How do you know if your content is working
for you? Everybody says they want more traffic, but quite frankly,
traffic stats leave me scratching my head and saying "Okay, that's nice…and?"
Maybe it's because I'm not an analytical type, I prefer big picture
thinking and gut feelings and intuition. But if I had a metric I could
look at and be able to tell if my content is working, then maybe I'd
become more analytical.
You know how those yearly physical exams give you a print out of
your lab test and tell you if you're in the "normal" range or not? Why
can't they have those for blogs? Or for ezines? Or for overall Web
content marketing?
On Monday mornings, for example, you log into your Content Marketing
Analytical Account and get a print out of how well your content has
been doing:
- Ezine: …75%
- Blog: …82%
- Articles…56%
- Landing pages…
- White Paper…
- Free Report… etc. etc.
This software would compile all the results from your content
including sales, referrals, downloads, subscriptions, and inquiries and
give you an overall success rating. It would also tell you where you
needed to make improvements.
Hey,
I can dream, can't I? Quite frankly, even if I were an analytical type
and lived and breathed numbers, I still would have to make some
decisions based on intuitive judgment about where to spend my time and
money.
Granted, I would be a little more informed, but decisions are often
based on emotion, not logic or reason anyway. There are plenty of brain
studies to prove this.
So what should you pay attention to when it comes to measuring your content marketing efforts? Is it:
- Sales
- Revenue
- Comments and email responses
- Requests and inquiries
- Phone calls and lead generations
- Downloads
- Subscriptions
- Other?
Just hit the comment link below and tell me how you measure your content marketing efforts.
Newt Barrett and Joe Pulizzi in their book Get Content, Get Customers, say this: "Perhaps a better way to judge the effectiveness of a content plan is to analyze return on objective, ROO…ask the question, 'One year from today, how will you know whether or not the project was successful?'"
Content marketing can always be measured if you have a clear understanding of your strategic goals.
Keep it simple and ask, "How will we know that the content plan is
working?" When you write content that is designed to market your
business, make sure you keep your goals in mind and present a clear
call to action.
Recommended reading, especially for businesses with a content marketing budget:
The Decline of Advertising and the Rise of Content Spending by Joe Pulizzi, Junta 42 Blog
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