Content Marketing Success: What Matters
In today’s fast-moving digital world, counting reactions and tracking sales is the easy part. Knowing what’s important to keep tabs on can be a challenge. At this year’s Content Marketing World Conference, which was virtual because of the pandemic, attendees were asked their opinions about what mattered and what should be measured. The responses were diverse, but invaluable.
Must-Haves
The head of Erika Heald Marketing Consulting believes that reach, engagement, and sentiment are vital to measuring. Getting content in the hands of the target audience in the right formats and via the right channels is key. So, too, is understanding how customers are sharing and using the content and whether they care.
Recall
Does content resound with the brand’s target audience is Jay Acunzo of Marketing Showrunners. He believed that a brand could hit its goal whenever content resonates.
Traffic
According to the Director of Digital Content Strategy at the University of Rochester, Brian Piper, the biggest driver of traffic to a brand’s site should be organic traffic. In fact, he felt that marketers need to improve their SEO and content if organic makes up less than half their traffic. He also felt that one major cause of consumers not finding a brand is that brands don’t understand what questions are top of mind to consumers and then answering them.
Piper felt strongly about the other area of earned media, particularly who is gathering a brand’s content and redistributing it. He said that only by monitoring it can a brand determine how much more effort may be required to maximize results. He also felt strongly about using Google Analytics to gain clearer insights on campaign traffic.
Leads
How does a brand know if it’s creating the right content or generating the right type of leads? Viveka von Rosen of Vengreso suggested focusing on MQL *marketing-qualified leads) and SQL (sales-qualified leads). Content marketing is vital to qualifying a brand’s marketing and sales lads but won’t achieve that without the right content or right lead.
Referrals
As unanimous as the value of referrals may be to marketers, not all brands go the next step to track and count them. Alenka Bester of Zavarovalnica Triglav said that understanding consumers who go the next step in sharing a brand’s content in online forums could be invaluable in shaping the topics and focus of future posts.
Similarly, measuring who’s accessing a brand’s content, the frequency, and where the content goes afterward is equally important. Capital One’s Chris White said measuring who, how and what factors are a big help for brands in determining if they’re not only reaching their target audience but if their content is doing the job it was intended to do.
Audience
The final important thing to measure is the audience reaction. Adele Ravella of Buyer Persona Institute said doing so allows a brand to know whether or not it’s addressing consumer concerns or questions that matter to them. It will also inform brands as to whether consumers are taking the next step after reviewing the content. Ravella added that a company’s sales force should also be using the content to alert buyers about the brand’s exceptional capability to solve their problems.
