If you’re a business owner looking ahead to the rest of 2023, you’re probably setting targets and goals for this year and beyond. And, if you’re like most entrepreneurs, one of those goals may be to find a way to increase your customer base through data-driven content marketing. Whether using the best SEM services in Fort Lauderdale or going at it on your own, we’re here to show you how analytics can help to shape your digital marketing strategy – particularly your content marketing strategy.
Why The Data Matters
When running your business, you must know that whatever you spend countless hours on (like your content marketing efforts) is working. By taking a data-driven approach to your business goals, you can take a peek behind the curtain and decide how to best leverage what you find. The marketing analytics of your company can answer questions like these:
- Is our target audience seeing our message?
- Are the viewers staying until the end of the message?
- What is the best day and hour to push content?
- Is there something that we’re missing with our efforts?
Mining your company’s analytics can answer all those questions and more – you have to know where to look and what to do with it. While your technique and strategy will largely depend on your business type and goals for the year, there are several critical benefits for any entrepreneur. Let’s take a look at those next
The Tangible Benefits of Data-Driven Content Marketing
A strategic, metric-driven marketing plan is something that 90% of marketers [1] are planning to continue investing in, with 66% planning to increase their budget. [2] Statistics like those prove that tangible benefits are waiting for you in the world of data and analytics. The specific benefit will vary based on the types of content that you’re producing, but here are some significant benefits that your business can experience:
Boost Brand Awareness
If you’re still establishing your brand’s awareness, analyzing your marketing data will help you identify gaps in your efforts and help your customer tie an emotion to your business.
Insight into What Your Audience Wants
Do you fully understand what your audience wants? If not, how can you expect to give it to them? Analyzing your click rates, the length of visits, and customer engagement will show you if your company is meeting their needs or falling short.
Increased Audience Loyalty
Audience loyalty leads to repeat sales and increased referrals making it a major marketing target. Drilling into your sales will show how often a customer returns for more of your product.
Improved Search Engine Rankings
Ensuring your business is showing up on search engines can and will make or break you. Increasing your ranking on a Google search is driven almost entirely by data and analytics.
Better Industry Credibility
Are you trying to increase your authority and identity as a “thought leader” in your field? The best way to do this is by looking at the data to see what your customers are looking for in your industry and then speaking to it.
Higher Quality Lead Generation
Any company can pay for leads that may or may not lead to a sale but wouldn’t you instead put in a little extra work and get high-quality leads for customers looking for what you’re selling? Data-driven marketing can deliver those for you.
Recommended Tools
Now that you understand some of the benefits you can expect from using data and analytics in your content marketing strategy, you’re probably wondering how to make them a reality for your business. While there is a multitude of tools that you can use, here are the top five that we recommend and personally use for our SEM services in Fort Lauderdale:
Google Analytics / G4
It should be no surprise that one of the best tools for data comes from the big daddy of search engines, Google. This is one of the most comprehensive tools you can have in your belt when developing the best content marketing strategy for your company. If you’re looking for a central location to dig into your analytics, this is it.
HubSpot
Another giant in content marketing is HubSpot, with a dashboard that’s easy for anyone to access real-time data and custom reports. This is a highly effective tool to try out if you’re looking for the most user-friendly way to track customer engagement and conversions.
Moz
You may have heard of Moz with SEO analytics, but it’s also an excellent tool for data-driven content marketing. By using this service, you’ll be able to identify which keywords you should be using and what topics you should be covering.
Supermetrics
Are you the kind of business owner that geeks out over data? If so, this one’s for you. Supermetrics takes all your data and analytics and lets you dig through it in Google Sheets, Excel, or Snowflake platforms. Now you can easily see all of your data in the format that best works for your marketing strategy and churn out reports with the push of a button.
Hotjar
If you’re a visual learner, Hotjar is your new best friend. Now you can quickly see when your customers visit your site and how they interact with it once they do. Using this tool, you can track your visits and see them on a handy heat map, giving valuable insight into your customer behavior.
Metric-Driven Marketing: What To Track
Even with the right tools in your belt, you won’t get the results you’re looking for unless you know how to use them. Digging into web analytics can be overwhelming and may lead you to hire a professional instead. However, if you learn the key performance indicators (KPIs) to track based on your content types, you’ll get a good idea of how effective your strategy is.
Bounce Rate
This metric shows how often someone visits your website and leaves without navigating to another page on it. High bounce rates aren’t always alarming; it may just mean a visitor gets what they came looking for right away. That’s why it’s best to look at this rate in conjunction with other KPIs.
Conversion Rate
It doesn’t matter how many people visit your website if no one is moved to convert. After all, revenue is typically the goal of most businesses, so how is yours performing?
Page Ranking
When was the last time you scrolled to the 2nd or 3rd page of a Google search? For most small businesses, it’s not too often. So, it’s crucial to be on the first page of the most frequent searches for your type of service or product. Keep an eye on your ranking and improve your SEO to move up and stay up.
Traffic and Engagement Rates
Does your website operate just as well on a mobile device as on a PC? Is your content interesting enough to keep them engaged? By looking at when and how your customers interact with your website, you’ll be able to optimize their experience.
Consult The Experts In Data-Driven Content Marketing
As you look ahead to 2023 and set your goals for the year, it’s easy to see why data-driven marketing content should be a target for your business. It’s not enough to throw together a marketing strategy. If you want to succeed, you must ensure that your efforts will be worthwhile.
What is the best way to do that? Back them up with data and analytics, which is what we do every day at Full Circle SEM. If you’re ready to let the experts do the work for you, we’re here to make sure 2023 is your most profitable year yet.
Sources:
[2] https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2021/10/b2b-power-content-marketing-research/
