The British media loves reporting on public opinion surveys. From the state of the economy to NHS to sustainability to women’s hair and beauty, a simple Google search will reveal to you how many tier-one publications ground their content on opinion polls.

Why? Because surveys give clout to media, give voice to the complexities of British public opinion.  Polls tell a story that’s crowd-sourced, insightful and intrinsically relevant to their readers. Social media campaigners, at least these ones at JPC, are custom-built for generating this dyed-in-the-wool opinion monitoring and crafting compelling stories and driving ongoing conversations. Our strategy director’s recent post on B2B marketing is a great example of how a global survey from McKinsey could give oomph and substance to strategy content marketing. It’s a crucial element of our proprietary content marketing offering, which we call Project Voice, helping brands communicate in a surgical and articulate way to their public.

But how do you measure success? The first step is benchmarking. There’s no way to determine progress without first taking a note of where you stand currently.

Secondly, you need to be unbiased and credible. The digital age has revolutionised opinion polling, with accessible, affordable, and most importantly, accurate tools to help digital branders. Take SurveyMonkey for example, which is embracing 2014 with a UK expansion and a huge capital injection. Audra Sorman from SurveyMonkey wrote an easy-to-digest piece on effective benchmarking through the use of surveys, and was kind enough to let us post for our UK audience. A worthy read for your company’s new year’s resolutions. What insights could a survey give your marketing team this year?