Module six: Measuring the success of your content marketing

What will we cover in today’s session?

Why measurement and analysis is critical to content marketing success.

Defining KPIs and success metrics.

Preparing your content and website for data capture and content

performance measurement.

How to turn pages of numbers into actionable insights.

Utilising insights to adapt and optimise your content strategy.

Calculation ROI for various content types and overall programs.

The importance of why we undertake measurement…

vs.

• Brand awareness and advocacy • Relationship building • Social media following and status • Qualitative feedback from

customers

• Direct sales • Quantity of leads • Quality of leads• Subscriber growth• Increased traffic, site

authority and SEO ranking

Soft measurements =

Hard measurements =

Either way, it is important to measure the performance of your content marketing.

You’d be surprised at the number of brands that are barely measuring their efforts online.

As content marketing continues to lose its ‘niche’ status, measuring performance and ROIwill become critical (just like any other marketing tactic).

Remember: Measuring the performance is not just about proving ROI, but understanding what content is or isn’t working for your brand goals allowing us to optimise for success.

Content marketing metrics

• Consumption metrics• Sharing metrics• Lead generation metrics• Sales metrics

Together, these metrics will tell you how many users are consuming and sharing your content (your content marketing reach) and whether it’s paying off financially, which will help you answer to those C-suite stakeholders.

So what do we measure really?

Generally, content marketing metrics fall into the following four categories:

Consumption metrics

• Website traffic• Page views/impressions• Video views• Document downloads • EDM open rates• Social media channels

These metrics are just the tip of the iceberg. Measuring how much or how often the content being produced is being viewed, read, watched, etc. will define the success of the project.

Realise, however, that only in very few cases is consumption the real goal of your content. Unless you’re selling advertising and getting paid to attract eyeballs, content consumption is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

What are consumption metrics good for?

• Diagnosing the performance of your keyword selections and SEO strategy.

• Gauging the general interest in your content.

Where do we measure?

Engagement & sharing metrics

• Likes, +1 (remember the hierarchy of social media engagement from last week)• Shares & Retweets• Follows (count for a few weeks, check the level of engagement) • Embeds (video & SlideShare) • Inbound links (know where and when)• Time on page (don’t get fooled by the bounce rates)

These data points measure how engaging the content is and how often consumers of the content are compelled to share it via social media, email and beyond.

“This is the metric type that probably gets too much love, because it’s often public which drives up the sexiness factor like cologne with bits of real panther.” – Jay Baer

What are engagement & sharing metrics good for?

• Understanding if your content has the right mix of ‘shareability’ and education/value.

• Understanding what audiences your content resonates with (you might be surprised).

• How effective your ‘earned’ content amplification is.

Look for the Expressions instead of the impressions!!

Lead generation metrics • Filled out contact forms (or auto buttons)• Subscriptions and registrations• Gated content downloads (video & other)• Blog comments (depending on context)

Ahhhh, now we’re getting towards some dollars…

Lead generation metrics

These metrics track how often your content was downloaded (in a gated content scenario) and/or how often your content produces other behaviours where prospective customers volunteer to hear more from you (subscriptions etc.).

What are lead generation metrics good for?

• This is where we start determining whether the content marketing effort is making financial sense – gathering prospective leads.

• Not impression or expression but actionable interest!

• Keep in mind that these numbers may be low but it is what you do with it the

engagement in real time that matters…

• Leads come from two-way interaction, not one-way satisfaction (if you don’t

engage further, then what is the point?)

Industry examplesDoes the content in ‘premium’ lead gen assets need to be relevant to your brand’s offering?

Packaging and mail forwarding company Bongo International created white papers to discuss issues that its customers may encounter when shipping internationally(content that provides perspectives on the market and solutions).

In your strategy you define what this means and this is

at the heart of content marketing, so what does it

mean?

Lead scoring

Content not only generates new names and content details. It can also rate those leads.

Lead scoring: based on the actions someone took to become a lead, the demographics of the lead or their behaviour after the lead is created.

This does not mean make the actions harder for better leads this means make the share easier but the engagement path longer …

(Marketo)

Rather than wasting time on low-quality leads, sales reps can focus their time on the high-quality leads and acquire more wins.

Buying stages

(Marketo)

What types of content are best for a given stage?

Early-stage leads: Look to create content that educates and helps them with their business challenges, like blog posts and white papers and short form videos. (Make the content tell you who the audience is – they would not look if they weren’t interested!)

Mid-stage leads: Give your readers proof of ROI for your services, so they can build a business case around your offerings. They are looking for solutions! Content such as testimonials, data sheets, case studies, industry overviews, buyer’s guides etc. (If you help them they will be open to being help further.)

Late-stage leads: Here’s where you want to give them content that can overcome doubts and demonstrate why you’re better than your competitors, such as comparison sheets and customised content. Solution-orientated and company-focused materials. (They are going to buy, but they are not yet convinced – this is your tipping point.)

Sales metrics • Direct sales • Revenue

The holy grail.

Of course, if you’re an e-commerce company or sell online, tracking the impact of content on revenue is fairly straightforward.

The results Visits to the EMPIRE Australia microsite increased from an average of 6409 in January to nearly 21,000 in May, with organic traffic making up around 29 per cent of total traffic. Social referral traffic has also increased from 614 per day in December to 1058 in April this year, with Facebook making up over 73 per cent of total visits. To date, the EMPIRE Australia microsite has so far generated total goal revenue of $1,559,606, with an average conversion rate of 30 per cent, far exceeding strategic goals.

Goal

Sales metrics But most companies are not that lucky, however, so metrics must be adopted that determine how often the leads generated from content translate into sales.

This is best done through a CRM system used by both marketing and sales.

Even with simple CRM systems like Highrise or Sugar CRM you can configure them to note in the prospect record that the potential customer consumed content pieces X, Y, and Z.

Then, when your savvy sales team turns that prospect into a sale, determine the projected revenue and profit (lifetime value if you can) of that customer, and assign it to the content pieces.

How do I measure all this stuff? Consumption metrics• Website and EDM analytics

Sharing & engagement metrics• Website analytics • Social media platform analytics – all major platforms come with analytics sections• Specialised social analytics platforms: Hootsuite, social bakers • Social media benchmarking and listening to the wider (share of voice, sentiment and

reach of content)

How do I measure all this stuff?

Lead metrics • Website analytics goals • CRM lead scoring

It’s crucial that every “entry point” into your content marketing is tagged with some kind of analytics code.

This allows you to see exactly where the leads are coming from, such as social media, advertising, email marketing, etc. It’s also important to measure the quality of these leads by forecasting a dollar amount on how much the lead will be worth. Obviously, a lead that comes from a white paper will be less valuable than a lead that fills out a form requesting more pricing information.

How do I measure all of this stuff?

Sales metricsTying revenue to your content marketing efforts is incredibly difficult, but, at the end of the day, it’s absolutely necessary to proving your value as a content marketer.

In order to measure this, you must know the total amount of sales deals closed that can be attributed to content marketing – both directly (i.e. a user first engages with your business through content, either by downloading a white paper, subscribing to a newsletter, requesting to talk to sales after reading the blog or signing up for a webinar) and indirectly (the lead was nurtured with content during the decision making process).

What to look for:• Revenue attributed to content marketing.• The percentage of revenue from content marketing in relation to other marketing efforts.• The percentage of revenue from content marketing as a portion of total revenue.

Calculating ROI

A simple hypothetical example, calculating the ROI for a blog (with no paid amplification!).

INVESTMENT 40 hours/month to produce the blog X $40/ hour average pay for blog contributors X 50% Company overhead costs + $1000/ design fees for the month + $100/ month hosting fees+ $100/month miscellaneous costs = $3600/month true blogging costs

Calculating ROI

RETURN 25 leads per month X 20% lead conversion rate (five sales) X $3000 average lifetime customer value (don’t forget to factor in maintenance costs) X 30% average profit margin

= $4500/month true blogging revenue

Therefore: $4500 - $3600 ($900) ___________________ = 25% ROI $3600 This is a simple example

formula only….

Remember!

• Costs will vary depending on content type • Paid amplification costs• Overheads for design, social media and content specialist resources• And the goal of the content marketing efforts (sentiment change or brand recognition)

The golden rule for calculating ROI?

The ROI for content marketing can only be calculated for content marketing if you can successfully attribute sales to lead behaviour and interactions with content.

This means you have to be capturing data every step of the way and always

listening and adapting!

“There is no magic silver bullet. Remember, this is marketing and it is organic — it takes time. Traditional advertising is very hard to measure. Content marketing is totally measurable, but it takes time to get real data. Unless you are willing to launch a program for at least 6 months, there is no reason to do anything. You need time to gather real data!”

Michael Weiss,Lead Consultant at the Content Marketing Institute

Organisational process measuring content marketing performance Let’s face it, what the c-level wants to know about content marketing performance is very different to what you as a content marketer should be measuring on a day-to-day basis.

The Content Marketing Institute have put together this helpful way to divide your metrics.

Primary content

indicators

Secondary content

indicators

User indicators

Primary indicators are the types of measurements that your c-suite execs wants to know about (e.g. sales, costs savings, retention rates).

Secondary indicators are the types of measurements that help make the case for primary indicators (e.g. lead quality, lead quantity, shorter sales cycles).

These are the types of measurements that the content “doers” need to look at to help drive the secondary indicators (e.g. web traffic, “likes,” page views, search rankings).

An example pyramid if your goal waslead generation………

These are audience-based metrics that are meant to measure activity. You will slice, dice, add, subtract, and change these metrics on a frequent basis.

These will be metrics that you associate with team members, as well as specific processes that help you reach your goals. These are generally what we think of as “short-term goals”.

These metrics will be very few in number and will comprise the dashboard that you present to your manager or c-suite. These metrics rarely change, if ever, and are fed by the insights, interpretations, and data gathered from your lower-pyramid measurements (as well as from any gut feelings you have).

What’s the point of the pyramid?

The Content Pyramid provides a critical framework for measurement practices.

By specifically outlining and weighing the importance of particular metrics, as well as how often you’re going to measure them, you’re able to develop a routine or process for content performance measurement.

Routine/process are incredibly important to content performance measurement, as you require comparable data sets.

How often should you be measuring? User indicators: DAILY, as well as reception period after publish & initial amplification.

Secondary indicators: Weekly, Bi-monthly, monthly… It depends on your goal and timeline. Remember that if the content is not hitting the right spot to generate appropriate user indicators, these secondary indicators may be non-existent.

Primary Indicators: Like secondary indicators, these primary indicators can only be measured if the work has been done and content behaviours have been tracked and attributed throughout the whole process. This one takes time and testing and experience!

Best practice for measuring content performance…..Focus on ROO not ROI

What’s ROO?Return on objective.

Attributing real ROI is not only time consuming but generally ‘beside the point’ when it comes to executing content marketing on a day-to-day basis.

Instead you need to actively focus on how your content performing to achieve objectives in the bottom half of the Content Pyramid, because if you’re not garnering results you’re unlikely to achieve ROI anyway.

Sometimes ROO can be determined with one metric, such as if your goal was to grow your social media following, while other times four or five are needed to show an impact on your organisation’s business goals e.g. benchmark lift of brand awareness.

Vs.

Gathering actionable insights from analytics

In-page analytics: Find out the hot spots of your content pillars.

Gathering actionable insights from analytics

Popular content (website)- Look at the most trafficked content on your site

4 out of 14 of this month’s top content is about dating and relationships…..

Gathering actionable insights from analytics

Popular content (around the web) – How has your content performed across the web?

InteractionsImpressionsFacebook

LinkedIn

B2Community

Google+

Remember: Traffic, likes, shares mean nothing if you’re not converting on your secondary indicators.

Some factors that affect content performance

On-site• Headline! (Topic relevance)• SEO optimisation • Site UX • Strategic CTAs• Sharing & social media buttons

Off–site • SEM budget and strategy • Social media performance and budget for amplification• Content syndication/partnerships

So how do you create content marketing that ensures ROI?

1. Define your primary objectives from the outset.

2. Research and understand the content consumption values, behaviours

and needs of your target audience.

3. Develop content strategy which dictates how content will be

developed and implemented to achieve these objectives.

4. Measure the performance of this content implementation.

5. Utilise data insights to optimise for success.

6. Measure leads and revenue gained over investment.

Some (slightly off-colour) inspiration for the road ahead….

http://youtu.be/xZY5b85KoOU

Question time…

Get in touch:Todd WheatlandDirector of Strategy

todd.wheatland@kingcontent.com.au

Elizabeth PenningDigital Marketing Coordinator – King Contentelizabeth.penning@kingcontent.com.au

Denise JinksEvents Manager - mUmBRELLAdenise@focalattractions.com.au