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Content really is king. Whether you’re trying to improve your organic search ranking, test new lead generation channels, or establish your brand as an industry thought leader, you need to create engaging content. But a prerequisite for this is understanding who your audience is and what their pain points are at every stage of their customer journey. This lecture will teach you a data-driven approach to the content creation process and will introduce our first guest lecturer Trevor Crump, the Director of Acquisition Marketing for Alliance Health. Trevor will reveal his data-driven approach to content creation and how this approach has been a huge success for his organization. Listed below are the three core concepts of this lecture and how you can apply them. The video below outlines this process from start to finish.

The Data-Driven Approach To Content Creation

A common problem many organizations have is producing content for the sake of content. Although the adage “Content is King” still rings true, it’s not a numbers game. Quality far outweighs quantity in terms of content. Poor quality is very likely to hurt brand credibility as well as being ineffective in driving sales. The key to great content is research. This can be conducted by organizations with or without historical data, through both Secondary Research and Primary Research.

How To Optimize Content For The Entire Customer Journey 

An effective tool for optimizing content is SiriusDecisions’ Demand Waterfall. This tool not only organizes content but assesses its performance with the data as well. This framework guides the decision process of what types of content we should be giving our consumers and at what point in the journey it’s presented. High engagement, non-gated (no information required to access) content like infographics, videos, and blog posts are typically the most effective paths to generate interest. As the Customer Journey progresses, the presentation of useful materials like testimonials, case studies, and data sheets can help the customer understand the problems they’re facing and evaluate them. This type of content validates your solution and keeps people engaged until they become a customer.


How To Measure The Impact Of Data-Driven Content On Sales

Simply monitoring content performance is not enough. By following the Demand Waterfall framework, we are provided with critical information on the Customer Journey. The data shows the most predictable path followed when gaining high-value customers. This data comes in two forms: Explicit and Implicit data. Explicit data is what we’ve directly received through form captures, sign-ups, and surveys. Implicit data is derived from the site behavior of customers. A complimentary blend of these two data types helps produce content that retains customers with the highest lifetime value.

For more on data-driving your organization, see our post on getting From Analytics To Actionable Insights.

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