Nneka Otika’s Post

Here’s what’s been happening with me outside of content. As you may know, I live in Manchester and given the news about the riots - the past two weeks have been traumatic, tbh. I have never felt so terrified of other people before in my life. I unknowingly was in Piccadilly Gardens at the same time as the riot. That particular day didn’t really faze me as I could walk away from where the rioters were. But last week Tuesday marked a shift. Being told to make my way home right in the middle of class as there were credible reports of planned riots in the same town as my University shook me more than I care to admit publicly. Being on high alert all the time has drained me. These incidents have me thinking more about safety, staying here long-term and other avenues I’d rather not think about right now. Physically, I’m great. Mentally, it’s a frigging struggle. Journaling is helping. Deep down, I know not everyone is like the rioters. Still doesn’t stop my body from tensing when I see a crowd of people. I don’t know what’s next, tbh. But I’m taking this one day at a time and of course speaking to my GP about getting more mental health support. Be safe, folks. And take care of each other. #bipoc

Adding 3 new statistics to your research report isn’t updating it! And I’d fight anyone who says it is! (Jk, but not really). In my current research project, I have come across something disturbing that is worth talking about. 🛑Companies who lazily update their open gate research reports with 3 new statistics to keep it “fresh”.🛑 If you have ever gone down the rabbit hole of finding the source of a stat, you know a newer publication date means nothing. You can click on the linked stat and find it links to a stat from five years ago. Or worse, it’s linked to a stat aggregate post that’s linked to another stats aggregate post and so on! On a random day of clicking through a stat aggregate post, I came across a stat source page that was recently updated. It felt amazing! I could use that stat without issues, right?! Wrong! I don’t know what prompted me to take a look at the first published copy of the report. The report was originally published last year February and updated this year in March. I popped the link in the Wayback machine and discovered that the report is exactly similar to the copy I saw on the site. Only difference, it had 3 new stats. What’s my gripe with this? First, it is just wrong. If a company has stats from 4 years ago, and does this yearly. You’d take their word for it and use an outdated stat thinking it is current. Secondly, this presents more work for writers who now have to fact check research reports. What the heck, man! I’m appalled that a company would do this. I can hear someone say: But Nneka, aren’t you being overly judgey? Maybe they don’t have the budget for a new report this year? If your company doesn’t have the budget for a full research report, scale it the way down. Pick 3-5 sections from last year’s report  to quickly explore in the new year. This saves you money and time. Your company can still publish the new scaled down report on the same page and point writers and readers to the previous year’s report. Adding 3 new stats to the research report to act like it’s a whole new report and extend its “freshness” is just dubious! (end of rant). Writers, have you ever come across this? And would you be interested in learning how to check if research reports are updated properly? #originalresearch #researchreports #contentmarketing

Do you need an outline when writing a research report? Absolutely! I have never written anything without a clear outline. I realised that I’ve never talked about my outlining process for writing research reports until Sarah Greesonbach asked me on our webinar in May. That webinar was amazing, link to it is in the comments. Just like any other piece of content, an outline makes writing your research report a lot easier. There are two parts to creating an outline for your report: 👉 The structural elements that are present in a typical report and how many of these will be in your report based on the data you have. 👉 How to arrange these elements in a way that feeds into the story you are telling with your report. Let’s take 5 structural elements like: key findings, your findings, executive summary, and further reading. With these structural elements, you have to create an outline in a way that flows and tells the story you have from your data: Table of contents ➨ Key findings ➨ Executive summary ➨Your findings ➨Further reading Let’s take key findings, to outline this portion - ask yourself this: what are the most important data stories from your entire research report that would grab the attention of your audience? Which data stories are the most striking? These questions form the basis of what would go in your key findings section- giving you an outlined section. In your findings section, it’s a lot more complex because you have different findings which need to be weaved into a tapestry of stories. When outlining this section, think of how each data story flows into the next. For example, with 4 findings around employee retention, salary, wellbeing and job levels. To tell a story with these sections, you need to look into your data. Is there a trend in these sections that you can use in an overarching story? For example, if you identify a trend in the data that your salaries are not increasing and professionals are switching careers while companies in your industry are building more wellbeing programmes. In your findings sections, these data stories will flow like: Job level ➨Salary ➨ Retention ➨Wellbeing As you structure your report, the stories you’re telling in each section will guide you in creating the outline that leads to a well laid out report that tells a compelling story. What’s your secret to creating a good outline? #researchreports #originalresearch #contentcreation #contentoutlines

Is getting lost the first sign you moved to a new country? Because if it isn’t, I may be directionally challenged. Moving to rainy Manchester hasn’t been easy. I got lost on my first day out. It was a case of the right bus, wrong direction. I still made it to my appointment on time. So, cie la vie. I’m excited to be back on LinkedIn after 2 months of packing up my entire life, moving countries and settling in. ⏩ What’s new with me?  Just the location and my need to speak to the British weather manager! I was promised summer in June & July *shakes fist*. But the summer still isn’t here. Who do I complain about the weather to?! If you know, point them my way. ⏩ What’s changing? Not much. I’m still going to be talking about content, original research and everything in between. Maybe share a bit about my life here as I settle in and go on. ⏩ Will you be taking on clients or new work? Hell yeah! If you have ever wanted to work with me and tax/location implications were preventing you, time to get in touch. I’m on the hunt for new clients. ⏩ What’s the biggest difference between Lagos and Manchester? I’d say Lagos is hot and humid. Manchester is cold and rainy. And I’d complain about the weather wherever I am - it’s a force of habit. What has everyone been doing? Anything new and interesting going on with you? PS: If you’re in Manchester and want to get coffee, shoot me a message! I want to meet more content folks! #content #contentmarketing #originalresearch #researchreports

What makes a research report different structurally from other types of content? There isn’t a lot of differences. But the few differences that exist are so important. The structure of a research report will generally include: 👉 Demographics 👉 Your findings 👉 Methodology 👉 Other elements like expert quotes, company thoughts, key takeaways, table of contents, etc. Today, I’m joining Sarah Greesonbach, Becky Lawlor, Michele Linn, and John Gilfeather to discuss all things original research in a webinar. I’d be breaking down how to write your report, the ROI of learning how to write a research report and other services you can offer in addition to that. If you have ever wanted to learn how to write a research report and turn that into ongoing work from a client, register for the webinar below! It starts today at 1 pm EDT! 👇👇👇👇 https://lnkd.in/dFkTmN3x PS: It’s been an overwhelming few days and I’m just trying to get my head to stop spinning. #researchreports #originalresearch #contentmarketing #thoughtleadership

Document all the actions you take to gather your research data as you do them! In my series on “creating original research using publicly available data”, let’s talk about how writing the actions you take to gather your data as you do them will make writing your methodology at the report writing stage easier. Because the original research process takes time. Whether its’ survey-based or using publicly available data, the process will take weeks and months. While you’re in this process, you still have your regular marketing activities to keep on top of. Writing down each action involved in gathering your data when it happens will: ➤ Save you mental space. It’s one less thing to remember as you juggle the original research project in addition to your regular duties. Have you ever tried to remember some details from 3-4 months ago? It’s not as clear or detailed as in the moment. ➤ Make writing the methodology portion of your research report easier. If you’re working with a research report writer, this will help them craft a great report since you have the methodology documentation on hand for their reference. To create your methodology documentation: ➤ Open a new Google Doc file (or whatever platform you use) ➤ Name the document - Methodology actions + name of your report and year. ➤ Update it every 2-3 days when your memory is still very sharp about the actions you took. My current methodology actions document is 2 pages long. Will I use every bit of this document? No.  Will it make writing that portion of the report easy? Yes! Because I’d have something to refer to as I write that section. Do you actively document your processes? ---------------------------------- Hey there, I'm Nneka. 👋 I’m a content marketer who focuses on using original research to drive content marketing efforts and increase revenue. My research report for Office Otter increased traffic by over 200% 🚀 and increased DR by 20 points within a month of publication. Do you want to  learn how to analyse research data and write powerful reports? Click the link in my profile and get my research report writing course! #originalresearch #researchreports #contentmarketing #processes

Can you turn writing a research report for a client into more work? Absolutely! I’ve been asked several times by people who want to offer research report writing services. They are worried that the investment in this new skill may not be worth it. Turning one research report into a 1-3 month contract is quite different from blog posts and other content formats where you can have a monthly retainer. This is because most companies produce 1-2 research reports per year. Given these limitations, turning the 2 research reports from one client into more work is always appreciated. The secret to turning writing a report into more work is leveraging your time enmeshed in the creation of the report and the insights you got into more work (More on this in the future.). Here is how you can get more work out of one research report: 👉 Creating a distribution strategy for your client’s report. Think about who the report is geared to, where they hang out, all the channels your client uses and how you can get the report in front of these people. Bonus tip - use Sparktoro to identify non-owned channels that your client’s target audience enjoys and visit. Include those channels in your strategy. Most importantly, don’t just dump stats without giving context. Context is everything with distributing your report. 👉 Executing the distribution strategy for the report is second way to get more work outside of writing the report. Since the strategy covers everything from paid media, social media, email marketing, SEO blog posts and more. You have to decide which areas you want to execute. Leverage your expertise. If social copy is your bread & butter, pick that portion and execute it. For example, I’m a long-form SEO blog pro and would focus on executing that portion of the distribution strategy. Distributing a client’s industry report via SEO blog posts would look like: ➡️ Industry + statistics where I’d gather statistics from the report and others in my industry. This report would rank for variations of the keyword “industry + statistics” as that is a link magnet phrase that other writers in the industry would be looking for. ➡️ Industry + salary where I’d break down the salary portion of the report by job title, years of experience, job level and gender. I’d do this for every section of the report. Each post would link back to the report - turning the research report into the pillar of the cluster. What would you add? PS: In my course, we dig into how to develop a distribution strategy for a report and how to execute different areas of the strategy based on your expertise including social copy, blog posts, paid media, emails, etc. Get the course through the link in my bio. #researchreports #distribution #contentmarketing #freelancers #originalresearch

Can you run original research on a limited budget? Of course! The better question is - should you? And that answer is heck no! Take it from someone who has run 2 full original research processes and is in the process of the 3rd with a lean budget. The opportunity costs are enormous and you are better off fighting for a bigger budget. Let’s talk about it! ✷There is a huge opportunity cost to having a limited budget✷ As marketers, we are never not doing anything. We are responsible for content, brand, product and other things. And most importantly, these responsibilities have to be bringing in leads, revenue, backlinks, traffic, etc. So, when we have a limited budget for an intensive marketing asset like a research report. The opportunity costs are huge. For my first research report, I was running the process as well as building a content engine from the ground up. The limited budget I had meant that: 👉 I had to upskill quickly so I can stretch the budget I had. This meant taking Michele Linn’s survey writing course and a data analysis course during the Christmas break of 2022. This was a month after getting buy-in. Rest? Don’t know her. 👉 I couldn’t outsource any part of the process and I had to do it myself. This took away time from other marketing tasks on my plate. Merging and deleting thin content on the blog was scheduled to be done in January, but I ended up getting to it in February when the survey was live. The research project will consume everything, I mean everything on your plate. 👉 I always felt like I never made any dents in the tasks that I had to do to move the business forward at the end of every day and week. 👉 I was so exhausted as was Nyaima Smith-Taylor 👩🏾💻🌟 because we were a marketing department of two in-house employees and 1 freelancer navigating this huge project. 👉 I never felt like I had enough rest as this enormous project was always on my mind. I could never switch off. The day after we launched, I went on a 5 day holiday. I couldn’t keep burning the candle at both ends. My advice - fight for a better budget so you can outsource portions of the process so you have enough time for the other revenue generating tasks you are responsible for and to preserve your sanity + mental health. A small caveat here is that a limited budget only works when you have all the expertise in-house and enough people to shuffle tasks off to. If you don’t - please fight for a bigger budget. #originalresearch #researchreport #contentmarketing #marketingbudgets

G2 is your secret weapon to finding companies for your publicly available data- based report! In my series on “creating original research using publicly available data”, let’s explore how G2 can save you time and help you avoid the trap of overly representing one industry in your data that requires multiple industries. Say you wanted to create a report about the onboarding practices of online appointment scheduling c0mpanies (PS: I wanted a fun category 😁). You want enough sample size of your target companies so your data is statistically significant. But there is a problem. You can’t name more than 15 online appointment scheduling companies off the top of your head. And you need 150 for your report. This is where G2 comes to the rescue. 👉Because you can search by category and industry, you basically eliminate endless googling.  Yay, productivity🙌! You can dive right into signing up to your target companies and finding your data points for your report. 👉 It is also helpful when you are working with multiple industries like I am.  Because I am in marketing, it is easy to fall into the trap of only getting data from sources in my industry. With G2, I can explore different industries to ensure that other industries are very well represented in my data. In my current process, I am finding the data I need from cybersecurity, finance, agriculture and education industries (so far). All of this wouldn’t have been possible without G2. TLDR: If you need to aggregate companies from different/same industries at scale for your report, G2 makes it easy. It saves you time and ensures you can get diverse data from different industries. Do you use G2 in your content process? #originalresearch #researchreports #contentmarketing #contentstrategy

Working with publicly available data for a report presents some challenges. My last research report used survey data. This one is using publicly available data which presents its own challenges. Because I’m working with data from different industries, the way this data is presented varies from site to site. For example, some of the data I need are presented in PDFs and others are not. This presents an issue for the data point I need to extract from this data set. To combat this, I have to homogenise the data to ensure that I can get the same data point from different websites. All the data needs to be in one format so I can pull my data points for easy data analysis. So, I choose to convert the non-PDF data into PDF for ease of use. And as always, I make a note of this in  my methodology document for when I begin writing the report in full. This isn’t something that I had to contend with when working with surveys and survey data. But I am excited to see and overcome all the challenges that come with using publicly available data. TLDR: Using publicly available data means you’d run into format issues that can affect your data. So, you need to homogenise your data and convert it into a singular format. ---------------------------------- Hey there, I'm Nneka. 👋 I’m a content marketer who focuses on using original research to drive content marketing efforts and increase revenue. My first report for Office Otter increased traffic by over 200% 🚀 and increased DR by 20 points within a month of publication. Do you want to  learn how to analyse research data and write powerful reports? Click the link in my profile and get my research report writing course! #researchreports #originalresearch #datastorytelling #contentmarketing