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Today’s tech companies know the global data market is growing rapidly. In 2020, research showed that 2.5 quintillion bytes of data were generated each day, a number which continues to multiply. Current estimates for the amount of data that exists in 2023 are around 120 zettabytes - and that number is expected to grow in the years to come.
Millions of businesses are capitalizing on the growth of data as a valuable commodity. In 2023, the market volume of data businesses is around $77B, with expected growth to $103B by 2027.
Whether businesses exist to solely sell data, or companies commoditize the data exhaust from their core business activities, there is a huge opportunity to be had selling data today. But in an increasingly crowded market, many brands are struggling to differentiate themselves from the competition. Not to mention, data is a somewhat intangible commodity that poses unique marketing challenges.
To master the complexities involved in marketing data products and growing brand awareness, many companies are choosing to unlock access to an historically underutilized market - academia. Getting data into the hands of worldwide academics is proving to not only increase the user base of data products, but more importantly generate valuable social proof content for brands to utilize in their marketing efforts - with little to no effort of their own.
Academics tend to leverage third-party data in two ways: research and curricula. Both use cases result in public content that highlights how datasets can be used, and sometimes even include tips and tricks for working with those specific datasets or types. Academic research studies highlight innovative ways to apply data to complex problems, and course curriculum across disciplines often incorporates data exercises into case studies and other learning materials that often become public.
While the primary reason academics generate this content is not to support the marketing engines of data companies, they are usually more than happy to increase the visibility of their work by allowing the third-party provider to promote it. Unlike other data customers who may be trying to avoid the competition learning the formula for their secret sauce, academics are hungry to talk about their work.
The best part about academic user-generated content is that data marketing teams don’t have to lift a finger to create it. Instead of spending time and resources on in-depth technical content creation, marketing teams can focus on other critical aspects of their job as a steady stream of peer reviewed research and case studies keep their content repository fresh.
Not only is academic research typically high quality content because of the rigorous peer review process, but it also helps marketing teams demonstrate social proof better than many other forms of content. Data companies often target highly technical personas who respond best to in-depth content about real applications of a dataset.
While many companies leverage technical marketers or even members of the product and engineering teams to write content pieces that resonate with their target audience, academic research published by peers of technical users and personas often serves as powerful social proof for a brand.
Beyond the power of peer-generated content, academic research delivers brands with prestigious social proof from respected universities from around the world. Like using customer logos on websites to give clout to a product, highlighting universities that have leveraged data in research and curricula helps build a brand’s credibility in the market. Academics are generally seen as objective third-parties who want to develop the most innovative research, so emphasizing that a research team chose your brand’s data within a crowded market provides instant social proof for a data provider.
Research from academic institutions often makes its way into the mainstream media’s new cycle. This provides another level of credibility and social proof for brands to use in their own marketing efforts, and helps keep their data top of mind for their target audiences.
Marketers know that paid advertising has a law of diminishing returns. The higher the ad spend, the lower the efficiency of the campaign. Brands must constantly optimize their ad spend to reach the right audience with the right message, but not dilute the quality of the leads generated from each campaign. It's a complex undertaking in addition to the many other tasks of a marketing team, such as market research, marketing ops, and content creation.
Because academic-generated content does not cost marketing teams anything to produce, there is no law of diminishing returns to consider. What’s more, this effortless content drip provides a constant source of social proof to fuel ad messaging and keep paid campaigns fresh, reducing the likelihood of diminishing returns in other marketing channels.
Leveraging academic research for marketing kicks off a flywheel of unlimited new content generation opportunities, all written by and for your target persona. This content flywheel enables new research teams and universities to discover your data product, purchase it, and conduct their own research with it - ultimately resulting in fresh and innovative content for marketing teams to promote. Then the entire process starts again.
Unlike paid campaigns, email marketing, or even social media posting, there can never be “too much” when it comes to academic-generated content. Sure, marketing teams should be cognizant of how often they are posting about research or sending it out in their various comms, but the existence of more and more research touting your data’s capabilities can only help your brand become more discoverable and credible in a crowded marketplace. Additionally, research content published on a brand’s website can help boost organic search rankings for strategic keywords used by technical personas, and win organic traffic over from the competition by adding critical social proof.
“Unlocking our data for use in academic research has generated a constant source of new and innovative content to power our marketing engine. With a steady stream of academic content coming in, we never have to worry about our marketing collateral getting stale.” - Auren Hoffman, CEO of SafeGraph
The advantages of supporting academia aren’t limited to the exposure gained from active research. With Dewey, your data also has the potential to help advance teaching methodologies in classrooms every day.
As mentioned earlier, faculty commonly use data to develop realistic case studies for student assignments, classroom discussions, and even exams. This is a huge win-win. Students benefit from hands-on learning experiences utilizing real data while your brand gains instant exposure among thousands of potential future customers. As these students continue their academic pursuits and potentially take on research of their own, they’ll already be familiar with your company and the value of your products.
Perhaps a more indirect, but no less important benefit of unlocking access to data for academics is the respect and brand recognition it brings to a company. Supporting academia proves that a brand is committed to powering innovative solutions to complex problems in today’s world, and is willing to do their part to help out. It shows that a brand cares about empowering the next generation of innovators to develop new ideas and insights, ultimately creating a brand image that is well-rounded and well-liked by technical personas.
Providing academic access to data also helps humanize a brand. When third-party data providers unlock access to their data products, they demonstrate that making money is not their only goal. In addition to growing their business, they are interested in bettering society, empowering technical innovation, and giving those with the ability to do so access to the tools they need (and that have typically been off limits or too expensive).
With all of these benefits, it’s no surprise that brands are increasingly unlocking access to their data for academics. However, many brands have tried working with academics before, even generated a few qualified leads from their efforts, but decided to deprioritize the program due to the complexities of working with academics.
Academic organizations and research teams have very different budgets for data than commercial or even government entities. Oftentimes, money for research data is tied up in grants with a long approval process, and research teams need to ask frequent technical questions. Not only that, these grants are typically for non-recurring, project-based used cases. The smaller deal sizes with the same or higher degree of sales involvement needed can be too much work for not enough reward if handled internally by data companies. Data providers want and need to focus on their main buyers instead of tying up sales and support resources in academia.
Dewey is a full-fledged, outsourced academic program for data providers. We have an audience of 10,000+ data-hungry academics and handle the delivery, usage rights, support, and other case-by-case interactions with academics while you continue to focus on your core business. Simply choose the data unlock and let Dewey do the rest - then sit back and watch the user-generated content roll in and boost your brand marketing.
By partnering with Dewey, data companies have a dedicated place to send and nurture academic leads without distracting from their core business activities. As an added bonus, Dewey even communicates valuable user feedback back to data providers so they can improve their products based on real user experiences.
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