What is Content Intelligence, and Why Do Content Marketers Need It?

POSTED BY INPOWERED

Friday, October 30, 2020 6:59 PM

On Tuesday, we launched our latest product after months of beta testing – Content Intelligence – to support our mission of helping marketers maximize their ROI with content marketing. But many of you may be wondering what exactly is Content Intelligence? This post breaks down the nuts and bolts of CI, and why marketers should be employing it in their content marketing strategies.

Content Science Review defines Content Intelligence as “the systems and software that transform content data and business data into actionable insights for content strategy and tactics with impact.” It also consists of three core components – collecting data from multiple sources, being able to analyze said data, and then take specific action based on those insights. In simplest terms, Content Intelligence allows marketers to take a deep dive into their content marketing data to see if what they’re doing is actually working to drive real ROI. With inPowered, we’ve taken it a step further and utilized our AI-powered platform to deliver proprietary insights that deliver on pre-defined business outcomes.

How does CI work, you may ask? With the simple drop of a Java Script tag across all pages of a brand’s content, Content Intelligence is able to test various calls to action targeted to achieve higher-funnel business outcomes; optimizing the time & placement of an intelligent “Next Action” across all content, and driving consumers further down the funnel of consideration to take action.  This new approach to digital marketing measurement allows brands & agencies to not only measure the impact of each user engaging with each piece of content, but also to drive defined business objectives — such as increasing engagement, brand consideration, lead generation/high-value actions taken onsite, and time spent on each piece of content; all while amplifying their media at the lowest cost per engagement.

Now that you know the ins and outs of how Content Intelligence actually works, let’s get into why marketers should be using CI across their content marketing strategies. Simply put – we believe content marketing has an ROI problem as it currently stands. How can marketers gain high-level insights off of mere impressions or pageviews? Additionally, with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, brands have been forced to re-tool their messaging to stay empathetic and understanding of what their audience is going through. As this COVID-consumer behavior continues to shift it’s imperative to have an understanding of what’s really resonating with consumers vs. what’s not, and make sure that each piece of content that’s being distributed provides some sort of real value for the user. By using CI, four things can now be achieved:

  1. Understanding what messaging/type of content/platform distribution will get consumers further down the funnel – it’s important to drive users to take desired actions and doing so will provide informative insights that can positively impact future content creation strategy. As previously mentioned COVID-19 has altered consumer behavior in a magnitude of ways, so it’s key for success to have tangible data that demonstrates whether your content is missing the mark or meeting the new needs of your audience.
  2. Drive actual business outcomes instead of just clicks or impressions – your most effective content does not always receive the highest traffic. By using an intelligent call-to-action, marketers can deliver on increasing high-value actions taken onsite, lead generation, user engagement, as well as positively changing brand perception.
  3. Maximizing ROI on content campaigns – Pageviews are great but knowing what content delivers real business results is everything. With CI’s unique analytics, marketers can ensure that they’re making the most of available ad spend, something critically important during a pandemic.
  4. Creating first party audiences – with the onset of increasing privacy restrictions like CCPA, GDPR & Google’s impending removal of the cookie, it’s never been more important for marketers to build first-party owned audiences. Using CI, pre-qualified retargeting pools are can be created to continue nurturing long-term relationships between brands and consumers.

While the official launch of CI was earlier this week, some of our valued clients have played a crucial role in the early success of this new product by being involved with our beta testing. Those who have already implemented Content Intelligence have seen, on average, a 12% CTR for the content’s call-to-action with some articles driving as high as 40% CTR. One of our agency partners had this to say about their experience using CI:

“Using inPowered’s Content Intelligence, we’ve been able to get data at a granular level; something that previously required a lot of labor and resources to understand what content is actually resonating with consumers. Now we can focus on higher-level strategy around what content users are engaging with at specific phases of the consumer journey and use these insights to have intelligent conversations with our client as to what’s actually moving our audience down the funnel to take action.”

Still have questions about Content Intelligence? Drop them in the comments section below, and reach out if you’re ready to start a free 30-day trial!

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