Here's How You Can Measure the ROI For Your Content Getting likes and shares for it on social media for your content pieces may not define their efficacy
By Akshay Sasikumar •
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Content is everywhere. It is at the core for businesses to engage with prospects. Knowing how your content performs unravels a great opportunity to drive contextual and engaging conversations with your buyers. Unfortunately, most marketers continue to be challenged with knowing what works and what doesn't. In this post, we tell you ways to measure your content ROI and dispel the darkness on how content impacts your work..
Amy Walsh is the lead Content Strategist at a fashion retailer. One morning she gets called in to the CMO's office. Amy wonders what could have gone wrong. Fearing the worst, she steps in.
John McDermott, the CMO, tells her in a gruff tone, "All the din over this content strategy isn't justified. Can you show me some real metrics how it is helping us? You have one month to prove it!" Amy had sweated it out with the CFO to secure a good budget for a content strategy, and now she finds her CMO breathing down her neck to know the ROI in it.
Instead of tracking hundreds of metrics, Amy rationalizes the chaos and decides the best metrics that really matter to her are:
Content Engagement
Website Traffic
Leads Generated
Sales Attribution
Just to ensure this situation doesn't happen to us, let us figure out how we can measure each of these.
Content Engagement Rates
Today, content marketing is firmly rooted within the marketing mix for companies, enabling them to differentiate with their brands. For example, ADP designed a content marketing campaign that gave them $1 million in new sales opportunities. But, amazingly companies struggle to leverage it effectively for sales conversions. As a result, 60-70% of content produced goes unused by sales teams. An unsettling stat for sure!
Furthermore, getting likes and shares for it on social media for your content pieces may not define their efficacy. That's why measuring content engagement is very important.
Content Engagement Rates can give you answers to questions like:
How many people have viewed/downloaded your content?
Who are they re-sharing it with?
Which portion of your document is attracting more attention?
What was the average time spent?
What are the opportunities that you are not cashing on in yet?
Are there clear trends which types of content are working better? E.g. Blogs, videos, point of views.
These data points are useful weaponry for your content creation team to align their efforts where the audience is hanging out.
Pro Tip: Your SEO strategy evolves over a period of time. So, if your website has dated content with keywords that don't rank in search engines anymore, you might want to take them down - it is sure to increase search engine rankings.
Leads Generated
Track down your lead to figure where they originated from. To be able to do this, you need to tag your leads to the content pieces via your content marketing platforms. Or, you can do this intelligently through your CRM platform. Ensure you have integrated your CRM with your content marketing platform.
Amy Walsh can run an email marketing campaign by leveraging an eBook on the latest outfits to wear in summer that could drive traffic to her company's website. Her email marketing platform should be integrated with her CRM that tells her the new leads who have signed up.
Sales
Ultimately, it is the dollars that your content generates that matters the most. From the leads that your content generated, analyze the percentage conversions into actual sales and the amount of sales influenced. Find out which types of content compresses the sales cycle or moves content faster in the pipeline.
A 100-page white paper is hardly equipping your sales reps better than just being a bragging topic. Probably your YouTube channel is keeping buyers hooked on to your website. Look into your CRM to find out how many leads that started subscribing to your blogs have actually bought your product/service.
Website Traffic
In B2B business, without website traffic, there can be no revenues. Google Analytics measures website traffic by source neatly - for example, by landing pages, content pieces etc. By going one step further into the landing pages such as blogs, whitepapers etc., you will know which part of your content strategy is working.
Moreover, there are times when you need more inspiration after you have exhausted all your high-volume keywords to create content. So, why not turn to your users for ideas. In your Google Analytics account, go to Behavior -> Site Search -> Search Terms. This will tell you the search terms that your visitors are using to get to your website.
Pro Tip: You need not always go after the top keywords - look into ones that rank lower to build a niche for yourself.
Metrics That Cannot be Measured
However, it is also important to know that there are intangible metrics that cannot be measured, such as:
Brand Recall that people have for your product/service
Customers Trust Your Product/Service will be top-class
Your Loyal Customers are loathsome to shift
Your website Ranks Higher in Search Engines
You have earned terrific Backlinks for your blogs
Your business attracts Referrals from Influencers
These factors add credibility to your business that goes beyond dollars and pounds. Once Amy has this figured out - voil?, her next meeting with the CMO is sure to yield better results.
