Content intelligence: the “brains” behind the best sales functions
While you may hear about products that “sell themselves,” the reality is that every single offering requires some form of sales strategy. And any such strategy inevitably involves communicating properly to potential buyers so that prospective customers understand your unique value propositions – why people should turn to you, and what you sell, in order meet their demands.
The only way to make sure that marketers are communicating effectively about what their companies sell is by looking at the performance data and statistics around it. For reference, we talked a little bit about how marketing is a numbers game in a blog post last year – that “content is only king if it drives business goals.”
Marketers best facilitate sales when they create, nurture, and properly distribute the branding material and sales content that directly leads to profit. The most effective way for them to accomplish this by approaching content production with content intelligence.
What is content intelligence?
Content intelligence is a form of artificial intelligence that involves using technology to track material and how customers engage with it, to ultimately understand important trends. From there, users of this technology can take the knowledge that comes from these analytics to optimize content and digital experiences for customers and leads alike.
“Over the past five years, content intelligence — the use of AI and machine learning (ML) to uncover content’s inherent qualities — has matured into a real driver of business value. Three major use cases now support marketers: analysis of a content strategy, assistance for content creators and distributors, and content performance optimization.” "
Three Ways Marketers Can Use Content Intelligence To Drive Business Outcomes," Forrester Research, Inc., January 4, 2021
“Over the past five years, content intelligence — the use of AI and machine learning (ML) to uncover content’s inherent qualities — has matured into a real driver of business value. Three major use cases now support marketers: analysis of a content strategy, assistance for content creators and distributors, and content performance optimization.”
The whole point of content marketing is to serve up the exact type of meal that a hungry prospect craves. And marketing technology that provides its users with content intelligence is invaluable because it helps marketers identify the types of dishes that their audiences want to see on a menu. This way, they don’t waste time cooking fantastic, gourmet food for people who are simply looking for a great pizza.
In essence, in order to gain the perspective required to produce the kind of content that directly results in more leads for sales teams to nurture, content marketers need modern technology solutions that process information with analytics.
Modern marketing technology platforms should have content intelligence functionalities so that its users – content producers – have insights behind every workflow. In turn, they can cook exactly what their customers (and customer hopefuls) want, and precisely when they crave it.
Content intelligence in practice with the Digizuite DAM
What marketing software with content intelligence does is collect data, analyze it for patterns and other trends, and then summarizes its findings for its human users. The content intelligence component of any marketing solution will tell the story of every bit of material that your creative team publishes.
The Digizuite DAM content insight features shed bright lights on the journey of every one of your digital assets. This is important because these are the assets that come together to convey brand and product messaging. These intelligent insights and reports will show Digizuite DAM users the details surrounding:
The upload, download and streaming history of every asset, along with quality and format specifics … to discover the assets that are popular, and those that have become stale.
Asset usage based on device and geographical location .
User login history – who logs in, their frequency, and the assets they work with.
Transcoding history – which files are being converted, and the versions and formats of these files that people use to consume the content .
How people find assets (keyword search results, for example).
With this information and these metrics, marketers know exactly how and when to tweak assets and what kind of content they should spend precious time creating. Ultimately, with these insights, marketing decision-makers can appropriately plot content strategy for all digital campaigns.
Why content intelligence is a must-have for the modern sales cycle
Content intelligence is of course useful for any kind of sales cycle; however, it is especially critical for businesses that sell their products and solutions online – where people can more conveniently conduct research and take their time moving through the sales cycle.
In fact, 67% of consumers prefer to execute their sales journey without interacting with sales personnel. And, these are buyers that likely lean toward online purchases. In the words of the experts at Forrester Research, “it’s now even more important to outfit sellers with technology, content and insights that make them relevant and effective in front of buyers” (Forrester Research, Now Tech: Sales Enablement Automation, Q2 2020).
Translation: Sales functions need digital marketing to do the job of getting in front of decision makers. And digital marketers need content intelligence to help them identify the relevant content to deliver to right audiences at the best times.
The longer the sales cycle, the more you need content intelligence to keep potential buyers engaged. When all it takes is the click on a keyboard for a prospect to shift their focus, getting compelling information in front of every section of your audience, and at the instant it is most relevant, is a must.
Leveraging intelligence: No longer a “top secret” technique
When you think of working with ‘intelligence,’ people executing covert operations might come to mind. However, getting insight into peoples’ tendencies has incredible commercial benefits, too – especially when it comes to content and delivering optimal customer experiences.
Artificial intelligence, including the subset of content intelligence, is on the rise – and for good reason. The more consistently you deliver desired information to your audiences, the less they need to spend time searching for it and the more they rely on you as a dependable expert – and a source of all good things within your industry. Clearly, content intelligence is a mighty sales tool for marketers, who can never have enough of it.
Want to find out how DAM could enable your sales channels?
Schedule a call with a DAM expert today to find out more.