While being creative and having a passion for content are important traits for content marketers, you also have to learn to love data. Data-driven decisions in content marketing are becoming more and more significant in how you develop content and campaigns that drive conversions. The deep dive into data isn’t a trend; some say it’s the future of content marketing. So, here’s why content marketers need to embrace content analytics.
Data Makes Content More Effective
Content analytics have a way of reshaping content strategy and planning. Data does not take away the creative element of content marketing. Rather, it focuses it. What data allows you to do is make your content more effective.
The more you understand about your content’s performance, the more you understand your target market’s interests and preferences. Content analytics can shed light on many different types of content metrics, such as topics, formats, and channels.
If your data identifies a trend related to a certain topic, and you see more engagement with that topic with lots of page views, time spent, and sharing of the content on social media, then you know that topic is hot for your market. This information can allow you to adjust your content planning to tackle this topic more in-depth, setting your brand up as a thought leader on the subject, and attracting more customers.
Metrics Matter, and Make Content Marketers More Productive
There’s nothing worse than spending a lot of time and resources creating a content calendar that doesn’t resonate with your audience. While you may have had great ideas that seemed like they would be of interest to your buyers, sometimes these efforts fall short. This type of situation can eat away at productivity and not provide the results you desire.
But data makes content marketers more productive because they let it guide their next steps. By measuring the performance of content, you’ll have key insights that tell you more explicitly what prospects need when it comes to making decisions and choosing a solution.
Without the use of data to discern where to go next, your team could spend substantial time running in circles, not sure how to best spend their time. Content marketing is already a time-intensive discipline because of all its components, so if you can use data to enhance productivity, you should jump at the chance.
How to Engage Content Marketers with Data
It’s not as though every content marketer is averse to data. In fact, because of technology like content marketing software, many can see its value. The breakdown in data becoming a normal part of content marketing often has to do with how it’s gathered and analyzed.
Bottom line, it shouldn’t be hard, cumbersome or locked away in some data silo. With the right software, data can be collected from multiple sources and aggregated into one system. Data can then be presented in a content marketing metrics dashboard. This dashboard offers information in real-time, allowing you to pivot when necessary. When data is accessible and easy to understand, content marketers can’t help but think it’s useful.
The specific metrics you measure should be closely tied to your content strategy. By aligning strategy and content analytics, you’ll be able to see if you are meeting your goals. And this is another reason why content marketers will be more engaged by analytics. They want to reach their goals, and when they can track them, they don’t feel so abstract.
It’s true that once people can visualize their goals and see their progress, they are much more likely to meet them. So, don’t forget about accessibility when it comes to getting your content marketers excited about data.
Data Offers You the Ability to Experiment
Content marketing is always evolving. It’s not something that you can afford to be complacent about because your competitors are likely using some of the same tactics. However, your team may feel as though they have more freedom to experiment when they have contextual data.
It’s good to experiment. You don’t want to be a one-trick pony. So, why not try something different and unique. Depending on who your buyer is, this will certainly vary.
Maybe you’re in a highly regulated field that typically produces very technical content. That content may have some interest, but you can’t think that your buyers are completely stiff. So why not try something a little more fun. Create a theme and see how you can turn often dry information into a more interesting format.
Once you create the campaign, you’ll have the ability to measure it and see if it’s gaining traction. Depending on the results, you’ll have a better understanding of your buyers. It can disrupt your content strategy, but shaking things up can be a good thing much of the time.
You are driving for improvement by tracking your marketing efforts, something that many brands don’t do very well. It could give you a competitive advantage because if they don’t measure the effectiveness of their content on a granular level, they won’t have the capacity to improve it.
What to Do About Pushback
Your content team is talented and savvy. That’s why you hired them. They are creative at heart, so don’t be surprised if you get pushback. It’s never easy to adopt new processes into your content production and learn to love data.
They may say that data isn’t their thing or makes their head hurt! That’s when you have to hit them with the truth about why data content analytics matter so much. They can plan better, improve lead quality, take chances, and learn so much from data. Once they see how it plays out in real life, they’ll begin to embrace content analytics as an integral part of their operations.
We Can Help You Learn to Love Data
Creativity and an analytical approach aren’t mutually exclusive. They actually make an excellent pair. They feed off one another in the best circumstances. If adopting content analytics has been a struggle or you don’t know where to start, then consider DivvyHQ, a content marketing platform that offers you immediate access to a wealth of knowledge that’s easy and seamless. A demo of DivvyHQ Analytics is only a click away (<– here).