Data-informed Content Strategy

Confab
10:00 am, May 10

Claire O'Brien, CDA, @claireob

Notes by @brianjameskirk, @technicallym
All notes for the conference available here: http://simp.ly/publish/5GMHGD

google analytics dashboard

As instantly appealing as these dashboards are, they are obscure, don't give us insight.

You can sit on the side of the road and count cars, but you can't tell who is sitting in the cars, where their final destination is, how they feel, and most of all, don't know what they are thinking.

We tend to do very in depth reporting on analytics with no analysis

We should look at insight, using data to understand people, beyond web metrics data

PROCESS

Google Analytics is only one source
Then, search logs, task analysis, market profiles, interviews, surveys, anecdotal, field studies, focus groups, quantitative/qualitative, usability testing, consumer data, gap analysis, more

What's happened in this industry, O'Brien says, we get sucked into numbers and ignore human element

Strategy data/insight pyramid

4. Insight (conviction, direction)
/Synthesis/
3. Knowledge (certainty, understanding)
/Reasoning/
2. Information (news, facts)
/Context/
1. Data (research, traffic)

Developing content to generate loyalty
Keywords can be key to understanding content relevance

RavenTools, custom segment, identifying audience who signed up from content headline they were searching for. Input helped guide future editorial strategy

Redesign around data, looking at click tracks, analytics, improved travel website

Changing the brand through long term analysis
Pampers wasn't dealing with customers directly, but after web analysis, began creating content around baby experience and parenting help... Now, growing brand to have a bigger role with SIDS, UNICEF

Q&A

Maintenance is a big challenge on web after design is built... You wouldn't build a reception room without dusting it

Notes by @brianjameskirk, @technicallym
All notes for the conference available here: http://simp.ly/publish/5GMHGD