With so much separating your marketing efforts from the eventual purchase, you might be inclined to follow the crowd and conduct content marketing because everyone else is. But that approach won’t make you CMO.
The CMO has to decide how much budget to allocate to branding as well as to lead generation activities. Your content marketing efforts contribute to both so you need a sound method to measure the success of each.
There are a number of indicators as to how your content is performing. Let’s try to put some dollar figures on them. Here are some measurements to gauge success at various stages of content consumption:
Let’s say you’ve already done some analysis and concluded that conversions on your call to action are worth $500. If your conversion rate is 20%, then it stands to reason that clicks on your CTA are worth $100. Backing up from there, if your CTR on the piece of content is 3%, then a page view is worth $3.
You can validate your math by checking to see what the value of a click is on Facebook, Google Adwords and LinkedIn.
If all you are measuring is lead generation, then you can stop right now. Your campaign can be measured in page views and clicks in the first week and then validated by conversions over time. Your job is then to find distribution channels where engineers hang out and getting your content amplified to those audiences.
There is also a branding value to page views, even when you are running a lead gen campaign. These page views represent introductions to your brand for new visitors and re-engagement for people who already know your product.
Social shares and comments drive additional page views. Shares are good indicators that a piece of content is building brand value that will pay you back in more revenue at a future date. In a survey of online retailers, Addshoppers determined that the value of a social share ranged from as little as $.85 on Twitter up to $5.08 on Google+. The value of B2B content shares is likely to be higher due to the higher average transaction value, but let’s just attribute an average value of $3.50 to any and all social shares. |
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For a branding campaign you would only count page views and shares. Let’s use the example in the image above:
Page view value is ($2) x number of page views (7,000) = $14,000
Share value is average social sharing value ($3.50) x number of shares (102) = $357
Total is Page view value + Share Value = $14,357
For a lead generation campaign, you would add the value page views for leads (say $3 per page view in the above example) to the value of the branding to get the total.
I could go on about this indefinitely, but it would be better to hear your thoughts on it. So let me hear from you in the comments.
John