83 Association professionals voted on which member benefits are the LEAST engaging. The verdict? Research reports.

Bummer, huh?

Research is super valuable, and the results can be a game changer for members—expect these reports can't change games if members don't use them.

Last week, we covered how to increase response rates. Now, let’s talk about how to make research reports more engaging.

Great design may appeal to my creative instinct because I love to see great graphic design in research reports. The right designer can make the data come alive. Fun infographics can be sprinkled throughout the report and repurposed as content elsewhere to draw interest back to the research.

Embed videos - well, I’m not sure you can embed videos in a PDF, but you can make it look like you’ve embedded videos in the report by linking a thumbnail image to a video. Why write the introduction when you can record an introduction that emotionally connects with readers?

Make it scannable - maybe the insights are not meant to be read end to end, so make it scannable so people can get a sense of the report's value and remember to look at it first when they need information.

Make it listenable - Turn your research data into a podcast or podcast series. You might find that this is not as hard as you think with some of the new AI tools out there, like Illuminate from Google.

Make it usable - many research reports report the facts, leaving readers struggling to adapt those insights. Think about all the ways you can help them take action. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

1. Highlight the most important takeaways.

2. Follow up on interesting results with qualitative research and insert case studies.

3. Add step-by-step how-tos and, if appropriate, scale the action items, making them applicable to small, medium, and large-sized organizations.

4. Did you find a surprise? Don’t bury it in a long executive summary. Find ways to call it out.

5. Help readers prioritize the recommendations. Perhaps add a ranked action list or give them some prompts so they can create their own step-by-step plan.

In today’s busy world of work, many professionals see long-form content and file it away for later (You know what? Later usually never comes.) So, how do we get them to interact with the study insights even though they may not read the report?

Report on the study insights by creating:

• Smaller reports released at intervals.

• Blog posts, articles, podcasts, and webinars.

• Blog posts, articles, podcasts, and webinars that cover the surprise results or the significant changes from year to year.

• Blog posts, articles, podcasts, and webinars that help members take action on the research insights.

• Again, with the infographics.

• Allow members to slice and dice the responses to get their own custom data set.

Why do research reports get such poor engagement marks? Because they are passive. They are meant to be read.

Its time to turn research into something active!

How can you help people interact with the results? How can you help people take the results, adapt them to their context, and create meaningful change?