to discover more. Search gives you a good indication of how your message
may perform.
When Arneson’s team worked on the 2008
movie
Cloverfield
, for
example, they noticed that people searched for terms related to the film,
such as “JJ Abrams,” the producer of the movie, and the film’s release date
(they initially used the release date as part of a marketing hook because they
had not yet announced the name of the film). When they observed the
keywords that were searched for most often
it created a feedback loop
letting them know which aspects of the marketing materials made the most
sense to push in future campaigns.
AdWords can also help you compare how searchable your content is
against other similar brands and products. Arneson adds that there’s a
public tool called Google Trends, which gives you a relative search level so
you can see if you’re looked for as often as other brands. These tools are
extremely powerful. They give you insight into competitors’ situations that
you can’t get anywhere else. If people are searching for you more often than
your competitors, it’s a strong indication that
your product or brand will
sell.
Some of you may not be at the level where people are searching for
your name or product, but these tools can still be used for content
intelligence. Arneson says that if, for example, you’re
launching a yoga
brand, you can see what people are searching for in regard to yoga and use
that to direct your content marketing decisions. You can find out if people
are more interested in yoga mats or towels, or if there are any jokes or new
topics related to the yoga world. Knowing this information can help you
determine where to focus your efforts. It can even help you in making
business decisions. You will learn what’s hot and which products to push.
Additionally, these tools can help you determine your market size. You
can get a sense of interest level before you develop a product or piece of
content. Facebook can also give you a sense of interest by telling you that
ten million people “like” yoga, but a search-based
tool shows you how
many people are actually searching for a specific product or term. The fact
that people are seeking it out makes it more active and pragmatic.