Data-driven content is more popular than ever. In fact, companies like Priceonomics are built on it. Spinning content from your own data offers several advantages, including:
- Unique content others can’t produce – it’s your data, after all, so no one else has it
- New perspectives that enlighten your audience and lend credibility to your company
- Relative ease – though it can be a bit tedious to crunch numbers, and it takes a bit of brainstorming to find the right angle, once you have those things the content practically writes itself
But what can you do when you don’t have much data – or any at all?
The truth is, you probably do have data – you just don’t know it. Or, you haven’t been collecting it. Or, perhaps, you simply don’t think your data is that interesting. Let’s go through each of these conundrums to figure out how you can take advantage of data-driven content to promote your narrative and attract an enthusiastic audience.
Problem 1: You don’t have data
Start by considering everything you track. Do you use Google Analytics? You have data. For example, you know what terms your users are searching for. You know where your users are from, and you know how long they’re on each page of your site.
Do you sell products and services with an ecommerce system? You have data. For example, you know which products sell best, how much money your average customer spends and how many items they buy with each purchase.
The point is, you probably have data you’re not considering. Make a list of everything you track, then consider how you might be able to spin an interesting and unique narrative from it.
Problem 2: You really don’t have data
Stuck in the digital stone age? First things first: start collecting data. Install analytics. Track user behavior and purchase information. That will help you in the future.
But what can you do now if you really don’t have data? Here are two ideas:
- Create a survey: develop interesting survey questions and send them to your users. Their responses become your data
- Research third-party sources: ask interesting questions you can answer through research, then compile data from third parties in a new and unique way that resonates with your audience
Problem 3: Your data is boring
Think harder. A lot of data is boring on the surface, but when you take a deeper dive you can discover trends and insights your audience will be excited to learn about.
Find correlations between different data sets; for example, you might learn that your male buyers shop in the morning, and your women buyers shop in the evenings. Depending on your product, that might prove to be a compelling angle.
Let’s say you sell tickets to sporting events. Since you collect user data at the time of purchase, you know where your audience lives. Boring, right?
But, you also know which games they buy tickets to. Since you know where they live and you know what games they attend, you know which teams they like. Mash the data together, and you could write an article that shows where NFL fans live, county-by-county, across the United States – and that’s a pretty cool piece to share. In fact, Priceonomics did that exact piece with SeatGeek, and the story nabbed nearly 7,000 views and 32 media mentions within a few weeks.
When you drill down, ask interesting questions and find unique correlations, you can craft compelling content your audience craves.
And that’s how you leverage your data to become a content rock star.