The Essential Metrics of Content Marketing

Talented team of content marketers? ✔️

Well-documented content marketing strategy? ✔️

Executing the plan with style and flair? ✔️

It’s great if your content marketing team can confidently say all three of those items above have been accomplished! However, there is still one more item to check off your list to ensure the success of your content marketing and that’s to measure.

You must be able to measure and analyze your key marketing metrics to asses how effective your efforts are and your ROI.

The infographic below spells out what to look at to determine what is working and what’s not. Once you have that information in hand, it’s time to decide how to revisit and adjust your strategy. These metrics are also super helpful in justifying your spend or advocating for growth investments.

Sure, 29 seems like a lot to go on an “essentials” list but consistently measuring these metrics will create alignment between departments, and help diagnose and troubleshoot problems.

Download our checklist of 30+ ways to promote content here.

Here’s a rundown of a handful of marketing metrics that matter most to me:

Sharing

Under this bucket, the number of social shares your content is motivating. Are your followers actively engaged, commenting on and liking your content? Yes? That’s great. But if they’re also sharing your content that’s a great indication that they find your content relevant and useful.

Engagement

It’s important to take a look at your site data. Many conversations happen in the social media sphere now, but you should also have a general sense of how many people comment on your web content (i.e. blog posts). It’s also good to look at session duration; how long are site visitors staying on your site? What’s your bounce rate like on certain content pieces? This can indicate whether people are actually taking the time to read your blogs. You also want to look at page depth as this shows how many pages per session visitors are viewing. Maybe they’re only reading one piece of content and then leaving without seeing what else you have to offer. If you’re looking to have your audience engage with more than one piece of content, something in your strategy might need adjusting.

Retention

Retention metrics such as unsubscribes and opt-outs are important for measuring the success of email marketing campaigns. Are your existing subscribers choosing to leave? That could be an indication that something in your content is driving them to make that decision. You want to ultimately be growing your list!

Lead

How many new leads did your content generate? You might be thinking, “I have no idea!” To find out the number of leads, head to your marketing automation tool and customer-relationship management (CRM) system. (Don’t use a CRM or automation software? I’ll convince you why both are important in a later blog.)S

Cost

Do you track how much each piece of content is costing your business to create? How long does it typically take your team to brainstorm an idea and then create and publish it? Knowing the timeline helps increase efficiency and gives insights in the overall content creation process. Plus, if you’re able to calculate costs based on staff or freelancers time, you’ll be able to plan future budgets better.

Take a look at the infographic from Curata for more information and happy measuring!