Content marketing professionals are continually trying to find the most effective strategies for reaching their target audiences, building brand authority and establishing a strong presence on the Web.

Many Digital Marketers rely on tactics like search engine optimization (SEO), traditional blog posts, articles, case-studies, videos and Podcasts to disseminate their messaging and earn the attention of their potential customers. The purpose of these tactics is to provide your audience with useful information that they could not find elsewhere.

However, with so many organizations turning to content Marketing, it has been increasingly difficult to stay ahead of the curve and keep the attention of your target audiences.

One creative way to avoid this growing problem is to conduct your own high-quality Primary research. This strategy takes effort and time, but it could be the determining factor that raises your brand’s authority over that of your competitor. By conducting original Market research, you have a way to provide unique information that is relevant to your customers and is not available elsewhere. This primary research not only has the potential to earn social shares and links, it also holds the promise of building your brand’s credibility and trustworthiness within your market.

Janna Finch, Managing Editor at Software Advice, a company that researches marketing software applications and trends, recently published an article that provides four quality examples of companies who have successfully implemented this strategy. Here is a short summary of Finch’s report:

“2013 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study”

Silverpop is one of the premier marketing automation platforms on the market. It helps marketers personalize their mobile, email and social interactions with their customers. Silverpop is already considered one of the most authoritative and trustworthy brands in its market, but its “2013 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study” helped solidify its leadership. This report analyzed all the email correspondence sent by 2,787 brands in 40 countries. The report looks at important email marketing metrics like click-through rates, open rates, message sizes and list churn metrics.

Silverpop not only calculated the averages, their team also included mean, median and quartile states by industry and region. This breakdown of their data made it easy for marketers to benchmark their own performance. By publishing an in-depth study on key marketing metrics, Silverpop is providing a clear signal to their customers that its brand is an authority in the market, and that it can be trusted. The company’s report also earned a great detail of social and Web exposure. The report was linked to 206 times on 48 different domains.

“2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors Survey”

For over a decade, Moz.com has been an authority on all things SEO. Their customers have come to expect high-quality research and content on a regular basis. Moz recently undertook a primary research project to help maintain its reputation and leadership in the SEO community. The team at Moz surveyed more than 120 search marketers and collected their responses on more than 80 Search Engine Ranking factors. This survey helped build a comprehensive picture of what characteristics were most likely (or not likely) to affect the ranking of a URL on a search engine results page.

Moz presented its findings in easy-to-read graphs with filtering features that help digital marketers easily digest their research, and share their findings. They also provided easy-to-understand written summaries to further make the survey easily accessible. Moz’s report was well-executed and provides digital marketers with content they could not easily find on their own. This made it an extremely popular report that was shared extensively over the Web and social media. The Moz report earned 693 links from 199 different root domains, and more than 3,000 social shares. This level of coverage helped reinforce Moz’s authority with search marketers, and helped keep the brand at the top of its market.

“2013 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey Results”

Adobe helps digital marketers measure and optimize their content at every step of the process. It is essential that its brand distinguish itself as a leader in the marketing industry. Adobe’s report “2013 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey Results” is a great example of how their team used primary research to build their brand’s authority.

The report analyzed the responses from over 1,858 digital markets from North America, Asia and Europe. Their report highlights what digital markets think are essential to achieving success in their field. Adobe’s findings were consolidated into easy-to-read graphs and narrative summaries.

This survey was spread extensively on the Web and social media, which helped promote the brand’s authority and trustworthiness. According to a LinkedIn case study, Adobe’s report had a profound impact on its reputation with marketers. The case study found that after reviewing the report, marketing professionals were “50 percent more likely to agree that Adobe is shaping the future of digital marketing.” This case study provides great evidence that primary research can be an effective branding tool, and can help raise your company’s market leadership above the competition.

These three examples help showcase how primary research is an effective content marketing and branding tool at the disposal of marketing professionals. Undertaking a high-quality primary research project is not an easy task, but it could be what separates your brand from the rest of the pack.

Have you ever used primary research to build your brand’s authority and trustworthiness? Please leave a comment below and share your experience with us.