In today’s digital loop, marketers are always changing approaches to reach an audience. As a result, our digital landscape consists of seemingly unending shared content, including:
- 1.3 million pieces of content shared on Facebook every minute;
- 500 million tweets sent per day on Twitter;
- 300 hours of new video content uploaded every minute on YouTube;
- 85 million videos and photos uploaded every day on Instagram; and
- Nearly 70 million blogs posts published just through WordPress each month.
Now, we’re challenged to prove our content strategy works. With so much being shared, content marketers must break through the clutter. We’re searching high and low for a solution to great content marketing, one that comes with a strong connection between clear metrics and creative strategy. There’s a term being thrown around to rise to the occasion: content intelligence.
While “content intelligence” has been around for a long time, the application of it is what’s changing. Our digital world is supplemented with big data and new technologies. Now, we’re finding that content intelligence is defined by the tools that give us access to new marketing insights. Powerful tools like Ceralytics and Idio eliminate the manual process of accumulating and analyzing data of existing content, conversion rates, and social sentiment. The future is defined by automation. Take Ceralytics, a content intelligence platform that assists marketers in learning audience needs and identifies content that converts. They look to automating data and scoring methods to grade delivered content for easy analysis. Intrigued? Let’s explore.
The What
Content intelligence is the systems and software that turn data into actionable insights. Essentially, this method enables marketers to prove which content is effective and why it’s succeeding. With abundant data, marketers can use content intelligence to scan the web and pull product insights related positive and negative sentiment. For instance, our team envisions using this tool to pull positive/negative sentiment on multifamily developments, a business’ reputation or real estate related software products to better understand how each is perceived without having to manually sift through hundreds or thousands of online reviews.
It tracks how prospects are engaging with the content, which serves as a dynamic tool for marketers. Now, we can leverage the content as support for the sales team. This helps marketers offer clarity into a buyer’s journey down the sales cycle. As a result, sales managers are better equipped to deal with qualified leads. By working with qualified leads, sales is spending less time cold calling. Instead, they’re spending more time with leads that are interested, which leads to increased profits. It’s all about targeting the right people with the right content and understanding the audience you want to attract.
The How
Technology is becoming wildly powerful. By 2025, computers will be able to mimic a human’s intelligence capacity. We will begin to see computers learning from the experiences and data they receive. Software may be able to determine the sentiment behind online discussions through tracking context, sarcasm or emotional words.
As computers grow smarter, this intelligence can apply to various aspects of marketing. Picture an apartment community interested in evaluating its reputation without reading online reviews. The apartment staff could simplify their process by using content intelligence tools that detect sentiment.
Content intelligence tools also improve automation. The distribution of marketing content can be highly targeted to users. These triggers can range from mood, interests, lifestyle, and online habits.
Take a look at Content Marketing Institute’s 2016 B2B Content Marketing Trends report. The average “B2B marketers allocate 28% of their total marketing budget...to content marketing” while the “most effective marketers allocate 42%.” This shift to content marketing comes with a question. How can this data really help improve marketing strategy?
Let’s take an apartment complex located in Dallas, Texas, for example. Old marketing tactics might have included outdoor billboards or magazine ads. Now they focus on website banner ads or a strong social media presence. Where do they turn next to really stand out to potential residents? Targeted content.
With tools like Ceralytics, advanced tactics now focus on targeted content that can serve different functions: Content A builds awareness, Content B nurtures, Content C converts. These target a very specific audience online in different stages of the buyer journey. For instance, it can alert a nearby professional of a new apartment complex coming to the area. Time of day, a major life event or even the weather can trigger the content. And flexible data points can ensure it gets in front of the right audience at the right time. In the end, this approach makes the content even more effective.
Maybe data tells you a recently engaged prospect is looking for homes in the Highland Park area. The apartment complex can send targeted emails to nurture the prospect. Targeted content can feature amenities that are great for newlyweds. Or possibly, tips to decorating your first home. The idea is to deliver content to a hyper-narrowed audience.
Simply put, content intelligence is more than big data. It’s about intelligent data. Marketers will turn towards technological advances, AI and automation to stand out. As this becomes more prevalent, the options are endless.
