The Impact of Data Storytelling in a Crowded Media Landscape

An old public relations adage is that many of us got into communications to avoid numbers and data. But even if we struggled in AP Calculus, it doesn't take a mathematician to see that data is more than just numbers – in our case, it’s storytelling by showing vs telling.  

‍

For journalists, data offers immense value — and it can mean the difference between coverage and an ignored pitch. Thirty-seven percent of journalists who participated in a recent survey said they won’t even consider covering a product unless the pitch includes data. Forty percent of journalists say they are relying more on data this year and 66% say providing data and expert sources is one way communicators can make their job easier. 

‍

Comms professionals need to capture journalists’ attention, but we also need to give them information that can make their coverage stand out.  We hear that all the time from reporters, including cybersecurity reporter Teri Robinson who told us  she is “always looking for compelling data points.” Compelling data is becoming more of a necessity than a nice to have in order to break through the ever-changing, crowded media landscape. 

‍

<split-lines>"Compelling data is becoming more of a necessity than a nice to have in order to break through the ever-changing, crowded media landscape."<split-lines>

‍

Data should not be looked at as purely an earned-media play, however. Internal data pulls and third-party research projects and surveys can help drive communications efforts in a number of ways: category creation, thought leadership, earned media, sales support and content marketing/demand gen.

‍

‍

5 REASONS ORGANIZATIONS SHOULD CONSIDER CREATING A DATA REPORT:

‍

At Mission North, we recognized the power data can bring to storytelling and created our Data Center of Excellence in 2020. The team is dedicated to promoting the benefits of data and works with individual teams to build surveys and reports – all the way from ideating on concepts and designing the surveys, to drafting full reports with the results. 

‍

We work with account teams to relay the importance and value of these reports to clients, and the results speak for themselves. We’ve found that 71% of teams that executed a data program did so to build thought leadership, and 82% of clients were satisfied or extremely satisfied with the results, while nearly two-thirds (65%) of completed data projects led to another net-new data project. 

‍

<split-lines>"82% of clients were satisfied or extremely satisfied with the results, while nearly two-thirds (65%) of completed data projects led to another net-new data project.<split-lines>"

‍

Data Report for ezCater, Canva

‍

A great example of this repeated success is with our client ezCater, a platform that was purpose-built to cater food for work. When Mission North began working with ezCater, the company was eager to expand beyond trade press, local news and catering industry stories to break into broader trends happening in the Future of Work space. In order to do so, we needed to find a concrete way to tie ezCater directly to the trends impacting today’s workforce, highlighting their value to the industry and reaching beyond catering. To do that, we developed their inaugural Lunch Report in 2022, a data campaign that surveyed 1,000 workers across the U.S. in a variety of industries. 

‍

The results uncovered valuable insights showing the impact of food on productivity, its influence on employee engagement, and the ways businesses could use the lunch hour to bring teams together. In pitching the report out, we secured numerous top-tier national and workplace-focused stories within the first weeks alone  — including CNBC, Forbes, Fox Business, WorkLife, and HR Dive. The success of this report led to five additional surveys, including a second annual Lunch Report and reports with specific vertical focuses on construction and blue-collar workers. 

‍

Another data success story comes from our client Canva, a free online visual communications and collaboration platform. This year, Canva launched several new generative AI tools to the market, amid a flurry of industry hype and competitor news. They needed to prove the ROI of their products to various enterprise audiences — from marketers to the everyday prosumer. To help prove the business value of creativity, Mission North conceptualized a series of data reports that would build on each other; some targeted the mainstream audience and others directly aimed at key verticals. 

‍

The reports included Canva’s first-ever Visual Economy report, which explored how social media and visual content impact how we communicate at work and how businesses can tap into this for better outcomes. The second report aimed at a mainstream audience focused on how professionals feel pressure to keep up-to-date on AI at work. Additional reports targeted vertical audiences to explore the impact of AI on team creativity, productivity and outputs, including one focused on marketing professionals. These reports have led to over 20 articles in Insider, Fox Business, Digiday and elsewhere.

‍

The Way Forward

‍

Just as the media landscape is changing, our resources and approaches to survey development must adapt as well – and nowhere is this more apparent than in the role AI will play. Generative AI can aid in improving the agility and efficiency of data collection in different ways. For instance, ChatGPT and other tools have changed the way we can propose new survey concepts, how we analyze results, and cultivate creative activations with data. Ultimately, this will help with better data-based storytelling.

‍

<split-lines>"Just as the media landscape is changing, our resources and approaches to survey development must adapt as well – and nowhere is this more apparent than in the role AI will play."<split-lines>

‍

An April 2023 report from BCG showcasing a survey of CMOs on generative AI showed that more than half of respondents using generative AI are using it for insight generation. Generative AI will continue to transform the market research landscape in particular in 2024. We predict that more vendors will add generative AI capabilities into their survey tools, which will enable rapid survey development – from question development all the way through data analysis. At Mission North, we strongly believe in the value of marrying these tools with the human touch, and we’re excited by the opportunities they will unlock for data reports.