Big data has led to some remarkable changes in the field of marketing. It has been especially impactful in regards to online content marketing.
Many marketers have used AI and data analytics to make more informed insights into a variety of campaigns. Data analytics tools have been especially useful with PPC marketing, media buying and other forms of paid traffic. However, big data technology can be just as important in the arena of content marketing.
You won’t get far in the industry if you keep doing the same things as everyone else in it. It might work for a while ? using the same ideas as your competition, creating similar content, and approaching the same audience. Still, people prefer picking brands that show authority, are unique, and have their own signature. This is where data-driven content marketing strategies can prove fruitful.
Why You Need to Focus on Data-Driven Content Marketing
To make your brand recognizable and preferred by the target audience, you need to leverage big data to harness the power of content marketing. As is said in the marketing world: content is king.
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No matter what industry you?re working in, content marketing is vital to your success. How else will people know that your offerings are the right choice for their needs?
When people come to your site, they come to find a solution. They expect that you, as a business, will resolve their issues and fulfill their needs for a specific product or service.
This is all conveyed through information i.e., through content. Fortunately, big data technology makes it easier to create quality content and get it in front of the eyes of the right people.
Right now, it?s not just about how great your products and services are ? it?s about the experience your customers have with your brand. To pick you out of the competition, you need to leave a better impression than the rest. This is where content comes into the picture.
Based on this, 70% of marketers today are investing actively ? and many of them greatly, in content marketing. Those that use data analytics to capitalize off of it even further see even bigger dividends.
Ways to boost your data-driven content marketing strategy
Content marketing paints a great picture of your brand for the customer. In return, it drives profits and makes you more established in the industry.
But, all this cannot be achieved with just any content. To make it happen, you need amazing content i.e., a brilliant content marketing strategy. You can use big data to achieve this.
That being said, here are some excellent tips that can be applied to your strategy regardless of which industry you are in.
1. Get the most out of your content
Let?s say that you?ve created an amazing piece. You worked hard on it, paid a lot for it, and are very satisfied with the result. You post it and people see it but soon after, you need something new to show to your audience. It seems like all that effort yields such small results.
Not necessarily.
With so many innovative and creative types of content available now, repurposing the things you’ve created is always a great idea. This is also a way to get your content to all of your target audience. Some people prefer visuals, while others love reading written content.
What can you do? What are some ways that big data and AI technology can help.
Find the content that worked with your audience and find a way to repurpose it by using AI and big data tools. Chances are, many people were unable to see it the first time you posted it, and some didn’t like the type presented to them. If you have written content in the form of a blog, why not turn it into an infographic or a video? If you have video and audio content, it’s great to transcribe it and turn it into a blog post or a social media post. There are a lot of tools with complex big data algorithms that can do just this.
It might seem like this takes too much time, but thanks to technology, this is easier than ever. You can use Happy Scribe online transcription to turn your audio and video content into blog posts within minutes. Just let the technology do its job, tweak it a little to make it blog-like, and post it on your website.
Not only will this save you a great deal of time and money, but it will also share the important messages even further.
2. Use segmentation to boost engagement
Great marketers work hard on discovering all they can about their buyer persona. Next, they use this information to segment the target audience based on their needs and other factors.
Look at it this way ? some of the readers of your content aren?t prospective buyers. Others are. Your content won?t affect everyone in the same way. Some are still searching and considering their options, while others are determined to purchase the solution.
Since your audience?s needs are different, so should be your content marketing.
People will keep telling you ? find your buyer persona. Yes, there?s one main buyer persona that will bring you profit and success, but your research does not end here. Segmentation means that you should explore different buyer personas for your brand, some that will take action now, some that will consider you, and others that will spread the word around.
All these people are important for your brand in some way, which is why you need segmentation. This is one of the best ways to use data analytics tools. You can keep a database on all of your customers to see which convert the best. Then you can make sure your advertising platforms reaches the best converting users.
Segmentation is hard to accomplish on sites and blogs, but it’s much simpler on emails. According to the results by Campaign Monitor, those who used segmented campaigns in emails have a 760% increase in revenue. Not bad at all, right?
3. Know the trends in your industry
Before creating any type of content, you need to know who you’re writing it for. Everything comes from knowing your audience ? choosing the right type of content, picking the right keywords, finding where to post it and when etc.
This is another remarkable way that data analytics can help. One amazing way to learn what your audience wants and needs is through tracking trends. And, what better way to find such information than on Google? Google came up with its Trends page, a data mining page where marketers can find how successful their keyword ideas are in the industry.
4. Make your landing pages highly targeted
Most businesses make their homepage the only targeted landing page. They hardly focus on the rest, trying to optimize them for keywords and SEO. This is a huge mistake.
Ideally, you should make every page a targeted landing page. This is impossible for most businesses with tons of content, which is why you need to at least think strategically about the keywords you are using in your content.
Data analytics plays a lesser role in this area, but can still be quite important. There are a lot of very useful split-testing tools that use sophisticated big data algorithms to see which landing page elements work the best.
5. Run A/B tests as often as possible
Are you performing split tests on your content? This is important since it shows you which type of content works best, what you need to eliminate, and how to improve. AdPushUp?s report showed that conversion rates range between 1 and 3 percent, but A/B split testing drives that rate up.
When it comes to these numbers, even a single percentage point can mean a lot for your business. Luckily, you can split-test almost everything. You can check the things that impact the search performance such as visuals, CTA, landing pages, site speed, etc.
6. Use native advertising to a certain limit
Native ads are a popular form of online marketing. This is an easier way to attract more people ? and fast. However, you should have a certain limit to this form of advertising. For starters, you need to mix it with quality content to offer something of value to those who see your ads. Secondly, you need to make them less deceptive and less promotional.
Why is this?
People love personalization. They love specifics and want to know that they?ll get what they need from your brand. If you integrate your ads as part of a great content marketing strategy, the results can be amazing. They are even better when you merge data analytics and machine learning tools. You can assimilate data on users that engage with your native ads and then optimize them accordingly.
Newscreed is a perfect example of this. They paid for LinkedIn-sponsored content and enjoyed an ROI of $17 for every dollar spent in native ads. To be more, Forbes reported that people pay 53% more attention to native compared to banner ads.
7. Analyze your competition to gather useful data
Marketers don’t just research their audience ? they research the competition also. Competitor analysis is more than just a preference these days. If you want to beat the competition, you need to figure out what exactly they are doing ? and how successful it is, to find ways to outsmart them.
Competitor analysis is now vital for content marketing. The results you find from such research should be integrated into your strategy. You can learn how many great links they have, where they’re getting backlinks from, what type of content is most shared by the audience, etc.
For starters, you need to find who your strongest competition is. This isn’t the first brand in the industry ? not unless you are at the top. Your strongest competition right now is the brands at the same level as you, or slightly higher. When you find them, you need to see what they are offering ? and how you can offer something better to climb higher.
8. Craft a plan for your content
Even though everyone knows how important consistency is in content marketing, very few people craft a plan for their content creation and publishing. Some lack the time, others lack the patience, and so on.
An editorial calendar for your content is vital if you want it to achieve the best results it can. It?s not just about the quality it offers ? it?s also about where you post it, when, and how often.
Luckily, many tools can help you with this. You can use a variety of editorial calendars to remind you, as well as automation tools to handle scheduling and posting for you. This way, you can create the consistency your target audience needs.
Data Driven Content Marketing is the Future
Plenty of things can improve your marketing strategies and pick your brand up even higher. These change almost daily and vary from one industry to another. However, some things are here to stay ? and those are the tactics in this list. No matter what industry you work in or how big your brand is, these things are vital to its success. Data-driven content marketing is quickly proving to be essential for customer branding.