Generally, marketing is based on two fundamental principles: action and reaction. Any marketer knows that decisions must be made when it comes to content marketing, but not before analyzing the prior actions taken. Today, we’ll teach you how to measure and analyze content marketing success, as well as look at some of the benefits.
You might ask, “Why even bother?” Well, information is valuable and, in a market like this, is also the key to create conversions that range from anonymous users to potential clients, ultimately saving time and effort.
Still not convinced? It turns out that you also have the opportunity to offer added value to your customers, which will generate commitment toward your brand. Your customers will be talking about your brand and even recommend it to others. An article from Readwrite explains that there are three main reasons why you should measure your content marketing:
Clarity. It’s impossible to know how your content is being received if you don’t take the time to study the data and analyze the trends. Careful measurement and analysis pave the way for greater clarity.
Justification. If you’re investing in content marketing within a large organization or multi-layered business, you must be prepared to justify the investment. Subjective statements and generalities will only go so far. Eventually, the people calling the shots will want to see objective data and numerical trends to offer their continued support.
Optimization. Trends come and go. Best practices evolve. New strategies emerge. A static content marketing strategy eventually crumbles into a heap of irrelevant ashes. The only way to optimize with any strategy or direction is to measure what’s happening on the ground floor so you can make the necessary changes and adjustments over time.
Now, let’s talk about methods. There are plenty of tools and tactics to make better decisions regarding current projects, strategies, processes, or marketing campaigns. This will help to define future lines of action, such as:
Focus on Your Goals When Monitoring Text Here
Before discussing any measurable aspect of marketing, you must ask yourself: “What do I really need?” Measuring and analyzing content requires a lot of time and effort. Therefore, it is necessary to set specific objectives and not go in blind when measuring your results. Organizing is the main key! Apply a smart strategy when setting goals for your projects. This means choosing goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic each time.
These goals will look something like this:
- What particular website am I going to analyze first?
- My number of visits should grow by 30% by this certain date.
- I need to pass this number of leads to the sales team each month.
With these goals in mind, analyzing your results and optimizing actions will be much easier. So, what are the right analysis tools?
A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving its objectives. A series of metrics is used to synthesize the information on the efficiency and productivity of the actions carried out in a business. From that, the business can make decisions and determine the actions that have been most effective in meeting the goals set for a specific process or project.
Organizations use KPIs at multiple levels to evaluate their success at reaching targets. There are different types, but the important thing is to establish the correct indicators for your situation. Ideally, this means converting the company’s goals and marketing objectives into measurable income. Here are a few of the different types of KPIs:
Online Marketing KPIs for Social Networks. These types of KPIs are mainly used to measure the number of interactions with publications (number of mentions, followers, comments, or subscribers).
Online Marketing KPIs for Web Analytics. Generally, these are used to measure and determine the reputation of the domain for search engines. They focus on the type, quality, and the number of links to the web, the origin of traffic, as well as the type and duration of visits
General Online Marketing KPIs. These are for general analysis and measurement of the results together with the online marketing strategies. This includes KPI of sales, customers, number of conversions, and the click-through rate of your ads. There is also a KPI for content that shows where blog content is read, the bounce rate, the number of unique visitors, and the overall number of visits.
Anecdotal Evidence of Engagement
The anecdotal power within marketing is undervalued and generally gives the impression that it has low impact when it comes to obtaining direct monetary results compared to, for example, market segmentation. However, the anecdotal evidence translates into engagement for your brand.
Here are some of the elements you must analyze:
- Blog Comments. It doesn’t matter if the comments are good or bad, the key is to measure quantity. If people are talking about it organically, it’s a good thing. Check them on blog posts, Yelp, Instagram, Facebook, etc.
- Email Replies. If users are replying to your email newsletters and blasts, this will indicate how effective the content is.
- Scrolling. This strategy measures if people tend to drop off and where on the page, that way you can change or adapt what you think isn’t working. The tools you can embed into your site to gather these insights are found everywhere.
Backlinking strategies are fundamental when it comes to identifying all inbound links to your site and consistently measure for growth and attrition. Consider using a backlink checker. We all know backlinking’s purpose is to encourage other sites and blogs to link back to you but implementing these facilitator’s leads will also strengthen your search rankings.
Once you find the specific website or blog that regularly links back to your content, you should send them a quick thank you message for their support. This will also increase the potential of referral traffic back to your website.
These are just a few ideas, but there are many things you can do to increase your success online. In conclusion, we want to stress that, in any business strategy, it is not enough to have excellent ideas or perfect content in your mind. You must also measure the results of your actions to optimize them because, without analysis, you will keep making the same mistakes and you will never know if your efforts are yielding good results.