Content marketing is a great way to build your brand. It allows you to be creative and strategic, targeting specific demographics and ultimately improving your bottom line.
In order to be truly effective, however, your approach also needs to be scientific. To continually improve your results, you need to carefully track the results. This shows you which campaigns are successful, which ones need to be tweaked, and which ones can be scrapped altogether.
Most importantly, you need to make sure you’re tracking metrics that matter. Here are the most effective ways you can measure your content marketing efforts:
Webpage Metrics
Ideally, an integrated content marketing plan is going to directly drive more traffic to your website. You’ll want to carefully track web page views and blog subscriptions when you drop new content. The more new visitors you see, the better your content is performing.
If your content is hosted on your own website, you’ll want to check the bounce rate. If people are searching for a specific topic, clicking to your page, and then leaving, it’s a problem. It means you’ve identified a topic people are interested in, but the content isn’t very compelling. Consider touching up the post, or revamping it completely.
Most importantly, you want to know if your content marketing is driving your desired result. Conversions include actions like buying a product, filling out an interest form, or signing up for a demo. Whatever your content’s intended call to action is, make sure you track it diligently. It’s the best way to prove that your efforts are bearing fruit.
If you’re asking people to click a
button and they aren’t, your content isn’t working!
Social Statistics
A great content strategy should get people talking about you. You’ll want to carefully track your content’s social media metrics. This includes retweets, favorites, likes, shares, pins, etc. Make sure to also track if any campaigns drive more traffic to your main social media pages. If you see a spike in followers or Facebook page likes, you know your content is doing the trick.
Lastly, make sure to check out any general mentions you receive on social media. Even if people aren’t directly interacting with your content, they still could be talking about it. This is also a strong indicator that your content is hitting the right note.
If you’re getting a lot of thumbs, you’re doing it right!
Comments and Discussion
A great way to tell if your content has more to say is checking to see how much discussion is being generated. If particular posts or videos generate a ton of comments and spirited debate, it means you’ve struck gold. You should continue to explore the topic in future content.
It’s also a great opportunity to allow guests to create their own content. They’ll be thrilled to have a forum for their own thoughts and advice. You’ll have a great way to empower and engage your audience, while tapping into a well of free content.
If your content isn’t clicking with your audience, all hope isn’t lost! Just reach out to us here at Blue Wave Marketing. We have over 20 years of marketing expertise, and have been able to use that to help businesses of all sizes craft integrated content marketing plans – even Fortune 500 companies! You can contact us by visiting us at our website or calling 617-576-3100.
