Let's take a look at our royals sharing the marketing thrones of "content" and "analytics" with equal pomp and ceremony. They're joint rulers.
All hail the King
Back on January 1, 1996, Bill Gates put forth his prophetic thoughts on content's rise to the highest position on the web. He expected much of the real money on the internet to be made in content, and he was right. Before Facebook and the mobile revolution, he knew that story sells. Content drives clicks. Those who leverage the internet to spread powerful, engaging information make the money and see continuous ROI. The best part: anyone can participate, spreading a message around the world at zero publishing cost.
Never ending story
Compelling content is the magnet that pulls in customers and increases traffic to your site. Blogs, user-generated content, and social media are attention-grabbing, interactive platforms that draw product sales and advertising opportunities. Good quality content, drenched in clever SEO, is what gets you ranked first on Google. Search engine algorithms analyze what you're putting out there and ask the probing questions:
- Is the format easy to skim and read?
- Is it well written with great copy?
- Is it enriched with videos, graphics, and informative links?
- Does it have actionable takeaways?
- Are the meta descriptions accurate?
- Are the headlines engaging, accurate, and descriptive?
- Is it relevant to the search queries?
Content is doing a lot of heavy lifting for you. It takes responsibility for getting you through the palace search-engine gates, and when you reach the top spot the click-through rate rewards you handsomely. Marketers have had to put their tactics on steroids to remain competitive: hardline traditional advertising doesn't work anymore. Customers want compelling, interactive, quality content or they move on in three seconds, and they only see your masterpieces if you can rank.
The royal treatment
Your content wears the crown when it's visually lush and makes a bold statement. The average user is confronted with an overwhelming volume of information every single day, and your competitor is a finger-swipe away. What you say and how you say it is the make-or-break component of your marketing strategy. When you live by "Content is King," you've defined a direction, and you have to take the right actions to deliver on it.
The Queen protects the King
On the chessboard, the Queen is the strongest player. She can move in any direction. She must be in the game for there to even be a game. On the internet, analytics is our Queen: the ultimate power behind the throne. Big data analytics finds your target prospects in the vastness of the internet and tells you exactly what to say when your message is in front of a potential client. By seeing exactly what people do online, you can create campaigns that speak to their interests, searches, and intentions, and convert them into quality leads.
Testing your subjects
While predictive analytics tells you about prospects ready to receive your content, you also need data to check the efficacy of your omni-channel presence and every element you've created. A/B testing is vital for knowing which tactics work. You can test everything: change words or fields on a landing page and see which draws more traffic, or try various content mediums to see which converts more leads.
Don't just put up a website or eCommerce site and never look at it again. It needs constant tending and testing to stay optimized. Your eCommerce site needs special attention because you make your sales through it. Every product page must be rich with useful, engaging information, data, and images. This is where a health analysis of your eCommerce site becomes essential for boosting sales: it highlights problem areas across titles, headlines, descriptions, images, attributes and compliance, SEO, keywords, inventory, product URLs, reviews, and pricing. Using the built-in PIM platform, those issues can be fixed and republished for a better customer experience.
The data you collect is an invaluable guide to where to place your focus. Let SKUmagic measure and test everything, every page, and let the analytics show you where the gaps are in your shared kingdom. You don't want the neighboring Amazon King enticing your customers away with his content management expertise.
How is the relationship going between your King and Queen?
Some say the "Content is King" mantra is outdated. We disagree. Creating irresistible, clickable content is the cornerstone of everything, but gorgeous content means nothing if no one ever sees it. The analytics Queen brings it into the light and right into the hands of the ideal target. How is your company using analytics to extend the reach of your content? When did you last give your eCommerce site a health analysis?