Content marketing think like a publisher chapter 21 how to analyze content needs

21 How to Analyze Content Needs “Knowing you need content is not unlike moving into a new, completely empty house and knowing you need furniture.” We discussed content auditing back in C

21

How to Analyze Content

Needs

“Knowing you need content is not unlike moving into a new, completely

empty house and knowing you need furniture.”

We discussed content auditing back in Chapter 20, “How

to Conduct a Content Audit.” Part of the content auditing

process involves performing a gap analysis, a rather

fancy-pants way of saying, “Figure out what isn’t there,

and then figure out how to get it in there.”

Easier said than done Knowing you need content is not

unlike moving into a new, completely empty house and

knowing you need furniture Of course, you do But what

kind? What style? What color? What pieces for what

rooms? How much do you require to be functional and

practical, and how much would make things cluttered

and impractical?

Even after you’ve boiled it down to “sofa for the living

room,” you still have to decide if it’s a sectional, has arms,

and you ought to order the matching footrest.

Fortunately, there are systematic ways to go about

analyzing and assessing content needs This includes

not only what kind of content is required and in

what format, but other factors as well including how

often, when, and where to reach which target

audi-ence segment effectively

This might seem painfully obvious to some, but one

of the most effective ways to assess content needs is

to ask Interview customers, clients, and prospects

about their content needs and their content

con-sumption habits

Where to Start?

Sources: Ask how these various constituencies

con-sume content and what sources they get content

from Do they subscribe to newsletters? Read blogs?

Listen to podcasts? Use search engines when

researching a purchase or service? Do they visit

com-pany websites, read customer reviews on retail sites, download whitepapers? Do

they watch online videos? Follow links on social network sites or Twitter? Do they

use their mobile devices or subscribe to RSS feeds? What online publications do

they read? Do they participate in online user groups or forums?

It’s also helpful to uncover the specifics of these channels Do they read blogs or

not? If they do, which blogs or bloggers do they most avidly follow? What’s their

favorite publication? Their must-see or must-read sources of digital information?

These may or may not lie within your professional sphere; nonetheless, they will

help when it comes to assessing taste, style preferences, and predilections

How Much, How Often?

We’ve all been there: subscribed to a newsletter, or eagerly following a cool blog,

until suddenly it became too much Way too much Creating too much content is

an onerous task for you, but it also can quickly sour in the minds of your audience

That eagerly awaited weekly newsletter? When the publisher bumped it up to twice

a week instead of once per week, it started looking and feeling more like spam You

don’t want to create content so infrequently that readers forget about you But you

also don’t want to inundate your audience It’s not impolite to politely inquire as to

the frequency of content—and contacts—when assessing content needs

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“You don’t want to create content so infrequently that readers forget about you But you also don’t want to inundate your audience.”

Part of this assessment is “how much?” For many users, a whitepaper is too long

So is a video on YouTube that runs over five or ten minutes Some users will want

the content equivalent of a snack; others will prefer a five-course meal Many may

want something in between (And all of this may be contingent on where they are

in the consideration and buying cycle.) Scoping out content “serving sizes” is an

essential part of a content needs assessment

When?

Sure, lots of digital content just sits there, waiting for you to find it A website, a

video on YouTube, a whitepaper, a slide show One of the wonderful things about

the Internet is that you can access all these channels in your proverbial pajamas,

whenever you want But for some types of content (not to mention some

con-sumers), it’s all in the timing

Ask when people consume content: at home? At work? Over the weekend? The

type of business or service you offer can play a big role in this Mainframe

comput-ers are probably an at-work type of content affair If you sell pizza or movies or

ski-ing, you may be better off sending that newsletter or tweeting late in the week,

perhaps after the workday is done (Or just before it’s time to call it a day.)

Common sense dictates that most people would rather be exposed to messaging

about coffee in the early morning, beer in the late afternoon (Yes, there will always

be exceptions to those guidelines, but that’s why we establish guidelines in the first

place.)

Another reason “when” matters is because, although there’s plenty of digital content

waiting for you to come ‘n’ get it, increasingly, digital channels are about real-time,

or near real-time, messaging In particular, tweets and posts on social networks

such as Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn are more likely to get readership as well as

to be promoted, “liked,” amplified, and passed along by readers if they appear at the

right time of day, or on the right day of the week

Interviewing key audience members and members of a target market is only the

first step in assessing content needs Turning to web metrics and other analytics

sources is another essential part of the task

Elements to look for in this arena, both on a website and on external sources such

as social media and social network sites, include traffic, comments, “likes,”

pass-alongs, and other shout-outs What kinds of content, and in what channels, are

attracting the most traffic, attention, recommendations, and chatter in terms of

comments and retweets? Conversely, what’s dormant and attracts little to no user

attention and engagement?

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One of the most essential tools in a web analytics package when it comes to

assess-ing and analyzassess-ing content needs is search keywords: The words and phrases

searchers use to find you on the Web These terms can help quickly identify user

needs “What toothbrush is best for fighting plaque?” is an example of a search

term that reveals a problem the searcher is eager to solve How can you create

con-tent that addresses the problem and that uses those terms, so more searchers with

that problem are likely to find your content?

Keyword research reveals the words and phrases searchers use to find you

Combined with the free keyword research tools offered by the major search

engines, these words and phrases can be greatly expanded upon A recent project

with a client, for example, was conducting keyword research around the products

and merchandise they were targeting at “readers.” A quick dig into Google’s

key-word research tool quickly revealed that searchers don’t look for products for

“read-ers,” but they do search for items to buy for “book lovers” and even for

“bibliophiles.”

It’s not that people never search the word “readers.” (It’s important to keep keyword

research information in context.) The point is that when searchers are shopping,

they’re not shopping for “readers.” This one nugget of information has made the

company’s content marketing more effective, influencing the content and even the

categories on its blog, the posts on its Facebook page, and even the tweets on

Twitter

Sure, you can always go with your gut when it comes to creating strong content for

marketing But backing up those gut instincts with research, observation, and hard

data will always make a content marketing initiative that much more impactful and

effective

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