Content marketing seems to be the strategy we hear about frequently these days. You cannot seem to escape it. It is everywhere. Why is that? One reason is because consumers don’t want to be sold something through an advertisement. Consumers want information that holds value, which is the ultimate idea around content marketing. Content marketing uses content and engagement to attract and convert prospective customers.
Like every strategy, you need to measure and track your progress. Content marketing is no different. How do you accurately measure your content results? To understand how content marketing is functioning and affecting your business, you need to analyze metrics. When you use metrics in business, it is a measurement used to define a specific, quantifiable action. Below are 7 metrics every marketer should analyze.
Are you tracking these 7 metrics for your content marketing strategy?
Consumption: Consumption measures the number of people who consume your content. This is the most important metrics and also the recommended one to start analyzing. With consumption you are also measuring the frequency at which people are using your content. How many people viewed your content? You can consider measuring the different channels that are utilized for consumption. Measuring consumption gives you a better idea about your website traffic and brand awareness.
Social Sharing: Social sharing measures the success of your content to others. Some of your sharing measurements are public on social media such as the number of followers you have on Facebook or the likes and shares of piece of content. This will give you an idea how important your audience is. With social sharing you can ask yourself these questions. Who shares your content? What pieces of content are users sharing? Why/How/Where are they sharing? How often are they sharing?
Engagement: Engagement measures the number of people that took action. Who is commenting on your content? Are you responding? Engagement will tell you whether others find your information interesting enough to respond. Engagement can be on a variety of channels such as social media, your blog, video, or a presentation. The higher your engagement, the more likely you are able to convert those visitors into customers.
Retention: Are you able to hold your audience’s attention with effective content? You want to build an audience, not just gain traffic to your site. Retention measures how many readers you have and if they will return to your site. Does your content have an impact? It often can be difficult to measure but most can measure the number of customers that return to your business.
Bounce Rate: The bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who entered and exited the site with the number of total visits. These visitors do not continue browsing additional pages on the site. The goal is to have a low bounce rate. The more time someone is on your site, the chances for conversion are higher.
Lead Generation: Lead generation measures effectiveness of your sales. You measure lead generation by dividing your total sales with the total leads. How often are your visitors turning into to leads?
Sales: Sales metrics measures the effectiveness of your sales activities and process. How often are your visitors turning into customers? Was it because of the content? You can measure this by using the average sale size, conversion rate, or the sales cycle time.
Every business marketer follows different metrics. It will depend on your objectives. The important part is the alignment of your goals because all goals are measurable. Content marketing metrics is a great opportunity to review your performance and make any necessary improvements to your business.
How are you tracking your performance with content marketing?
