5 Tips for Creating a Data-Driven Content Marketing Strategy
Content marketing has become the secret weapon of a successful marketing strategy, and brands no longer hesitate to use different types of content to add value and attract the attention of their audience.
It has become more important than ever to market with intent, using content and SEO to educate, engage and convert.
Conversion, in particular, is one of the biggest challenges of content marketing, but according to Curata, 74% of companies believe that their digital content marketing strategy helps them increase the quality and quantity of their prospects.
The rise of IoT and our constant connectivity to the online world through smartphones and social networks has brought many new data. This is an excellent opportunity for marketers to understand what a modern consumer wants and how to include these results in a digital content marketing strategy.
Social media content marketing cannot succeed without data, simply because web marketers can no longer risk guessing, rather than knowing, the habits of their target audience.
A data driven social media content marketing strategy can be more effective, allowing the professionals involved to save time and money by focusing on the right content that will bring them closer to their goals.
To make this even clearer, here are 5 ways data can improve a brand content marketing strategy:
Understanding your target audience
One of the main reasons to invest in a data driven content marketing strategy is to get the best possible understanding of the target audience.
A strong online content marketing strategy can bring the audience closer to the brand. This can only be done through a framework that takes into account the habits, preferences and needs of the public.
An analysis of the available data can help web marketers to issue more relevant personas, which helps to adapt the content to the target audience.
These data can provide useful answers to questions such as:
- Customer reaction to existing content
- Their favourite types of content
- Their preferred methods of communication
- The channels they use
- Their browsing habits
Thus, building the foundation for an evidence based approach that relies on knowledge, rather than assumptions about the target audience, should be the beginning of an effective online content marketing strategy.
Discover and search for content ideas
The process of creating content can be difficult, especially in small teams. A closer look at the available data can help marketers and web writers create content tailored to their objectives.
Data can be part of the content discovery process in the following ways:
Search by keyword
Keyword search is not only useful in the field of SEO, but it can also offer useful content suggestions, tailored to the target audience and their search habits. For example, keyword analysis can help marketers come up with new content ideas, go beyond the most popular terms and target topics that may still be successful, but not predictable.
Content Performance
An analysis of the performance of existing content can provide useful information about the most popular messages and the browsing habits of the public. This data can help create more effective content, adjusting length, formatting, visual assets, or even user experience when a high bounce rate is found.
Analysis of the competition
Another useful aspect that can help the content search process is to monitor what your competitors are writing. It may be a good idea to monitor your competitor’s most popular topics, the types of content they use, the ideas they develop, or even the creative aspect of their content strategy. This can give you a good indication of what works with them and allow you to explore areas you might cover that you hadn’t thought of.
Monitoring the latest trends
It is extremely useful to follow the latest trends that are relevant in the context of your content. A closer look at Google Trends, Facebook and Twitter trend topics can help you inspire new content topics. In addition, an analysis of the latest trends, audience response and its parameters in terms of virality can provide a useful perspective on the content people prefer to share. Optimize your monitoring and your searches on the web in this sense.
Content Delivery
It is essential that you provide content to your audience via their preferred format and channels. This requires an analysis of several key areas:
- Length of content
- Content type (blog, video, image, presentation, podcast, etc.)
- Shaping
- Desktop vs mobile
- Relevance
- Value
- Quantity on quality
There are many questions to be answered when designing a digital content marketing strategy, but fortunately the use of data can provide answers to all these questions.
A closer look at Google Analytics or similar platforms can provide useful information.
This increases the chances for content to become part of the customer journey, helping prospects move along the funnel, from awareness to a real purchase.
In addition, another interesting trend is the increase in real-time data that can help marketers better disseminate their content. Social networks are generally the most useful platforms for broadcasting content in real time during an important event or announcement. In this case, the data can give the right direction to the content, from the feeling to the actual performance of the campaign.
Analyze distribution
An effective social media content marketing strategy must also focus on content creation and distribution.
The focus on data can help marketers choose the channels they should use to promote their content. This depends on the target audience and campaign objectives, and the data may indicate whether the focus should be on :
Press relations (PR, mentions)
Paid SEO (social and search engine advertising)
Original content (website, blog, social content)
Networking (referral link, word of mouth, influencers)
Content distribution becomes more difficult with the abundance of available channels and new promotion opportunities. Not all are effective for all types of content. Thus data can become extremely useful for analysing existing results, but also for understanding how new content can exploit new means of promotion.
Measuring success
According to the CMI report, the most popular tool marketers use for content marketing is their analytics platform (79%). This indicates the need to measure content performance while justifying the KPI of its content marketing strategy.
The emphasis on analytical tools does not necessarily mean that all marketers are always able to determine whether their content marketing strategy is successful. In fact, according to Curata, only 30% of leading marketers are confident that their content marketing has an impact at the bottom of the sales funnel.
As new data becomes available, web marketers can take advantage of all the ideas to understand the performance of their content and how to get closer to their KPIs.
The most useful settings to track your content performance include:
- Blog Visits
- Time on page
- Bounce rate
- Number of comments
- Number of shares
- Number of mentions
- Incoming links
- Press Coverage
- Number of leads generated
- Number of conversions
The need to pay attention to these indicators when measuring a content marketing strategy highlights the importance of merging creativity and analysis. As we accumulate the ability to collect and analyze increasing amounts of data, marketing becomes more and more analytical, but creativity is still crucial. This is what still distinguishes us from the robots that the marketing industry has been so keen on.
Many merchants are eager to dive into the data in order to create a successful content marketing strategy. The more data we use, the better information we can collect about our target audience.
A data based content marketing strategy starts with an analysis of existing data, but it is also important to proceed in stages.
The most effective marketing strategies translate customer needs data to create successful content that not only meets those needs, but also your business objectives.