Does content marketing sometimes feel like a wild goose chase? You create content, you set it free, and then what? Which messaging worked? Was your hypothesis about your prospects’ intent right?

Without data, it’s nearly impossible to measure your content’s impact. Read on to find out how to ditch the guesswork and make data-driven content marketing your golden goose.

What’s a data-driven content strategy?

Data-driven content marketing uses insights from analytics and research to make content production decisions. With this approach, data is the ultimate authority – hunches and gut feelings have very little influence on what’s published.

It’s important to bring in many different types of data to inform your strategy. Whether it’s intent data or insights from other teams in your business, data diversity is key to building an accurate picture of effective content.

There’s no denying that this type of content marketing demands more patience and diligence than the figure-it-out-as-you-go approach – but trust us, it’s worth the effort. With data on your side, your content marketing plan won’t be a stab in the dark, it’ll be a flaming arrow that hits the bullseye.

Why is a data-driven content strategy important?

With so many content marketing methods out there, it can be hard to know which to pick. But choosing a content marketing strategy without data is like choosing a pencil without lead; pointless. Using data to inform content decisions helps you to deliver a high-performance, high-ROI strategy that earns you kudos from the entire team. Data powers content strategy in a couple of key areas:

Less risk of wasted resources: Use data to influence your content messaging and topics and it will be much more likely to resonate with the right audience. And don’t forget to measure its performance with the right metrics. Say goodbye to wasting resources on content that flops.

Improved industry authority: By creating content highly relevant to your industry, you can establish topical authority. Instead of churning out irrelevant content, data empowers you to contribute meaningful, impactful content that provides real value to those in your industry. Lead industry conversations by responding to what the data shows are key concerns and solving problems that you know keep your target audience up at night.

Streamlined content machine: Create a frictionless, fail-safe content production line with data. Learn what to create, where and where to post it, and how to optimize it for content output that’s both smooth and super effective.

data driven content strategy infographic

How to create a data-driven content strategy

We’ve run through why a data-driven content strategy is the way to go, now let’s break down how to create one of your own.

Set content objectives

It’s tough to know if you’re doing things right without clear goals and content benchmarks. Content objectives give you something to measure up against – and keep content focused. Crystallize your objectives and you’ll know why you’re making content, what action you want your content to achieve, and how that affects the business’s bottom line.

Analyze your target audience in depth

Get to know your target audience inside and out. Methods like a solid customer feedback strategy and third-party data analysis give the information needed to build a strong picture of your prospects’ attributes and attitudes. And don’t forget to speak to your sales and customer success teams. Their interactions with prospects can be a goldmine of data.

Simplify your data set

The sheer amount of data modern marketers have access to is both a blessing and a curse. Be selective about which data points you pick – focusing on the wrong ones derails your data-driven content marketing course. When making data choices, refer back to content objectives and know the data needed for every step of the content production cycle.

Do your SEO research

Spend time doing thorough keyword research and take note of what’s ranking. SEO tools, like SEMrush or Moz, reveal SEO insights like search trends and competitors’ performance. Use this data to create trustworthy and valuable content that’ll earn itself a top spot in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Create data-driven content

When the research phase is done and dusted, it’s time to create content. Use your findings to identify relevant themes and topics that will form the foundation of your data-driven content strategy. Then create compelling, keyword-focused content that adds something new to conversation – and grabs your audiences’ attention. With data in the driver’s seat, your content is sure to make its mark.

Monitor performance with analytics tools

Tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or Turtl Analytics shine a light on how your content is measuring up. In-depth content performance data acts as a pat on the back — or a wake-up call. Whatever the data shows, these insights will guide your next steps toward content strategy success.

Use data to optimize

Content optimization is a fundamental part of any data-driven strategy. Don’t just collect data and leave it to gather dust; use it to refine existing content and create even more impactful future content. Feeding data back into the content production cycle closes the loop and ensures every new piece of content created improves on the last.

Click to read Make your point with data

11 data-driven content marketing tips

Prioritize relevance, embrace data, and make data-driven decisions, and not only will you better connect with prospects, but your content marketing ROI will go through the roof. Wondering how to get started with a data-driven content strategy? Here are 11 tips to power up your content marketing with data:

1. Dig deeper than demographics

Demographic data is only part of the story – firmographic and psychographic data build a more robust picture of your target audience. And don’t neglect behavioral and intent data to get even better insights into your audience.
Look beyond the surface to get to the crux of the actions and interests of your prospects.

2. Create the core content first

To get your data-driven content marketing off the ground, create the most impactful content first. Your data deep dive will shed light on the most critical problems or interests of your prospects. Set the foundation of your strategy with content that responds to those. With that content in place, relevant leads will start to take notice.
It’s like building a house; you wouldn’t furnish the interior without creating a solid structure first.

3. Publish blogs regularly

Whether it’s small business or it’s large-scale B2B content marketing, posting high-quality blog posts frequently on relevant topics establishes your company as a trusted industry voice. Releasing great blogs every now and again builds brand recognition very slowly. Blogging consistency not only attracts organic visitors but also majorly boosts your rankings in SERPs – search engines reward both relevance and volume.

4. Backlinks bring all the leads to the yard

Great content will lure in the right leads on its own – but don’t overlook the power of backlinks to drive in more traffic. Create eye-catching infographics around high-ranking industry keywords and leading-edge thought leadership content. When others include your content in their posts, it broadens your content’s reach and relevant prospects will show up at your door via the backlink.

5. Keep an eye on every platform

Get high ROI on your data-driven content marketing by monitoring your content’s performance on individual platforms. Are leads flowing in from LinkedIn? Is your Twitter the talk of the town? Maybe Facebook is fueling brand awareness? Whichever is working best, use analytics and data to be agile and adjust your marketing budget to back the right channels.

6. Spend time getting SEO right

To get your content in front of the right eyes, you’ll need to dance to the search engines’ tune. Use tools like SEMrush and Moz to identify the right keywords that align with high-intent prospects. And don’t limit your keywords to blog text; keyword-rich meta descriptions and alt text maximize your content’s visibility.

7. Test and experiment

A/B test your copy and headlines to figure out what resonates best with your audience. As well as that, try out different content formats for your audience. You might learn that video, for example, gets better engagement and attracts relevant traffic from new sources.

8. Take data insights into account

Don’t just collect data – listen to it. If the data shows something isn’t working, be willing to change your approach. As Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Improving content performance with data insights is crucial to your data-driven content strategy.

9. Prove your worth with the right metrics

Choose performance metrics that align with your company’s commercial objectives. Metrics like open rates are nice to know, but it’s more important to demonstrate how your content contributes to generating leads, revenue, and, ultimately, profit. The metrics you pick should highlight how content marketing activities contribute to the bottom line so be sure to avoid any red-herring metrics.

10. Give feedback to sales

Share the data you collect with your sales team. If content that responds to a certain pain point or outcome does particularly well, feed this back to sales. For example, if email nurture blogs are popular, use sales calls to highlight your product’s email nurturing features. Valuable content insights make sales qualification, cross-selling opportunities, and understanding buyer motivations much easier.

11. Don’t skimp on your tech stack

Crunching data manually is a resource-intensive job – and the results are almost always less accurate (blame human nature!). Instead, think about investing in content analytics tools for research, data collection, and analysis. Tools like these track user behavior, intent, SEO performance, and higher-level metrics like MQLs.

How to use Turtl data in your content strategy:

Speaking of content performance tools, Turtl Analytics combines many data points to give a comprehensive view of audience engagement reads, sign-ups, and average read times. Our analytics dashboard unearths valuable engagement data so you know what’s faring well – and what’s falling flat.

Turtl Analytics dashboard

Use this detailed data to guide your content strategies and feed your content intelligence loop for even more impactful future content. On top of that, Turtl’s interactive elements are designed to boost engagement – and deliver data while doing so. When readers interact with polls, forms, or any other widget, you’re grabbing their attention and their insights. To learn more about Turtl Analytics, check out this FAQ article.

screenshot of Turtl's benchmarking feature

And it doesn’t stop there. Not only does Turtl deliver data about your content performance, but we’ve recently released our Benchmarks tool that unveils how your content measures up against company and industry standards.

Impressive stuff, if we do say so ourselves.

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When you’re eager to create winning content, it’s tempting to dive in head first and learn through trial and error. But, a successful content strategy prioritizes performance and relevance over speed.

And how do you find out what’s relevant and will perform well?

By doing your research and using analytics for off-the-charts data-driven content marketing.

In the meantime, why not read our research, digging into data that will raise your content marketing?