Market and opinion research in PR and marketing

Munich, January 25, 2023 – According to the results of a recent survey of 500 professionals in communications, PR, media, and marketing, 68% of respondents see an increase in the importance of data-driven work in marketing and communications. The survey by Scompler and Civey shows that there is considerable potential here: only around a quarter of respondents said that they use market research data for content creation (22%) or impact measurement (27%) at least occasionally in their company.

The main reasons given by respondents for not using market and opinion research were that they thought it was too expensive (18%), that their target group was too specific (14%), that market and opinion research was too time-consuming (12%) or too complex (5%). According to 36% of respondents, there is nothing to be said against the use of market and opinion research, and 20% do not know.

Civey surveyed 500 professionals in communications, PR, media, and marketing online for Scompler from August 23, 2022, to September 16, 2022, and from January 12, 2023, to January 24, 2023. The results are representative due to quotas and weightings, taking into account a statistical error of 8.4-9.0 percentage points (overall result).

"Market and opinion research is not yet used across the board in marketing and communication in such a way that it has the best possible impact on communication and corporate success," says Steffen Braun, Partner and VP Sales at Civey. "The speed of response and precision offered by a modern, digital approach enables communicators today to collect and successfully use content, strategy or measurement data in real time."

In addition, accessibility, including for new customers, has increased enormously. The Civey team provides advice on the design of the survey and the results are available after just a few days. The results can then be analyzed according to many aspects, and the charts can be exported and integrated in a ready-to-use format.

"Above all, Civey makes it very easy to identify trends live and measure the impact of communication. These are strategically important factors," says Mirko Lange, founder of Scompler. "We were extremely positively surprised by the collaboration. Not only did we quickly gain clear insights into the impact of communication, but the service and technology were also very impressive." Scompler and Civey subsequently formed a partnership to integrate the results of Civey's data research into Scompler's "Content Data Center." Here, for example, developments and trends can be displayed in real time on the dashboards for the entire team.

The importance of content based on market research is also gaining additional significance through AI-supported text systems, says Lange: "Systems such as ChatGPT are becoming increasingly helpful in creating well-formulated texts. However, there is also a risk of commoditization here if everyone accesses the same platform to create content." Content could easily lose its distinctiveness and then be perceived as interchangeable by customers. This makes it all the more important for content marketing to be able to offer exclusive content that stands out primarily through its substance, not through beautiful wording. According to Lange, individual market and opinion research is an excellent way to achieve this.