YAccording to Content Marketing Institute, only 45% of marketers know what a successful content marketing program looks like. If you haven’t mastered measuring your content marketing effectiveness, or you’re not sure how effective your efforts are, you’re not alone. Measuring the success of content marketing begins with setting goals and KPIs that are directly linked to the overall corporate goals of your organization.
In a recent episode of Found Friday, I spoke with Steve Farnsworth, CMO Steveology Group, and Erin Robbins O’Brien, President Ginza Metrics about what it takes create a data-driven content marketing program. We discussed the importance of getting the right data and knowing how to analyze it to determine what’s working and what’s not.
What makes content marketing successful
phone number list from the Latest Mailing Database because you will get only accurate contact phone numbers. Most importantly, The Latest Mailing recent mobile phone number list Database will do build your targeted mailing list for your business. Moreover, We are big database provider company in the world If you think to buy l list then you can see our database
Effectively measuring content marketing efforts is still one of the top five challenges for marketers. While it’s surprising that so many people are doing something without really knowing its effectiveness, it’s not surprising that marketers are still confused over how to define success. To date, there are no standard, universally accepted metrics to define content marketing success or even any agreement about what to measure.
“It feels like we’re still very disjointed in terms of marketing channels, marketing methodology, tactical decisions versus strategic decisions and where we place emphasis on budget and resources,” states Erin.
When we ask if our content marketing efforts are successful, we’re really asking about the success of a variety of efforts, organizational groups, and outside consultants and agencies. Lumping all those things into one group and measuring them as a whole is a challenge for many organizations. There’s a lot to tackle when it comes to deciding if a marketing program is successful, or not.
Steve Farnsworth agrees that the questions we’re asking are often too broad to answer accurately or with a single measurement. “All the pieces that make up a content marketing program are a collection, ideally, of the dozens of programs you’re doing. Each of the programs has to stand on its own with individual KPIs. What I think probably speaks more loudly or broadly [to why people don’t know what a successful content marketing program looks like] is that people aren’t necessarily truly tracking the improvements from campaign to campaign,” Steve says.
Not all goals and KPIs are created equal
The challenge of measuring content marketing effectiveness begins with the challenge of setting goals and KPIs that accurately reflect overall corporate goals. In the end, the goal of any marketing program is to drive sales, increase conversions, and contribute to the bottom line. If marketing’s goals are aligned to corporate goals, measuring the effectiveness of content marketing efforts with metrics like increased website traffic, time on page, and social share of voice fall short of proving the real value of content marketing programs.
“Measuring followers on LinkedIn purely by shares or purely by the eyeballs that read your content are interesting KPIs, but they are secondary to a proxy KPI where we ask if someone reads a piece of content, do they subscribe or do they ask for the next stage content? Most of the goals should be around lead generation, if they’re not, you need to have a pretty good conversation about why they’re not,” suggests Steve.
According to Steve, measuring
efforts and setting goals fails at two levels. First, management is still learning how to use content marketing technology to make sense of the data and second, a lack of communication exists between management and the rank and file about KPIs and goals.
Getting data and measuring content marketing results cannot be an end unto itself. Somewhere along the way, we need to know what to do with the data we’re gathering. We need to know how our KPIs and goals are helping to shape overall strategies and our day-to-day efforts. We need to know how the data from one department or team compares to data from another department and how the analysis of all this data helps everyone make overall smarter decisions across the organization.
According to Erin, “One of the big topics around here is data normalization. If everyone in an organization is measuring things but they’re measuring them in a lot of different ways, you’re not comparing apples to apples anymore. You’re not even comparing apples to any other fruit. At that point, you’re just off somewhere in the vegetable patch because you can’t re-aggregate the data to deliver on a core goal. At some point, the goal is money and conversions.”
The trouble with KPIs
Vanity metrics and KPIs that target likes on social media or pageviews on blog posts tell you how individual content assets are received and most popular, but those KPIs won’t tell you how successful your efforts are at moving things along the chain and improving sales and conversions. Marketers may be playing it safe to keep from losing their jo
How much does neuroscience influence your content creation strategies? Maybe more than you think. When we attempt to evoke emotional responses through our content, we’re employing tactics to capitalize on what neuroscientists already know, that decisions are made at an emotional level.
In the early 1990’s Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio studied patients with brain lesions who were unable to feel emotions. What he found was that those same patients were also unable to make decisions. Relying on logic alone, his patients could describe situations in logical terms, but were unable to make the final decision. According to Damasio, “Emotions and the feelings are not a luxury, they are a means of communicating our states of mind to others. But they are also a way of guiding our own judgments and decisions.”
The role of emotional content
Influence, convince, and convert are some of the goals of content marketing and are dependent on eliciting emotions with our audiences. If we really want to convince our audiences to make the decision to engage with our content and ultimately to recommend or buy our product or service, we need to reach them at an emotional level.
But, which emotion should we be reaching? According to a study published in the University of Chicago Press, “Consumers want to be happy and marketer’s are increasingly trying to appeal to consumers’ pursuit of happiness. However, the result of six studies reveal ust be human why your company needs tone of voice that what happiness means varies, and consumers’ choices reflect those differences. …individuals tend to choose more exciting options when focused on the future, and more calming options when focused on the present moment.”
There are ranges of emotions that content can conjour, not all of them positive for the content creator. While angering a person can cause them to feel increased levels of passion, that passion may be directed against your brand and have the opposite effect you’d originally hoped for. Although we want to generate passion in our audiences toward our brand, we certainly don’t want to anger them into a passionate burst of energy designed to create a flame war and. Associate the brand with negative comments and distrust.
In an attempt to move people to action
marketers often attempt to create a sense of fear or anxiety amongst their audiences. Fear and anxiety help. Brands to create an atmosphere of change for their. Audiences, promising audiences that if they continue as they are, they’re doomed to fail or some other negative outcome. Creating anxiety for audiences. Has been a storyteller’s tool. Since time began, as early as Aesop’s Fables. And other stories that warn of the pitfalls and dangers of not acting in a certain way.
According to the neuroscientists, if we want. People to make decisions to adopt our. Product or services in the future, they need to feel. Excitement toward our brand. Somewhere in the content ecosystem, we need to bring them from fear and anxiety to a feeling of. Excitement over the prospect of solving their problems and relieving their anxieties. If we’re to follow. The findings of neuroscientists, content marketers need to entice audiences. With content that makes them feel excited and happy.
I’m happy when you solve my problems
You can make your audiences. Happy when you accurately discover their challenges, pain points, and unmet goals and then craft a story that portrays the. Problem with you and your product or service as the solution. Your audience will grow to. Trust you and ultimately choose your solutions, not just because it’s the logical choice, but because. They feel you’ve helped usb directory them and it’s the right thing to do.
When you put yourself in the story as the. Solution to the problem, be cautious about how much you talk about yourself. Remember, you want to make your audiences happy, not annoyed. Offering content that solves problems, offers information, or provides entertainment. Shouldn’t sound like an ad for your product or service.
Here’s where having well-developed audience personas can help guide your content creation. Beyond knowing what position they hold or which. Industry they work in, find out who they are and what they care about.
Once you know your audience,
create content experiences for them that will lead them to the next step in engagement. Since we don’t control the customer. Journey, every piece of content should be a gateway to engaging further with your brand. Make finding and using your content a pleasurable experience and continue to benefit from the. Positive emotions you’ve created with the initial piece of content.
Keywords and content to create positive experiences
If you want to know what your audiences care about, listen to the questions they ask. Your audiences are already engaging on social media. Sites and through organic search to ask their questions, get information, and find entertainment. Meet them where they’re already going with the answers and entertainment they seek. Use keyword researc