At Neil Walker Digital we know that content marketing is now key – we have blogged very recently about this, including our posts on content strategy and format within content marketing. Producing engaging content cannot happen without both a strategy and a clear idea of content format – but how do you make sure everything is ticking along nicely, and how do you ensure that you are getting the amazing results you have promised your clients?
Our agency is rapidly morphing, our transition to become a content powerhouse has been impressive – we are now creating lots of engaging content for both our clients and ourselves. We have become ‘thought leaders’ across a plethora of different industries, but without a content marketing audit you will be unaware of what is actually working for you.
The next in our series of content blogs is all about content marketing audits or examinations, what are they? why we need them? and how they will ultimately help you reach your online marketing goals?
The audit
A content marketing audit is a dissection of the existing marketing practices, this includes blogs, current web pages, videos, infographics and any material which the agency is creating – you could even call an audit a forensic examination.
A quick Google search gives this definition of an audit:
‘An analysis of the internal and external factors which may affect a business’s performance.’
This description can be directly applied to the world of content;
‘An analysis of the internal and external factors which may affect content marketing performance.’
There are many similarities to a financial audit; it’s basically an appraisal of your current content marketing performance. By reviewing your activities – you will then be able to make any future tweaks or changes to your content marketing strategies.
The online environment is forever changing and being ahead of the curve can be the difference, helping you to deliver successful marketing to your clients. Assessing your activities at regular intervals in time will mean you are well set to invest wisely into continuing your content creation. You can then carry on delivering great results.
Providing premium content to consumers is in high demand; ‘thought leadership’ means creating thoughtful and engaging content which offers value, whilst maximizing conversions and sales for clients. Setting quality content free into the online realm is now accepted as one of the best marketing techniques to turn potential customers into repeat customers.
By auditing regularly you are effectively looking ‘under the bonnet’ and working out the mechanics of your campaigns, an audit will help you achieve and maintain objectives, which are:
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Continuing to be a thought leader
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Increasing brand awareness
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Setting your brand (or clients brand) apart from competition
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Improving leads and conversions
Creating a successful content strategy means playing the long game, It involves strategy planning before then creating the content and of course – the audit. But where to start?
Where do you start?
A content marketing audit gives you an intricate analysis of how things are working, so firstly you need to outline all of the existing areas of content in order to be able understand their role in the overall campaign mechanism.
Divide your operation into key areas – create a framework
There will be clear channels to divide your performance audit into (which will differ from company to company). The building blocks of any marketing strategy are comprised of many different things, from the back end technical aspects to the actual content which potential customers will see – all is important, and it all needs to be audited.
You could analyse your whole operation in the following key areas:
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Technical (Hosting, caching etc)
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Onsite (Content, web design, meta tags, url construction, page speed)
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Links (both internal and external)
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Social (Profiles, engagement, optimisation)
By looking into each area you will be better be able to understand and analyse what is achieving success – developing a clear framework is vital to any audit. A framework will help you in the future when you come around to the next time you are auditing your content – establish the key areas and keep a record of your framework as you won’t want to repeatedly create it from scratch.
What is the purpose of your content marketing?
Content will usually appear on a website for potential customers to see – a website audit would therefore be a great place to start. The aim is to boost the effectiveness of the website and it’s content, ultimately boosting sales. An audit can be as long or short as you want it to be – but it should be thorough in order to give you an idea of which direction to move forward in.
In order to audit your content you will need to know what the purpose of your content marketing is. Without knowing your objectives, how can you recommend any changes through your evaluation?
If a particular client has content which is not achieving the desired results, think about the audience you are speaking to, are you targeting your blogs to the right people or should you even be creating blogs? Making recommendations on your audit can be as simple as changing the target audience or adjusting the layouts of your content piece – or even as drastic as changing your content output all together.
A thorough content marketing audit will guide you on:
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The type of content you should be creating
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The target audience you need to be talking to
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The stages in the buying process you are not currently targeting
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Which marketing channels you should be utilising (blogs, videos, print etc)
The content type you decide to create will then hugely affect everything else in your campaign, it will affect your SEO operations, the structure of your websites, your hosting and the results the site receives in online searches.
That is why content is so crucial, it is the ‘new wheel’ in the world marketing – strategists now swear by it. Start your marketing audit with your content and the rest should follow. Have one singular aim, support your content.
Reports
Many online marketing agencies create reports which outline the successes of campaigns for their clients, these monthly or yearly reports will contain all the data which is needed to know which direction is best to take the campaign in. They are a kind of audit which is to be presented to the client, they are easier to digest than an internal report. Share the results with the content team to let them know why they are creating the content, they will work harder when they have a purpose that has visible results.
Identify and analyse
Find out what isn’t working and act accordingly – your framework will make it easy to identify the problems in your content marketing strategy. Below are some issues you may find when undertaking a scheduled audit:
Hypothetical situations
1) You are struggling to produce enough content pieces to satisfy all of your clients – Increase the size of the content team
2) Your shortform content is not ranking highly enough on search engines – switch to longform content.
3) Your written content isn’t working as well as it should – try a new channel, think about videos or interactive games and mobile apps.
4) You are not getting the interactions you desire – Sit the content team down with the social team and draw up outlines as to how you can improve engagement through social channels.
Through your audit you may find that there are problems that are not so apparent to the content team themselves, this could mean enlisting the help of the links and SEO specialists in your agency, they will adjust the mechanisms which help the content rank highly through the Google algorithms.
Your audit means you will find causes to your content issues, before then brainstorming to work out any solutions – auditing regularly will focus your marketing efforts and give you solid foundations for your campaigns.
Why is social auditing so important?
Social media amplifies your content, it makes sure it is seen by a many more people than it would do it if was simply just sitting on a website, hoping to appear through search engine results. Social provides much more added value and directs more attention and to your amazing content!
As well as your content marketing audit, complete a social audit – you can improve the results of each by overlapping the examination, share the wealth.
If it ain’t broke, tweak it
You should constantly be evolving your operations based upon results, so if things ain’t broken, tweak it (if you can).
You might be doing pretty well with your online marketing operations but a change here or there could really do wonders for your results. It could be as simple as changing your tweet titles to make them more intriguing or attaching a photo to each tweet to make it more engaging – if, through your audit you decide to change your social tactics only slightly, you could see immediate results.
Remember that Google algorithms change regularly, you need to be aware of these changes and your agency needs to work together to keep your client sites operating within current Google ‘laws’. An audit will be a great time to do this – make sure everyone within the business is aware of the audit, the aims of the audit and any subsequent changes which are being implemented.
Establish a hierarchy for your content
It is beneficial to have a good system, develop a grading system or ‘hierarchy’ which will give certain credence to more important pieces of content over others. This could mean looking at on-site pages and product pages first, ensuring that the page ranks highly on google and other search engines – it may be wise to look at landing pages and home pages first before moving onto less important pages.
How often do you need to audit?
A marketing audit can save you time and money, it will help with utilisation of time and any spending in the future. They can help sculpt future tactics, there is no preferred time for a content marketing audit, but it could help during these situations:
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A change in company leadership
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Before any website re-designs
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When the business is stuck in a rut
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When things are going well
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When your competitors are doing better than you
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When you want to get ahead of your competition
Evaluating your content marketing operations can help your company and it’s tactics improve, streamlining your business. As you can see from the six examples above, there is no single reason to audit your content marketing strategies – a successful company will be driven to change, nobody ever won the race by standing still.
You should definitely audit and evaluate during turbulent times, theres no point in resting on your laurels, especially if you are not getting the results you want.
It is all about nurturing
You should be guiding your campaigns, giving them a nudge in the right direction and having influences over their performance.
Create a map
You will really realise just how much content you have when undertaking an audit, build a content map.
What is the reason for your audit?
You will want to find out if your content is any good in the first place, or if it serves a useful purpose or what exactly it is achieving. By figuring out these three areas you can aim to move forward and focus more heavily on the things which are getting you good results.
By ‘cutting the crap’ you can produce content which works – there is nothing worse than creating lots of content before the strategy then changes – it is a waste of time. You can always go back and rework your completed pieces although you should be continually optimising any previous content anyway, an audit will give you a clearer vision of what your aims are.
Content marketing audits in a nutshell:
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Are you doing enough content?
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Are you doing too much?
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Are you speaking to the right people?
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Are you a thought leader?
How does your company go about completing content marketing audits? Do you do it differently and how do you think we could change our approach? Join in the conversation on Twitter at @theukseo.