“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” John Wanamaker (1838-1922)
John would have loved the internet, and especially Generative AI.
AI is a powerful way to change the way strategies are built. Think about your content strategy. While content pillars and content ideas in the past were guided by data available to you because of the internet, they were still mostly subjective.
But now, with Generative AI, your content strategy can be smarter. Thanks to our old friend the internet, we have tons of datasets that we can use to train our AI. This results in a smarter strategy and more content ideas that resonate with your personas.
Data Sources to train your AI
Think about all the data you have access to, how can you harness the power of actual data to guide your otherwise subjective strategy? Let’s touch on some data ideas to consider, and what you might learn:
Google Analytics
- Tailor content using audience demographics and interest, including age, gender, location, and interests.
- Learn what resonates through behavior analysis: pages visited, time spent, bounce rate.
- Figure out which content leads to conversion of desired actions such as sign-ups and purchases.
Keyword Search Data
- Create content that will be seen through keyword analysis. AI can analyze search data faster and better than you to find high-volume, low-competition keywords.
- Identify opportunities to differentiate through competitor analysis. That’s where you find gaps and opportunities for your content strategy.
- Find new content ideas through user search queries to generate.
Social Media
- Learn what type of content performs well through engagement metrics.
- Measure sentiment.
- Identify influencers who resonate with your audience and analyze their content for inspiration.
Customer feedback and reviews
- Ask AI to sift through your customer reviews on platforms such as yelp, etc to find common themes and sentiments.
- Survey data – use AI to analyze customer satisfaction survey data to uncover insights.
Email marketing data
- Analyze engagement metrics such as open and click-through rates to understand what resonates.
- Segment your list by user behavior to better customize content distribution.
Sales and CRM data
- Analyze sales history data to identify trends in customer purchasing behavior and preferences.
- Use AI to map out the customer journey and identify key touchpoint where specific types of content can drive more engagement and conversions.
Website Usage data
- Analyze where users are clicking through heat maps.
- Analyze user session recordings of websites to identify friction points in your content’s website flow.
Industry Reports & Trends
- Use AI to analyze market research reports to stay ahead of trends and corporate relevant content themes
- Monitor your competitor’s content strategies and performance to help you find opportunities to differentiate your content.
Turning data into real content strategy ideas
I’m sure you’re already doing most of these ideas. They’re not new.
Here’s the difference…AI helps you do it much faster, and more accurately. You’re still the human guiding the strategy, but now you have more and better data supporting your plan.
Use this honed knowledge to create improved topic Clustering around topics that resonate with your unique audience. Build and re-build your personas to stay current with your target market and suggest content personalized to your segments. AI can even help create your content calendar based on peak engagement times identified through data analysis.
A Word of Caution
As always, be mindful of data accuracy and data privacy. Know what you can and cannot share with AI per your organization’s AI guidelines, and always check the results with your own logic. Remember, you’re still the human here!
And of course, remember that your content strategy is fluid. Now that you have the tools to do it much faster, you can (and should) update at least quarterly.