Content Marketing – Set Objectives

The success of content marketing depends not only on publications. Measuring the effectiveness of content marketing is the only way to find out what works out of what you are doing.

Having a content strategy with clearly defined goals is a must. Without having specific goals, the content you create is nothing more than noise, and it will not satisfy the needs of your customers.

Although the content goals are deeply individual, there are five among them that any content marketer should keep in mind when creating and publishing content.

1. Increase brand awareness

Brand awareness is one of the most common goals of content marketing: companies want their audience to see valuable content and interact with the brand.

Brand awareness also plays a major role in increasing revenue: a report by Oracle and the Aberdeen Group states that 74% of marketing directors consider this goal as the top priority.

Quality, trustworthy content demonstrates the professionalism of your company and forces the audience to ask: “Who did this?”

Content and Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Examples of content relevant to the brand awareness goal:

funny, entertaining or interesting videos;

e-books and webinars;

infographics;

SlideShare data tables and online presentations on popular industry topics.

KPI for branding campaigns:

number of views of content on social networks;

the number of content reposts in social networks;

the number of reposts from actual and potential partners,

opinion leaders, and reputable individuals in the industry .

Performance measurement in branding

Brand awareness is one of the most difficult goals to measure. There are several ways to collect data demonstrating campaign effectiveness and growth.

Polls

Surveys can be conducted in different ways: ask customers directly where they came from about you, or select a group of people familiar with your brand and ask a similar question. You can also put together a random focus group and ask if they know your brand.

Site traffic

Analytical data can provide valuable information about brand awareness, as well as specialized content campaigns that you run.

Thanks to Google Analytics , you can research data about the level of interest of users to your site. Information about direct visits to the site will tell you the number of people who visited your site by directly entering the site URL in the address bar, through a bookmark or a link in the mailing list that is not tracked separately.

Search volume data

Analyzing the volume of branded search by your company’s name using a tool such as the Keyword Planner , or searching for your name in Google Search Trends , will help you understand whether the search volume is increasing over time.

Keep in mind that if your brand has a fairly common name, the data will be significantly distorted due to irrelevant search results.

Doing “wiretapping”

Analyze brand references on social networks, especially those where you intend to promote your content. This will give you the opportunity to study an unbiased opinion, in contrast to the biased answers that may appear in the polls.

2. Attracting traffic to the site

Although the global goal of content marketing is to increase brand awareness, driving traffic to a website is a goal focused on ensuring the effectiveness of one of the first stages of the sales funnel

You create content with the intent of bringing people to your site, building relationships with valuable content and pushing leads towards the end of the sales funnel.

Content and KPI to create traffic

Examples of content appropriate for this purpose:

social media content leading to your site;

videos that drive traffic to the relevant landing page;

“Selling” blogs and articles that lead readers to the order page or landing page.

KPI for this campaign type:

number of views of content;

the number of visits to the site or landing page per month;

time spent on the site;

content conversion level.

Measuring the effectiveness of traffic generation in content marketing

The way in which traffic generated by content marketing is measured will depend on the location of the content.

Articles on third-party resources and blogs

The easiest way to track conversion traffic for off-site content is to use conversion data from Google Analytics. In the “Transitions” section (in the English version of “All referrals”) you can see the amount of traffic generated by specific materials, as well as landing pages that attracted this traffic.

This is a great opportunity to determine which topics and content types generate more traffic so that you can review your strategy and remove what is not working.

Inbound marketing campaigns

Tracking conversions from sources such as email or webinars can be difficult – this is what is called “dark traffic” (dark traffic).

In this case, you can use Google’s UTM settings services , which allow you to add data to any URL, including source, channel, content type, and campaign name. Then this data will be included in your analytical information, and the source can be determined with ease.

3. Lead generation

The main purpose of content marketing for most companies is to attract promising leads. You need to turn the blog and site traffic into leads, which you will “cultivate” in the course of the sales funnel. Lead is a potential client who left his contact during the execution of the target action.

To achieve the goal of lead generation, it is extremely efficient to use a form that potential customers must fill in to gain access to your content.

Content and KPI for lead generation

Examples of content corresponding to the goal number 3:

e-books, case studies and expert reports;

demos of solutions;

tools and resources, checklists, data tables, courses

Two KPIs that are in the spotlight of marketers:

the number of leads generated by individual content items;

landing page conversion rate.

Measuring Lead Generation in Content Marketing

To measure your conversion rate, refer to your analytics system. In Google Analytics, simply define your conversion goal:

go to standard analytics reports;

click “Administrator”;

click “Goals”;

in one of the “Goal” sets, click “+ Goal”.

Here priority is given to the “Event” type of goal. Event tracking is a great way to identify specific actions on your site, especially for conversion in the form of downloads, video views, or a button click to register. Analytics allows you to use these events as your conversion goals.

Events are a little more difficult to set up, because you have to determine which specific event you will be tracking – this will require entering JavaScript code into the monitored item.

Google provides a complete guide to setting event targets .

By tracking metrics, you can adjust content to lose less traffic over the course of a campaign and increase conversion rates.

4. Conversion (from lead to buyer)

This is a goal that completely depends on the quality of your content marketing. The content you created led to the lead, and now your further efforts will be directed at generating the revenue from the lead in your database.

You are “cultivating” a lead in the hope of completing a deal and making a sale.

Content and KPI for conversion

Examples of content appropriate for this purpose:

case study and case studies;

trial versions and videos demonstrating the use of the product;

tempting advertisements as part of a retargeting campaign;

infographics;

value-oriented content, in which products are positioned as a solution to customer problems.

Typical KPIs at this stage are:

the ratio of the number of leads to the number of converted leads for each specific content campaign or element of the proposed content

average time spent on acquiring new customers.

Measuring Conversion in Content Marketing

When using a content-oriented sales funnel, track conversions in the same way as during the lead generation phase. Content should attract the lead to highly specialized landing pages or encourage it to call to register with a unique number that can be tracked.

Using the same event-goal tracking as described above (compared to the data obtained at the time the lead hits this final stage of conversion), you can find out the proportion of converted leads.

Then, tying this data to CRM data, you will be able to accurately find out the time spent on turning the lead into a buyer.

5. Customer retention and sales growth

If you’ve already gotten a customer, that doesn’t mean that content marketing is over. At this stage, you create specialized content targeted at your current customers to reduce churn, build relationships and encourage them to buy something from you.

Content and KPI for customer retention

Examples of content appropriate for this purpose:

blog industry articles on industry trends;

exclusive offers and deals offered to customers through the mailing list;

free exclusive content for customers;

training videos when launching a new product.

At this stage, KPIs can be different depending on the content, customer retention rate, increase in revenue from additional sales and the share of regular customers.

Measuring the effectiveness of the goal of retaining customers and increasing sales in content marketing

Evaluation of results at the stage of customer retention will vary depending on the proposals and the type of content you offer.

For example:

use UTM parameters and unique tracking URLs for e-mail offers and retargeted ads;

create unique coupon codes for exclusive offers that are made in special materials;

Create unique event goals for products and advertisements designed for existing customers to track conversions.

Analyz traffic data and social media links to videos and blog content relative to the conversion rate of landing pages.

If you dwell on the concept of indicators for a moment, the ultimate goal of your content strategy should be to satisfy your customers.

Measuring everything is wonderful. However, believe it or not, but the main thing is customer orientation, and indicators will follow.

When customers are satisfied with what you offer, especially with your actions in the field of content, it will become much easier to increase customer loyalty and revenue.