As we mentioned in our article Utilizing Data Insights to Create Better Content, data can help direct your content marketing strategies, along with many other areas of marketing. While data is so influential, it can also be very overwhelming.

Marketers are facing the following challenges:

• Failing to set long-term goals. Long-term goals are imperative for data analysis. Since there is so much data available, marketers need to be wise and focus on the metrics that matter to the KPIs at hand.
• Being too impulsive and changing course too quickly. Analytics take time. Marketers must look at trends more so than exact numbers from one campaign or piece of campaign. Don’t give up too quickly! Results aren’t immediate and frequency and consistency can greatly impact your metrics.
• Assuming characteristics about audience segments that are incorrect. While marketers often need to assume something about their audience segments, if your assumption is proven wrong by the data, make sure to act accordingly.
• Failing to assess other variables. Data reports don’t always give marketers the full story. Although a campaign may do poorly against your standards, this may not actually be the campaign or marketers’ direct fault. There are so many other variables that marketers cannot control (i.e. other events going on in the world and user’s daily life events).
• Lacking acknowledgement of data inaccuracies. 1) Marketers must pay attention as much as possible, even when on auto-pilot for a successful campaign. 2) Understand the tools that they are using to collect data and more specifically, understand what the metrics mean relative to that tool and channel (i.e. social media platform, website, email).
• Forgetting to think like a human. Data is incredibly helpful, but only when insights can be gathered from it, applicable to the selected KPIs. When in doubt, remember to think through what the data actually means and how it can be applied to improve the overall marketing strategy.

WHAT IS A DATA-DRIVEN CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY?

A data-driven content marketing strategy uses data to inform and alter the content strategy. This involves capturing and analyzing data at all stages of planning, creating, evaluating, and designing for analysis. Depending on what type of data you compile and care about, once analyzed it can help influence which channels (email, website, social media) to post on, what specific content should be posted on each channel, what audience segment should be targeted, and much more. Some data can even help dictate page structure, word count, and tone of voice.

Overall, this type of content marketing strategy helps to bridge the gap between a marketing expert’s thoughts and suggestions and a user’s wants. By using data to create better content, you can boost traffic to your channels, improve your conversions, and ultimately increase your ROI.

In today’s world, chances are you or your company have a blog on your website. There are a few essential reasons to have a blog which include sharing updates and increasing search engine optimization (commonly referred to as SEO). Blogs need to be maintained and updated, which in short means content for blog posts needs to be constantly developed. Continually coming up with content within the bounds of your company’s industry can become tough and can lead to blogger burnout.

Below are two common causes for blogger burnout along with the symptoms you may be experiencing as a result. If you or someone at your company are experiencing these symptoms take a look at our recommendations on how to treat these symptoms.

If you are planning on creating a website or refreshing your current website, make sure to consider the following questions.

1) How should I best utilize my homepage?

Your homepage is prime digital real estate. Most visitors to your site—both prospects and customers—will tend to go straight to your homepage, either from a search engine result or by typing in your direct URL. As such, your homepage has a huge impact on your digital reputation and overall sales funnel. The top portion of your homepage that displays within the visible screen size when you first land on the page is even more important!

This area of the your homepage is referred to as ‘above the fold’. Fill this with engaging hero images (also known as header images) with specific messages explaining who your company is. It is also ideal for the hero to help guide the user to where they should go to next on your website. A great example of this would be to incorporate a call to action (CTA) in text format or as a button.