Checkpoints to measure content marketing effectiveness

What makes any piece of marketing content successful, and how can you measure its success?

Measuring your marketing content success isn’t a straightforward process. To evaluate your content reach and success, you have to define goals, set KPIs for those goals, and then measure and track your KPIs. Content marketing when done right is a highly effective and can be a measurable part of your marketing mix—one that can prove increased brand awareness, engagement, and even bottom-line results. The key is to follow these essential steps:

*Clear measurable and realistic goals: Before you begin to chart out your marketing content, it’s essential to acknowledge the difference between goals and objectives. An objective is a broad statement or ambition that you aim to accomplish. Objectives are good for casting a vision for your company but don’t necessarily lead to meaningful change unless accompanied by actionable goals.

*Know your customers in and out: Before beginning any type of content marketing program, it’s crucial to have a deep understanding of the individuals with whom you want to engage. What are their interests and needs? What do they want when it comes to your industry? 

*How to measure brand awareness: Potential customers can't choose your brand if they don't know you exist. Getting in front of new eyes and impressing people who've never heard of you before can help you remain top of mind when those people (or their acquaintances) decide they need what you're selling. For content marketers, metrics related to these goals should prove not only knowledge of your brand, but also the positive sentiment of how your target audience associates with it after consuming content. Branding and awareness goals aren’t typically quantifiable in terms of bottom-line results.

*Pre-decide your marketing goals: The metrics derived from these goals start to get to the heart of what you do as a marketer—that is, drive new business for your company. Marketing goals typically measure the number of people who go from the aware and-unknown stage to interested-and-known.

Being able to evaluate your content marketing activity, from creation to distribution, is critical to iterating its success. You can use analytics to identify and address both issues and opportunities in your content strategy. Using marketing analytics, marketers are able to create informed content strategies, perform real-time optimisation and improvements to these strategies like improving the content message, proposed value, and marketing channels so that at any one moment, their content strategy is generating real business value to the company.

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