How to Execute PR Surveys for Media Coverage and High-Authority Backlinks

Editor's Note: Digital PR focuses on creating and promoting "linkable assets"—valuable content that top media outlets find relevant for their audiences. These assets not only get mentioned and linked by the media but also drive traffic back to the brand. Examples include original data and survey reports. You can explore over 30 examples of successful Digital PR surveys  on the Idea Grove blog, and some holiday shopping surveys and other seasonal surveys here.

Are you looking for a way to elevate your brand's media coverage and boost your SEO? We have just the solution for you.

In this guide, we will walk you through the steps to execute a successful Digital PR survey campaign that generates data-driven stories and gets picked up by top-tier media outlets.

Plus, so you can see the results for yourself, Idea Grove is offering for a limited time a three-month Digital PR survey campaign at a special price to help you achieve your goals.

Now, let's get started.

Step 1: Define Your Objectives

Before you start designing your PR survey, it's essential to define your objectives. What do you want to achieve with the survey? Identifying your objectives will help you create a survey that is focused and effective. Remember, the overarching goal of a PR survey is to get media coverage and inbound links to the survey report. It's not a market research survey, so it needs to be approached differently from one.

Step 2: Identify Your Target Audience

Knowing your target audience is crucial when designing a survey. Who do you want to survey? Identifying your target audience will help you design a survey that is relevant and engaging for them. Because many of Idea Grove's B2B tech clients approach surveys from a market research perspective, they often think they should survey very narrow audiences, such as buyers in their industry niche. But this isn't always a good idea. The purpose of your survey is not to survey your buyers; it's to get relevant coverage and links. That's why you'll generally get better results if you poll a broader audience about a topic your buyers—and the media they consume—would find relevant and of interest. 

Step 3: Design Your Survey

The design of your survey is critical to its success. Your survey should be clear, concise, and easy to complete. Use simple, direct language, and avoid jargon or technical terms that may be unfamiliar to your target audience. Consider using a mix of question formats to keep respondents engaged and provide a variety of data points. If you're not experienced in developing survey questions, it's probably a good idea to get some expert help here. Because it's not only the questions you ask in a survey; it's how you ask them. A screening question that offers only "yes" and "no" as response choices, for example, often leads to people answering "yes" simply because they want to seem agreeable. In the survey itself, a leading question is more likely to get you the answer you want—but not an accurate one.

Step 4: Choose Your Survey Method

There are several methods you can use to distribute your survey, including email, social media, and online survey tools. Email is a popular method for distributing surveys because it allows you to target specific groups of people and track responses. Social media can be an effective way to reach a broader audience, but it may be more challenging to ensure that your survey is completed by your target audience. Online survey tools like Pollfish, SurveyMonkey, or Google Forms are convenient and easy to use; Pollfish, in particular, does a great job of helping you reach the right audiences quickly and effectively.

Step 5: Analyze Your Results

Once you have collected your survey responses, the next step is to analyze the data. Look for patterns in the data and identify any significant differences between demographic groups or customer segments. Use your data to create compelling content, such as infographics, blog posts, or white papers, that highlights your findings and positions your brand as an industry thought leader. To ensure the best results, we recommend starting your survey with the end in mind, just as scientist begin their research with a hypothesis. It makes it more likely the survey will produce that newsworthy headline that will earn it media coverage.