Building your online brand reputation is next to impossible without content marketing. It not only allows you to build consumer trust but also fosters direct consumer interaction on digital media.
It is no surprise that 86 percent of B2C marketers believe content marketing is integral to their operations.
However:
- Only 5 percent of marketers rate their overall content marketing approach as extremely successful.
- 23 percent consider it very successful.
- 50 percent believe it to be moderately successful.
This means only a small fraction of the total content marketing efforts result in conversions.
One way to make your content marketing more successful is to use fresh and reliable data.
A data-driven content marketing strategy is more efficient as it saves time, money, and effort by delivering the right content to the right audience at the right time.
Here’s how you can create a data-driven content marketing strategy to increase your conversions.
1. Know Your Target Audience
Knowing as much about your potential customers as possible is crucial to your data-driven content marketing strategy.
You will need to understand every target customer’s habits, preferences, and needs. This involves collecting different sets of data along with careful analysis.
Use Google Analytics or any other analysis tool such as Moz Pro or Kissmetrics to learn more about customer demographics such as:
- Age.
- Gender.
- Location.
- Job title.
- Income.
- Monthly spending pattern.
- The kind of information they like.
- Their pain points.
- Their emotional triggers.
This customer data will help you build data-driven buyer personas.
This, in turn, will help you understand:
- The type of content your audience likes and shares.
- Communication channels they prefer.
- Their buying habits and cycles.
This information will form the basis of your content.
2. Going Deep with Data Analysis
Next, you will need to dive deep into gathering and analyzing data related to your website, existing content on the web, keywords, and your competitors.
Website Analysis
Perform a detailed SEO analysis of your website using your favorite tool. Browse through your site and blog to find which content topics and types are popular among your target audience.
For example, some members of your audience may prefer listening to podcasts while others might like reading blog posts.
Content Analysis
Content analysis involves finding trending topics and content types in your niche across the web, including social media and online forums, among others.
Take a closer look at the social media platforms where your target audience hangs out.
Analyze the most popular content to decipher why it worked. It will help you create the content ideas that are most likely to resonate with your audience.
Keyword Analysis
Similarly, collect as much data about trending keywords. This will help you come up with relevant and trending topics by building a data-driven keyword strategy.
For example, tools like BuzzSumo show you the trending topics for a core keyword, the resulting long-tail keywords, and information about the content’s performance.
Competitor Analysis
Browse through your competitors’ websites and social media profiles to find out what their content strategy looks like.
Collect data on their most popular topics and content formats, communication style, and level of engagement. You can use this data to make your content strategy more effective.
However, avoid copying your competitors at all costs. Apart from the legal repercussions, it won’t go down well with your target audience as they will label you a copy-cat.
3. Creating the Right Content
Choose the right content format based on the data you have gathered.
For example, if the data shows your target audience is more into infographics, step up your efforts to create infographics.
You can also repurpose some of your native content into infographics.
Also, create precise and informative content, especially as you have put so much time and effort into collecting data. Remember the following:
- Use a unique title or headline for your content.
- Cover the topic in as much detail as possible.
- Provide value to consumers.
- Consistently maintain the right tone of voice.
For example, if you are covering something such as “SEO industry changes happening in 2019,” make sure to include the changes that are likely to occur in 2019, not the ones that have already happened.
Support your statements with reliable data, and keep a conversational and informative tone as you express your views.
4. Setting up Your Content Delivery Network
The right content will generate a better impact if it is delivered at the right time. In other words, timing is as crucial as the quality.
Use the data on when, where, and how long your target audience stays online.
For example, according to this survey, Facebook and Twitter have a high engagement rate at 9 a.m., while for Instagram it is 5 p.m. The ideal time for posting on LinkedIn, on the other hand, is between 10 a.m. and noon.
However, this data may vary depending on your niche, marketing goals, type of content, and target audience. So, it will involve some trial and error.
If you don’t have any historical data, you will have to try sending out the content at different times instead of using industry benchmarks.
5. Check Your Content Performance
You will need to measure your content performance regularly to ensure your strategy is working effectively.
As market trends and consumer choices keep evolving, you will need to keep track of the following:
- Monitor user behavior to see if there is any change in the time spent when consuming the content, the bounce rate, and the number of new and repeat visitors to your site or blog.
- Check the change in the level of engagement (e.g., how many shares, likes, social mentions your content is getting). A negative change (decrease) usually means you need to revise your strategy.
- Use analytics tools to calculate the ROI and cost per acquisition. If your ROI is positive, your strategy is working. So, keep at it.
Parting Words
A data-driven content marketing strategy involves:
- Knowing your target audience.
- Diving deep into data analytics.
- Crafting engaging content.
- Setting up your content delivery network.
- Checking your content performance regularly.
It’s a lot of work. However, it is well worth the effort as your conversions will increase steadily.
Remember though, this is not a set-it-and-forget-it task. So, you will need to keep modifying your strategy periodically.
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