How Marketers can use Data to Create Compelling Content

Over 70% of marketers are planning to increase their content marketing efforts over their previous year. Gone are the days of creating a blog post and content based on what you think your customers are interested in. It is critical for you to look at your data / analytics and see what your customers are looking at and searching for. We live in a digital world and now is the time to think about how data is playing a role in your content marketing strategy.

The goal of your content marketing strategy, whether it is a blog post, Youtube video or social media post is the same, to get that piece of content in front of the right decision makers so they come to your website and make a purchase. I am going to talk about putting data at the heart of your strategy and how it can help your content marketing.

What Data Should I Be Looking At?

1. Your Website Content

By looking at your website analytics you will be able to determine which pages your consumers are viewing, what is driving them to that page, how long they are on said page and what they are searching for. Once you have determined your top pages you can then start to increase the content that is on those pages. For example, if you are a tourism organization by looking at what categories visitors are viewing on your dining section you can create a more robust main dining landing page. This will allow you better content to talk about and provide you with a strong landing page with your site. Also you can take this one step further and create content pages for each category listed on your dining page. By writing 3-4 paragraphs on the fine dining or family friendly dining in your area, not only helps tell your story but will improve your organic search results.

2. Social Media Analytics

Social Media is extremely powerful in driving your content marketing strategy. It can help you in determining what interests your customers, what content to post on which platforms, and story ideas for your next blog post. You can start by looking at the key metrics in your Facebook Insights. You can determine which posts were the best performing, post reach and engagement rates, which will provide you with an understanding of how your content is being received by your audience. Go a step further and you can learn even more about your audience from its demographics and the location of the audience engaging with the post. All of this data will help you create blog topics and social content that has a high potential to engage with and interest your audience.

3. External Content

Just like tracking the content that you post and your competitors, tracking the content that you post externally is hugely important. When I worked in the tourism industry at a CVB, we did guest blogging on local site besides doing blogging on our own site. It is critical to track the effectiveness of those efforts to not only make sure you are meeting their audience expectations but that it is beneficial to your brand. You want to track the same information that you are analyzing on your site, engagement, publishing times and dates, clicks to your site, shares if on social media, etc. This will give you insight into what you are gaining for that audience, what they are looking for and how you can convert those consumers into customers of your own.

4. Email Marketing

Email marketing is not dead. It is an important tool to any marketing and content strategy. In your eblast, you are probably sharing blog content and linking everything back to your website. You want to not only just track the open rates, bounce rates, time / date the email was sent, but you also want to track what content the consumer is clicking on, how long their are on your site and what they are doing on your site. By looking at your email marketing data, you can not only build a stronger content marketing strategy but a stronger email marketing program. These insights will allow you to zero in on the type of content to include in your eblast and keep consumer coming back to your website.

This is where the data really shines and will help you develop a strong content marketing strategy. Every single time you post something to social media, a new blog post, or send an email, let data drive the content decisions that you are making. You will know pretty quickly if something is working or if something is not working and you need to make adjustments before it’s too late. Constantly research and provide your consumers with the content that they are seeking.

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