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With content marketing becoming more and more ingrained in companies of all sizes and types, it’s only natural that executives are starting to increase scrutiny of content marketing budgets and expenditures. Like social media, content marketing is by no means free. As Charlene Li once said, “It’s not inexpensive; it’s just different expensive.” If you’re a content marketing practitioner, manager, or director in anything beyond a very small organization, at some point you’re going to be asked to justify all this content....
At CMI, we’re in the thick of planning, and there is one theme that surfaces repeatedly: We need to double down on what is working well – and stop doing what isn’t.
There is no simple way to figure out what is effective. However, the first step is to start thinking about effectiveness when you start creating the content. Read on to get some tips from the community at large as well as our panel of B2C research roundtable participants...
According to AdAge, 93% of CMO’s (so…basically all of them) are under more pressure to deliver measurable ROI (Return On Investment).
Additionally, 81% of marketers would increase spending across channels if they could better track ROI.
At content marketing analyst Rebecca Lieb‘s Content Marketing World 2015 session: “Less-than-obvious Content Metrics You Need to Pay Attention To,” she argues that just using sales to justify ROI is measuring content marketing ROI far too narrowly.
She says part of this is due to the fact that content marketing ROI analytics in the space are still incredibly nascent. There are no standards for measuring content marketing ROI and since over 50% of brands lack a defined content marketing strategy, it’s difficult to know what they’re trying to achieve and how to measure that success.
As metrics and KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) evolve in tandem, the result is an excess of volume metrics (like, shares, traffic, etc.) that don’t reveal true business impact and content marketing ROI. According to Lieb, 43% of marketers feel they have unmet needs in measuring content ROI. Through careful and extensive research, she has formulated six tenets to developing a more holistic content marketing ROI measurement strategy....
Consumers say Facebook is the channel in which they are most likely to trust content created by a brand/company, according to a recent report from The Acquity Group.
The report was based on data from a survey of more than 2,000 consumers in the United States.Respondents gave Facebook an average score of 4 as a trusted content source from brands (1=most trusted; 10=least trusted). Magazines and newspapers ranked second (4.4 average score), followed by email and television (5.3 average score each).
Younger generations are more likely to trust social channels than their older counterparts are: Some 29% of consumers age 18-22 and 32% of consumers age 23-30 rank Facebook as the most trusted content channel, whereas only 16% of consumers age 52-68 do so. Older consumers are more likely to trust traditional media, such as print (27%)....
Simply put, if you’re not measuring, you’re not marketing.
In fact, if you’re whipping up blog posts and infographics without business objectives, you’re basically partaking in a very expensive version of arts and crafts.
Your job as a content marketer is to show your boss the money — not traffic, not links — mon-naay.
Let’s talk about how to get started effectively measuring your content marketing efforts....
A much-ballyhooed Gallup study uncovered some ugly “truths” about social media, including a reputed inability to influence purchasing decisions. According to the study, 62 percent of Americans say Facebook, Twitter and their ilk have no influence on whether they purchase a product.
Although asking consumers to accurately recount the advertising methods that ultimately drove them to purchase is likely a fool’s errand, many marketers who have attempted to correlate standard social metrics to sales and other conversions have struggled to make a connection.
As a result, in many marketing shops the number of likes, shares and retweets a brand receives daily is lessening in importance. But that doesn’t mean social media offers nothing of value — advanced marketers are leveraging social data for reasons beyond direct marketing tactics....
There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics. But that doesn't mean these facts and figures are useless for content marketers.
More often than not, they shed some light on changes in the digital landscape and the ever-changing practice of content marketing. At the very least, you can leverage them to help you sell others on future marketing decisions and tactics.
So here's a list I've curated of relevant, eye-opening content marketing statistics and findings from the most recent industry surveys and marketing research conducted in 2014....
Here's how a global brand moved from a product-centered approach to a storytelling approach that increased social media following by over 700%.
...Are you looking for creative ways to grow your social media following?
Are you dealing with limited resources?
Then you’ll want to study what Microsoft Dynamics did....
Content marketing continues to rise in importance for marketers, with one recent piece of research by content marketing agency Seven claiming that 80% of senior marketers view owned media as either effective or very effective at delivering return on investment for their brands.
Indeed, for many brands, content is the holy grail of customer engagement: it builds reputation, get their consumer attention, keeps them coming back for more and sells products. So, working on that analogy here’s what we see as the 10 commandments of content marketing…
Marketers throw around reams of statistics, aiming to prove the monetary value of their content efforts. However, these stats often don't provide meaningful insights to higher-level decision makers...
...Many CEOs and business owners simply don’t understand the lingo and numerical values related to content marketing terminology and analytics.
So for those who don’t speak the language, we have to find a new way to communicate.
We need to stop solely talking about abstract monetary or numerical values and instead focus on two fundamental ways to clearly measure the value of a content marketing effort: 1) In terms of its ability to provide long-term monetary worth, or 2) In terms of its ability to provide long-term importance, relevance, and usefulness....
You might be wondering, what is a content audit? If you don't know what I'm talking about, your marketing team is likely not being as thorough as they could be in developing your brand's content strategy.
A content audit is the process of rereading all the content on your site to evaluate where you have gaps in your overall content strategy. Yes, it's as tedious as it sounds. However, it's a process that has extreme payoff.
Defining Strategy Ahead of Time can Save You A Lot of Time in the Future
Any solid startup strategy will include a plan for customer acquisition and systems which are built to scale. Success will make team growth inevitable, but it can be devastatingly difficult to rebuild a system that’s reached critical mass.
However, entrepreneur and venture capitalist David Skok has found that the success of your company relies on two factors, regardless of any external forces: - Finding a scalable way to acquire customers - Monetizing customers at a higher rate than your cost of customer acquisition.
A successful content marketing plan can seamlessly scale with other projects, but it will be much more difficult to gain traction online in the first place if you delay getting started....
Each month the Marketing Technology Blog would generate a great handful of leads for sponsorships, advertising and consulting opportunities. As the site continues to grow in popularity, though, we weren’t seeing a subsequent increase in leads.
I had finally had it – I analyzed the site and reviewed where our calls-to-actions were throughout. It’s something we pay a lot of attention on with our clients but I had failed to review our own strategies for well-placed call-to-actions.There are 3 typical placements for your calls-to-action on any given page within your site...
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The efficacy of using videos in online marketing has long been known to digital marketers. Video content has come to dominate the web and, with it, the nature and focus of many a big brand’s marketing strategy. The power of video to increase the reach of businesses, build brand identity, boost social followings and secure valuable new leads is becoming plain to all and sundry.
Yet, despite this universal acclaim for video (something that can be seen through rising budget spend on video), there is still a huge amount of confusion as to exactly how it is helping businesses achieve their aims. Perhaps a lot of the confusion comes down to the slippery and often misleading nature of video marketing data and with it a difficulty in pinning down a reliable idea of ROI.
In this article for Search Engine People, I want to look at ten video marketing metrics and how they can be used to establish ROI. First though, let’s take a look at the importance of goal setting.
With the increased use of content curation (the best marketers use a mix of 65% created, 25% curated, and less than 10% syndicated content), some unique challenges need to be addressed in a content marketing measurement strategy, including: - Marketers who are curating content are selecting, organizing, and contextualizing third-party assets.
- Target audiences are not necessarily consuming content within branded experiences.
- Content curators also are redirecting traffic to external sites and distributing content across multiple channels – including email, social media, and feeds in addition to branded sites and blogs....
There are loads of digital marketing tools and tactics out there – some that are bright and flashy, others that are the “new shiny object” that quickly lose their luster, and yet others that continue to prove their value by contributing actual revenue to the company’s bottom line.
So which ones should you ditch and which should you make sure are an integral part of your marketing plan? While digital marketing can be exciting and we can all get caught up in fads, the most important question to be asking yourself is, “Am I reaching my target audience?”
After all, if you miss your mark, you may be the proud owner of some fun digital marketing software but you may end up watching your prospects and customers head to the competition. Let’s take a look at some of the best digital marketing strategies that are producing results....
Executives want to know a marketing strategy’s expected ROI before they commit money and resources to it. But content is a different animal than other marketing initiatives. It doesn’t produce impressive short-term results; it bolsters long-term profits. Once a content marketing strategy proves its worth, executives feel more confident investing in it. The challenge is convincing them to take the initial plunge.
Here are six selling points you can use to persuade your company leaders that content marketing will go the distance for your brand
Have you ever wondered when you should be sharing your content on the social web?
Your visitors and followers prefer using social media sites during specific hours. So if you start sharing your content when your users are on these social sites, you’ll not only gain more shares, but you’ll also notice an increase in traffic.
So, when should you be sharing your content? Well, just follow the times in the infographic below.
There is a big misconception that content marketing doesn’t drive sales. But if it didn’t work well, none of my companies would exist.
From KISSmetrics to Crazy Egg, I’ve grown each of my businesses through content marketing.
To prove to you that content marketing drives sales, I’m going to share with you stats and data points from KISSmetrics to show just how effective content marketing is....
Nine out of ten in-house marketers say that content marketing will become more important, but just 38 percent has a content strategy.
There’s a gap to bridge. The infographic by Pardot.com shows interesting data points, among others the four content marketing metrics categories.
The four types of content marketing metrics can be divided in: - consumption
- Sharing
- lead generation
- sales.
As shown in another point made in the infographic (most popular metrics), the research behind it shows that marketers are focusing on Consumption and Sharing metrics but by also taking into account Lead generation and Sales it keeps the content aligned with business objectives....
Measurement matters now more than ever.Marketing technology advances have made it easier and more affordable to connect activities to outcomes, but marketers are largely dropping the ball when it comes to monitoring, reporting, and improving performance.Adobe’s Digital Distress study, which surveyed more than 1,000 marketers, found 76 percent of marketers believe measurement is important, though only 29 percent believe they are doing it well. ...
...Why are results important? Why are goals a dire part of the digital strategy and marketing mix? Well, art is the integration of emotion and creativity. Marketing is when you take the beauty of art and integrate it with meaningful goals or purpose.
In this post, you’ll find examples of goals that you can use to measure the results and ROI of content marketing. These are goals that marketers all over the globe have used as their benchmarks. It’s these goals that will help guide your decision making, and ultimately drive your chances of achieving meaningful and measurable results...
It’s human, it’s simple, it’s visual and it’s curated. When it comes to social marketing, organizations are more focused on curated content.
Curated content provides grist for the social marketing mill, according to Gartner’s Jake SorofmanIt’s human, it’s simple, it’s visual and it’s curated.
When it comes to social marketing, organizations are more focused on curated content rather than big data, according to Jake Sorofman, research director for analyst firm Gartner Inc. “OK, don’t forget about big data – it’s a big deal,” Sorofman wrote in a recent blog. “But, these, days content may be giving data a run for it money...
In a world of second screen and streaming, lean forward/back just doesn’t tell the story anymore. Here’s a better framework for gauging media consumption habits.
The media business is long overdue to replace the prevailing framework we use to describe consumer interaction with content with one that better reflects current devices and activities.
The current lean-forward, lean-back paradigm, conceived by Jakob Nielsen, was popularized around 2008 and yet (amazingly) it’s already showing its age. Consider that it predates the widespread use of touchscreen smartphones, the current dominance of tablets — the entire second screen phenomena — and even the widespread adoption of on-demand streaming media services like Netflix and Spotify. The world has turned in the past 5 years, and yet this framework remains a popular if not standard convention for analyzing data consumption in the media business.
It’s time advertisers, marketers and content creators had a more accurate, more nuanced and granular system to describe how consumers interact with their digital content. The result would offer better opportunities for everything from UX design to monetization and marketing.Following is a two-fold system that, unlike the lean forward/back shorthand, breaks apart the physical and mental attributes involved when we consume content....
When STOCK Restaurant opened in early 2012, they set up basic Facebook and Twitter profiles looking to establish a strong online presence. But with no clear social strategy or framework to analyze the success of their social efforts, STOCK’s social media presence had minimal activity and growth.
STOCK wanted to drive new customers through the doors of their brand new restaurant and recognized they needed help in building a strong and effective social presence. They turned to Tent Social for their expertise on social media and marketing....
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Jay Baer shows how to calculate content marketing ROI, and discusses why content marketers must pay close attention to this all-important success metric.