Because the world enters the third yr of pandemic-influenced life, many organizations could have seen vital adjustments of their clients’ preferences and conduct — indicating that it’s time to run a content material audit.
After a couple of years of purchasing on-line, participating with extra short-form video content material, and fretting over every thing from the economic system to the social points their favourite manufacturers help, firms ought to count on the 2022 client to buy very in a different way from the 2019 and even 2020 client. Based on Forrester’s 2022 Predictions, excessive client expectations for digital experiences within the wake of COVID-19 is among the most important enterprise developments to look at this yr.
Which means content material and advertising methods developed a couple of years in the past might not be related to at present’s client and must be re-evaluated to make sure the corporate is connecting with its clients in a significant and measurable method.
What’s a content material audit?
A content material audit is a technique of methodically taking stock of all of your digital content material, analyzing information about options and engagement, and assessing the information to establish a go-forward strategy to enhance your group’s content material technique.
Whereas content material audits are usually carried out to judge web site content material completely, firms will profit from taking an omni-channel strategy to make sure there may be consistency throughout all phases of the shopper journey.
Why do content material audits matter?
Conducting a content material audit will assist entrepreneurs perceive the breadth of an organization’s owned content material, the place it seems, and the way it performs. Organizations can use this info to shut gaps to create extra related and high-quality end-to-end buyer experiences.
There are two sorts of content material gaps. The primary and most elementary variety is a misalignment between the content material, buyer personas and the shopper journey. This kind of hole happens when an organization both doesn’t have well-defined personas or hasn’t up to date its viewers analysis. We frequently see this in web site content material the place a model is trying to attraction to 2 or extra personas on a single web page. For instance, a client visits a hospital’s web site to determine whether or not to make an appointment however is discouraged by content material that’s overly medical and appeals extra to well being care professionals. In case your group lacks well-defined personas and buyer journeys, think about working persona analysis and buyer journey workshops in tandem with the content material audit to create a North Star for creating buyer expertise methods.
The second sort of content material hole is because of disparities in messaging and tone throughout channels. This drawback usually arises when omni-channel groups work in silos — maybe with separate groups creating content material for electronic mail, net and social media — and when an organization fails to socialize a centralized buyer expertise imaginative and prescient cross-functionally all through the group.
Gaps in an organization’s content material technique point out inefficiencies within the general buyer expertise. These inefficiencies usually translate to points with natural search visibility, engagement charges, conversion, low Web Promoter Scores (NPS) and buyer loyalty. Working a content material audit will assist firms handle these inefficiencies head on and guarantee they’re doing every thing they’ll to maximise buyer lifetime worth.
Kicking off tour content material audit
The primary part in a content material audit is to establish your purpose for conducting an audit within the first place. Think about what ache factors you’re hoping to deal with with this evaluation. Is it search engine optimization efficiency, redundancy, relevance to your core buyer personas or one thing else? Defining a purpose for the content material audit will assist you to set up parameters for the content material you’re inventorying and the KPIs you utilize to measure success.
When you’ve recognized your content material audit purpose, you’ll must determine what sort of content material to stock, comparable to weblog posts, product description, or loyalty messaging, and which channels to audit.
The final step earlier than executing the audit is to create an inventory of the content material variables you need to seize within the stock. For instance, a marketer seeking to enhance search engine optimization efficiency could need to gather information like headline, content material description, meta information, phrase depend and key phrase rating. If you’re able to carry out the stock, think about whether or not it is sensible to make use of an internet scraping device or in case your web site is sufficiently small to justify a guide strategy.
Translating content material audit findings into actionable methods
The second part of the content material audit is analyzing the information to evaluate how nicely the content material helps your organization’s objectives and supposed messaging. The target is to socialize the content material audit findings cross-functionally to realize alignment throughout the group and enhance consistency alongside all phases of the shopper journey. Use information storytelling to deliver your discoveries to life, share actionable insights and earn stakeholder buy-in on a go-forward strategy.
Ideally, auditing content material is a closed loop course of. Which means an organization must be repeatedly monitoring its content material, buyer suggestions and content material efficiency to optimize the shopper expertise. This strategy helps organizations keep nimble, related and outpace the competitors with higher, extra related advertising. Finally, treating content material audits as a closed loop course of will reduce the creation of latest gaps. It’s going to additionally repeatedly elevate the shopper journey as buyer conduct and preferences evolve.
Allison Roy is presently the Digital Advertising Supervisor of Content material Technique at Capgemini Americas. She leads a staff of consultants who focus on buyer expertise, storytelling, and omni-channel advertising methods. She has over 10 years’ expertise serving to shoppers execute digital transformations, develop model consciousness, and drive new buyer acquisition development.
