Let me know if this sounds familiar: You’re drafting a masterful thought leadership piece and want to back up your thesis with a strong data point. After a bit of searching, you find the perfect one! But when you click through to the source, it takes you to one of those “Billionty Best Statistics For Marketers” lists.

Okay, so you find the stat again, click through, and it takes you to… an older stat round-up list.

Many (many…) frustrating clicks later, you find you’re back in 2012. Maroon 5 is topping the charts, London’s hosting the summer Olympics, and the stat you’ve been chasing is no longer relevant.

If you’ve ever found yourself at the bottom of the dreaded stat source rabbit hole wishing you just had reliable data – do I have a solution for you!

Original research. At TopRank Marketing, we’ve partnered with several big brands on ambitious original research reports that have driven amazing results for lead gen and brand awareness. We’ve got tips to share from our experience.

Your guide to B2B original research

Publishing your own marketing research reports, on the surface, may appear daunting — they take budget, time, and certain skills to do well. That’s why we’ve broken down the benefits and best practices of conducting B2B original research.

B2B original research influences your bottom line

Here are a few high-quality data points that drive home the value of publishing your own marketing research:

• 84% of deals are already won or lost before vendors even know they’re on the radar.
• Research reports are a sought-after form of content. 55% of B2B buyers regularly consume research reports, and rate them as the most valuable type of content when evaluating purchasing decisions.
• High-quality research and data are the top factors that motivate B2B buyers to express interest in a sales conversation.

In short: Your buyers are looking for your company to be the voice of authority and to offer insights that make their jobs easier, ahead of ever contacting your sales team.

“Early-stage positioning can reduce the number of vendors that buyers consider before they arrive at the 70% Constant… and affect which vendors are top-of-mind when it’s time to engage sellers.” – The 2023 B2B Buyer Experience Report, 6sense

Brand benefits of B2B original research

From strengthening thought leadership to giving your customers information they’re hungry for, publishing your own research data has a number of benefits:

Becoming the primary source

Being the source of a data point or unique research positions your brand as the authoritative origin of valuable information. Your company owns the insights and findings, allowing you to control the narrative and provide exclusive content to your audience.

Positioning your brand as an industry leader

The most powerful way to build your brand’s reputation is to publish data-backed thought leadership that aligns with your company’s vision and meets the needs of your customers and stakeholders. B2B original research helps your company present fresh, data-driven insights, and establishes your business as a go-to authority on new trends and issues within your sector.

Cementing trust and credibility

By publishing the most sought-after data-backed insights under your logo, you gain the twin advantages of differentiation and credibility. Data-backed content builds trust with your audience by providing factual, relevant information that helps readers determine their own path forward. B2B buyers are often decision-makers looking for reliable information to guide their business strategies and purchases, and research-based content offers the credibility they seek.

Amplifying your brand

When you publish high-quality information, other B2B thought leaders and media outlets take notice. As the primary source of original research, your company becomes a go-to expert. Any publication that cites your work, every podcast that discusses your findings, and each webinar that invites your brand thought leaders on to share their insights amplifies your brand that much further.

Types of original research

The type of research you publish depends largely on your end-game: do you want the research to generate leads? Are you after greater brand awareness? Is this a marketing research report you want to publish on a regular cadence?

These are a few types of reports to consider adding to your marketing strategy:

Yearly benchmarks

These are annual studies that track key metrics or industry trends over time. They are useful for showing how specific areas evolve year after year.

Example: LinkedIn 2024 B2B Marketing Benchmark

One-off research

Research focused on a single topic, often related to emerging trends, industry disruptions, or niche subjects. These are useful for addressing specific questions or timely issues.

Example: Sprinklr and LinkedIn: Proving the Power of Brand*

Customer Insights and preferences

Studies that survey your customers or broader market to understand buyer behaviors, needs, or preferences. This data helps craft solutions that better address customer pain points.

Example: Global B2B Buyer Report, BigCommerce

Trend reports

Regular publications that analyze and predict key market trends in the B2B space. This helps your audience stay ahead of the curve with industry developments.

Example: TopRank 2023 B2B Influencer Marketing Report: Elevate & Ignite*

Reporting on disruptive trends

Research that measures how companies are reacting to major industry shifts, economic changes, or technological advances like AI positions your brand as responsive and in tune with industry needs.

Example: HubSpot: The Intersection of Marketing, Data and AI*

* TopRank Marketing partnered on or led these original research projects.

Repurposing marketing research reports: The content gift that keeps on giving

The dollars you invest in original research can be stretched far and wide as that research is repurposed into blog posts, infographics, white papers, webinars, video series, and so on … all unlocking different ways to reach and provide value for your audience.

Blog posts: In what we like to refer to as a “turkey slice,” you can break down key findings into a series of blog posts, each focusing on a different aspect of the research.

Infographics: Visualize data and insights from the report into easily digestible infographics.

Social media posts: Share individual stats, charts, or quotes across LinkedIn, X/Twitter, or other social media platforms, driving engagement.

Whitepapers: Combine the research with related content to create a detailed whitepaper or guide for your audience.

Ebooks: Expand on the research findings by providing additional context or case studies, turning the data into an in-depth ebook.

Webinars: Host a webinar discussing the report’s insights, with key speakers diving deep into the findings.

Case studies: Use the data to support a case study highlighting how a company benefited from the trends or insights revealed in your research.

Podcasts: Create a podcast episode discussing the findings, either with internal experts or guest industry professionals.

Presentations: Develop a presentation or slide deck to share at industry conferences or with prospects.

Video series: Create short videos discussing the top takeaways, explaining how the insights apply to your audience’s challenges.

Newsletters: Feature snippets from the marketing research report in a company newsletter or as part of an email marketing campaign.

Best practices for B2B original research

Our team has a great deal of collective experience putting together high-quality reports based on original research. Here are the best practices we’ve developed along the way.

#1. Establish your research goals: Understand what insights you want to uncover, how they align with your company’s strategic goals, and how they serve your audience’s needs.

#2. Target the right audience: Ensure your research is aimed at your core audience, whether it’s clients, prospects, or key industry players.

#3. Ask neutral, focused questions: Design survey or interview questions that are free of bias. If the results of your surveys and interviews don’t support your original hypothesis, remember: that data still holds insights, and may be even more newsworthy!

#4. Don’t be afraid to outsource the research: For your data to be high-quality and accurate, you may want to work with a third-party research organization. They have the connections and expertise to ensure the quality of your questions, rapidly deploy your survey, and help you make sense of the responses.

#5. Validate and cross-check data: I once stumbled upon a data point that had been published far and wide, long after the original publisher pulled their report due to inaccuracy. Cross-checking data strengthens its credibility and prevents misleading conclusions.

#6. Use a blend of quantitative and qualitative data: While quantitative (hard numbers) data can provide a broad overview, qualitative (observable but not measurable) data offers deeper insights. Use both forms of data to give your report more dimension and support a compelling narrative.

Source: 2024 B2B Marketing Benchmark

#7. Get other industry experts involved: Data from a single voice is interesting, but a consensus of thought leaders backing up that data? That’s compelling! Partnerships can be accomplished through co-branded research, or by including quotes and feedback from experts.

Source: 2023 B2B Influencer Marketing Report: Elevate & Ignite

#8. Give your audience actionable takeaways: Data is great, but useful insights are what drive impact and motivate organic sharing. Highlight key findings and suggest practical applications that can help your audience use the insights to inform their strategies.

Source: The Intersection of Marketing, Data and AI

#9. Prioritize the report design: Design can make or break your report’s readability. Make your research accessible and easy to digest by using a combination of visuals (infographics, charts) and detailed insights to present your findings.

Source: Proving the Power of Brand

#10. Promote, promote, promote: Publishing a research report should never be a one-and-done campaign. Make sure you continue to leverage your research findings by promoting the report across various channels and through different content formats to reach a broader audience and maximize the impact of your research.

Source

Our friends at Content Marketing Institute have also drafted an excellent self-assessment for marketers who are considering diving into original research: Don’t Start an Original Research Project Before Answering These 8 Questions.

Learn to stop worrying and love B2B original research

Publishing a marketing research report is an excellent way for your company to share the next Big Idea with your industry. At TopRank, we’ve helped companies bring their research to life, as well as published our own proprietary insights.

Some highlights from this last year of report drafting include:

• The TopRank 2023 B2B Influencer Marketing Report: Elevate & Ignite
• Sprinklr and LinkedIn’s Proving the Power of Brand
• HubSpot’s The Intersection of Marketing, Data and AI

Interested in learning more about how we can help you develop a marketing report based on original research? Contact us.

The post A Complete Guide to Using Original Research to Elevate B2B Content Marketing appeared first on TopRank® Marketing.

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In the latter half of 2023 and throughout 2024, the SEO landscape has been thrown into upheaval. Monumental updates and changes have left many small- and mid-size websites reeling, especially in niches where they once outperformed larger competitors.

The reality is, SEO results almost never happen in a vacuum. Every action you take on your site is influenced by a web of concurrent developments — algorithm updates, SERP feature shifts, and more. This makes it difficult to isolate variables and pinpoint what’s really driving disruptions in your performance.

Understanding what’s currently happening in the world of SEO is more vital than ever for informing your strategy as you plan for what’s ahead in 2025.

A timeline of SEO turbulence: Late 2023 into 2024

The last six months of 2023 saw relentless volatility in the SERPs, with one major algorithm update after another.

• August 2023 Core Update: This marked the beginning of a turbulent period, shaking up rankings across the board.
• September Helpful Content Update (HCU): Previously separate from core updates, this iteration has left many sites struggling to recover.
• October and November Core Updates: These continued the trend of volatility, with significant impacts on rankings and traffic.
• Google’s Deal with Reddit: In February of 2024, Google licensed Reddit’s content to train its AI models. At the same time, Reddit’s presence in the SERPs exploded, sparking debate about its usefulness and safety for users. While Reddit’s AI overview appearances are dwindling, its influence on search visibility remains significant.
• March 2024 Core Update: This 45-day-long update aimed to reduce unhelpful content by 40%, with harsh penalties for offenders. Sites were deindexed within days, making this one of the most impactful updates in recent memory.
• August 2024 Core Update: With this update, Google acknowledged that many smaller sites saw major losses during the HCU, aiming to connect people with “a range of high quality sites, including small or independent sites that are creating useful, original content, when relevant to users‘ searches.” Early results show some signs of recovery for those sites.

Adding to the complexity, Google replaced the First Input Delay (FID) with Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as a Core Web Vitals (CWV) metric. While not a primary ranking factor, INP and CWV could act as tie-breakers among top-ranking pages — a crucial detail given the fierce competition on the SERP today.

The rise of AI Overviews and the impact on organic search

In May of 2024, during Google I/O, Google launched its AI Overviews (AIO), formerly known as the Search Generative Experience (SGE) following a period of beta testing. Despite the initial excitement, AIO quickly came under fire for generating hallucinated answers.

Although its visibility has decreased, AIO still significantly impacts the SERP, pushing organic results down by an average of 900 pixels. This shift affects the click-through rates of even top-ranking pages.

It’s possible to have your content cited in AIO, which is theoretically prime placement. However, trying to tell where your site is appearing in these overviews is extremely hard (a “maddening adventure,” as Search Engine Roundtable puts it). Google Search Console currently lumps those clicks and impressions into overall data.

Learn more on our blog: Age of SGE: How Will AI Affect Search Traffic in the Next Decade?

The resulting outcome: More zero-click searches

As these changes unfold, we’re seeing a rise in zero-click searches — instances where users either get the information they need directly from the SERP without clicking through to any site, or create a new search because the initial results didn’t satisfy them. For the former case, this trend ties closely to Google’s apparent goal of keeping users within its ecosystem for longer, thereby increasing ad revenue. Features like AIO contribute to this, as they deliver information-rich content that satisfies user queries without the need for external clicks.

This change has profound implications for organic search. The traditional click-through rate curve may start to change shape, with even top-ranking positions losing their prime status as SERP features push them further down the page. Higher competition and the evolution of search behavior mean that being number one might not be as valuable as it once was.

Sounds scary, I know. But rest assured, there are steps you can take to confidently navigate these challenging times in SEO.

How to respond: Re-establishing your SEO strategy in 2025

Given the current landscape, it’s important to re-establish your baselines and goals. Don’t hyperfocus on year-over-year losses, especially if your site has been hit by updates like the September Helpful Content Update. In some cases, recovery might not be the right goal — stability could be the new success.

Here’s what you can do to adapt:

• Prioritize Quality Traffic: Not all traffic is created equal. Focus on creating content designed to convert, following Google’s guidelines for helpful content as well as the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. Write for humans, not search engines!
• Solidify Your Technical Foundation: Crawlability is key — Google needs to access your content easily. Core Web Vitals may not be everything, but as mentioned, they can break a tie when all else is equal. Audit your site’s technical state and incorporate elements like schema markup to help search engines quickly understand your content.
• Emphasize Content Freshness: Google now considers multiple dates when crawling your content — byline date, syntactic date, and semantic date. Consistency across these signals is key. Avoid URL dates if possible, as they’re harder to update.
• Bolster E-E-A-T: Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trustworthiness should be the pillars of your content strategy. Author bylines, bios and expert quotes will help build credibility, while structured data helps communicate your industry niche and relationships to other organizations.
• Optimize for Conversion: With organic traffic potentially dropping, optimizing for conversion becomes critical. Understand your user funnel and tailor CTAs to guide users further down the path. This way, any losses in traffic will have less impact on your bottom line.
• Prioritize Your Efforts: When planning your action items, use a chart to outline resource intensity and estimated impact. This will help you prioritize tasks wisely.

Staying agile in an ever-changing world of SEO

SEO is inherently dynamic, but the strategies outlined here are evergreen. As the landscape continues to evolve, staying informed and adaptable is key. Focus on creating high-quality content, maintaining a strong technical foundation, and optimizing for user experience.

Working with an expert partner in all things SEO will help you stay in front of the curve, and your competitors.

The post SEO in 2025: Adapting to Google’s New Reality appeared first on TopRank® Marketing.

Source:: toprankblog.com