Erica Bizzari, content marketing manager, Paychex

Businesses are publishing more content than ever. According to Content Marketing Institute’s 2015 B2C Content Marketing research, 48 percent of marketers publish content daily or multiple times per week and 69 percent are creating more content than they did last year. Is your business committed to a content strategy? If so, can you answer why you’re creating content?

In the digital age, it’s imperative to not only have a rock-solid content strategy and a driven team but also to have a purpose. Once you know your purpose, you’ll be able to define your goals and create content tailored specifically to the interests of your audience. One way to achieve this: using data. Here is a handful of internal data sources you can extract topics from to drive next month’s editorial calendar.

Internal search – If your website has a search bar, make sure to turn on site search in your data analytics platform. This data gives insight into what users are looking for when they come to your site. Use the advanced filter option to search for queries with “how” and “why,” or use regular expressions to filter for long tail queries. Generate content that answers the questions your users are asking.

Customer service or sales team – Work with team members in your company who have a direct line of communication to prospects or current clients. Leverage the questions and/or issues that arise and let your content provide the answers.

Content analytics – You should be monitoring your content analytics on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. By analyzing content performance, you’ll be able to refine and enhance your editorial calendar. Page-level metrics, social reach, and inbound links are insightful, but dig into what categories or topics drive the most activity. Do certain writers drive more engagement than others? What pieces of content drive action on your website?

Webmaster tools – Analyze the relationship between what queries users are searching for, and where they end up on your content. User queries and intent can vary dramatically. For example, say you write a blog post on yoga vs. Pilates but you notice a high click-through-rate for the query the benefits of yoga. This might warrant a new, more in-depth article.

Talk to your clients – Poll your customers and prospects with SurveyMonkey or even Facebook to get a pulse on what topics they’d like more information on. This data can also be repurposed in an article or infographic to drive engagement.

If you’re looking for more, join AMA | Rochester’s Digital Speed Networking on October 28 to dive into third-party tools that can help drive your content strategy.