Ever felt that a retailer was being intimidating when all he or she was trying to be was overly friendly? It happens, especially since retailers try to get as much information about you as they can. Sure, it's clumsy but necessary on their part. We do something similar while framing customer engagement strategies.
In this blog, we are going to focus on developing data-driven content marketing strategies to raise customer engagement.
Are large chunks of data enough to create optimized content marketing strategies?
Having chunks of data is not all. The key lies in how to implement data to create the right strategies for content marketing. Let us focus on top 3 methods to create optimized data-driven content marketing strategies.
1: Tools can help you know your customers
There are advanced tools which can help us figure out buyers’ personas based on concrete data.
a) Content analytics
Website analysis is a must to evaluate traffic, categories, specify particular channels for content submission etc. Though Google Analytics is the most famous, there are many other open source analytics and business intelligence tools available in the market. One can choose a tool that is most capable of fulfilling their business requirements.
b) Social listening
Social listening tool can highlight important conversation threads. Pieces of conversation threads can act as next topics of blogs/articles. Even negative remarks on some social-media channels can be picked up and dealt in content. Thus, one can stop negative reviews to become viral, put light on grey areas for internal investigation, analyze solutions and create content.
c) Marketing automation
Marketing automation tools can help integrate automated processes with content marketing strategies. We can also start AI-enabled email campaigns powered by ZOE and nurture leads. One can trace how a particular lead subset interacts with long-form content. A marketing automation tool can also fortify marketing efforts by providing marketing executives with data to personalize their approach to specific lead subsets.
d) Content marketing platforms
We can explore possibilities of commercial content marketing platforms like Hubspot or Huffington Post and utilize them for publishing content. Information like market interest, leads’ navigation pattern and types of downloadable content aspired by audience can guide process of content creation.
2: You can create appropriate content from data
Both B2B and B2C companies cater to a variety of customers. Hence, resources for databases should also be diversified. In this era of steep competition, it is necessary to keep on reducing the diameters of consumer bases and target more specific groups.
Data like age, gender or purchasing capacity are no longer sufficient enough for pitching services or products. Additional information like patterns of in-store visits or that of purchasing can also help grab local-based information.
Content developed out of such information shall focus on specific, targetted users. Specific information can help identify areas of user interest and most importantly popular topics.
3: Do not let your content be overwhelmed with large chunks of data
True that data forms the bedrock of content. It is also true that compared to B2C content which can add lots of entertaining elements, B2B content has a minimum allowance. B2B content should be more informative and practical in approach. However, data should not suck out humane element from content. Care must be taken to not to crush creativity under the weight of plain data. Content should tell a story.
Let data inspire processes of framing content marketing strategies rather than steering the entire plan forward.
The processes of content creation and content analysis are not linear but complete a circle. Once the wheel has been set in motion, digital marketers should try and test newly implemented (as well as those implemented earlier) content marketing strategies and analyze their results over fixed time intervals. It is a continuous process.