Done right, content marketing is a powerful tool for growing your business.
Creating educational, engaging content is a great way to prove value and show expertise, ultimately improving your brand authority.
So how do you measure it?
Though measuring content marketing success may seem challenging, it’s not impossible. We’re here to guide you through it.
Understanding the Basics
To measure the success of a content marketing campaign you first need to understand what content marketing is. Content marketing is the practice of creating useful, relevant content that reaches specific audience at the right time.
Most people think content = blogging. However, a successful content marketing strategy includes many different content formats:
- Blog
- eBooks
- Datasheets
- Webinars
- Case studies
- Live demos
To connect with the right people, you must create content for every stage of the buyer’s journey.
Metrics to Track
There isn’t a magic metric that will unlock the success of your content marketing.
Instead, you must measure multiple metrics to determine overall success. Depending on the results you’re hoping to achieve, you may choose to track a variety of metrics.
Here are a few to get started:
Consumption Metrics
Consumption metrics measure the amount of people viewing your content. Measuring content consumption can help you determine whether or not you’re covering the right topics and if you’re using the right long-tail keywords.
To measure content consumption, consider tracking:
- Unique visitors
- Page views
- Open rates
- Keyword rankings
Engagement Metrics
Engagement metrics assist in measuring lead quality. While website visits are always a good thing, those hits start to lose value if your visitors aren’t interested in your products or services.
A quality lead will show interest by interacting with your content. If you’d like to measure content engagement, start by tracking:
- Click-through rates
- Time spent on site
- Bounce rates
- Downloads
Results-Driven Content
Content marketing is a handy tool, but you’re never going to achieve the results you want if you’re not willing to put the work into making your content highly valuable and consistently worthwhile.
Consider these tips for creating content that keeps visitors coming back:
- Quality over quantity. While consistency is arguably a key part of content creation, it’s far more beneficial to have a small amount of educational content than a massive amount that doesn’t directly address your visitor’s needs.
- Aim for originality. Make sure your content offers something your readers can’t get elsewhere. Create and use your own graphics, share thought leadership with your unique perspective.
- Make “evergreen” content. “Evergreen” content is timeless, regardless of how ‘fresh’ it may be. If your old blog post provides value, it will continue to bring in new visitors and leads.
When measuring content marketing ROI, remember results take time. The metrics you track may not show positive change after just a few weeks, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your content marketing isn’t working.
Keep creating valuable, original content, and in time the results will show.