Seven ways to check if your content marketing is working or not

Name a brand big or small, and that brand is hopping onto content marketing. But not every brand is right with its content marketing strategies. Starting from the very first stage of ideation till the last stage of content distribution, tracking all the performance is critical to a successful content marketing strategy.

Each stage has to be precisely analysed to ensure content marketing will reap benefits. According to reports, 50% marketers either have zero clarity or are unsure of how effective their content marketing is. In such a case, if the performance on many levels and across multiple channels is tracked, chances are, the brand will get a holistic view on its outcome. So, how should a brand check if its approach is working out or not?

BuzzInContent.com, after interacting with experts, compiles a list on how one should measure content marketing performance in a quantifiable way, to check whether it is working out or not.

Creating exceptional content that attracts a clearly defined audience, and inspires users to take action, is something that sums up a good marketing strategy. If a brand can influence actions that will have positive impact on the business goals, the strategy is well defined.

1. Is it creative and has a story to tell?

They say content is king and creativity is the queen and to marry them for producing a piece that is outstanding is an art. Every content that a brand or an agency is planning to put out there has to have a creative element along with a story to tell. To ensure your content in the market stands out and is unique, it should have a story, which is weaved in the content, creatively. A story where audiences can relate themselves. The content piece should have a worthy message or a brand message and ability to create a position in the mind. The voice of the content has to be unique for it to work out and stand out.

2. Is your TG and distribution channel well defined?

A brand has to be clear with the target audience it is planning to target with the content marketing. Knowing your TG well ensures a clear distribution channel a brand should opt for. Knowing your audience allows you to construct tailored content for each stage of the customer journey. A brand should be aware of the demographics, interests and behaviour of its TG and accordingly distribution channel should be chosen.

Every channel has a different pool of audience. Depending upon the objective, TG, the distribution channel, whether it has to be a traditional medium, digital or social media, will be used.

3. Is it fulfilling the business objectives?

In simple terms, if you want to know whether or not your content marketing is working, you need first to check if it is moving in the direction of the set objectives or not. Objectives are set before disseminating the content. And a successful content marketing strategy means all the objectives are achieved. Objectives can be creating conversation around content or building brand awareness.

4. Is the traffic around content authentic?

Almost every brand on social media today wants to drive more and more traffic around its content. To ensure your content marketing is actually working out or not, a brand should soon or later create an advocacy around the traffic it is generating. With a lot of fake users and inorganic or paid traffic, the content gets lost. No matter what the business objective is, it is important to first check who is watching your content. To track the total traffic via content and breaking down at each audience touchpoint gives a broad indicator of how your content is performing. Multiple tools, including Google Analytics, help in analysing the traffic of audience. 

5. How is the engagement around content?

One single test whether your content marketing strategy is nailing or not, is to check the engagement it is creating around the same. Engagement can be defined as the conversation between the brand and its audience. Social media engagement is something that most of the brands do look forward to. Engagement ensures building credibility around brand, establishing a brand’s voice.  This can be measured on various parameters, including re-shares, hashtags, comments and likes.

6. Is it building brand awareness?

Brand awareness is the primary goal of every brand that is planning to dive itself into content marketing. Through such strategy, a brand should ensure the content is focusing on the brand story, core values, and company culture. Content like this produces brand awareness. And brand awareness is super valuable, giving a brand ultimate recognition. Engagement around the brand, where it is being tagged and talked about and searched for, ensures there is an awareness being built around the brand.

7. Generating and nurturing quality leads

Though not a goal for everyone via content marketing, but generating leads via content is one difficult task and more difficult to measure the same. Though there are no tools available to exactly help you define the leads generated through content marketing, but downloads, mobile readership, document views, time on site, page views, video views, inbound links, blog comments, subscription, registration, conversion rates, sign ups, UGC, etc., help analyse whether the strategy is working out or not in that direction.