Search engine optimization (SEO) managers and content marketers may be theoretically on the same team, but some of the products being launched at Content Marketing World 2017 in Cleveland this week are designed to ensure they’re on the same page.
New York-based Conductor, for example, announced a new version of its SEO research platform that will focus more on the specific needs of those telling stories to engage B2B customers and prospects. The company described its offering as a a new role-based “experience” within its Conductor Searchlight tool, which has traditionally been used to understand keywords of interest to a particular audience, competition for keywords, a way to manage campaigns and report on them. Essentially, the same technology will be offered with more specific interfaces and features designed with content marketers in mind.
“A part of the feedback we were getting is that the data from the platform is great, but at times it could be overwhelming for marketers,” Ray Mandaro, director of product management at Conductor, told B2B News Network. “We’ve been rooted in SEO but content marketers need a lot of the same insight in terms of understanding the voice of the customer.”
Conductor Searchlight shows keyword information and organizes it not only based on monthly search volume but the customer journey stage. The new role-based experience will allow companies to evaluate the performance of content as well as identity “intent data” to suggest when customers will actually be ready to make a purchase, Mandaro explained. Content marketers will not only be able to use the tool prior to publishing content but across the entire workflow of managing a particular campaign or executing their strategy, he added.
“We’re repackaging that data that’s specific to content marketer because there’s complexity there,” he said. In some organizations there is also sensitivity around who should get access to particular analytics about content, which makes a role-based version of the platform even more important, according to Mandaro.
Other Content Marketing World exhibitors bringing search and content together include San Mateo, Calif.-based BrightEdge, whose BrightEdge Content tool is designed to use artificial intelligence to find topics aligned to specific marketing objectives. These could include stopping competitive threats, capitalizing local demand other other goals, the company said. The tool’s workflow engine can then evaluate content for relevance and quality, activate and optimize it over time. BrightEdge sees its offering aimed at not only SEO and content marketing teams but those in demand generation roles and more.
In a breakout session at CMWorld, Vangresso CMO Bernie Borges said more marketers are seeking a way to create “intelligent content” that can tell them what kind of assets they should be producing for a customer or prospects based on where they are on the buyer journey.
“We have to look beyond just how they’re behaving, to what are they thinking?” he said. There is also a need for better dashboards that communicate insights about content across all stakeholders in an organization, he added.
Content Marketing World 2017 continues through Friday.
