We’re going to go out on a limb here and say that you’ve probably made it to our site because you’re one of the many businesses that is thinking about the value of well researched and produced content marketing. As more and more companies use the internet to reach their audiences, this method of marketing has evolved substantially as it becomes apparent that traditional methods of reaching consumers simply cannot bring the same results online. Whilst many companies once gave out physical materials such as brochures, leaflets, flyers and magazines in order to increase brand awareness, a significant majority have now decreased their budget allocation to these methods.
Instead, many have now adopted content marketing campaigns, which have a distinct advantage in terms of cost, audience reached and how measureable success can be. There will always be some metrics that will be difficult to measure, such as brand awareness or thought leadership, for example. In comparison though, there are many other metrics that can be tracked and measured. Let’s take a look at how you can successfully track and measure content marketing campaigns without a whole team dedicated to the cause.
Traffic
The goal of any content marketing campaign is to raise awareness of your brand and draw people to your website, products and services. With detailed, but user-friendly, analytics programs in place, tracking the number of people that visit your site because of your campaign is easier than it has ever been. In fact, tracking what these people do when they are on your site can be simple as well.
There are a number of different tools you can use to track traffic to your site. The most widely adopted method is through a combination of Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics, which mean that tracking the success of any one piece of content is now much easier than it ever has been in the past. In addition, bespoke landing pages and custom URLs can help you to work out which sites your content has been shared to have had the widest uptake from your potential audience.
Social shares and follows
Social media should play a huge part in a content marketing campaign for any company. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and other avenues have the potential to reach literally billions of people, and as sharing your content on these sites is free and simple, every company should take advantage of it.
Many of the main social media sites have their own analytics software facilities in place, be it Facebook Insights or Google+ Ripples, which can make tracking how successful your campaign is on these sites much simpler. Additionally, you can use social share buttons on your website that can also grant access to similar information, such as ShareThis. In addition, some URL shorteners such as SqueezeCMM will allow you to see exactly which networks have the most engaged audiences. Ultimately, shares and follows will be a key factor in determining the success of your content marketing campaign.
Ranking
Even though it is impossible to track the impact of one single article on your site’s ranking, monitoring the success of a campaign is much easier. If your content has been drafted to include keywords, phrases or ideas that relate to your audience or your business, the chances are high that it will be helping to increase your site’s rank in search engines. This is especially true if it is an original piece with depth, good spelling and grammar, and contributes to an overall strategy to keep your website updated frequently with high quality content.
We know that, realistically, improving your site’s overall ranking is one of the key motivators that causes people to use content marketing online in the first place. Whilst rankings can be measured through various means, including Webmaster Tools and various online services – both free and paid for – it’s important to focus your campaign on around ten key search phrases, at least initially. Whilst this may help to increase your chances of success, it will also make tracking your progress as simple as checking your previous positions against where you are now. Remember, content often takes a couple of months to be factored into your position, so do not be discouraged if you do not see instant results.
Tracking the success of your online content marketing campaign can be straightforward as long as you know what you are doing, and one of the greatest measurements of a campaign’s victories will be in the increased number of enquiries you will see through your site. If you’re not sure how to take the first steps in content marketing, drop us a line and we’ll be happy to discuss both methods and measurement in more detail.
