“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others” had written Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's "dad".

In our everyday life, we are used to being surrounded by commonly used objects, so much so that they seem almost banal. Let’s think of the floor. It is the surface that lets us move around but, in doing so (and therefore using it) we hardly notice its existence.

Yet, there is someone who has known how to give value to a floor: the start-up Technis of Lausanne Polytechnic has devised the so-called “intelligent floors” which, with an Artificial Intelligence system, manage to trace the routes of all those walking on them and supply a series of data to recognize and forecast visitors’ behavior. Incredible, isn’t it?

It is a bit what happens in companies: increasingly more focused on managing huge quantities of digital assets online, brands cannot promote what they already have “in-house”, that is contents. When Artificial Intelligence is applied to the latter, Content Intelligence takes over to maximise their value.

In fact, thanks to the support of AI, Content Intelligence software allow utilizing the data generated by using contents (those the user has been in contact with) to help the Marketing and Sales departments know in advance people’s interest, develop increasingly more effective topics and increase conversion rates.

Which are the steps to boost your Company growth?

The steps to follow are 3:

1) the first thing to do is tidying up and streamlining all the contents used in the various corporate systems and channels. Multiplying channels and touchpoints, Brands find themselves having to manage huge quantities of digital assets, but the risk is that this resource is not valued because of the confusion that reigns there.

2) the second thing to do is making messages consistent and removing “dangerous” duplications. With CI, it is possible to adapt dynamically and funnel a single index onto numerous channels, making the tone of voice and the messages from the Brand consistent. One of the advantages of CI is to protect brand consistency and intellectual property on all digital touchpoints.

3) the third thing to do is utilizing the data collected to increase the engagement and conversion rate. The analysis of the data collected by the CI with the support of Artificial Intelligence (AI) allows understanding which are the topics “pushing” users to respond to certain CTAs more. This allows the editorial team to “refine” the Content Strategy and increase conversion rates with an increasingly more customized customer experience.

Content Intelligence “illustrated” with the birds and the bees 

Birds and bees can tell the system of Content Intelligence well: further on you will find the flowchart and various steps of one CI system told with nice sketches where bees, insects and spiders are part of an imaginary esapolis where the production and distribution of the content (the honey) is organized in a work flow “permeated” by Content Intelligence and therefore driven by the ability to draw value from the contents.

1. Creation of users, groups and the respective roles in the processes of topic use

The first step is defining the users and roles they will have in the use of contents and dividing them into Content Editor, Solution Administrators, Content Users, Developers, Data users, etc.

2. Content creation and approval (workflow part 1 of 3)

The first advantage of Content Intelligence is helping Marketers tidying up and making management processes efficient. Then there is the creation process, from the brief to its approval and its tagging by AI motors and Editors, so that the content is ready for the following phases and publication on the various channels.

3. Uploading contents onto the platform, both HTML pages and Multimedia Content

The representation of something through a digital medium can be one of two types: HTML pages or multimedia files. Uploading is preceded by the brief, that is the phase when the objectives and target are agreed and topics you want to “explore” are identified.

4. Content tag enrichment by AI motors and Editors (topics, places, faces, logos, products)

Materials are “enriched” with tags by AI motors and Editors. Tags are “labels” classifying topics and they finish being related to the user that has shown a specific preference. 

5. Publication automation on different digital channels (via embed or HTML or API tags) (workflow parts 2 and 3)

With Content Intelligence and the relative removal of duplication, just one version of the content is obtained, dynamically adaptable and in real time with any digital channel, so as to ensure a fully omnichannel customer experience. This leads to the advantage of reducing the time spent updating the content on each individual channel.

6. Tracking and data collection

CI software uses “trackers”, that is small code “portions” to be inserted into the brand pages as “copy&paste”, so that it is possible to trace the content: in fact, these “trackers” manage to note which call-to-actions consumers have acted upon and to measure the various performance rates.

7. Data processing thanks to AI motors

With the tagging and automated profiling carried out by the AI motors, it is possible to get strategic data from the users’ reception of the contents, getting all the necessary insight on the interests of your audience.  

8. Customizing the customer experience adding widgets to recommend contents or customized DEM

With its “bag” of information obtained from AI motors that classify visitors and creative elements, CI allows customizing marketing automation tools. Among them we find DEM (Direct Email Marketing), that is customized emails focused on the user’s interests previously determined for each channels.

9. Data enrichment to CRM with customer interests to give insight to sales staff

The strategic data, generated by the contents thanks to the AI, enrich the data to CRM, allowing sales staff to establish a customized customer experience with each customer, since it is possible to know his/her real interests in advance.

10. Observation and analysis of content editorial performance (trending topics, formats, types) to set the following users’ campaigns for the level of customer’s knowledge to CRM, adding customer interests and suggesting the topics to deal with

At the end of the process, the Content Intelligence Manager must show the stakeholders the CI progress and results: from these data it is possible to understand if and how a content affects the customers' purchasing behavior and this analysis is useful to “refine” your own Content Strategy.

Finally, the dream of every Marketing team, that is having a clear idea of what contents transform customers into leads, increasing conversion rates, has become reality.