You don’t understand content marketing because you don’t understand data. We’re your friendly local agent, and we are here to help you. Today successful content marketing starts with data-driven decision making. Most people don’t know that data is the most valuable resource being mined online. It is the individual resource that accurately depicts your digital footprint. Consider that every purchase, like, and comment, is a grain of information on the things you prefer most. Leveraging data helps marketers understand their audience, optimize content, and achieve better results. The difference between successful content creators is their understanding of how to gain insights and monetize their audience data. Here are seven essential tips to make data-driven decisions for your content marketing plan.
1. Set Clear Goals and KPIs
First you need to be honest about what you want to gain from creating content; is it money, influence, fame, charity? Sit with yourself and be honest about why you want to pursue content marketing, once you have decided on why– now you can set your goals. Successful content marketing looks like consistent daily output with increased engagement and following over time. A little known fact is that the more successful you become in content creation the more efficient your workflow must become to maintain the cadence your audience is expecting. The standards for the frequency you must meet for content output depends on the market.
This is where many creatives get overwhelmed and uneasy. Yes, the truth is you have to show up everyday, but you don’t have to be concerned about market saturation, to win you need to just meet the standard and then aim higher. Your focus should remain on creating content that drives engagement, traffic, and sales. A productive content creator would examine the data of all content that shows an increase or highest numbers in engagement, reach, traffic and sales. Do research on the top performing content from the content creators in your industry and examine how you can adapt it for your brand.
2. Understand Your Audience
If you have no audience you need to think about who you want to impact or who you do impact. Your first few followers are normally friends and family. That’s a grassroots following that is far more valuable than advertisers care to admit. Your organic following will follow you anywhere on any platform. When you are just starting out, think about what you want to present to them, how you want to share your stories with them. Then examine the successful content creators you like and identify popular topics within that niche that you want to discuss. This requires that you look for your desired audiences preferred content formats, the times they are published and the topic. Through doing this research you will notice the patterns in the types of content your target audience prefers to watch most, behaviors, and demographics. This takes care of the “guesswork.”
Tools: Google Analytics, social media insights, customer surveys.
3. Perform Content Audits
Now that you’ve done your research it’s time to start creating content. You will want to create enough content that you can post once everyday on any platform you desire. The platforms you choose should be determined by the audience you want to reach and the goal you have set for yourself. You will need to understand who the majority of users are on each platform to make a data-driven decision. Once you have done this then begin posting every day for 30 days. It will take up to 60 days for you to get a clear picture on what works for your brand and what does not. Once you’ve identified the winners, double down and make more content like that daily. This is when you will evaluate metrics like page views, time on page, bounce rate, and social shares. Then you will repurpose high-performing content, update outdated information, remove underperforming content.
4. Utilize SEO Data
You must always keep in mind to be successful in content marketing your content must be seen. The more effective route to achieving this result is understanding how to apply simple SEO techniques like keyword research. You may leverage platforms like SEM rush, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner to research topics and website content in your niche that incorporates top performing keywords for your content. You must understand there are several different ways to add keywords into content. This metadata allows search engines to sort your content into the right search queries for users and ultimately increases the visibility of your content to that target audience. You can improve your on-page SEO through this research, target high-volume keywords that are longtail, and address content gaps within your niche.
5. Leverage Social Media Analytics
Now that you have put yourself out there and added all the meta data to reach your audience you must review your insights and find what worked best. All platforms do not operate the same in that what people give attention too isn’t the same in each market. This requires you to review your analytics to get a better understanding of what works for that platform and why. For example on Twitter your involvement in the communal discussions of your niche is more important than it is on Instagram where users are focused on what activities you are doing. In this step you want to track engagement metrics, analyze the performance of different content types, and identify top-performing posts.
6. Implement A/B Testing
At this point you may still be unclear on what works the best. This is when you test two formats against each other. In order to get accurate data you will want to structure your content calendar to account for a/b tests in the top performing types of content. How so, by conducting test headlines, images, CTAs, and content formats. You will need to experiment with the different data points like headlines, hooks, descriptions, comments, atl text, hash tags, and the content itself. It’s important to maintain a way to track this information so that you know exactly what works.
7. Monitor and Adjust in Real-Time
You want to track how your content is performing by watching the engagement with the content during the first hour of posting. Be flexible in your creativity, you may need to alter the captions or the time you posted. This is a time for you to examine all of the factors that play a role in your content performance. You may want to try engaging with your audience 15 minutes before posting then posting and continuing your interactions. Utilize real-time analytics platforms like Hootesuite, AgoraPulse, or Business.Facebook. Continuously track your content marketing performance and make data-driven adjustments as needed.
Data-driven decision-making is a powerful approach to enhance your content marketing strategy. By setting clear goals, understanding your audience, and leveraging data at every step, you can create more effective and impactful content. Start implementing these seven tips today to see measurable improvements in your content marketing efforts. If you need and audit or assistance is how to read your data and gain insights check out our E-Book or book a consultation.