On Oct. 15, Acronym announced a technology alliance with Conductor, the Web management and SEO platform provider. For Acronym, the partnership provides access to Conductor’s content mapping functionality within its Searchlight tool suite.
In this Q&A, Ryan Pitcheralle, VP of the Digital Center of Excellence at Acronym, explains how content mapping enhances Acronym’s intent-based marketing solutions within the context of the rapidly changing search environment.
Q: Acronym has partnered with other solutions providers over the years, but this one comes at a particularly critical time for the search industry. Please explain why that is.
A: The future of search is one in which we advance from a keyword-centric approach to understanding and acting on consumer intent with a content-centric approach. The name of the game is not keyword optimization but instead content optimization. Conductor’s capabilities in this regard enhance Acronym’s own methodologies and technologies.
Q: What does Conductor gain from the partnership?
A: Conductor benefits from a strong partner that will drive home the Content Mapping functionality from concept to actionable insights. Acronym had been segmenting its keyword research by intent as well as mapping keyword to content for some time now and we believe this expertise lends itself well to make the Content Mapping feature really sing. Additionally, Acronym can reinforce the content-centric approach to a broad set of enterprise-level clientele across a multitude of industries.
Q: Acronym is a big proponent of the See, Think, Do approach to understanding customer intent, which requires specific content to adequately address each stage of the journey to purchase. What does the new partnership bring to the table?
A: We perform keyword research very thoroughly around intent by categorizing keywords to the stages of intent. We need to identify where our clients websites’ are thin with resourceful and engaging supporting content for certain keyword segments. Conductor makes our categorization of intent very tangible by mapping it directly to client-specific content an additionally across the buyers journey.
Q: What else does the partnership facilitate?
A: Content mapping also enables the introduction of personas. A keyword is mapped to a page and a section of the site. That section of the site is then mapped to the intent stage. Conductor adds another layer: the persona stage, wherein you can group keywords not only by intent but also by personas or lifestyles or even product, depending on the brand industry and model. All of this selectively creates an intersection, which is a visual and clickable chart that the Conductor content mapping functionality enables. Very quickly, on the screen, we can see where content is thin for a certain keyword target or where content is robust in supporting that keyword target or theme very well.
Q: So Acronym will be able to audit, so to speak, its clients’ content on an ongoing basis looking for critical gaps?
A: If we find that a client has a gap in content coverage to support lucrative keyword targets that we find match to the informational intent stage, we can make suggestions for them to produce the right content type that plugs the gap. This ultimately makes our clients more relevant to a wider breadth of viewers and more importantly aligns best to their specific and immediate intents. While we can do all of this ourselves right now, the content mapping functionality of Conductor enables trend reporting and handles the scale required very efficiently.
Q: So content mapping enables marketers to better identify and create content that more closely aligns with searchers’ intent?
A: Without a doubt, content mapping is the next big revolution in search strategy, not that its entirely new but instead is becoming the new rule. Conductor is a perfect fit to driving home our See, Think, Do methodology. It’s all about aligning digital marketing more closely with consumers. We’re always looking to dig deeper into understanding our clients’ customers and their journey from discovery all the way to conversion. We believe having the right tech goes a long way to perfecting that.
