentum going.
Numerical data
Okay so the above was all qualitative, now let’s take a look at how you can collect some internal quantitative data. You know your business and what type of reports and insights you have at your fingertips, so you’ll know this next bit better than anyone, but using my own business as an example I could gather information around things like:
The reasons behind why people recruit freelance copywriters,
The main benefits they receive as a result, and
How much more effective their marketing efforts are because of it.
Which, in turn, could arm me with stats like:
34% of marketers employ copywriters to make their marketing more effective,
56% of marketers recruit freelancers to save time and money,
71% of marketers benefit from higher conversion rates, and
On average, 68% of marketers saw a 34% increase in ROI.
And if you don’t have this kind of detail to hand already, just ask. When you onboard a new client or customer ask them a couple of key questions and keep the conversation going once they’ve had a chance to see the benefits.
Important: I’ll touch on it in more detail shortly, but if you’re using your own internal data remember to be honest and open about your methodology - i.e. if you’ve surveyed 75 of your own customers, don’t paint the results out to be representative of the entire market or country.
How to apply all this to your business
Every business is different and, admittedly, this approach might just not work for your set-up, but, if there’s a chance it will start by:
a) Asking. If you don’t ask you don’t get, but remember to ask the right questions.
b) Welcoming. Set up an easy channel for people to share their insights and ideas.
c) Sifting. Not everything you get sent will be PR-worthy, so be prepared to endure the bad to prosper from the good.
3. Collect your own
To claim research is nationally representative it’s got to tick various numerical and demographic boxes - i.e. reflect the gender, age, geographic, etc. proportions of the country.
While there’s no denying nationally representative research is more robust and perhaps relatable, that doesn’t mean you can’t publish something on a smaller scale - you’ve just got to be careful you don’t position it as something it’s not.
Tools for the job
Want to run your own survey but don’t know where to start? Here are some free and simple sites to get you started:
It’s worth noting some of them will limit the number of questions and respondents in the free version.
Sneaky trick: to get around respondent-related limitations, create the same survey on several of the sites and then amalgamate your results at the end.
Getting people on board
Okay, so you’ve got your idea, your questions and your platform, now you need participation - and as much of it as you can get. Here are some potential outlets:
Send a dedicated email invite (some of the above sites actually offer email templates to help with this),
Include a link in your newsletter,
Share the survey across your social platforms,
Add a link in your email footer, and/or
Ask people for their input at events.
If you’ve been patient but you’re still not seeing anywhere near the numbers you need, think about adding an incentive to your survey - for example, put all respondents into a pot for one person to win, say, a £100 voucher at the end.
And remember, don’t mislead people
You’re not breaking any content writing laws by creating your own survey or publishing data that isn’t nationally representative, but it isn’t exactly ethical to lead people up the garden path.
When you’re citing your research be honest about your methodology by divulging:
How many people were involved,
Where you distributed it to, and
When you gathered your data.
Sample template: Keyhole Content questioned 214 business founders on LinkedIn between the 15th and 26th June 2019.
Using your stats
My last bit of advice is around how to get the most impact out of the stats within your copy. Let’s use this line as an example: 68% of consumers perceive a brand more positively after reading their content.
There are lots of ways you can present this, like:
As above.
More than two-thirds of consumers perceive...
Almost seven in 10 consumers perceive…
The majority (68%) of consumers perceive…
So, if you’re using lots of numbers throughout your blog, landing page, guide or whitepaper, make a conscious effort to mix up the way you introduce them.
Need a hand making sure your data moves people? I’ve got a 100% track record of delivering results and making my clients happy, so you can put money on me being what you need. Fill in the form or drop me a line on bryonypearce@yahoo.com to start the conversation today.
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