How and why to do content gap analysis
Conducting a content gap analysis is an essential activity in any marketing project. The analysis allows the company to study and identify topics and types of content that are missing from the project. In addition, this investigation also involves an extensive study of market competitors, in order to develop in-depth and relevant materials that can meet consumer needs. Finding flaws in a marketing strategy and filling them with quality themes is one of the most assertive strategic steps to gain brand authority and increase digital metrics.
The expansion of internet access is remarkable, so digital marketing strategies must keep pace. According to a study by the International Telecommunication Union, the world has about 1.2 billion websites, and 51% of the world’s population has internet access.
Thousands of people are immersed in a sea of information, so it is natural that consumers value personalities and companies that develop relevant content that meets their needs.
When it comes to content marketing, how do you know exactly which topic to address? How to effectively attract new traffic, leads and customers? How to stand out from your competitors? How to develop good and attractive content? All these answers can be answered in the content gap analysis.
Why is content gap analysis important?
Finding and filling gaps according to analysis makes the customer journey more engaging and easier to follow. Fixing these critical gaps can strengthen SEO strategies, as well as help improve sales strategy, making customers have a more connected experience and go through the funnel faster.
Conducting an in-depth content gap analysis can have several benefits, such as: making the company find topics that connect and resonate with its target audience, optimizing the contents for maximum results, filling materials with incentives meet customer needs at every step of the buyer’s journey, increase conversions, drive traffic to your website, and improving sales service to meet customer expectations and pains.
How to perform content gap analysis?
There are five simple steps to complete analysis of your content. However, before diving headlong into the process, it is important to certify and take care of some prerequisites. Identify the main goals that the company wants to achieve and find out exactly who the target audience is.
A few questions can help with the procedure:
- Why analyze content?
- What outcome is the company expecting?
- Which audience is the business targeting?
- How does the customer lifecycle look like?
Step 1: Map your buyer’s journey
After understanding the company’s goals and learning everything about its target audience, it is possible to trace the journey that consumers will take from beginning to end. Which path will they follow from the first contact with the company to the moment the contract is signed?
Identify all the steps involved in the process that the person will go through from the awareness stage to the loyalty stage in order to map the buyer’s journey. You can also develop key questions from this stage that a general user might ask during the process. Include the services they are looking for, what they need to move to the next step and how they will get there.
Step ll: Do Market Research
The second step of content gap analysis is to conduct market research. At this stage it is important to interview potential and current customers. The goal is to approach people at different stages of the buyer’s journey and ask hard-hitting questions that add relevant information to the analysis, such as:
- What are the main problems you are trying to solve?
- Where do you look for solutions to your problems?
- What information are you looking for?
- What are the main questions and concerns?
With the feedbacks, the company will be able to understand the pains and concerns of the customer, as well as their expectations. This is very valuable information to design strategic content.
Step lll: Analyze your current content
The third step of content gap analysis is based on conducting an audit to investigate where the company’s content is performing well and where it is underperforming. Start with the website – this is where the organization will take individuals through the entire buyer journey, from awareness to purchase decision. In this step, you will be able to recognize if there are any gaps in your company’s journey.
To analyze current content, compile a list of your site’s URLs, then categorize each page into one of three groups:
Maintain: This category constitutes high-performing content for the buyer’s journey. If the material is well written, it will help in understanding and converting customers;
Update: The content is not good enough to encourage the customer to reach the last stage and needs to be updated;
Remove: Content is low quality or out of date, so it needs to be removed.
Some tools like Google Analytics, Google Search can help with this sieve.
Step lV: Analyze competitor content
Step four is one of the most important; you should compare your company’s content with that of your competitors. Access the websites of top companies and study how they move shoppers through the customer journey and how they take visitors from page to page. It is also important to survey the type of content displayed on the competitors’ page.
Identify the critical gaps and gaps that competitors make on their websites, write down and study the mistakes. This is a strategy to add to your company’s website what is missing from your competitors’ website.
Keywords can be allies or enemies, analyze the ones that perform better. Read the first page of Google and look at what is already ranked. Some Google search engines can help you with this task.
Step V: Fill in the blanks
The fifth and final step of content gap analysis: If you’ve made it this far, it means you’re ready to develop your own content gap analysis. For this, we have made a step-by-step summary. Follow:
- Map the buyer’s journey taking into account the pains and needs of your target audience;
- Conduct market research, talk to current and potential customers to chart the best path;
- Evaluate the content of your website and remember that it is through it that the customer will make the entire purchase process;
- Analyse competitor content strategically and learn from their mistakes.
Developing new themes in a saturated digital market that doesn’t stop growing is a difficult task, but possible, just using the right strategies and tools. Remember that your new content must be complete, engaging, and useful.