Measuring the Effectiveness of a Content Strategy
The benefits of a well-planned content strategy can range from an enhanced brand identity to tangible increases in leads and sales. On the other hand, up to 95% of blogs on the internet are abandoned eventually, probably because they are seen as not being effective enough. How can businesses measure the effectiveness of their content strategies?
Listed below are a few useful tools that will allow businesses of all sizes to gauge the effectiveness of their internet marketing efforts:
What Are You Measuring?
In order to track the effectiveness of your content strategy, you need to decide how you are going to measure it. Since most content strategies are geared towards increasing brand awareness, a good starting point is to track the number of new signups you are receiving.
Establish a baseline
In order to track the effectiveness of your content strategy, you’ll need to find out how many signups you’re currently getting and from what sources. Once you know this, you can track your future progress.
Track your early success
If you’ve recently launched your content strategy, you may not have a large audience yet. Nonetheless, you can use several proxies (indirect measurements) to track your progress. Focus on your social media presence, taking note of the following: likes on Facebook, retweets, reblogs, links back to your site, followers, @ mentions, followers, and average page views per visitor, as well as the amount of time spent on each page. With these proxies, you’ll be able to measure your progress by understanding how effectively your content is ‘speaking’ to the audience.
Track Conversions
You’ll know your content strategy is working once you start to see conversions – the percentage of site visitors who take the desired action like clicking the ‘buy’ button. Google Analytics can measure your conversion rate easily, but you’ll need to track your progress by measuring more than the sheer number of leads. By using proxies like the quality of leads, retention period, and number of new customers referred per lead, you’ll have a clear picture of your content strategy’s Return on Investment.
Patience is Key
An online content strategy may take a while before it shows tangible results – it’s an investment in the future of your business. Like planting a seed, you’ll have to put effort and patience into your strategy but when it starts to bear fruit you’ll have a sustainable, personal online relationship with your clients – both current and prospective – that will bring you increased leads and sales in the future.