How does a small, 10-person market research firm from upstate New York land engagements with clients like Google, Samsung, T-Mobile, Clorox, National Grid, and more?
For one thing, by providing top-level, custom quantitative and qualitative market research that transforms data into actionable insights. But the marketing strategies used by a top market research firm like Drive Research also play an important role.
By positioning themselves as thought leaders in both market research and wide array of industries, Drive Research proves to the world’s biggest brands that they can be trusted to get answers from those who matter most.
And for about two-thirds of Drive’s leads, that all starts with content creation.
The Challenge: Creating High-Volume, Expert Content Without Sacrificing Quality
The fact that two-thirds of Drive’s leads come from organic traffic is a huge competitive differentiator. But maintaining that competitive advantage presents significant content creation challenges.
Drive Research has been publishing blog posts 5 times per week for over two years, since it began in mid-2016. That cadence has helped build the brand’s position as a thought leader. However, finding and managing writers can be difficult.
Before using nDash to find qualified writers, the Drive Research team was spending too much time searching for freelancers with the right level of subject matter expertise. And even when they found writers, the amount of time spent signing contracts, NDAs, managing 1099s, and sending checks was taking away from other valuable business tasks.
As a small business, Drive Research couldn’t afford to spend so much time building a content community on its own. George Kuhn, Founder of Drive Research, turned to nDash to streamline the process while balancing high-volume publishing with quality creation.
The Solution: Scaling Creation with an nDash Content Community
The nDash platform gives Drive Research the tools and resources necessary to keep its publishing cadence running smoothly. With the deep freelance marketplace and internal teams functionality, Drive Research has built a content community that gets the attention of its target audience.
“What I like the most about nDash is the focus on writer quality and subject matter expertise,” said George Kuhn. “It’s easy to find writers willing to do the work, but we’re looking for writers that truly understand our space. nDash has helped us build an elite writing team that can grow with us.”
There are three key ways that Drive has used nDash to keep up with its content creation needs:
- Saving Time: Content creation is time consuming. Even when someone on the Drive team has a great idea for a blog post, they don’t always have the hours necessary to write it up. In these cases, Drive can send the main ideas to its writing team and expect a high-quality draft in return.
- Requesting Pitches: It’s difficult to come up with great content ideas to fill a daily editorial calendar. With the nDash platform, Drive can request pitches from its content community and get unique ideas for new blog posts.
- Internal Organization: Employees play an important role in any content community. Using nDash, Drive can get its entire team added to the content community and encourage everyone to contribute their understanding of the business, audience, and target industries.
These features and benefits have kept the daily publishing schedule going for over two years. And the results have been clear.
The Results: Organic Traffic That Drives Lead Generation
“nDash has played a critical role in the way we drive leads and establish ourselves as thought leaders in a highly competitive space,” said George. “Not only has the platform helped improve our operations, but our content community has been able to drive 90% of our site traffic.”
Consistency is key when it comes to depicting your brand as a thought leader. Drive knows that and has used nDash to achieve consistency without sinking all of its resources into content creation and management.
Now, when prospects visit Drive’s website, they’re met with high-quality content that converts readers into leads for the company’s market research services. Whether they’re writing about voice of the customer (VoC), customer experience (CX), consumer research, customer satisfaction research, or anything in between, Drive can count on its content community to deliver business results.
“A lot of small companies feel like they can’t afford premium content. We’re at the point now where we can’t afford to turn it off, and that’s due in large part to nDash. The ROI has been significant.”
