Connecting with your audience requires lots of fresh content that is targeted to the right crowd. Regardless of the size of your budget or the reputation of your brand, you need quality content to make your message resonate. To improve your brand’s reach, you need to manage and increase the information, the data, about your new and existing audience.
Today we will focus on 5 easy ways the Scribblelive platform optimizes a content marketing cycle. These steps will allow the content that you create to progressively and consistently segment and identify your audience.
Dirty Data will Kill Your Marketing and Your Business
Quality data driven marketing increases revenue and sales for your company, while a CRM based on poor data is a serious threat to your business. Though this post dates back to 2007, but it is Gartner’s article entitled Dirty data is a business problem, not an IT problem. Gartner analysts wrote:
“Over the next two years more than 25% of critical data in Fortune 1000 companies will continue to be flawed, that is, the information will be inaccurate, incomplete or duplicated.”
According to Gartner, there are several ways to identify the quality of your data.
- Existence
- Validity
- Consistency
- Integrity
- Accuracy
- Relevance
Inaccurate or non-existing data often plagued marketers who used to pay small amounts of money for thousands of unreliable names on anonymous lists. These lists are of little to no value in today’s online marketing world.
But dirty data also troubles marketing teams who struggle to create interactive content that can keep together an audience “engaged.” Successful marketers produce content that drives the audience from the top of the funnel to the end of the cycle where they convert into customers.
The cost of dirty data is very real and very damaging to businesses. An interesting article written by Karen Pritchard explains that in the UK “the cost of sending mistargeted mails surpasses the cost of matching and flagging dirty data”.
5 Ways Scribblelive Clients Acquire Accurate Data about their Audiences
Listed below are just a few of the recommended tips that help Rock Content clients analyze their own data:
“every single interaction of a reader/user with your content is a unique chance to learn one more thing about him or her”.
As Scott Brinker wrote in his recent article 14 rules for data-driven, not data-deluded, marketing “the accuracy and relevance of data decay with time (and often quite quickly)”. However approximately 46% of Millennials admit they will update their data provided there is an incentive.
Brands should consistently encourage their audiences to update their information by using content. Creating good content gives you the right to ask for personal information.
Create Hype for a Real Time Story using an Event Reminder
Valencia Football Club establishes real time coverage of every single match day. They prepare the stream at least 3 days in advance so that they have a permalink to launch and promote liveblogging on specific social networks.
The link goes out with an event reminder. The fans can leave their email address to get notified when match day coverage begins. Most importantly, they are provided an “opt-in” box: to subscribe into the Valencia newsletter. These email addresses are then imported into the CRM.
Ask for Information using Customizable Profiling Forms
All Rock Content clients can create customizable profiling forms to create a live blog, manage a social wall or moderate a live chat. These profiling forms allow clients to tell their stories in the best possible way to connect with their target audiences. Forms gather important information such as a person’s age, employment, location and other factors that are categorized under ”data personalization”, the Holy Grail of contemporary marketers.
By consistently using, refreshing and integrating these profiling forms, clients acquire the most up-to-date information about their target audiences. The information can be filtered to identify individual personas or analyze the audience as a whole; all of which can be fed into the CRM.
Use Polls to Segment Audiences and Monitor Over Time
Segments are fundamental for A/B testing, customized email and a variety of lead nurturing activities. Polls are integrated with analytics to help monitor leads and create targeted campaigns that engage with an audience profile.
Launch a Contest and Identify Twitter Handles or Instagram Accounts
With Scribblelive you can easily create user generated content campaigns or contests. Social media based contests are a great way to engage your audience and direct them to your website. Recently the Italian newspaper La Stampa launched an amazing UGC campaign, where they moderate content via Instagram, Twitter and through email on a social wall dedicated to Greece.
Organize a Q&A or LiveChat Only Accessible Through a Single Sign On System
Real time Q&A or Livechat are among our top 5 tips to create engaging content. Brands can use these mediums to define their status as industry leaders or position their brands to engage with a target audience. This can help a brand establish credibility as an influencer. Cruise Critic has a full content calendar full of live chats with travellers and celebrities. Integrating a Single Sign On system allows your brand to manage the types of information acquired about your audience while also benefitting from increased engagement.
These are just 5 examples of interactive content that you can use to acquire quality data. But there are many other options you can use. Let your creativity shine in line with the technology.
Once you acquire the data, then you can add action items to make use of the information. But that is another story!
