Association Benchmarking and Content Analytics

 Understand How to Benchmark Your Digital Performance

Associations and non-profits often seek to benchmark their performance in digital against other associations. I would offer that it is better to seek benchmarks around the subject matter you represent and not compare your organization to other associations.

In today’s digital environment, content grows exponentially with many organizations, individuals and groups seeking to create authority and credibility.

Those organizations, individuals and groups are publishing content on the same subjects and most likely trying to reach your members and greater marketplace.

As a result, it is more productive to seek out those who are competing for your members’ attention, understanding what they are sharing and how they are going about it. You may not be able to find “benchmarks” representing “competitor” performance but you can gather intelligence and compare your efforts, the performance of your efforts and determine what they are doing differently.

Digital Analytics, Benchmarks and “Content” Analytics

Focusing more on content and context analytic results can demonstrate to you how your subject matter based content is performing against others who publish similar or related content. The references may be B2B or B2C publishing organizations, bloggers, scientific communities or private company based (Medical Companies who publish a good amount of research as an example).

Everyone is dealing with information overload and over time develops a small group of resources to watch. As well, humans are different people throughout the day depending on what they are interacting with. A person may prefer printing a medical or scientifically focused document to read and not want to interact with the content online, that same person may seek out and watch a couple cat videos on the web and in the afternoon read work related documents on their computer or via the web. It is important to know what you member audience’s preferences are for your content and then set a baseline and a strategy.

As a real world example, my own work with Medical Associations and Practitioners has shown that practitioners want summary focused content online that brings forth the major points they need to know. The content is quickly consumed in the short bursts of time they have available. As well the content should be structured to help solve an immediate need to help a patient or their families. Longer form content should be downloadable and printed for later consumption if there is ever time to read.

Consumption Amplification and Engagement

The benchmarks should focus on consumption, amplification and engagement again in context of the subject matter and recognizing the audience preferences.

I have a series of blog posts that attempt to demystify content analytics for editors, publishers and associations. They may help create understand how to create the right benchmarking and measurement strategy. I have two Content Analytic sessions coming up in Chicago and Los Angeles as a part of the American Business Media (ABM) Regional Education Series. Check out the great tracks and consider joining me.

The team at 2040 Digital can help you identify the right benchmarks to create understanding of your organization’s performance in the digital realm. Contact Us.