How to Evaluate the Full Potential of Your Content Before Launch
Greetings, Moz fans! My name is Mike King, and I’m from an agency called iPullRank. Today on Whiteboard Friday, we’re going to discuss how to assess the full potential of your content before you launch it. This process will help you determine whether your content will perform well before you invest time and money into promotion.
Understanding Content Potential Before Launch
Before spending tens of thousands of dollars on content promotion, it’s crucial to gauge whether your content will succeed. Here are some key steps to ensure your content is primed for success.
1. Survey Your Target Audience
Understanding your audience is essential. There are several ways to gather data effectively:
- Paid Discovery Platforms: Tools like StumbleUpon (now Mix) offer low-cost audience targeting. With just $0.10 per click, you can test different audiences and gauge their interest in your content.
- UserReport: This tool allows you to create custom surveys on your site. You can ask visitors questions like:
- Would you share this content?
- Did this content meet your needs?
- What improvements would you suggest?
- Facebook Ads: Facebook allows highly targeted advertising, making it a great platform for audience testing. You can refine targeting based on income, education, and interests.
- LinkedIn Ads: If your content is business-focused (B2B), LinkedIn ads help reach decision-makers using firmographics rather than just demographics.
- SurveyMonkey Audience: This tool enables you to survey specific demographics, hosting your content within the survey itself for immediate feedback.
2. Conduct Competitive Analysis
Analyzing competitors' successful content helps you create a stronger case for your own content. Consider these tools:
- Social Crawlytics: This tool analyzes competitor sites, identifying their most-shared content.
- BuzzSumo: A powerful tool that indexes content, allowing you to search by keyword and find the most engaging content in your niche.
- Ahrefs, Majestic, or Moz Link Explorer: These tools show top-performing pages on competitor sites, revealing what content attracts the most backlinks and social engagement.
3. Use Discussion Platforms to Validate Content Ideas
Online forums and discussion platforms provide real-time feedback on content relevance.
- Quora: Search for industry-related questions, see how many responses they receive, and determine interest levels.
- Reddit: Engaging in Reddit discussions can help gauge audience enthusiasm for specific content topics. If a question receives little engagement, it may not be a worthwhile topic.
4. Align Content with Business Goals and Metrics
When seeking internal approval for content, you need to align your content goals with business objectives.
- Think Beyond Vanity Metrics: Likes and shares are great, but decision-makers care more about metrics like customer acquisition cost (CAC) and lifetime value (LTV).
- Conversion Rate Analysis: Use past content performance data to estimate conversion rates for your new content.
- Search Volume and Traffic Estimates: Predict content impact based on keyword research and organic search potential.
5. Ensure Content Fits Your Brand Story and Funnel Stage
- Brand Story Alignment: Your content should reinforce your company’s messaging and brand identity. For example, Moz focuses on better marketing strategies, so this Whiteboard Friday session fits perfectly.
- Funnel Positioning: Identify where your content fits in the sales funnel—awareness, consideration, or decision. If your content fills a critical gap, it strengthens your business case.
Conclusion
By using these research-backed techniques, you can confidently predict whether your content will be successful before investing in promotion. If you’ve ever struggled to push a content idea through your business or agency, feel free to drop your questions in the comments. I’d be happy to help.
Thanks for tuning in, and I’ll see you next time on Whiteboard Friday!