Content Marketing

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When considering who is our target audience, our first consideration is usually demographics: Male or female? Living where? Household income? Age? Kids? Pets?

When we see ourselves in the answers to those questions, it can be tempting to think we are the target. Especially when it’s simple to add affinity to the mix — I’m a customer of our business! I love our product/store/service! But even if you can check every box on the list for your target audience’s profile, you are never, ever the target. Ever. And here’s why:

1. You know too much.
You work for your company.
That means you have insider knowledge. You know how it was made, what goes into it, what its strengths and weaknesses are. That’s a lot more than your customers know coming in.

2. You have seen this before.
Your expectations and criteria for judging are different. You’ve looked at all your competitors closely, and you know all the things to look for—all of them.

3. Your intent is different.
You have an agenda. You want to sell the product as much as use it, and that will color your view.

Don’t succumb to the temptation to think of yourself as your target audience. Get real users and potential users of your product to test, use, and report back to you.

I’m excited to be going to Content Marketing World, where I’ll be moderating the Analytics and Data track on Thursday, September 7.

There’s an amazing line-up of experts and topics:

DATA VISUALIZATION AND ADDING GOOD CHARTS with Scott Berinato

Scott Berinato is the author of Good Charts: The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations. 

Making good charts—data visualizations that are well-designed, compelling, and really communicate important information visually—is not as easy as hitting the chart button in Excel. I’m looking forward to learning from a true expert what makes a good chart and see some great examples.

ADVANCED ANALYTICS FOR CONTENT MARKETERS with Pierre DeBois

This session will be a deep dive into Google Analytics for content marketers. Learn how to run the best

Here’s a chance to learn how to use GA to find new ideas for content, set up your analytics correctly, and what the best tools are for getting the most out of your analytics and reporting.

REPORTING, GOOGLE DATA STUDIO AND DATA VISUALIZATION FOR MARKETERS with Adam Singer

Another great session on data visualization. This one will focus on how to think about storytelling with data, best practices for reporting, and diving into Google Data Studio.

A REVOLUTION IN RESONANCE: THE ART OF CONTENT PRODUCTION AND THE SCIENCE BEHIND IT with Misia Tramp

Misia Tramp will be leading the last Analtyics & Data session of the day, with a fascinating take on using scientific analysis to stay ahead of the competition and identify the topics of “mutual resonance” — “the intersection of what businesses want to say and what customers want to hear—at the linguistic, emotional, and content levels.”

Of course, there are many other great sessions and brilliant speakers ahead, too. Can’t wait!

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