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Data Shaping Content Marketing

Gurmit Singh, VP & MD, Yahoo India
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Gurmit Singh, VP & MD, Yahoo India
Yahoo (NasdaqGS: YHOO) is an U.S. based multinational technology company and is known to be one of the pioneer websites in the internet era. Through its web portal, the company enables users to search information on the internet (Yahoo! Search), send emails (Yahoo! Mail), read global news across different genres (Yahoo! News), and get finance related information (Yahoo! Finance).

From email to online shopping, text messages to tweets, photo sharing to following celebrities, collaborating on work or engaging with communities around the world - we end up generating tons of mobile data every single day. The extensive data sets from our online life creates the most comprehensive user profiles and the clearest signals of interest and intent that can be used to benefit both the users and the brands. According to Industry estimates, every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data, and this is at an accelerating rate as 90 percent of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.

It is therefore not surprising that data analytics has emerged as the biggest enabler in understanding the user. However, the focus has now evolved from the data that is generated to how it is classified and analyzed. Only through the latter do we get information and insights that are useful to brands.

Data is incredibly important for brands today, as the competition for the user's attention and engagement has moved from the real-world marketplace to the mobile marketplace. At its core, content marketing is successful when you can give the users content they want or need. Content strategy needs to be powered by relevance and context - both of which can be determined by data insights. By utilizing vast amounts of data at hand, publishers have the ability to define a more holistic picture of the user and what they are interested in. This can inform the brand's message and creative which would lead to crafting stories far more relevant to user's interests.

The abundance of data and targeting capabilities publishers have built up can help advertisers with the insights needed to successfully reach their customers with the products and messages they're most likely to relate to. For example, when Accenture and Yahoo join hands each year for Innovation Jockeys, we tap into the zeitgeist and our data insights to create content that strikes a chord with students who want to drive a positive change in society. This year's stories highlighted how innovations can fight corruption, empower women and create a digital India. Inspired students submitted over 3,500 innovations to the competition, further earning a social reach for the initiative.


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