No matter how well you understand your audience, surprises are inevitable in content marketing. Big ideas will fall flat and die within days. And ideas you dismissed as passable will suddenly take off.
These moments are very important. But to draw the right conclusions, you need to clearly understand what exactly happened and how something worked (or didn’t). So you need to learn how to work with analytics systems.
This is also important because you will inevitably face skepticism from your colleagues. Content marketing is certainly a good idea, but it takes up a lot of time and resources. So be prepared for the question: are our investments in content marketing paying off? And what does it bring us?
In this chapter, we will learn to adequately evaluate successes and failures japan mobile phone numbers database and understand how exactly content marketing helps business and what problems it solves.
What needs to be analyzed
The first thing to do is separate the wheat from the chaff: numbers can both lie and reflect the truth. It's a matter of interpretation. Numbers are just numbers. You can use them like paints to paint a picture - and as an artist, you choose which colors to use and which to put aside.
A simple example: Imagine an annual meeting where all the company's marketers report on their achievements, and a newly hired content marketer reports:
This year we have seen a 300% increase in traffic. Average time on site is almost two minutes, and blog activity has almost doubled.
Sounds cool, right? Would you be impressed by the success of such an employee if you were his boss?
That could be cool. But it could also be that 10 visits last year turned into 40 this year. And 32 of those were on the day the programmer had a work meeting with colleagues. During the meeting, three participants got distracted several times: they closed the page, went to answer a call, and upon returning, reloaded the blog or clicked on a link on an already open page. And thus created beautiful reports. Then the author responded to two comments that someone accidentally left on the blog - thereby doubling the activity on the blog. Great "increased engagement"!
What's the moral? Don't just measure things. Measure them intelligently. Metrics don't mean anything unless you connect your brain to them. Don't collect numbers for the sake of collecting numbers, give them meaning . When you show them to a client or boss, be able to answer the question, "That's all well and good, but what does it mean? Why is it good?" Remember: it's up to you to make sure your leaders believe in the value of content marketing.
How to work with metrics correctly
Prioritize: Start small. Don't try to bite off more than you can chew. Analysis, unlike auditing, should be ongoing, so don't push yourself too hard right from the start. Otherwise, you'll get bogged down and won't be able to get out. And you'll have to get out: how else are you going to create new, strong content?
It’s important to keep your metrics goal-oriented. Think about what you want your content to achieve, then figure out how to measure how close you are to achieving it. The Content Marketing Institute (there’s one!) regularly surveys content marketers — and then compiles reports on industries, budgets, and trends in the B2B and B2C space . (Highly recommend saving!). Specifically, the institute asks about what goals companies have when launching a content marketing campaign. 80% cite the following.
1. Recognizability
This is necessary so that potential clients know about you. First, you must catch the eye and impress those who have never seen you before. And only then can you try to remain in their memory so that they themselves (or their friends) turn to you when they have such a need.
2. Engagement
The next step after introductions is communication. This is where you have the opportunity to build an emotional connection with potential clients to really like them. And when we say “like,” we don’t mean Facebook likes (emotions?).
3. Loyalty
So, the client is hooked: already with you and even bought something. But how to keep him? How to win his loyalty? That's right: with content.
4. Lead generation
Whether it's a newsletter to a collected address base or a simple question about whether the client wants to receive your news, content marketing helps attract truly high-quality leads.
5. Sales
When you are confident in your product and know its advantages well, it will be easier for you to convince your audience that you are the one who will solve their problems. And this leads to increased sales.
Now back to the analysis. To understand how far you have come toward each of these goals, you need to use different metrics. So let's start by looking at two or three simple indicators for each goal.
And please note: perhaps other metrics will be more suitable for your tasks. And that's okay: what we offer is not the ultimate truth.
