Matt Papertsian, Research Director at SiriusDecisions, believes there is a wealth of untapped data that can help marketers improve content performance. He said it is time to move beyond some of the current initiatives — aligning content, understanding the buyer’s journey, building personas and leveraging campaign framework — to hone in on metrics.

We caught up with Papertsian as he prepared for his presentation at the upcoming B2B Content2Conversion Conference, titled: Developing A Content Architecture.

“Those are all critically important things, but I think that the B2B Content2Conversion audience has heard that before then maybe others who reiterate that,” Papertsian said. “I believe it is time to get a little deeper into what kind of environment do you need so that you can test, target, learn and measure your content.”

Papertsian said his session will focus on optimizing the content process from a demand perspective. “We will look at what are some of the things we could do as marketers to better leverage our content and think about it a little bit differently.”

Another area Papertsian will cover in his presentation is what he calls deal forensics. “That is being able to look at the wealth of data you already have to start to build your buyer journey maps, to understand what does consumption look like and what their preferences look like.”

There is a greater focus on the impact content can make in terms of engagement in campaign results, Papertsian said. “There is a huge focus among our client base in this area. On average, two-thirds of the time — whether that’s education, solution or vendor selection — buyers are online. That content journey is so critical because the content isn’t necessarily a conversation.”

Attending a session such as B2B Content2Conversion provides marketers with practical examples they can implement in their companies, Papertsian noted. “It is an opportunity to remove the blinders that I have to put on to focus on those key areas that I’m focused on and see what others are doing that are successful so that I can bring that back into the organization.”

Click here to view the complete interview.