13 Tips How to Use Data Analytics for Better Content Creation

Creating content is a key part of any brand’s marketing strategy, but it’s not always easy.

Content creation often requires following a strict process — whether you’re trying to develop a content strategy, brainstorm blog ideas, or figure out which tactics work best for you, it can be frustrating to get stopped by the same questions and roadblocks.

If you’re struggling to create content for your business, you might be able to use data to help you out. In fact, data can be a powerful tool for content creators who are looking to use hard evidence to inform their content strategy and make more informed decisions.

In this post, we’re going to cover what content analytics are, how they can be used to create content, and how to use data to help you build a more effective content strategy.

1. Decide How to Use Data to Inform Your Content

The first step to using data analytics for content creation is to decide how you want to use data to inform your content strategy.

Do you want to use data to decide what topics to write about? Or do you want to use data to optimize your existing content?

By deciding how you want to use data to inform your content strategy, you can then decide what type of data you need to collect.

2. Set Clear Content Goals

Before you start creating any type of content, you should have a clear goal in mind. What do you want to achieve with your content? Are you trying to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or boost sales?

Your content goals will determine what type of content you create and how you promote it. For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, you might focus on creating top-of-funnel content, like blog posts and videos. If your goal is to generate leads for your real estate business for instance, you might focus on creating middle-of-funnel content, like webinars, brochures using an AI property brochure maker, and case studies.  which can also help you manage leads more effectively. If your goal is to boost sales, you might focus on creating bottom-of-funnel content, like product demos and free trials.

Pro Tip: Make sure your content goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). This will help you stay on track and measure the success of your content. Additionally, consider leveraging content marketing services to ensure your content is crafted to meet these SMART criteria effectively. 

For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, you might set a goal to increase your website traffic by 20% in the next six months. If your goal is to generate leads, you might set a goal to increase your lead conversion rate by 10% in the next three months. If your goal is to boost sales, you might set a goal to increase your sales revenue by 15% in the next year. A goal tracking app could be useful here. 

3. Determine Which Metrics Matter Most

Before you can use data to inform your content marketing strategy, you need to determine which metrics matter most to your business.

For example, if your goal is to drive sales, you should focus on metrics related to conversions and revenue. If your goal is to increase brand awareness, you should focus on metrics related to website traffic and engagement.

Additionally, don’t forget about data hygiene practices to maintain the accuracy and reliability of your data. Clean and organized data will help you track your progress more effectively and make informed adjustments to your content marketing strategy as needed.

Once you know which metrics matter most, you can use data to track your progress and make adjustments to your content marketing strategy as needed.

4. Analyze Your Audience

Your audience is the most important part of your content. After all, you wouldn’t be creating content if you didn’t have an audience to consume it.

But you can’t create content for your audience if you don’t know who they are. Analyzing your audience is one of the most important steps in the content creation process.

To get started, you’ll want to look at the demographics of your audience. This includes things like age, gender, location, and income level. You can find this information in your website analytics or in your social media insights.

Once you have a good understanding of your audience’s demographics, you can start to dig deeper. Look at things like their interests, hobbies, and pain points. You can use this information to create content that is tailored to their specific needs.

For example, if you know that your audience is interested in cooking, you could create a series of recipes that are easy to make and use ingredients that most people already have in their pantry.

5. Use Data to Build Audience Personas

Audience personas are semi-fictitious representations of your ideal customers. They help you understand who your target audience is, what they want, and how you can best reach them with your content.

Your audience personas should include basic demographic information, such as age, gender, and location, as well as more in-depth information about their interests, values, and pain points.

In the past, creating audience personas often involved a lot of guesswork. You’d have to make assumptions about your audience based on limited information, and then you’d have to validate those assumptions as you learned more about your audience.

Today, you can use data to build audience personas with a high degree of accuracy. By analyzing data from your website, social media, other digital channels, and your competitors, you can gain deep insights into who your audience is and what they want.

6. Identify Your Most Successful Content

To create great content, you need to know what great content looks like. That’s where data comes in. Analyzing your most successful content can help you identify common themes, formats, and topics that resonate with your audience.

Once you’ve identified your most successful content, you can use that information to guide your content strategy and create more of what works.

There are a few different ways you can use data to identify your most successful content:

• Use social media analytics to identify your most engaging posts.

• Look at your website analytics to identify your most popular blog posts and landing pages.

• Use email marketing analytics to identify your most successful email campaigns and content offers.

• Use SEO analytics to identify your most successful content in terms of search traffic and keyword rankings.

7. Optimize Your Headlines

The headline is the first thing your audience sees when they come across your content, and it can make or break your chances of getting them to click through.

That’s why it’s so important to optimize your headlines for search. If you’re not sure where to start, try using a headline analysis tool like the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer.

This tool will give you a score for your headline, as well as suggestions on how to improve it. It takes into account things like word balance, length, and sentiment to give you a sense of how your headline will perform.

8. Create More Video Content

Consumers love video content. This is evident by the fact that 85% of U.S. internet users watched online video content monthly on any of their devices.

Video is also expected to make up 82% of all internet traffic by 2022. These stats show that video is quickly becoming the most popular content format online.

If you’re not already creating video content for your website, then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to reach your target audience and grow your business.

You can use data analytics to find out what types of videos are most popular in your industry, and then create your own videos based on that information. Also, don’t forget to optimize your video for SEO. 

You can also use data to determine the best length for your videos, the best time to post them, and which keywords to include in your video titles and descriptions in order to rank higher in search results.

9. Use Data to Improve Content Quality

When it comes to content creation, quality is key. If you’re not creating high-quality content, you’re not going to see the results you want.

One of the best ways to use data to improve your content quality is to look at your website analytics. Your website analytics can tell you a lot about the quality of your content, including how long people are spending on your site, how many pages they’re visiting, and how many people are returning to your site. A comparison of Google Slide vs PowerPoint can help you determine which platform best meets your needs for content presentation.

If you’re seeing high bounce rates, short time on site, or low pages per visit, it could be a sign that your content quality needs improvement. You can use this data to identify which pieces of content are underperforming and then make changes to improve them.

10. Determine the Best Time to Publish

When you publish your content can have a big impact on how many people see it and how well it performs.

If you have an international audience, you may want to consider the best time to publish based on their time zones.

Or, you may want to look at the best times to publish based on the day of the week and time of day that your audience is most active on social media.

11. Use Data to Create a Content Calendar

If you’re not already using a content calendar, you should be. A content calendar helps you plan ahead and stay organized. It also helps you make sure you’re publishing a good mix of content.

You can use data to help you create your content calendar. Use your data to identify trends and to see what’s working and what’s not. Then, plan your content accordingly. A calendar app can help with this. 

12. Monitor Your Content Performance

When you create a piece of content, you have a goal in mind. Whether it’s to drive traffic, get leads, or make sales, you need to monitor how your content is performing in relation to the goal you set.

For example, if your goal is to drive traffic to your website, you’ll want to monitor how many visitors your content is attracting. If your goal is to get leads, you’ll want to monitor how many leads your content is generating.

By monitoring your content performance, you can see which pieces of content are helping you reach your goals and which ones aren’t. You can then use that data to inform your future content creation efforts.

13. Use Data to Inform Your Marketing Strategy

Finally, you can — and should — use data to inform your overall marketing strategy.

If you’re not already doing so, you can use data to determine which channels you should be using, what kind of content you should be creating, and what your goals should be.

If you’re not using data to inform your marketing strategy, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to grow your business. Data can help you make more informed decisions, and it can help you create a more effective marketing plan.

If you’re not sure where to start, you can use tools like Google Analytics and HubSpot to help you collect and analyze data.

Conclusion

With the right tools, you can use data analytics to create better content. Whether you’re analyzing website data, social media data, or email data, you’ll be able to improve your content strategy and grow your business.