#9: 🎶 This issue has a soundtrack 🎶
👋 Hey, it’s the Ercule newsletter!
We take algorithms, analytics, and spreadsheets off your plate so you can focus on storytelling, branding, cinematic breakbeats, absolutely anything else.
In this issue:
- Producing (smarter) content at greater speed
- Who’s blocking your analytics trackers?
- Vacation, webinitos, cooking spray in outer space
🛫 Content velocity, and why it’s critical for content marketing performance
Putting words on a page is hard and, as hard as it is, it’s just one piece of making content marketing work.
Before you write, you have to have a strategy in place, and an outline, and clear goals for what you’re writing, and the reasons why.
And then after you write, you still need to:
- Get approvals and reviews
- Add metadata (descriptions, titles, tags, etc.)
- Include additional elements like images
- Add the finished piece to your CMS
On top of that, you’ve also got to maintain, optimize, and revise the existing content on your site. The time it takes to complete this process – from assigning content, to publication, to distribution – is what we call “content velocity”.
The teams that get the best results from their content are also (usually) able to move fast. They can come up with a new idea and publish it within a few weeks – and their old stuff gets updated regularly, too.
🏄 What you can do
If you’re feeling frustrated with your current content velocity, do a quick inventory:
- Content strategy – Is everyone aligned on the program and intent? (Poor alignment leads to lots of disagreements and extra communication.)
- Production – Is communication with your writers as smooth as possible? (Clunky communication slows down production.)
- Editorial – Could the the review and approval process be streamlined? Can you remove some reviewers, or change them into contributors whose input is helpful, but not required? (A glutted review process takes up hours that could be better allocated to production.)
- Technology – Does the idea of putting new content up on the site create dread? Does your team understand all the switches they have to flip to make that happen? (People can waste an astounding amount of time with a CMS they don’t understand.)
And if any of those ring alarm bells, drill down further. What are the things in your process that take the most time, and add the least value – and can they be removed?
🚧 A lot of your customers might be blocking Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics all the time to help content teams perform their best. The Ercule team has spent huge amounts of time learning the ins and outs of Google Analytics. But we’re not big fans.
For a while now, we’ve been telling marketers to prepare (gradually) for a future without Google Analytics.
This recent study suggests that in some cases, especially at developer-oriented companies, many or most users are blocking Google Analytics Javascript. Which means GA gives no data on those users.
Google Analytics will be replaced by other technologies, most of which don’t rely on JavaScript but instead measure traffic directly from the web server. (And to be fair, the study linked above was produced by one of those companies, so you can take it with a grain of salt.)
🏄 What you can do
You don’t have to do anything quite yet. In fact, you shouldn’t.
For starters, keep these Google Analytics mantras in mind:
- Google Analytics is estimates, not gospel
- Google isn’t your friend
And be strategic: base your content strategy on the unique goals and values of your business – then refine it with data. (Not the other way around.)
That’s how we do it for clients: by first focusing on the relevance of keywords to a business. After that’s decided, we start consulting the GA data.
🐝 Rest, relaxation, Pam
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