Audience Analysis Part 2: Using Your Audience Data as a Content Blueprint

We teamed up with Michael Brito, Global Head of Analytics at Zeno Group, to bring you this two-part deep dive into using audience analysis to build a content strategy that will be a game-changer for your business.

In part 1, we outlined the three ways you can build and segment audiences, the 6 inputs you should use for your audience architecture, and how to use these data-informed personas.

Now we’ll use your audience analysis to design creative storytelling and advertising that can break through the clutter and reach audiences with an impactful content strategy.

Let’s dive in.

Why an Audience-first Content Strategy Works

Marketers must ensure that their supply of content meets the demands of the audience by providing relevant stories and creative content.

Audience data is a blueprint.

Just like an architect who designs a house using 3D software, marketers can build data-informed programs using audience architecture.

The result: Creative storytelling and advertising that can break through the clutter and reach audiences with memorable, impactful, and game-changing programs.

What Can You Learn from Audience Intelligence?

Topical Relevance: Use to align your narrative or content strategy with what is relevant to the audience.

Keywords and Phrasing: Use to inform headlines, blog posts, and other long-form content (executive thought leadership, employee storytelling).

Traditional Media Affinities: Use to prioritize your media relations to what the audience reads and shares.

Hashtag Usage: Use to inform hashtags across social media channels.

Influencer Affinities: Use to build an audience-driven influencer program.

Buying Triggers: Use to build a content strategy that aligns with the buyer’s journey.

Activating the Real-time Content Engine

The goal of real-time content marketing isn’t to be relevant to everyone. It’s to be extremely relevant to your audience.

Everyone remembers the Oreo Tweet in 2013 during Super Bowl XLVII. Since then, many brands have tried to “hijack” cultural moments to insert themselves into an existing narrative and reach a broad audience. Sometimes it works, but most times it doesn’t.

This is where real-time audience listening comes in — rather than trying to align your brand with everyone, this approach leverages the audiences that are most important to amplify your success.

Once you build your audience, there are two paths that you can take with your content engine based on what it is you are trying to do.

The first path requires no action other than reporting and making recommendations.

Reporting and Recommendations:

1. Monitor the conversations of your audience in real-time to see what’s top of mind and trending.
2. Provide daily, weekly, or monthly reporting based on the audience analysis.
3. Recommend activation opportunities based on the insights.
4. Provide content recommendations for employees and executives to be used for employee advocacy programs and executive activation.

The second path requires immediate action where you will activate the real-time content engine.

Content Engine:

1. Monitor the conversations of your audience in real-time to see what’s top of mind and trending.
2. Provide daily, weekly, or monthly reporting based on the audience analysis.
3. Scrum with a team of analysts, creatives, community managers, content strategists, and paid social experts to brainstorm content and activation opportunities.
4. Create shareable content usually consisting of an animated video, gif, or digital asset. In some cases, a blog post could be produced.
5. Post and amplify the content with strategic paid social.

In case you missed it, here’s Part 1: Segmenting and Clustering Specific Audiences.

Michael Brito is a digital and analytics strategist, published author, TEDx speaker, adjunct professor. Follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Audiense has built an audience intelligence platform that combines rich social data sources with the world’s leading cognitive and machine learning. Follow Audiense on Twitter and LinkedIn for cutting-edge and actionable marketing insights.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.