Content really is king. Whether you’re trying to improve your organic search ranking, test new lead generation channels, or establish your brand as an industry thought leader, you need to create engaging content. But a prerequisite for this is understanding who your audience is and what their pain points are at every stage of their customer journey. This lecture will teach you a data-driven approach to the content creation process and will include our first guest lecturer, Trevor Crump the Director of Acquisition Marketing for Alliance Health, who will reveal his data-driven approach to content creation and how this has been a huge success for his organization. This Lecture Will: -TEACH THE DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH TO CONTENT CREATION. -SHOW YOU HOW TO OPTIMIZE CONTENT FOR THE ENTIRE CUSTOMER JOURNEY. -EXPLAIN HOW TO MEASURE THE IMPACT OF DATA-DRIVEN CONTENT ON SALES. You can watch this lecture here: https://youtu.be/g8UXdIchqrw

1. Dawn of the Data Age Lecture Series
Interpreting Data Like a Pro

2. Hi. I’m Luciano Pesci…
Co-Founder & CEO, EMPERITAS
● Team of economists and data scientists delivering bi-weekly Customer Lifetime Value intelligence so
our clients can beat their competitors for the most profitable customers.
Founder & Director, Utah Community Research Group, Univ. of Utah
● Teach microeconomics, data science, applied research, & American economic history.
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3. Welcome Our Guest, Trevor Crump…
Director of Digital Marketing, Alliance Health (Upwell)
● Marketing expert in SaaS, retail, and healthcare. His team designs effective
demand generation programs across marketing channels (SEO, PPC, Email, Display,
Social) from concept to execution to tracking, and, finally, to testing and reporting.
● Masters of Strategic Communication (MSC), Westminster.
○ Consults through his firm, Growth Fluent.
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4. Today’s Lecture Outline
● Teach you the data-driven approach to content creation.
● Show you how to optimize content to the customer journey.
● Explain how to measure the impact on sales.
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5. 5Data-Driven Content Creation

6. State of Content Today
● Content for the sake of content.
○ Not supported by a real budget.
○ Assumes it’s a numbers game (quantity > quality).
○ Guided by intuition only, takes a long time to identify
useful content type & focus through A/B testing alone.
● “Mirage Content” promises to be useful but
isn’t. Usually written by nonexperts about
general topics. It hurts brand credibility quickly.
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7. The Need for Research
● There’s a fast and easy way to overcome the
“cold start” problem when you don’t already have
existing data to mine: conduct research.
● Secondary Research finds everything available in
the public domain. Primary Research creates data
you designed and that only you have access to.
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8. Secondary Research: Free Tools
● Google Alerts
○ Track any topics you’re interested in and have all the information that
bubbles up in the news delivered automatically to your inbox.
● Google Search Console (for SEO ranking)
○ Use a collection of tools to help correct errors, strategize, and optimize
your search engine rankings to increase organic visibility for your site.
● Google Keyword Planner (for paid search)
○ Find the right keywords relevant to your services or product to
optimize your targeting in display ads, search ads, video ads, & app ads.
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9. Secondary Research: Paid Tools
● MOZ
○ Tools that make SEO, inbound marketing, and content marketing easy. Have a better
view of your position on search engines and find ways to improve your ranking.
● SEMRUSH
○ Find all of the keywords for which any existing web page on the internet is ranking for.
Find vital statistics on specific keywords and related keywords which you can rank for.
● SpyFu
○ “Spy on” competitors to improve SEM and SEO strategies. Discover what competitors
purchase on AdWords, approximate advertising budgets, and see CPC & search statistics.
● AHREF
○ AHREFS is a toolset for SEO & marketing that runs on Big Data. Check backlinks, run
competitor analysis, keyword research, and receive content alerts.
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10. From Secondary to Primary
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● The end goal of secondary research is to
identify an initial set of topic pillars (categories)
for your content to focus on.
● With topics in hand, conduct primary research
to get direct customer feedback on content
type & specific ideas before mass producing it.

11. Primary Research: Survey Timeline*
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W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 W11 W12
S.M.A.R.T Goals**
Qual Research
Program Survey
Pretest
Soft Launch
Fieldwork
Data Prep
*Step Up Your Survey Research: youtu.be/WuBenXuVzqc
**Getting To Quick Data Wins: youtu.be/VqMCK7Whyd4

12. Primary Research: Detailed Survey Timeline*
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*Step Up Your Survey Research: youtu.be/WuBenXuVzqc
**Getting To Quick Data Wins: youtu.be/VqMCK7Whyd4

13. Data Pro Tip 1: The Past
● A common pattern in data of all types across
time is that the recent past is often the best
predictor of the immediate future.
● This means even minimal visibility into your
data can result in large rewards when it
comes to deciding direction for your content.
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14. Data Pro Tip 2: Data Governance
● Even if you’re working individually in Excel, there
needs to be a basic system of data governance.
● This should start by identifying data sources
being used, their value add (potential & realized),
and who has access to what and why.
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15. Data Pro Tip 3: Frameworks
● In addition to rules, you have to decide on how
to organize and interpret your data.
● Frameworks like the Demand Waterfall, the
Customer Journey, and Customer Lifetime Value
focus your data on things of highest impact.
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16. 16Optimizing the Customer Journey

17. The Journey & Waterfall
● SiriusDecisions’ Demand Waterfall is a framework
for organizing the marketing & sales process from
start to finish.*
● The customer’s version of this same experience is
described by the customer journey framework.**
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*SiriusDecisions: siriusdecisions.com/who-we-are
**Hack Your Customer’s Journey: youtu.be/DKBr4PTANDA

18. Customer Waterfall-Journey
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Create different content and gate some of it. Use data to predict leads for sales & retention.

19. Customer Data: Explicit or Implicit?
● Explicit data is what you’re directly given through
form captures, sign ups, opt-ins, and surveys.
● Implicit data is what you can learn without asking,
like site behavior & purchased psycho/demographics.
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20. Blend Them!
● It isn’t about explicit vs implicit.
● They’re complimentary, so blending them
is the best situation. As a general rule,
don’t ask customers something you can
learn about them implicitly.
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21. 21Measuring the Impact on Sales

22. Attribution Modeling
● You organized your data into frameworks
& tracking outcomes so you could model
what works (for high value customers).*
● Let the data determine the model you
ultimately adopt. Be transparent.
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*80% Of Your Marketing Is Wasted: youtu.be/pyNrxUB-tBc

23. Chats with Channel Managers
● Any (accurate) information is better than no
information. Start small and grow in complexity
when you have to create a custom solution.
● Conversations with channel managers about their
experience and their data are critical to success.
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24. The Reality of Missing Data
● Data is never perfect, so something slightly better
than what exists today should be your goal.
● When important data is missing and you
find yourself guessing, In-Depth Interviews
are an effective quick fix.
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25. Trust, but Verify
● To keep people & processes accountable while
executing your content strategy, make data
visible (at different levels) to everyone.
● Some information needs to be real-time, but
most can come from regular reporting. Create
dedicated validation meetings every 2-4 weeks.
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26. 26Summing Up

27. What We Covered Today...
● The data-driven approach to content creation.
● How to optimize content for the customer journey.
● Measuring the impact on sales.
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28. JOIN US FOR THE NEXT LECTURE
Data-Driven Product Vision, Thursday February 15th, 2018
emperitas.com/lecture