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Research Project:
The Project and Objectives
The Project and Objectives
My goals for this project were to create an editorial calendar that:
Promotes all lines of business within the company
Spotlights the subject matter experts who work at the company
Draws in target audiences with content
Inspires audience to learn more about company's offerings or submit new work
Because I was relatively new to the company when I started this project, I was also looking forward to gaining a deeper understanding of our current content strategy and offerings.
The Process
The Process
Understanding
Understanding
Identify available data sources
Understand current editorial plan
Review company objectives
Analysis and Reporting
Analysis and Reporting
Meet with top subject matter experts in the company to learn more about their perspectives on content
Use Google Analytics to find top landing pages, search terms, and demographic info
Create report with recommendations for yearly content and ongoing metrics to watch
Execution
Execution
Present ideas to stakeholders
Continue to measure website data
Build centralized project management process for content creation*
*Outside the scope of this case study
Key Findings
Key Findings
1. Popular Article Topics Do Not Necessarily Mean More Revenue
1. Popular Article Topics Do Not Necessarily Mean More Revenue
Using Google Analytics, I looked through lists of top landing pages and search terms to better understand how pages performed. Some of the things I discovered were:
The best-performing search term by far was the company's name, often spelled in a variety of ways, which indicated that:
Even though the company changed its name recently, it has good brand recognition and awareness among its existing customers
Customers may be hearing about the company from in-person events or through word of mouth
There were opportunities to leverage the website further to bring in new customers
Blog posts related to current events performed well if they were published close to the date of the event (for example, our in-depth piece about the specific technical issues related to the Ever Given, the ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal)
Location-based pages performed well due to people making searches for our subject matter experts that worked in their area
Certain expert profiles ranked high among our landing pages, meaning that our subject matter experts received work based on individual name recognition
As I discussed my findings with the rest of the marketing team, one key point became clear:
The pages that perform well in organic search results are not always the pages that bring in the most revenue.
While some of the pages on our site have information that tends to interest the general public, the company works with a specific audience of primarily insurance and legal professionals. Our strategy would need to revolve around showing the right content to the right people who can bring us projects with large budgets.
2. Use Insights from Meetings With Stakeholders
2. Use Insights from Meetings With Stakeholders
Google Analytics can only show the response to content that is already on our website. If there were topics that would bring people to our site that we hadn't covered already, I'd have to find them another way.
So, I set up meetings with key stakeholders from each line of business at the company to discuss content for the coming year. Because a lot of business at the company happened in person or over the phone without the website as an intermediary, these meetings gave me a much better sense of what topics were most important to cover.
These meetings also:
Helped me and the stakeholders to identify potential content contributors
Allowed the stakeholders to buy into the idea of a yearly content calendar
3. Webinar Analysis
3. Webinar Analysis
The company also highlights key topics with its educational webinar series. The webinars also contribute to brand awareness and bring in new contacts for the sales team. From my analysis of the past year's webinar data, I found that:
Only about half of the people who registered for COVID-themed webinars attended them, much lower than average. The topic was likely over-saturated.
Certain presenters brought in noticeably higher engagement scores than other presenters. These presenters could share tips with colleagues to improve their presentations.
Engagement was highest with location-specific content, such as earthquake education in California.
Overall registration and attendance numbers waned over the course of the year, which could be related to deadlines for receiving continuing education credit for the courses.
Outcomes and Reflections
Outcomes and Reflections
The project helped me:
In the short term, set an overall content calendar for the year ahead
Gain a deeper understanding of the company's business needs, especially since I completed it near the beginning of my tenure
Discover insights that I continue to draw on months later while working on other projects
Build relationships with the subject matter experts who would be writing content or presenting webinars for us
Create a foundation to continually evaluate the effectiveness of our content marketing program
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