Content marketing has largely been an art, but some emerging technologies are allowing marketers to take some of the randomness and guesswork out of the equation. Forrester regularly reviews emerging technologies that CMOs should have on their radar, and here are a few that can help you better engage customers with content.
Content marketing analytics
You create content, but how well does it resonate with your visitors, and how can you determine how to make it more relevant? Content analytics tools use natural language processing and statistical text analysis to understand the concepts discussed on a website and within the context of each page. They can then track and analyze how site visitors engage with those concepts in order to help drive decisions on what topics should be written about next.
Fox News uses emerging vendor Parse.ly to gain more insight into what topics are most interesting to readers, and to make editorial decisions about what writers should be covering.
IP address identification and profiling technology
Most website traffic is anonymous, so how can you better engage those people? IP address identification and profiling technologies help companies use the IP addresses of site visitors to identify the company they are coming from. This knowledge is then used to maintain a chronological history of all activity an organization has had with your website, target relevant content to each visitor, and notify sales reps that someone from a target account has visited the site.
ArcSight, a Hewlett-Packard company, works with Demandbase to drive more traffic to registration forms by showing content to visitors that is specific to their industry.
Social amplification tools
Marketers spend huge sums of money to reach potential buyers using paid media. Social amplification tools help you tap into advocates who can extend the reach of your content and messages through social media. These platforms help manage what type of messages, content or offers should be spread and what type of incentives should be offered, and then prompt customers and employees to share them as status updates to their social networks.
Using CrowdFactory, McAfee presents an offer to visitors who download a free trial of its Internet security software: If they can get five friends to download it, everyone receives 30% off the paid version.
Dial codes to connect mobile users with content
With the rapid adoption of mobile, companies can turn to branded dial codes to connect their offline campaigns with their online channels. Think of it as similar to 1-800 numbers in which the last seven digits correspond to letters that spell out your brand or company name, but with more options for responding to the customer’s call. By using a branded dial code, a customer can receive a text message with a special promotion, or a link to a webpage.
Suzuki has made use of branded dial codes, working with Zoove to allow consumers to dial **SUZUKI (**789854) to receive a text message with a link to watch a preview of the 2011 GSX-R sports bike.
For CMOs, each of these emerging technologies can lead to stronger marketing initiatives and stronger customer-brand relationships, but it will take more than just the purchase of new technology to make these tools successful. In the end, for these emerging technologies to be successful, CMOs will need to remember to put the quality of their content first.
