Creating Data-Driven Content Marketing That Converts

Every content marketer loves the feeling when a content piece climbs the rankings for views, engagement, and, ultimately, conversion. It’s a validation—not just of your ability to write but also how well you identify topics that capture attention. In the past, identifying that key topic required a bit of luck, like rolling the dice. But nowadays, marketers have more reliable ways to choose content topics that are likely to engage customers. That’s where data comes in.

From customer surveys to content performance metrics, data can help you understand what customers care about and how they want to engage with you. The most effective content marketers use those insights to create data-driven content that converts. Here, we highlight ways to leverage data for your content marketing program and how Contently can help.

What is data-driven content, and why should content marketers create it?

Data-driven content answers questions or addresses topics of interest to current or prospective customers. Marketers can use either external data, internal data, or both to understand customer interests and design data-driven content strategies that cater to them.

Examples of external data include:

• SEO keyword research
• Social media sentiment analysis
• Market surveys and consumer research

On the other hand, internal data can include:

• Customer surveys
• Customer service query data
• Web content performance data, including views, engagement, conversion rates, and content ROI
• Social content performance data, including views, reposts, clicks, etc.
• A/B or multivariate testing results
• Anecdotal data from customer conversations, including from sales

You don’t need to use all of these data sources. Instead, each organization needs to identify, collect, and use the data that will best allow it to meet its business goals.

That said, when it comes to content, many content marketers embrace data-driven content opportunities for their relevance. It increases confidence that the topic or the format will likely outperform alternative options because the customer told them what they wanted to hear about and how.

Pursuing data-driven content options also helps content teams prioritize. Most of us have more ideas to pursue than resources. By prioritizing topics customers care about, we increase our potential to deliver business results in the form of conversions.

There are caveats, though. Customer interests can change rapidly, causing data-driven content to underperform if it’s guided by a fleeting fad. Customers also cannot tell you about interests they haven’t developed yet. That’s why you should leave room for content innovation and experimentation within the content marketing strategy. With those caveats in mind, let’s explore ways you can leverage data.

Ways to use data to boost content impact

Content marketers can and should look for data to inform content marketing at multiple points.

1. Take advantage of the data you have to understand your audience.

There are few better ways to define the audience and build your ideal customer personas than to leverage the data you have on existing and prospective customers. Use these resources to specify the roles and responsibilities these personas have in their organizations, the problems they need to solve, and the kinds of information they are looking for.

2. Craft your content strategy capitalizing on data insights.

During annual content strategy planning and quarterly updates, collect as much data as you have available from the sources listed above. Identify trending topics, keywords, and audience preferences. Then, see where they overlap with your organization’s business priorities for the year. Consider these points of overlaps for your content pillars or for topics and subtopics that fall under them. Approaching strategy in this way allows you to strike the right balance between your business goals and your customer’s interests. Make these data-driven audience definitions and strategies easily accessible to content teams so they can leverage them for every output. The Contently platform provides easy access within the editor to strategy and audience information. With a simple click, writers and editors can refer to the strategy documents to ensure their content speaks to the right audience, on the specific topic, in an engaging brand voice.

3. Anchor ideation data-informed content trends.

Conduct SEO keyword research consistently to align specific content pieces with topics your audience is searching for. Analyze posts from your content competitors to see where you can differentiate your piece to increase your SERP rankings. Consider different content formats as well. Examine your organization’s content performance data to see which content formats seem to work best for certain topics or audiences or at specific stages of the customer journey.

4. Track your data-driven content performance to learn and revise.

After publishing a content piece, track how it performs over time. Performance tracking provides you with the data you need to begin to assess the return on content investments and understand what engages your audience over time.

Post-publication performance data—including the number of readers, the amount of time they spend on a piece of content, and the share of conversions—is also a key resource. Content marketers can cycle it back into their strategy to inform ongoing content development priorities. Performance data can inform new content plans. It can also call attention to content that is more evergreen and should be maintained and updated to stay in circulation.

For example, content that excels in the early days and weeks after publication, followed by a gradual decline, is a good candidate for regular revision to keep it current and at the top of the click ratings.

Performance data can also tell you a great deal about how your audience wants to engage. When a topic attracts important prospects to a webinar but falls flat as a blog post, you have new insight to inform new content experiments—like live Q&A sessions. Using data in this way allows you to optimize existing resources and guide future ideas for data-driven content.

Contently offers multiple data and measurement tools to allow content teams to efficiently create data-driven content. The SEO Story Ideas feature highlights content opportunities based on your strategy and target keywords. The Pitch function allows your crowd of content creators to suggest content ideas based on their research and insights. At the same time, the Contently Content Value Tracker calculates the return on investment you get from your content marketing, as compared to what you would have had to spend for the same number of paid impressions.

Start now with your data-driven content strategy

Data is an indispensable tool for effective content marketing. Using it helps content marketers identify key audience needs to engage more customer prospects and stakeholders and connect with them more deeply on the topics they care about. Use it at every stage of the content process, from strategy development to post-publication analysis, to enable better decisions and greater performance from your content investments.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs about data-driven content marketing

What are some potential pitfalls of relying solely on data-driven content strategies, and how can content marketers mitigate these risks?

Relying solely on data-driven content marketing strategies can lead to underperformance if trends change rapidly or if customers haven’t yet developed an interest in certain topics. Content marketers can mitigate these risks by leaving room for content innovation and experimentation, continuously monitoring performance data, and being adaptable in their approach.

In what ways can content marketers leverage data beyond content creation to enhance overall marketing effectiveness?

Beyond content creation, content marketers can leverage data for audience segmentation, personalized messaging, campaign optimization, and attribution analysis. By integrating data from various sources such as CRM systems, web analytics platforms, and marketing automation tools, marketers can gain deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences, leading to more targeted and impactful marketing efforts.

How can content marketers ensure that their data-driven content remains relevant and resonates with their audience over time?

Content marketers can ensure relevance and resonance by regularly monitoring audience preferences and behavior, conducting ongoing research to identify emerging trends, and iteratively optimizing content based on performance data. Additionally, maintaining flexibility in content planning and execution allows for timely adjustments to reflect changes in audience interests and preferences.

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