9 Great Ways to Use Data in Content Creation

By manderson@hubspot.com (Meghan Keaney Anderson)

Creating content that works requires you to make informed decisions as opposed to relying on guesswork or throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

To make these informed decisions, you need to focus on

If you’re running out of blog ideas and unsure how to use data in your content, keep reading to learn the best ways to use data before, during, and after the content creation process.

How to Use Data in Content Creation

Let’s consider how to use data properly at different stages of the content creation process: before, during, and after.

1. Using Data Before Content Creation

Just as no one sets out to build a house without first calculating the cost, so too should marketers not create content without looking at what the data says first.

Insights from data can help you know what type of content to create, who to create it for, and the best format to present such content.

Here are some specific ways to use data before you start creating.

Conduct Keyword Research

Before creating any piece of content, the first step is to know the topics you want to talk about or the keywords you want to target.

Since one of the primary goals of content creation is to engage with an audience, it’s crucial to uncover the queries they’re searching for online. Keyword research is how you get valuable insights (data) into these queries.

While conducting keyword research, it’s crucial to analyze the intent behind a search — whether it’s informational, navigational, transactional, or something else.

Some of the best tools you can use for keyword research include HubSpot’s SEO Marketing Software, Arel=”noopener” target=”_blank” hrefs, SemRush, etc.

Identify Your Audience

Imagine making the best steaks in town but then trying to sell them to a vegan audience – surely you won’t make any sales. Similarly, even your best pieces of content can have mediocre results if you don’t put them in front of the right people.

Data can help you identify the right people.

Using data, you can remove assumptions about your audience and who reads your content.

Data can tell you things about your target audience, like their age range, interests, emotional triggers, and social media platform where they hang out.

You can use Google Analytics, customer surveys, or some other social media analytics tool to uncover data insights about your audience.