Key Takeaways:
You want people to know about your brand, and connecting with people and inspiring your audiences is why you do what you do. In our digital landscape, it’s become impossible to do that without the right content marketing approach.
Content marketing is a key driver of your bottom line, and even has a huge impact on your ability to generate revenue. It helps you get your story out there in a way that resonates, making it easier for people to find you online, and delivers enticing bits of content at the perfect moment so your audience acts. But, to be truly effective, you need to measure your efforts.
This guide covers everything you need to know about content marketing ROI, key metrics for making data-driven decisions, and strategies for driving better results.
Return on investment (ROI) tells you the gap between what you spent on something versus the revenue it brought you. As a business or department leader, you want that gap to be pretty high in the green direction.
Content marketing ROI is no different: It measures how much of your company’s funds you’re funneling into content marketing and how much those efforts are paying off in terms of sales, new customers, lead generation and more.
Here’s a simple content marketing ROI formula to help you grasp how it works:
(Return – investment) / Investment = ROI
So, if you put $200 into content marketing, and you see a return of $1,000, your ROI is 400%.
In addition to understanding how to calculate content marketing ROI, you need to know the key factors that influence it to make sense of it all for your business. These include:
1. Quality and relevance of content
Take a deeper look at the kinds of content you’re putting out across your channels. If you’re seeing low returns, assess whether your content is high-quality and relevant to your audiences. Is it inspiring? Does it stand out against your competitors? What makes you special? That should come through in your content, as should what makes you special to your segment of the market.
2. Target audience engagement
Engagement can tell you a lot about success. You should be tracking information about your audience across channels like email newsletters, your website, and social media. Are people responding to what you’re putting out there? Are they paying attention? What kinds of actions are they taking when they do engage?
3. Distribution and promotion strategies
Now take a look at how you’re releasing your content. How frequently are you posting? What channels are you posting on? What are your strategies for promoting your content, like drip campaigns to leads or automatic boosts from social media platforms?
It’s not always easy to track your ROI with content marketing. Think about all the different channels of content you have, including ads, newsletters, social media, blog posts, videos, and on and on – and some channels are paid and some are organic. Knowing the key performance indicators (KPIs) you’re hoping to hit will go a long way toward determining if your content marketing efforts are going strong.
The above three factors influence the kinds of returns you’re seeing on the time and energy you’ve invested. How do you track those factors so you can improve?
It starts with the right content marketing KPIs. You need to put a method in place for tracking and analyzing important KPIs, including:
Traffic-related KPIs:
Engagement-related KPIs:
Conversion-related KPIs:
These KPIs will all give you a foundation for understanding content marketing ROI, but tracking them is just the start. You next have to consider how those content marketing KPIs are influencing your company’s revenue-generating tactics.
So, now that you know what factors influence content marketing ROI and your most important KPIs to keep tabs on, how do you use all of this to see what’s going on with content marketing and revenue generation? How can you plan for a better future?
Take a look at these three strategies:
1. Align content marketing goals with revenue objectives
Every business needs to forecast and budget. You also need to know exactly what your revenue objectives are. Then, align your content marketing strategy with them. Focus on components that will have a direct impact. If you’re aiming for sharp growth, don’t put as much energy into channels that you know don’t perform well in getting leads and customers.
2. Attribution models for revenue measurement
You also need the right attribution model behind you when you measure revenue. These are the types to know:
Where you attribute revenue within the customer journey matters when you’re looking at content marketing ROI and your business goals.
3. Tracking and analytics tools
Luckily, there are plenty of tools out there to help you understand and track revenue trends. Set up an account with Google Analytics, use automation platforms specifically for marketing, and don’t forget about customer relationship management (CRM) software, which is getting more advanced every day.
Creating a baseline is key in tracking metrics and performance. Knowing where you’re starting from gives your business the information it needs to be able to adjust accordingly and ensure your content marketing ROI is as high as possible. And, there are several great ways to improve yours if you find the numbers just aren’t quite in your favor.
You can now get started with measuring the kind of impact content marketing has on your bottom line and revenue goals. But how do you actually improve your ROI? Here are a few proven strategies:
Don’t forget the value of amazing content. ContentBacon helps you achieve it. Don’t be shy – talk to us now to learn more about how our team can help you master brand voice throughout your marketing channels.