How to Prove Your Content Marketing Works 

Before you look for ways to prove your content marketing is working, I strongly recommend establishing some goals for your efforts. Ask yourself these questions and then answer them before you start any content marketing campaign.

Pre-Campaign Development Mandatories

1. What are your objectives? Take the time to define specific, measurable goals for your content marketing effort. Once you have the goals defined, seek and obtain buy-in from any relevant stakeholders within your company.

2. Define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Identify which KPIs you need to be tracking to align with your objectives. Examples include website traffic, social media engagement, lead generation, conversion rates, and

3. Implement Tracking Mechanisms. Before starting any campaign, make sure you know how to track the data you need to verify if you are achieving your goals. Whether it is setting up Google Analytics or other marketing automation tools all your hard work will be for nothing if you can measure your impact. Establish baseline measurements, so you can identify which areas your content is impacting.

4. Plan for Data Analysis. Plan to analyze and report on the data you collect regularly. Determine how frequently you will collect data and what you will look for to identify trends or patterns that can help you continually improve. Use a simple spreadsheet to track each of your KPIs. This becomes your campaign dashboard for reporting purposes.

5. Define Your Funnel / Customer Journey. Clearly outline the stages of your customer’s journey, from awareness to consideration to decision. Map out how your content will guide prospects through each stage of the funnel. Identify what type of content is most appropriate for each stage—blog posts and social media for awareness, case studies and whitepapers for consideration, and product demos or testimonials for the decision phase. The purpose of this is to create targeted content to address specific needs and pain points of your audience at each stage of their journey.

Campaign Measurements – 7 Simple Ways to Measure Your Impact

1. Measure Website Traffic. Use Google Analytics or other website traffic tools to establish a baseline of performance.  Then, throughout your campaign monitor the increase in website traffic, particularly the pages with the content highlighted in your campaign. Track unique visitors, page views, and session duration.

2. Measure Engagement Metrics. Once users visit your page, you’ll want to examine their level of interest in your content. Using Google Analytics, you can measure bounce rates, time on page, and the number of pages visited per session. This data will help you gain insights into what people are interested in and their level of interest in your campaign content and company.

3. Social Media Metrics. Tracking likes, shares, and comments is helpful to also understanding engagement. However, tracking likes doesn’t help you move prospects into your funnel. Social media metrics are helpful in understanding basic engagement with your, but if your content doesn’t drive them to take action where you can move them further down the funnel it’s more difficult to justify it as a worthy metric.

4. Lead Capture Metrics. Examine the number of emails and prospect information captured (conversions) via forms or downloadable content such as email subscriptions, ebooks, whitepapers, and webinars. Before gating downloads, consider carefully how difficult a gate you place on this type of content and where in the funnel you are targeting prospects.

5. SEO Performance: Monitor improvements over time in search engine rankings for keywords targeted by your content. SEMrush and other SEO tools can be helpful for examining keyword performance, backlinks, and organic traffic. Tools within Google Ads can also help you identify keyword volumes, so conduct keyword research before creating and publishing your content.

6. Email Engagement: Analyze email marketing metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and engagement with your content and landing pages.

7. Customer Feedback: Through surveys and direct interactions, collect and analyze feedback from customers and prospects about the value and relevance of your content.

Post-Campaign Actions

1. Update your campaign dashboard with your data and determine its effectiveness. No campaign is perfect. Schedule time with your stakeholders to regularly review this data. The data to support your KPIs is critical for measuring your wins and overall content marketing effectiveness.

 2. Once you have the data, remember to study it for potential insights. Insights demonstrate your deep understanding of the data and reveal underlying patterns, behaviors, or trends. These insights go beyond surface-level observations to provide actionable intelligence that can inform and enhance your marketing strategies.

3. Continuous Improvement. Use the insights gained from your data analysis to refine and optimize your content marketing strategy continuously. This iterative process helps ensure that your efforts remain effective and aligned with your goals. While achieving all your goals is important, it’s equally important to understand what you learned about your prospects and how you can improve your content for the next campaign. Include significant lessons learned in any reporting to your stakeholders.

Conclusion

Proving the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts is crucial for continuous improvement and achieving your business goals. By setting clear objectives, tracking key performance indicators, and regularly analyzing data, you can ensure your campaigns are driving the desired results.

If you need assistance optimizing your campaign effectiveness, consider registering for our 45-minute information session. We’ll discuss how the Worksprings Integrated Marketing System can help you achieve your marketing goals and enhance your overall strategy.

Register Now for Your Free 45-Minute Information Session