A Practical Take on Starting a Content Assessment

As Bulldog Content Strategist Chris Yeich and I give some thought to his upcoming turn in "Unforgettable: Creating Memorable Content that Drives Demand," we got to chatting with some other experts in the space about the nuts and bolts of building the foundation for a content strategy.

I asked Adam Metz of Metz Consulting for his thoughts on some of the key questions that arise when we talk about content strategy. Metz is the author of a forthcoming book, The Social Customer.

Here is his take.

How often do we need to do a “content audit.” Can we do it once and we’re all set? Or is there a recommended period in which we need to update/re-assess?

The question you need to ask yourself is this: “How often do we change our set of products and services, and how often do the needs of the customers we serve change dramatically?” The following events should be times to re-examine the content you create and the quality of the “buying toolkit” you give to your customers”.

1. A product release

2. A key disruptive market change (e.g. your customers have a key new need - an example of this is in 1999 when newspaper advertisers began to demand digital advertising units

3. A sudden loss of market share due to a competitor’s launch of a “better buying toolkit” - you’ll know those when you see them

What are the three or four key elements that you’d recommend looking at for a “starter” content audit?

If you’re looking for very basic “starter” segmentation for your first content audit, here’s seven to begin with:

1. Content Type (white paper, landing page, podcast, video, etc.)

2. Buying stage (segment this by sales and/or marketing funnel segment)

3. Who delivered it? (internal expert vs external)

4. Vertical addressed or multi-vertical

5. Product line (or top-line brand based)

6. Buyer persona (if these have been created)

7. Topic (can’t forget this!)

We have a LOT of content gaps. How do we prioritize which ones to fill first?

Whenever you’re prioritizing a content audit, you have to ask yourself where the biggest drop-off point in your sale cycle is. For example, if you’re getting lots of cold leads, but you’re having trouble turning them into warm leads, the problem with your content exists in the early to middle stages of your lead nurturing. Here’s another example: if you’re having trouble getting customers from the solution valuation stage to the proposal stage, then maybe the content in your solution valuation stage is the the gap that needs filling first. Here’s how to detect where the biggest trouble spots are:

1. Sales complaints: Sit down with your EVP of Sales or another senior sales manager and ask that person where they think the weakest content is that they feel their sales team always has to overcompensate for. This is first priority.

2. “Weak Clicks”: Do a click density analysis of all key marketing web pages on your destination website (www.yourcompany.com) and figure out which 3 or 4 content pages are “turkeys”. These are second priority.

3. Social Questions: Look at all of the social content received by your company (i.e. inbound tweets, inbound social media mentions) that contain questions. Segment the question categories and attack the top three first.