Prioritizing focus over speed
After all, few would relish the thought of seeing analytics that suddenly expose poor performance over long periods of time. Turtl CEO Nick Mason says: “It requires a level of bravery to do that. If you think that your content is having this huge impact and then you come along and you start using a tool that says, actually not many people are reading your content, that can seem like a threat.”
However, many marketers who use such tools are viewing them as an opportunity and welcoming the chance to combine meaningful analytics with the tools to do something about problems they uncover.
“If you start using a tool that says, actually not many people are reading your content, that can seem like a threat”
If you look at the constant churn of disposable content today it seems most content marketers would place ‘speed’ as a priority above all else. But the winning aspect of content marketing is not speed. It is relevance, and relevance is now possible.
We can see what our audiences are doing with our content and how they are behaving. This then informs how we should be iterating. Crucially, that iteration can take place in real-time to optimize a piece of content while it is out there being shared and read by your audience.
"The killer aspect of content marketing is not speed. It is relevance; and relevance is now possible"
As Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, writes: "before you focus on what's nice to have, focus on what's important". In other words, in the rush to get to the content marketing summit - whatever that might be for your organization - don’t forget to check that your message is clear; that customers are receiving and engaging with your content across your existing channels and that the stuff is actually working. Content marketing is a long game and should be treated with the craft and patience it merits.
Relevance is the key to ROI. Optimize until you get it right. Tailor to get closer to the parts of your content that your audience is most engaged with. It’s the equivalent of ‘always-on’ testing and learning.
There’s a great deal of job satisfaction to be had by watching and tracking your stories as they make contact with the real world and being able to dial up the ROI potential with every new reader.
Hit ‘publish’ on your content today by all means. But the job is not then over. At that point, it has just begun.
