Measuring the success of content marketing

INTRODUCTION:

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” That’s a famous quote from Peter Drucker, the esteemed American management consultant—one that’s been proven time and time again, especially in the realm of online marketing and lead generation. Unlike the majority of traditional Internet marketing strategies, content marketing is extremely measurable. But what about the “manage it” part? That depends on you, and potentially your marketing agency. You need to be certain from the start that you know what you want to measure, how you want to measure it, and what your plan of action will be if you discover that you need to course-correct.

Evaluating overall ROI is pretty easy- you’ll simply compare the cost of your content marketing to the revenue generated by marketing lead generation or demand generation. But content marketing results can be examined on a very granular level- each of its six stages has its own set of particular measurements.

Here are some of the measurement tools you can implement for each stage of content marketing:

Stage One: Generating relevant traffic to your website

• Measure the number of visitors to your website
• Track the number of times a specific article or page is shared
• Gather analytics on your social media reach across all platforms
• Assess the level of Public Relations coverage for specific topics or content

Stage Two: Converting website visitors into leads

• Examine the number of website visitors compared with leads generated
• Know the number of premium content pieces that are downloaded per contact
• Track the number of times a piece of premium content is shared
• Track your leads by specific media channel- which ones came from your blog, online advertising, events, social media platforms, etc. 

Stage Three: Converting leads into customers

• Compare the number of leads generated to the number of leads qualified
• Determine the average length of your sales cycle
• Evaluate your automated lead nurture platforms to see which resulted in the most customers
• Compare media channels to see which is the most effective

Stage Four: Customer service and guidance

• Number of visits to your specific customer service or guidance content page
• Number of helpdesk tickets opened
• Track the level of users or increase in billings over time

Stage Five: Customer retention and advocacy

• Measure the number of articles read by an existing contact
• Track the number of articles shared by existing contact
• Track the pieces of premium content downloaded by existing contacts
• Count mentions in social media by existing contacts 

Stage Six: Cross-selling and upselling

• Know the number of existing contacts that enter new lead nurturing programmes
• Number of existing contacts that become qualified leads for additional products based on nurturing programmes
• Track additional revenue generated from existing contacts 

Want to learn more about content marketing?

Create Meaningful Relationships with Buyers and Evolve Your Marketing Strategy. Our Content Marketing Handbook will give you the tools you need transform your marketing strategy. Download your copy today.