Building an editorial calendar and writing successful content are two main priorities of marketing and communications teams. These initiatives can play out in several different ways and apply to different types of businesses. Some companies may be looking for ways to educate prospects about their products and services using wide-ranging content production. Agencies, however, often rely on a robust content strategy as the central pillar of many pitches and can easily make or break a deal. This uncertainty is why it is crucial to have the right data analytics tools to build data-driven strategies that reach and convince potential clients. Take a moment to allow us to tell you how you can use the Synthesio social listening platform to understand customer motives using sentiment tracking and build a compelling content strategy.
Theoretically, it sounds like a good start to assess customer sentiment on different topics, but the real issue is how to execute an efficient and timely strategy. This strategy then provides businesses with a framework to produce successful content.
When it comes to building a content strategy, the first step is to get an original concept and to expand upon the idea with subtopics in relevant areas. However, an innovative approach is not enough as the performance of the content pieces will guide future production. Gone is the time when content was king; instead, ROI has become the most significant driver. The digital and data boom have brought a lot of changes, among them the necessity for content producers to grapple with insights and figures reflected by their editorial choices.
Bringing Together Content and Performance
Melding content and performance presents different options. One way is to look at the topics that are the most relevant and exciting to the targeted consumers by using keywords. However, reach is not the only KPI that should matter when it comes to content. Conversion is critical. To achieve that, you need to engage the reader and tackle the subject using an angle that will reach them.
Sentiment Tracking Comes into Play
As a reminder, sentiment analysis is the process of retrieving information about a consumer’s perception of a product, service, or brand.
You can think of sentiment analysis as a subset of social listening. While businesses would be wise to monitor their mentions, sentiment analysis digs deeply into the positive, negative, and neutral emotions surrounding those mentions.
Does a product, a topic, or an event engage consumers more positively? Is your current content strategy meeting their expectations? Sentiment analysis can help to answer these types of business questions.
Understanding the context behind why your consumers like or do not like something will be the biggest differentiator from the competition. Bear in mind that your mentions, whether they be positive or negative, don’t happen in a vacuum. Rather than obsessing over a one-off compliment or complaint, brands should look at the bigger picture of their customers’ feelings.
Sentiment Tracking at Work
The following section is a detailed example of one of our global clients utilizing sentiment tracking for business planning. The client had to present a content strategy to their management board and wanted to present accurate data.
As Head of Communications of a major CPG brand, they got the guideline from their management team that the focus for the 2020 content strategy should be on organic vegetables. They already got some excellent starter ideas, including organic vegetables, organic baskets, organic fruits, etc.
At this point, the employee did not have enough information to build a robust strategy as of yet. Being branded as organic is a trendy topic on which many competitors had also been jumping. For items like this, it can be hard for brands to differentiate their messaging from that of their competition. The challenge was this: how do you mix originality, performance, and creativity to come up with a proper angle for a wide range of customers?
The client decided to use Synthesio to understand better what people think about the organic trend in groceries and packaged goods. First, they gathered mentions from a wide range of data sources across the web. Next, the client built out detailed visual reports that focused explicitly on the positive and negative feelings of their audience. Let’s have a glance at the results.
The Results
Despite the undeniable trends, people still expressing many concerns and doubts when it comes to organically-classified items. These individuals especially question the legitimacy of big CPG brands to talk about organics. Many have found that often, these brands are inconsistent with organic production. This insight was the first very relevant revelation for our head of communications. Large global brands should typically be cautious when producing content about this topic. They strongly considered the risk of some content ending up as bad buzz.
Carrefour, a nationwide French retail and grocery chain, experienced adverse reactions to an initiative started in 2017. This slip-up occurred after launching a campaign to promote partnerships with organic farmers while simultaneously tackling a new government-mandated regulation that forced farmers to use specifically approved seeds.
There was notable discontent surrounding Carrefour’s organic campaign. The grocery brand’s consumers did not miss the opportunity to criticize the lack of clarity and transparency of the brand about their organic guidelines. In this sense, our client wanted to be sure that organic product messaging would resonate with their consumers.
Another exciting signal that surfaced was that people often feel lost when it comes to eating and shopping organic. Many express the feeling that it would be positive for everyone to adopt more organic behaviors, but they don’t how to start nor what source to trust. These consumers would appreciate more explicit guidelines. This uncertainty was an excellent opportunity for education that our client decided to seize.
A New Strategy
Thanks to the context associated with the expressed feelings, he came up with a few different informative and educational ideas. These ideas would prove to be valuable when included in the company’s brand new content strategy. For example:
- Is it possible to have organic frozen vegetables?
- How to remove toxic pesticides in daily nutrition
- The differences between organic farming and conventional farming
Using these insights and ideas, our CPG client went to their meeting with management feeling prepared for any questions they might have. They felt as though they could support their claims and ideas using data-backed sentiment tracking analysis.
Want to learn more about how sentiment analysis can help your brand innovate and connect with the right people? Download our use case story here.
