Updated August 8 31, 2021
If you want to be taken seriously as a content marketer, stop acting like a member of the PR team.
If you want to show that content marketing is a definite contributor to business results, stop using just PR indicators.
Every time you use PR-centric metrics to demonstrate the “value” of your content, your content marketing program dies a little.
Every time you just use PR-focused metrics to show the “Value” of #ContentMarketing, your show dies a little bit, @AnnGynn said via @CMIContent. Click to Tweet
Sure, public relations and content marketing are two overlapping fields, but they're not the same thing. (I'm a recognized PR professional and content marketer. I'm not arguing that one method is better than the other. While they may overlap, each specialty has its own set of goals. different targets, requiring unique metrics.)
Difference between PR and content marketing
Public Relations, such as is defined by the American Public Relations Association, is “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics. ”
Content marketing, like defined of the Content Marketing Institute, is “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a defined audience – and ultimately is to promote beneficial actions of customers. ”
Both PR and content marketing are strategic approaches that aim to reach specified audiences in a win-win way. But content marketing goes one step further (that's the marketing part) – to drive beneficial customer action.
That's why your report must demonstrate how content marketing drives customers to action, and that action isn't limited to one final purchase.
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Eyeballs vs Hands (PR metrics vs content marketing metrics)
Measure PR around the eyeball:
- How many people can view n the content? That's reach.
- How many people watched it? That's the number of impressions.
- How many times is the brand cited? That is mentioned.
Sure, the PR measurement touches lightly on what the hand does – “likes”, shares or comments. But that's for engagement .
Critics dismiss these eyeball-focused numbers as frivolous measures. They are not delusional. They are useful. They allow PR professionals to assess whether their strategic communications are achieving their goals.
But for content marketers, those eyeball metrics are void if they're the only metrics used. It might be nice to have greater reach, more viewers, and more “likes” (or “likes”), but those numbers should lead to some action. That's the difference content marketers make.
Basic Content Marketing Metrics
Of course, the ultimate goal of most content marketing programs is to get your audience to reach out dollars for your products or services . But often, getting to that point involves multiple steps – and you need to evaluate how well your individual content marketing tactics help your audience complete each step.
How do you do that? Start by breaking content marketing journey into four stages – each with its own objective. Then, choose the most relevant conversions to measure in each stage.
Measure conversions at each stage of your audience's #ContentMarketing journey, @AnnGynn via @CMIContent said. Click to Tweet
Stage 1: See you soon
Your content needs to attract people. PR-style metrics can work well at this point because they focus on observation and consumption, such as:
- Website traffic : Look at your overall numbers to know website and/or page . (Never mind how the traffic gets there.)
- Impressions on social media posts : Determine how many people viewed your content in their feed.
- Video Views : Record how many people have started watching your video. (Never mind how long they watched.)
Stage 2: Do something, anything
Once you capture your audience's attention, you need their hands to take deliberate actions to show that they want to connect with your content. Think of these metrics as the first “conversions” analysis for your audience. They may include:
- Traffic from search engine results pages : See how many people have been convinced by yours title and meta description to access your site. (Don't care how long they spend on the page – you just want to know if they clicked on something to get to your content.)
- “Likes” (or other emotional options) or comments on social media or blog posts : Determine how many people have been prompted by your content to react publicly.
- Video playback speed : Determine how many viewers clicked on the video and started watching.
Stage 3: Trust us
With the interest of the audience, it primed for this period. You want your audience to trust your content and brand as a trusted source. Indicators for assessing this include:
- Twitter followers or “likes” on your Facebook page: Find out how many people are willing to give you access to their news feed.
- Clicks on internal or external backlinks in your content : Determine how many people believe you will connect them with additional relevant links and Valuable content .
- Share or retweet content : Calculate how much of your trusted content is enough to distribute it to their friends.
- Social media cards : See how many times your audience recognizes your brand and wants you to know it.
- Video interaction : Discover how much time viewers spent watching your video (as a percentage of your video length).
- Subscribers : https://contentmarketinginstitution.com/2020/10/Measure-value-audience/”> Determine how many people have invited your brand into their inbox by passing in their email address.
People show they trust your brand when they click on links in your #content, share content and give you their email address, @AnnGynn via @CMIContent said. Click to Tweet
Stage 4: Buy from us
At this point in the journey, the audience converts into a lead or even a customer. Indicators may include:
- Forms of lead generation : Determine how many people were motivated to ask your brand to contact them about a potential sale.
- Traffic to sales- related pages : Analyze sales page traffic to see what content marketing medium drove them there.
- Length of sales cycle : Compare how long the sales cycle is from people who have consumed the content to those who have not.
- CRM data : Evaluate available analytics to see how many customers (i.e. those who made a purchase) were engaged in an earlier stage of the content marketing journey (i.e. signed up or watched a video).
Don't let your content marketing die
You are a content marketer. Act like one. Don't care about eyeball indicators. Develop a detailed and thoughtful analytics strategy to better gauge your audience's content journey.
If you follow the four stages outlined above – see, do, trust, and buy – you will demonstrate a strategic understanding of the value of content marketing to drive results for your brand. And you'll have a more viable way of understanding what works and what doesn't to make your content marketing strategy even more effective. And that will give your content marketing program much more than a glance from management.
Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski / Content Marketing Institute
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