MARKETING
What Is Content Intelligence?
The way businesses collect data is changing. But data is essential to great content strategy. That’s why content intelligence is coming into the conversation.
2022 HubSpot research says that over a third of marketers believe that data has a major impact on strategy by helping them:
- Reach their target audience
- Create more powerful marketing content
- Understand which marketing strategies are most effective
But access to data is changing rapidly due to privacy concerns, technology changes, and more. This means that businesses need to find new ways to collect and analyze data for marketing strategy.
Keep reading to discover what content intelligence is, why it’s useful, and how to make it work for you. Keep scrolling to learn more, or click a link below to jump to a topic:
What is content intelligence?
Content intelligence is the process of using software that combines machine learning and AI to conduct market research about the effectiveness of specific types of content to help marketers create a high-quality content strategy that they know will work.
It’s essentially a GPS that leads you to a high-quality content strategy that drives leads, conversions, and revenue.
You don’t have to guess what will be of interest to your audience because the data shows you what performs well with your audience based on market and competitor analysis.
Why is content intelligence important?
Many marketers use content marketing to communicate with their audiences and draw them in. Content marketing like blogs, webinars, social media, and online courses offer businesses a chance to connect.
Each piece of content is an opportunity to attract, engage, and delight customers.
Content intelligence helps them accomplish this effectively. Other benefits include:
- Generating a deep understanding of your target audience and the type of content they enjoy based on competitor data and analysis.
- Reducing the guesswork of content creation because the AI analyzes content for style, tone of voice, and other important metrics.
- Centering content on your users and what they enjoy with data from market research.
- Gaining insight into various content types and how to create them, like video content intelligence that lets you know actions within videos that drive results.
- Ability to predict the effectiveness of your content based on the historical performance of your competitors.
- Generating authority in your niche through high-quality, informative content helps you get more visitors, increase conversion rates, and gain visibility in search results.
How to Choose the Right Content Intelligence Platform
1. Figure out what problems you need the platform to solve.
While content intelligence tools can do some of your content creation for you, these tools excel in content strategy.
This AI will use your data and organize it to find connections, trends, and patterns. This can help you pinpoint challenges, add to your data analysis, and ramp up your learning quickly.
You can use these specific recommendations to improve your content for your customers.
If you’re interested in content intelligence, chances are that your content needs work. To figure out if these tools can help, try to define your challenges in as much detail as possible.
If you’re having a tough time getting started, start with a specific problem and work backward. Trace each step you took toward this disappointing result. Then, write out your ideas for potential solutions.
2. Get to know your content intelligence platform options.
According to Statista research, only 5% of marketing professionals use artificial intelligence and machine learning. Data-driven insights from website analytics and SEO tools are popular standards.
But marketing leaders may not know anyone who’s working with content intelligence yet.
That makes research into different content intelligence platforms essential. Start with each AI tool and its features. Some will include content management tools, while others will offer content creation tools. Content intelligence platforms might:
- Create automated content with natural language generation (NLG)
- Find related or relevant content using natural language understanding (NLU)
- Use big data for content analysis
- Offer wording suggestions
- Automate content creation and promotion
- Integrate with other tools for content management
A platform with too many tools could overwhelm your team and resources. So, you’ll want to compare your ideal list of features with what each unique platform offers.
It’s also a good idea to look at your tech stack to see if any of your current content marketing tools include the features you’re looking for.
For example, HubSpot’s content assistant tool automates the content creation process by utilizing Open AI’s GPT model to generate blog ideas, outlines, and paragraphs.
It can also draft prospecting emails and marketing emails. Furthermore, the content assistant can integrate with other HubSpot products.
It can be helpful to bring in other team members during this step. A different point of view can help you narrow the scope of your search.
Featured tool: Digital transformation templates
3. Find out how each platform handles data.
As you complete your research, take a careful look at how each platform collects, uses, and stores data.
Because this tool’s effectiveness comes from data, it’s important that the way each platform handles data is in line with your business policies and customer expectations.
For example, data ownership and privacy are top of mind for most customers. 86% of respondents in a 2021 Cisco survey say that they care about data privacy and 79% consider privacy a factor when making a purchase.
It’s also important to think about what types of data you’ll need to make this resource effective for your business. What if the required data preparation is too much for your team to complete consistently?
Most AI tools use many different information sources to offer predictions. A break in the data pipeline can skew the data your content intelligence tool uses to offer insights.
4. Decide which features your team could use.
It takes time for a business to create a content strategy, execute it, and build processes around content marketing. So, any AI tool for content needs to easily fit into your current strategy and workflow.
As you narrow down your content intelligence choices, be careful not to get too excited or overwhelmed by extra features you don’t need. Try to focus on a primary point of value to weigh each feature.
As you prioritize, don’t just focus on how your employees will use the product. It’s also a good idea to ask questions like:
- How can this tool help our team meet customer expectations?
- Can this tool impact business objectives?
- Are there stakeholder ideas that we can implement with this tool?
Whenever possible, think about how this tool can improve your content marketing.
5. Align platform choices with future goals.
One of the reasons to use machine learning in content is scalability. You may not want to automate processes or create AI content now. But you also don’t know how content marketing might change in the next three to five years.
According to recent HubSpot research, 78% of marketers say that their industry has changed more in the last three years than it did in the preceding 50 years.
As search engines and other digital channels evolve, business content needs to change in response. This makes future goals a key part of your decision-making process.
For example, many vendors who offer content intelligence tools also offer other tools. If you can, research these tools at the same time you choose a content intelligence platform. This will give you a foundation for future tech stack planning.
Testing content intelligence can be difficult because this tool is most useful for content strategy. If you’ve created a strategy before, you know it can take months to execute, publish, and analyze.
So, you’ll want to do as much research as you can before you get to the next step.
6. Create a plan to put your content intelligence platform in place.
Before you commit to a content intelligence platform, it’s a good idea to create a plan for installation, training, and usage. Any tool that offers such a wide range of insights can be tough to manage.
But a plan can help you make sure that the team will get the maximum value from this investment. As you create this plan, figure out and decide:
- Which features offer the most value
- Which features will need more training than others
- Platform capabilities that are more trouble than they’re worth
This planning process may not feel necessary, but it can help you prove potential platform ROI.
And that’s not all.
An ideal content marketing strategy will connect with the right audience, support sales and service teams, and improve the quality and efficiency of your content team.
Content intelligence can support those goals and more if you’ve taken the time to prepare.
7. Test the platform.
Once you’ve narrowed your content intelligence choices down, it’s time to try out your software picks. There are a few things to keep in mind when you’re testing AI software.
First, make sure that the software meets your expectations. Check that all the features you expected are present and work properly.
If you’re unsure how to use one of those features, ensure the documentation or support team can quickly answer your questions.
Next, use your workflow to test out your new content intelligence tool. Take notes as you research new content topics, measure content performance, or update your content strategy.
This can help you find out if there are any bugs or flaws in the tool.
While no tool is perfect, you want to make sure that the extra value you’re getting is more than the extra work you’ll take on if something goes wrong.
For example, what if you’re not finding valuable resources on the topics that matter to your business? If this tool can’t find the niche content ideas you need, it may not be the right fit.
AI is complex, so you may need to troubleshoot before making a final decision.
Content Intelligence Tools
While it’s possible to conduct content intelligence on your own, the software can automate the process and generate results quickly. Let’s go over some high-quality tools you can use in your approach.
1. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo uses a strategy of research and discovery to gain insights about the content created by your market and industry competitors to help you understand what performs best with your audience.
The tool analyzes a variety of social media feeds and web content to give you viral trends to leverage, business-related content you should consider covering, and target keywords to use when you begin creating.
Pro tip: Use this tool’s advanced search features to get the most from their popular Content Analyzer.
2. Contently
Contently uses StoryBook™, its proprietary technology, to analyze and predict the content that will significantly impact your business.
This data will help you create a content strategy that aligns with your audience’s interest — SEO, voice, and tone, and your brand guidelines are all considered in every recommendation.
Then, when you create your content, you’ll get analytics to show what performs and drives ROI to focus your efforts further.
Pro tip: Use Contently’s performance analytics to measure audience engagement and compare with benchmarks in your industry.
3. Curata
Curata’s self-learning engine helps you discover the best-performing content, understand why audiences like it, and how you can create top-performing content.
You’ll also get SEO help to curate and share your content in the most relevant channels.
Pro tip: Try Curata’s content curation software to find and share content relevant to your target audience.
4. Crayon
Crayon’s software provides competitive intelligence to help you use actionable insights to create a high-quality content strategy.
You’ll understand what works for your competitors, from social channels to review sites, and discover key messaging that performs best that you can adapt to your content strategy.
Pro tip: Content intelligence can also be a helpful tool for competitive analysis.
Content Intelligence Can Help You Scale Your Content Strategy
The content strategy you choose depends on your business needs. But you can improve your content, strategy, and reputation using content intelligence tools. Pick the right software for you, and start growing your influence.
This post was originally published in October 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
MARKETING
The key to correcting the C-suite trust deficit
Take a moment to search “CMO tenure” and you’ll find a wide variety of content discussing the short tenure of CMOs and how it’s among the shortest of roles in the C-suite. If you dive deeper, you’ll find that CEOs don’t seem to trust CMOs.
Boathouse’s CMO Insights study (registration required) noted several sobering conclusions:
- 34% of CEOs have great confidence in their CMOs.
- 32% of CEOs trust their CMOs.
- 56% of CEOs believe their CMO supports their long-term vision.
- And only 10% of CEOs believe their CMO puts the CEO’s needs before their own.
If these statistics also apply to the CMO’s entire organization, then it’s clear we have a trust problem with marketing leadership.
If you haven’t read Patrick Lencioni’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” I consider it required reading for anyone in any leadership role. In his book, Lencioni builds a pyramid of dysfunctions that need to be addressed for a team to succeed. The foundational dysfunction — with which one cannot build a successful team — is “absence of trust.” We see it at scale with marketing organizations today.
Introducing objectivity through data
In “Hamlet,” Shakespeare writes, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Each organization that makes up a company looks at the company from a different perspective. What marketing sees as positive, finance may see as negative. But who’s right? No one.
Usually, there is no objectivity because leadership comes up with an idea and we execute it. It’s like the fashion proverb “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Unfortunately, we’re going to struggle to run a profitable organization if it’s run like a fashion show.
Therefore, we need to introduce objectivity to how we work. Leadership needs to come together to agree on goals that align with the goals of the broader organization. One element of this conversation should be an acknowledgment that this is turning a ship.
Often leaders — especially those without marketing backgrounds — are likely to expect instant gratification. It’s going to take time to turn the ship and you and your team would do well to set reasonable expectations right away.
Dig deeper: KPIs that connect: 5 metrics for marketing, sales and product alignment
Aligning goals and metrics across the organization
With goals in hand, we need to assign metrics to their progress and agree on the source(s) of truth. Once these objective measures are in place, perspective doesn’t matter. 2 + 2 = 4 regardless of whether you’re in HR or accounting.
Every public road has a speed limit and whether you’re in compliance with it has nothing to do with your perspective. If you’re above it, you’re wrong and subject to penalties. Referring to the fashion example, it’s not a fashion show where some people like a dress and others don’t.
By using data to objectively measure marketing’s progress within the organization and having the rest of the leadership buy into the strategy, we build trust through objectivity. Maybe the CEO would not have chosen the campaign the marketing team chose.
But if it was agreed that a >1 ROAS is how we measure a successful campaign, it can’t be argued that the campaign was unsuccessful if the ROAS was >1. In this example, the campaign was an objective success even if the CEO’s subjective opinion was negative.
Data-driven campaign planning
Within the marketing organization, campaigns should always be developed with measurement top of mind. Through analysis, we can determine what channels, creative, audiences and tactics will be most successful for a given campaign.
Being able to tell the leadership team that campaigns are chosen based on their ability to deliver measured results across metrics aligned to cross-departmental goals is a powerful message. It further builds trust and confidence that marketing isn’t run based on the CMO’s subjective opinions or gut decisions. Rather, it’s a collaborative, data-driven process.
For this to be successful, though, it can’t just be for show, where we make a gut decision and direct an analyst to go find data to back up our approach. This would be analytics theater, which is a perversion of the data. Instead, tell the analyst what you think you want to do and ask them to assess it.
For the rest of the organization’s leadership, ask questions when the marketing team presents a campaign. Find out how they came up with the strategy and expect to hear a lot about data — especially the metrics you all agreed would support the company’s overarching goals.
Dig deeper: 5 failure points of a marketing measurement plan — and how to fix them
Data literacy: Building credibility through transparency
Building trust doesn’t happen overnight, but a sustained practice of using data to drive marketing leadership’s decisions will build trust if the metrics ladder up to the organizational goals and all of leadership is bought into the measurement plan.
Over time, this trust will translate into longer tenure and more successful teams through building the infrastructure needed to tackle Lencioni’s five dysfunctions.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.
MARKETING
How Tagging Strategies Transform Marketing Campaigns
As a marketer, I understand how today’s marketing campaigns face fierce competition. With so much content and ads competing for eyeballs, creating campaigns that stand out is no easy task.
That’s where strategies like tagging come in.
It helps you categorize and optimize your marketing efforts. It also helps your campaigns cut through the noise and reach the right audience.
To help you out, I’ve compiled nine ways brands use a tagging strategy to create an impactful marketing campaign.
Let’s get to it.
How Brands Use a Tagging Strategy
Tagging involves using keywords or labels to categorize and organize content, products, or customer data. You attach tags to specific items or information to make searching, sorting, and analyzing data easier.
There are various types of tags, including meta tags, analytics tags, image tags, hashtags, blog tags, and more.
So, how do brands use a tagging strategy to make their marketing campaigns stand out?
Improve Social Media Engagement
With over 5 billion users, social media provides an easy way to connect with your audience, build relationships, and promote your offerings.
Use a tagging strategy to boost social media interactions. Consistently use hashtags that align with current trends and topics. This encourages people to interact with your content and boosts content visibility.
You can also use tags to monitor brand mentions of your products or your industry. This allows you to engage with your audience promptly.
Consider virtual social media assistants to streamline your tagging strategy. These AI-driven tools can suggest relevant hashtags, track mentions, and automate responses. Implementing them can save time and resources while ensuring consistent engagement across your socials.
Build a Personal Brand on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform, with over 1 billion members across 200 nations. It offers excellent opportunities for individuals and businesses to build and nurture their brands.
However, simply creating a professional profile isn’t enough to build a personal brand on LinkedIn.
Use various tags to increase your visibility, establish thought leadership, showcase expertise, and attract the right connections. For instance, use skill tags to showcase your expertise and industry tags to attract connections and opportunities within your industry. Use certification tags to help showcase your expertise and credibility to potential employers or clients.
Facilitate Customer Segmentation and Personalization
Personalization matters—more so in today’s data-driven world. In fact, 65% of consumers expect your brand to adapt to their changing preferences and needs.
To meet this expectation, consider using a tagging strategy.
Segment your customers based on shared characteristics, such as demographics, interests, purchase history, cart abandonment, and behavior.
Here’s a summary of the steps to customer segmentation.
With your customer segments ready, use tags to tailor your marketing messages and offerings to specific segments. Imagine sending targeted email campaigns based on what your customers need. That’s the power of segmentation and tagging in action!
Enhance SEO and Content Discoverability
Tagging content can have a profound impact on search engine optimization (SEO) and content discoverability. When users search for specific topics or products, well-tagged content is more likely to appear in search results, driving organic traffic to your website.
Additionally, tags can help you analyze the most popular topics with your readers. Then, the results of this analysis can help you adjust your content strategies accordingly.
And get this— certain AI tools can help analyze your content and suggest relevant tags and keywords. Using these tools in addition to a tagging strategy can help optimize your SEO strategies and boost content discoverability.
Partner with the Right Influencers
Influencer marketing has become a go-to marketing approach for modern brands. Recent stats show that 85% of marketers and business owners believe influencer marketing is an effective marketing strategy.
But how do you find the perfect influencer for your campaign?
Utilize tags to identify influencers who are relevant to your niche. Beyond this, find influencers who align with your brand values and target audience.
Additionally, look for influencers who use hashtags that are relevant to your campaigns. For instance, fashion influencer Chiara Ferragni uses #adv (advertising) and #ghd (good hair day) hashtags in this campaign.
Monitor industry-specific hashtags and mentions to discover influential voices and build profitable relationships with them.
Track Hashtag Performance
Tracking your hashtag performance helps you understand your campaigns’ engagement, reach, and effectiveness.
To achieve this goal, assign special hashtags to each marketing project. This helps you see which hashtags generate the most engagement and reach, enabling you to refine your tagging strategy.
Here’s an example of a hashtag performance report for the #SuperBowl2024.
This curated list of hashtag generators by Attrock discusses the top tools for your consideration. You can analyze each and choose the one that best fits your needs.
Categorize Content Accordingly
The human attention span is shrinking. The last thing you want is for your audience to have difficulty in finding or navigating your content, get frustrated, and bounce.
Untagged content can be difficult to navigate and manage. As any marketer knows, content is important in digital marketing campaigns.
To categorize your content, identify the main categories by topics, themes, campaigns, target audiences, or product lines. Then, assign relevant tags based on the categories you’ve identified. After that, implement a consistent tagging strategy for existing and new content.
Organizing your content using tags can also help streamline your content management workflow. Most importantly, readers can easily find the content they’re looking for, thereby boosting overall user experience, engagement, and conversions.
Boost Your Email Marketing Strategy
Email marketing remains a powerful marketing tool in today’s digital world. It’s also another area where brands use a tagging strategy to directly reach their target audience.
Use tags to segment your email list and personalize your marketing messages. Then, you can send targeted emails based on factors like purchase history, interests, and demographics.
Personalization can significantly improve open rates, CTRs, and overall engagement and conversion rates. It’s a simple yet impactful strategy to make your email marketing strategy more effective.
Plus, you can use tags to track how well your emails perform with each group. This helps you understand what content resonates best with your audience and provides insight on how to improve your emails going forward.
Enhance Analytics and Reporting
Every marketer appreciates the immense value of data. For brands using tagging strategies, tags are powerful tools for gathering valuable data.
Analyze how users interact with your tagged content. See which tags generate the most clicks, shares, conversions, and other forms of engagement. Gain insight into audience preferences and campaign effectiveness.
This granular data about your marketing efforts allow you to make data-driven decisions, allocate resources effectively, and refine your marketing strategies.
Final Thoughts
There isn’t a single correct way for brands to use a tagging strategy in marketing. You can use a tagging strategy however you see fit. However, the bottom line is that this strategy offers you a simple yet powerful way to create attention-grabbing and unique marketing campaigns.
Fortunately, tagging strategies are useful across various marketing initiatives, from social media and email marketing to SEO and more.
So, if you’re ready to elevate your marketing campaign, build a strong brand presence, and stand out among the competition, consider employing effective tagging strategies today.
MARKETING
Tinuiti Recognized in Forrester Report for Media Management Excellence
Tinuiti, the largest independent full-funnel performance marketing agency, has been included in a recent Forrester Research report titled, “The Media Management Services Landscape, Q2 2024.” In an overview of 37 notable providers, this comprehensive report focuses on the value B2C marketing leaders can expect from a media management service provider, and analyzes key factors to consider when looking for a media management partner such as size and business scenarios. B2C marketing executives rely on media management services to:
- Augment the efficacy of media investments
- Bridge media impressions to commerce transactions
- Enhance ad campaigns to drive performance
Report authors, VP, Principal Analyst Jay Pattisall and Senior Analyst Nikhil Lai call attention to the pressing need for providers to prove their value, deliver profitable ROAS, and drive alignment between CMOs and CFOs and thus liberate strained marketing budgets.
Our Always-On Incrementality tool – which is a part of our patented tech, Bliss Point by Tinuiti – empowers marketers to validate the incrementality of their spend on each ad set, media channel, and marketing tactic so marketers can create stronger, more focused campaigns that get the job done without sacrificing the bottomline.
B2C marketing leaders often seek and expect key business scenarios from media management service providers including media measurement and attribution, data strategy, and marketing mix modeling. MMM’s adaptability to the post-cookie/ post-IDFA world positions it as an essential tool for marketers. As businesses seek to connect the dots, leverage data, and make strategic decisions, MMM is a crucial ally in the dynamic realm of mixed media advertising. Our Rapid Media Mix Modeling sets a new standard in the market with its exceptional speed, precision, and transparency.
According to the Forrester report, “46% of senior B2C marketing and advertising decision-makers say they plan to integrate performance and brand media assignments with a single media agency in the next 12 months…”
In our quest to better understand all revenue-driving aspects of a given campaign, we have started on a process to quantify the impact of Brand Equity, which we believe is one of the largest missing pieces in more accurate and complete measurement.
Learn more about Bliss Point by Tinuiti, our use cases, and our approach to performance and brand equity.
The Landscape report is available online to Forrester customers or for purchase here.
-
SEARCHENGINES6 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 29, 2024
-
MARKETING7 days ago
Quiet Quitting vs. Setting Healthy Boundaries: Where’s The Line?
-
MARKETING5 days ago
How To Develop a Great Creative Brief and Get On-Target Content
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 30, 2024
-
SEO6 days ago
Google’s John Mueller On Website Recovery After Core Updates
-
PPC7 days ago
How to Promote Your Digital Marketing Agency: 4 Growth Strategies
-
SEO5 days ago
Why Big Companies Make Bad Content
-
WORDPRESS5 days ago
13 Best Fun WordPress Plugins You’re Missing Out On