Marketing is a complex machine. Companies will spend many thousands of man hours and millions of dollars on digital marketing, focus groups, SEO improvements, and market research data to get their products or services out to their target audiences and consumers this year. Recording audio and video content can help immensely with saving time and money in the process.
Transcription services for marketing can further improve these benefits by offering plenty more of its own.
In this article, you’ll learn how:
- Market research transcription can help marketing professionals and market research firms with accurate documentation, improve the organization of qualitative research efforts, refine marketing campaigns, enhance video or audio content, and ensure legal compliance.
- Transcription solutions can be in-house, automated, or manual and outsourced. In-house transcription can be a costly choice for companies. AI transcription might not be the best choice for market research transcription services, as they are prone to errors.
- Ditto Transcripts offers the best of both worlds by providing accurate transcription, fast turnaround times, affordable services, excellent customer service, and rigorous security measures.
What Is Market Research Transcription?
Market research and general marketing are a big, undeniable part of running a business. Companies use market research to improve their reach and increase their sales. The latest numbers indicate that companies spend 5-20% of their revenue on marketing solutions.
Competition is fierce in the current digital economy, and anything that can give companies an edge over others is valued. This is where transcription comes in. Marketing transcription is the process of converting audio or video recordings into text format.
The process is straightforward. Potential customers record interviews, focus groups, and other audio or video content for marketing initiatives. They either hire a transcriber in-house, use automated tools, or hire an outsourced professional transcription service to turn the audio into digital text in their chosen format.
Depending on the quality of their service, transcripts are put through several rounds of proofreading and editing to ensure accuracy.
Verbatim transcription for marketers can provide valuable insight into customers’ preferences and decision-making processes. This allows marketing teams to align their efforts with their target audience’s preferences and improve their traditional and digital market strategies.
When And Where Can I Use Market Transcription?
Market researchers can use transcription services for various circumstances and events. Here are some of them, and people familiar with conducting market research might be familiar with most of these:
Type of Event | Description |
Focus Groups | Focus group transcription captures detailed discussions among participants about a product, service, or topic. |
Interviews | Interview transcription provides insights into attitudes, experiences, and preferences through one-on-one or group conversations. |
Product Testing Sessions | Captures feedback on product’s attributes during testing or tasting sessions. |
Surveys with Open-ended Responses | Transcription of qualitative responses for thorough analysis, especially recorded ones. |
Seminars and Conferences | Makes content from marketing-related seminars and conferences accessible and easily searchable. |
Consumer Panels For Research Studies | Offers longitudinal data about consumer attitudes, market trends, and behavior from regular discussions. |
Brainstorming Sessions | Helps in documenting and refining ideas from team creative discussions or to create new products or services. |
Advertising Campaign Feedback | Includes transcribing reactions and feedback from test audiences on advertising materials. |
Brand Workshops | Involves deep discussion and feedback on brand building or analysis. |
Social Media Focus Groups or Live Sessions | Transcribes interactions and discussions from social media platforms during live events. |
Competitive Intelligence Gatherings | Sessions where information about competitors is discussed and analyzed for strategy. |
Video Content Marketing | Provides captions and subtitles with appropriate keywords, enhancing the chances of the video ranking in search engines. |
Ways to Transcribe Video And Audio Recordings For Marketers
Companies who want to use transcription for market research projects and materials can do so in three distinct ways.
In-house Transcription
In-house transcription involves hiring professionals to transcribe your interview and focus group recordings. This might be the first option that pops into your mind when you want to have some audio transcription work done. However, finding and hiring talent also means more expenses.
To drive the point home, talent acquisition, salaries and benefits, equipment, and office space expenses can cost as much as $100,000 per year per transcriptionist—and they’re time-consuming. That’s money and time better spent elsewhere, like developing more effective marketing strategies to grow your business.
Overall, in-house transcription is inflexible or will require significant resources.
AI Transcription
Artificial intelligence is considered one of the most popular words in 2023—and it’s everywhere. So, it’s no surprise that companies use AI tools to transcribe video and audio content. Some transcription providers state that their AI transcription software is the industry’s fastest, most accurate piece of programming, bolstered by implementing ChatGPT, Bard, or other AI models.
These companies offer ridiculously fast turnaround times, sometimes even instantaneous. They also offer exceedingly lower prices than your usual transcription rates. So, why do manual transcription services still exist if AI can transcribe better, faster, and cheaper?
It’s because AI transcription is inaccurate. Even with the best audio quality and the most favorable circumstances, AI transcription can only reach 86% accuracy. Unfortunately, the accuracy of market research transcription is non-negotiable at 99% or higher.
Human-powered, Outsourced Professional Market Research Transcription Services
So, what’s the preferred transcription method for marketing efforts? We’re glad you asked.
Out of all the ways transcription can be done, manual or human-powered transcription offers the best option for market research purposes. Manual transcription solutions that support marketing firms offer the highest accuracy rates, good turnaround times, affordable pricing, and high-quality audio and video transcription results.
A good transcriptionist with the requisite experience and a solid working process can reach up to 99% accuracy. Coincidentally, this is our accuracy guarantee for all transcription projects.
How Transcription Can Help With Marketing Efforts
Transcription services can help companies in so many ways. Here are a few of them:
Cost Savings
Outsourced transcription companies offer an excellent way for various companies and organizations to save money. It can help avoid the cost of salaries, benefits, hiring, training, equipment, and office space.
Time Savings
Transcription services for market research will save you time. Transcribing audio files for experienced transcriptionists usually takes three to four hours for every one hour of audio. So it takes an inexperienced person about 10 times the audio length to transcribe one hour of audio. All that time spent could be better allocated to higher-value tasks relative to your marketing operations.
Accuracy and Efficiency
As mentioned earlier, accuracy is essential in transcribing marketing research materials. Here’s why:
Reason | Impact |
Credibility & Trust | Misleading campaigns erode brand reputation and customer trust. Accurate transcripts ensure authentic messaging based on genuine insights. |
Effective Targeting & Messaging | Inaccurate audience understanding leads to ineffective campaigns. Precise transcripts ensure messaging resonates with the right people, maximizing campaign success. |
Avoiding Legal Issues | Misinterpreted quotes or disclaimers can result in lawsuits. Accurate transcripts guarantee compliance with regulations and prevent legal risks. |
Focus on Strengths
Without needing to do the transcription, you can dedicate energy to core operational competencies that push your business forward. Transcription through professional services brings expertise and efficiency at reasonable costs. This allows your marketing business to work smart by leveraging an affordable service for non-core tasks.
Scalability
Market research transcription services demands can surge or drop at any time. Quality transcription services like Ditto Transcripts can handle projects of all sizes. To get started, you’ll send us individual files or hundreds of hours of recordings—we can take it all. You don’t need to get tangled in overtime requirements and workforce scheduling nightmares.
SEO And Ranking Boost
It’s not the early days of the internet anymore; search engines are more sophisticated, and Google takes offense at keyword stuffing and other attempts at gaming the system. Underhanded strategies for transcription, SEO, and marketing can lead to your website and marketing efforts getting booted to the lonely fringes of double-digit search result pages.
Aside from titles and descriptions, video content creators need more metadata real estate to attract search engine crawlers. Since search engines only crawl text, transcripts for marketing materials offer an alternative SEO boost by allowing search engines to index everything said in the video through subtitles and closed captioning, allowing them to access your content better.
Accessibility
Society has gone to extraordinary lengths to provide accessibility for everybody. Case in point: by transcribing marketing materials, businesses can cater to individuals with hearing impairments or those who prefer reading instead of watching or listening.
Furthermore, by making your content more accessible, you are widening your potential audience base. This is a definite plus and can give your marketing efforts more mileage.
Save Time And Money With Ditto’s Video And Audio Transcription For Marketers
Ditto Transcripts stands out as the industry leader out of all the different companies and types of transcription precisely because we embody everything a marketing firm needs to get the most out of transcription.
We provide 100% U.S.-based human transcription services, with more than 99% accuracy rate guarantees, top-notch security, affordable rates, fast turnaround times, flexible services, and the best customer service in the market today.
Ditto Transcripts is a HIPAA- and CJIS-compliant, Denver, Colorado-based transcription company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable transcription services to companies and agencies of all industries and sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a free quote, and ask about our free five-day trial. Visit our website for more information about our transcription services.