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Is my content working? What does working even mean? That’s where content testing and content analysis come in. So, let’s dive into answering the following questions: What is content analysis, and what are its main parts?
Content analysis helps marketers understand how their content performs. It’s like a report card for marketing efforts. By looking at the right data, it’s possible to figure out what’s working and what’s not – which helps us make smart decisions about content strategy.
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The basics of content analysis
Content analysis is all about understanding content performance. It involves looking at data and metrics to see how well content is doing. This can include things like how many people view the content, how long they stay on a page, and whether they take action after reading.
All sorts of content can be analyzed. This includes blog posts, social media updates, videos, emails, and more. The goal is to get a clear picture of how the audience interacts with the content.
There are two main types of content analysis: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative analysis looks at numbers and statistics. Qualitative analysis focuses on the meaning and context of the content. Both are important for getting a full picture of content performance.
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Key parts of content analysis
To do content analysis well, it’s important to understand a few key components. Let’s break them down.
Setting baselines
A baseline is a starting point that can be used to measure progress.
Erin Del Ponte, a marketing executive who is a steward for accurate attribution and incrementality of investments, explained it like this on Episode 682 of “The Business Storytelling Show:”
“A lot of it is finding those baselines of your content, and then each piece of content that you create measuring against that baseline.”
To set a baseline, marketers look at how their content usually performs. This gives a standard against which to compare new content. For example, if blog posts usually get 1,000 views in the first week, that’s the baseline. If a new post gets 1,500 views, it’s clear that it’s performing above average.
Important metrics to track
When doing content analysis, there are several key metrics to pay attention to. These include:
- Views and visits: How many people are seeing the content?
- Sources: How are people finding the content?
- Click-through rates: How many people are clicking on links?
- Engagement rates: How are people interacting with the content?
- Conversion rates: How many people are taking the desired action after viewing the content?
“We look at views, visits, click through engagement, and then using that content, developing those baselines for content types, can evaluate whether incoming content is performing as strong as baseline,” she said.
Collecting data
The first step in content analysis is collecting data. This involves using analytics tools to gather information about how content is performing.
Making sense of the data
Once the data is collected, it needs to be interpreted. This means looking for patterns and trends in the numbers. Are certain types of content performing better than others? Is there a particular time when the audience seems most engaged? Certain content types work better than others?
Erin suggests looking at content performance over time.
“We have content that we posted three years ago, and then, we hadn’t really had much engagement with the content, and it just it became much more relevant,” she said.
Finding useful insights
The goal of content analysis is to improve content and results. This might mean identifying topics the audience is particularly interested in, or figuring out the best time to post on social media – though this part becomes less and less important with social media algorithms doing what they do.
Taking action
Finally, these insights need to be used to take action. This might involve creating more of the content types that perform well, adjusting the posting schedule, or revising the overall content strategy.
Testing as part of content analysis
Testing is an important part of content analysis. It helps in figuring out what works best for the audience and can include
- A/B testing
- User testing and feedback
- Analyzing content across different channels
Analyze regularly
Make content analysis a regular part of the workflow. Erin suggests making it a quarterly process.
“It becomes a quarterly process for us as we do business reviews looking back at, okay, let’s look at content from the previous quarter.”
Work together across teams
Content analysis often involves input from different teams, such as marketing, analytics, and content creation. It’s important to ensure that these teams collaborate effectively.
Challenges in content analysis
While content analysis is incredibly useful, it’s not without its challenges. Here are a few common ones:
Too much data
With so many metrics available, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by data. The key is to focus on the metrics that matter most for the goals at hand.
Conflicting data
Sometimes, different metrics might tell different stories. For example, a piece of content might get lots of views but low engagement. In these cases, it’s necessary to consider overall goals to decide which metrics are most important. Sometimes, it’s the wrong audience, geographically speaking. An OB clinic could probably care less about going viral globally as its services are very local. But a software firm that sells everywhere, that global reach is awesome.
Balancing numbers and context
While numbers are important, they don’t tell the whole story.Balance quantitative data with qualitative insights about the content and audience.
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Tying it all together
Let’s look at how content analysis works in practice. Erin shared insights from her work in the vitamin and supplement industry.
“We’re selling vitamins and supplements, so there’s a lot of questions that people have, and there’s a lot of solution oriented articles as well,” Erin explained. This shows how their content strategy focuses on addressing customer needs and questions.
Their content strategy involves various formats. “We have, we do have a blog, very much educational,” Erin said. She also mentioned, “We’ve started developing more video content, integrating that video content with the written content, or letting that video content live on its own. And then we rely on infographics as well.”
Interestingly, Erin highlighted how content relevance can change over time.
“We have content that we posted three years ago, and then, I would say, maybe about a year ago, all of a sudden, you know, we hadn’t really had much engagement with the content, and it just it became much more relevant.”
This observation underscores the importance of ongoing content analysis. It shows that older content can suddenly gain traction, emphasizing the need to monitor content performance continuously.
As content analysis is implemented in a marketing strategy, remember that it’s an ongoing process. Keep testing, keep analyzing, and keep improving. The content (and the results) will be better for it.
