When it comes to content marketing, engaging readers is only part of the equation. Content marketing works when your content converts readers into customers, which means your company has to constantly evaluate the key performance indicators—KPIs—for every campaign you launch. At the start of each content marketing campaign, before a single piece is published, identify your goals and decide what KPIs you will use to evaluate your campaign’s effectiveness. Doing so will help you spot strategies that are working and determine what changes you should make in your next campaign. Here is what you need to know about attaching KPIs to your content marketing goals so you can achieve your best possible outcomes.
Goal: Build Brand Awareness
If the goal of your content marketing campaign is to increase awareness of your brand, you need highly shareable content that reflects your company’s mission and values. Branded content that defines you as an authority in your industry will get your name in front of more eyes, while content that is noteworthy for its depth or even its humor will encourage more readers to share. To decide if your campaign is working, use the number of social shares and the number of shares from partnership audiences as your KPIs. Track KPIs across multiple types of branded content to see which formats are resonating with your audience.
Goal: Increase Web Traffic
If you’re creating content with the purpose of bringing people to your website, focus on blog posts with clear calls to action that link to your site, coupled with social media posts that link users back to your blog or your home page. Your KPIs for this goal should relate directly back to your web analytics. Track how many visitors you have on both your site and blog each month and the percentage of return users you have. You can also follow the click-through rates of the links in your calls to action. Enhance the information you have about page view numbers by tracking user engagement. Engaged time is time your readers spend scrolling, highlighting content, or otherwise showing that they are actively interacting with your pages.
Goal: Improve Customer Retention
Once your content attracts new customers, what are you doing to keep them? For a content marketing campaign that is focused on customer retention, keep your blog updated with recent information about trends in your industry, offer customer tutorials, and incorporate exclusive deals into your content. These efforts will give your readers a reason to keep coming back to look for new content from you. You can evaluate your success with KPIs that include tracking your number of repeat customers and monitoring your retention rate.
Great content marketing campaigns start with great content. At Pennington Creative, our team creates brand and industry-specific content for small to medium-sized businesses that will get you noticed and get your company to your campaign goals. Contact us today to discuss building a customized content marketing strategy for your business.