How To Put Customer Research At The Heart Of Your Content Strategy
Customer research is fundamental to the blog content strategy I use for my clients. But doing customer research the right way isn’t as easy as it seems.
I worked with a client earlier this year to create a survey that we sent to her audience. The survey results were insightful but the challenge came when I started using the survey results to create a content strategy. There was a lot to sift through. I had to organize my analysis of the responses into a clear plan my client and I could follow.
That experience made it clear to me that there must be a systematic way to combine customer research with a well-developed content strategy. Adrienne Barnes explained this well in an interview I did with her for my podcast.
Here’s a five-step process you can use to better align your customer research with your content strategy.
1. Start Internally
You shouldn’t create your interview and survey questions unless you begin within the company. Start with these three actions:
Speak with thought leaders within the company. These conversations should help you get a sense of the important topics related to the niche.
Do a content audit if you’re working with a company that consistently publishes content. The content audit will help you better understand the topics already covered and how their content compares with competitors.
Speak with the sales and customer support teams. These teams speak with customers daily so they know questions frequently asked, common objections, and concepts that are a bit fuzzy in customers’ minds.
These three actions will help you create content pillars that form the foundation for the survey questions you create.
2. Use The Content Pillars To Create A Survey
I’ve created a few surveys over the past year and I’ve learned that survey design is crucial. A poorly designed survey won’t give you the insights you need to make informed decisions. The tips below can help you create a good survey based on the content pillars you’ve identified.
Set A Survey Goal
Your survey should be based on a hypothesis that you want to test. For instance, I’m working on a State of Content Marketing in the Caribbean report and based the survey on this hypothesis — content marketing isn’t a well-developed concept in the Caribbean region. My aim with the survey was to figure out whether that was true.
Group Questions
I love using Typeform because it allows me to group questions and apply logic functions. Here’s how I recommend grouping your survey questions.
Start with the demographic details you want to know (age, gender, occupation, annual revenue…whatever demographic details are important for you to know).
Group the rest of your questions based on the content pillars you’ve identified.
Use The Right Balance of Questions
Your survey shouldn’t be tedious and long. Only ask essential questions, arrange them in a logical order, and use a mixture of question types (multiple-choice, open-ended, rating scales etc.). A word of caution though — limit the number of open-ended questions you ask. In fact, don’t use them unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Close Out The Survey With A Call To Action
A survey is a great opportunity to direct your audience to more of your content. Use the survey ending to invite respondents to visit the company’s blog or any other special resource you think would interest them.
3. Interview People Who Give The Most Interesting Survey Responses
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
The survey responses will give you some great insights. But there will also be some interesting responses that you’ll want to look at more closely. Find eight to ten of these people to interview.
How do you choose the best eight to ten people? Aside from choosing people who give interesting responses, you should also look at three distinct groups of customers:
Loyal fans who’re excited about the product
People who fall somewhere in the middle
People who’ve indicated specific challenges with the product
All these customers should be active users, not people who only used the product once. Ryan Gibson shared some great tips for doing customer reviews effectively during an interview I did with him last year. You should definitely check that interview out if you want to become a good interviewer.
4. Look At Reviews To See What Matters Most To your Audience
The survey and customer interviews will give you a lot of great information you can use to create a content strategy. But customer reviews are the final piece of the puzzle. It’s one of the strategies I mention in this video where I discuss how to do competitor gap analysis using Ubersuggest.
When you’re looking at your competitor’s reviews, pay attention to:
What their customers love. Have you acknowledged this reality in your content but also explained the clearly unique value your product offers?
Issues their customers have found with the product. How does your product fill the gap and address those issues?
Ask the same questions when you read your customer’s reviews.
Bonus Tip: I don’t see enough brands doing this so I’m mentioning it here. Have a team member respond to customer reviews on review sites such as Capterra and G2. That way, you’ll keep on top of what your customers are looking for and show that you actually care about keeping your customers happy. It makes a big difference when a customer sees a review response.
The insights you get from reviews serve two main functions. First, it can help you create balanced comparison articles. These articles should show both the good and bad of your competitors and help you better position the brand as a viable competitor in the market.
Second, you’ll get more information about the best messaging to use in your content. It’s important to write in a way that customers understand. Knowing how they speak will also help you do better keyword research.
5. Build A Content Strategy
Now, it’s time to put all your research together to create a content strategy. Start with your overall content goal and how it relates to your overall business goal. Let’s say your business goal is to increase ARR by 10% by the end of 2022. Here are some questions you would ask to develop your content goals and tactics:
Based on your research, what does your audience need to learn more about so that they trust your brand and are convinced to buy?
How will you create content for each stage of the customer’s journey so that you build a content playground they enjoy?
What’s the best type of content (articles, videos, podcasts, courses, or a combination) to create based on your customers’ needs?
How will you track whether the content is helping the business meet the goal of a 10% increase in ARR by the end of 2022 both in the short and long term?
Answering these questions will help you know what content to create and when so that you can build a content calendar. I’ve found that it’s helpful to use a project management tool, such as Asana or Clickup, to manage the content calendar. You’ll have a central place where you can share drafts, assign tasks to team members, and help keep everyone on track.
Other Helpful Tips To Make The Customer Research Process Effective
Customer interviews are more effective when you ask the same questions. You’re better able to identify themes so you can accurately pinpoint content needs.
Ask customers what products they were using before so that you can get a better sense of the competitor pool. Sometimes you’ll see competitors you’ve never heard of.
Claire Suellentrop from Forget the Funnel shared some customer interview and customer survey templates with me that can definitely help make your job easier.
Final Words
Detailed customer research isn’t easy to do. But when done well, it will help you create a content strategy that leads to lasting results. Check out my playlist on how to effectively do customer research to learn more.