How To Measure The Effectiveness Of Your Content Marketing

Do you have any idea if all of those hours writing blog posts is working?  Maybe you “think” it's working…..maybe you have an uneasy feeling that you're wasting your time, that you should be out in the real world “getting business”.

Maybe you're right and maybe you're wrong.  Content marketing is something that many people don't measure. The good thing is that when it comes to the online world, tracking success is fairly easy, you just mean to know what success is.

What's considered success depends on factors such as the goals you have for your website…..what do you want people to do when they are there.  If you don't know that, then you're probably not tracking much…..or finding a lot of success with your website when it comes to lead generation.

Do you have a plan with your content marketing?

All of those blog posts, white papers and case studies can be a waste of time if you haven't laid out a plan on what you want to accomplish with them.

If you know the outcomes you want from a visitor when they're on your site, then it's pretty easy to find the metrics that can measure success.  Whether you have an E-Commerce site or you sell hardware supplies in brick and mortar store, you just need a plan of action.

What do you want people to do when they are on your website?

Each page on you site should have a goal in mind, an action you want your visitors to take.  For E-Commerce, this may be making an online purchase, which is simple to track as the visitors stay on your site from beginning to end.  For websites that do not sell directly online, you may have other goals.  Encouraging visitors to call your business or to fill out your online contact form may be another goal.  Getting them to subscribe to your email list may be another.

The important thing is to understand that you should have a clear vision of what you want people to do, then design your site and messaging to guide them there.  Otherwise known as a “call to action”.

Examples of metrics that you can track and measure:

  • Completing an online purchase
  • Filling in a contact form
  • Subscribing to an email newsletter
  • # Pages viewed during visit
  • # of social shares for an article
  • Time a visitor spend on the site or a specific page
  • Specific pages visited on the site
  • Clicking on a specific link on your site

All of the above are examples of things you can measure.  Through Google Analytics you can setup goals and events to track everything above.  And once you have this information, you can backtrack through the funnel and see where your most engaging customers are coming from.  If it Facebook, your blog, or maybe a business directory you subscribe to.  By tracking key metrics on your site, you can gain a deeper understanding of who your ideal customer is…..and spend your time and money marketing more to them.  Online marketing isn't like a newspaper ad where you have to take the salesman's word that taking out an ad will be worth it.  With online marketing,  you have the ability to track and measure almost every detail in order to judge effectiveness.  The proof is in the analytic pudding.

Check out the infographic below for some more examples of metrics you can track for your website.

Content metrics to measure success

via:Pardot.com

The following two tabs change content below.
My Twitter profileMy Google+ profileMy LinkedIn profile

Gary

CEO at 3Bug Media
Gary Shouldis is the founder of 3Bug Media, a web marketing company that helps businesses create 360 Marketing Strategies to dominate their market. His blog is read by over 20 thousand small business owners a month and has been featured in the N.Y. Times Small Business, Business Insider and Yahoo Small Business.