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While I worked in old-fashioned Search Engine Optimization, it was pretty easy to measure success. You just looked at the search engine rankings and saw where you ranked for your keywords. In addition, you could use Google Analytics and subscriber sign up to really tell how successful your site was being. In short, it was quantifiable. The same can’t be said for content marketing in the same way although there are quite a few measurements or “metrics” which can really help to define success.
Content marketing covers a whole host of different elements. Firstly, you are using it to advertise your website, but in the same measure you are publishing content people will read regardless of it being marketing material. It has a whole host of different facets, including social media marketing, which all combine together to make your business or website successful.
You have to then ensure you use the right metrics to maximize the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy. The right measurements will not be the same for everyone. Each website will be targeting different demographics and different types of prospects. The attitude of these prospects and how they interact with your business and website is important as you will need to measure different metrics to see how well your content marketing approach is going.
The big factors in this are generally down to you as the business or website owner: what are you focusing on and what is your end goal? For example, you may be offering an ebook as part of your content marketing campaign. Once you have attracted the right people to your site, are they being converted into the types of leads and prospects you are hoping for? Looking at traffic, leads, conversions, sales, fans and subcribers are definitely big indicators of success but the amount of conversions of a particular type of customer for the ebook could be the most important metric to look at.
This is the difference between “soft” and “hard” metrics. Soft metrics give you an overall view of the popularity of the brand or website, but the hard metrics are those that really tell you what effects they have on business. As I have said the hard metrics will depend on what the end goal you have for your content marketing strategy. Defining what they are is crucial for then you will be able to optimize the way you generate revenue, set out your marketing strategy, create brand awareness and develop the right user experience. Get these elements right and you are well on your way to content marketing success.
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Read more about David and content marketing strategy
David has also written lots of articles for Best Website Builder HQ.
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