Thanks to Keith Wiegold for today's guest post. Great stuff!
Scene: in swanky men’s locker room of Bushwood Country Club
Judge Smails: “What did you shoot today, Ty?”
Ty Webb: “Oh, you know I never keep score, Judge Smails.”
Judge: “Then how do you measure yourself against other golfers?”
Webb: “By height?”
-- Caddyshack, 1980
Right now, maybe more than ever, your content marketing efforts deserve a little measurement. Amidst budget cuts and strapped resources, elements of a marketing communication plan that lack at least some metrics linking back to effectiveness tend to be early casualties. “Nice to have” is often “first to go.”
But more than simply protecting your endeavors (and their corresponding budgets), measurement should be a vital element in any content marketing strategy – bear or bull, boom or bust. Content that fails to link back to marcomm objectives is surely “content” with a lower case “c.”
Even placing some very basic metrics in place takes the first few steps to ensuring your content is doing its job – to your client or yourself -- and can lead to increasing effectiveness by applying learning from the measurement’s results.
Here is a quick list to get your content marketing strategy in the swing of measurement:
I object
Simply put, set objectives. Define what ‘success’ means for your program and get it down/approved in writing.
Make certain your objectives are not only measurable (including specific growth number and timelines), but can be achieved directly through the use of content marketing. Think of it this way: Content marketing should not be tasked with ‘cutting operating costs by 15%” but can be challenged to “reduce customer churn by 15%.”
Remember that the flow begins with a Business Objective, then a Marketing Objective, next a Marcomm Objective, and finally a Content Strategy. Your strategy should be solving the Marcomm objective.
Budget, not fudge-it
Prior to writing word one, creating app one, or snapping photo one, put in place a budget for measurement. More times than I care to recall, marketers would eschew this as ‘cost savings’ up front, preferring to “get on with” the creative. Inevitably, someone (CFO, COO, etc.) somewhere else in the organization raises questions (usually just after the initiative begins, or worse – as budgets need slashing) about effectiveness, ROI, accountability. The base investment budgeted before ‘the work’ begins anticipates this, and puts in place a means for continuous improvement to the content marketing efforts.
Bench ‘em
This goes hand-in-hand with both setting objectives and budgeting. Again, before the initiatives are introduced to the marketplace, take a benchmark reading of your planned metrics. Comparing post-effort results with pre-effort marks is valuable for new initiatives to existing efforts and brand-new initiatives alike. Remember, tracking studies compare similar metrics over time, and they have to start sometime. No time like the present.
Old Softie
Legacy efforts, as well as off-line efforts, often look to ‘soft measures’ to determine effectiveness. Mostly determined by four- through ten-point scales, these softer metrics seek to measure customer self-reported awareness, attitudes, and intention. Traditional thought suggests there is a large enough disconnect between reported intent and actual behavior to render these softer self-reported metrics ineffective; however, the most recent views on the subject find ‘reported intention’ as a better predictor of brand loyalty when compared to actual behavior – which can suffer from tactical promotions more readily than deep felt intention.
Oh, Behave!
Our digital age provides the opportunity to link actual behavior directly to content marketing efforts. Metrics such as time spent on site, page views per session, repeat visits, and even click-throughs can indicate activity from the result of content marketing. Marketers with ecommerce capabilities can measure the ultimate behavior, transaction, and the role content plays on cross-sell, up-sell, and retention, amongst other metrics.
A Little Experiment
Our forefathers in direct marketing have passed along to us in modern day integrated marketing the building blocks of segmentation, test/control, A/B testing, and other disciplines based in the creation of Experimental Design.
On the most basic of levels, a simple Experimental Design will hypothesize what your Content Marketing Strategy aims to achieve on behalf of the Marcomm objective, then puts in place a test to measure it. Choose a target segment that you believe will be most influenced by your content efforts and test that against a secondary segment. Or take a key segment and randomly separate out a test portion (those who receive the content) and a control portion (those who do not) and measure the effect over time. You’ll need the assistance of a data analyst, but will be pleased with the quality of measurement your data will unleash.
It’s in the Hole!
While this is a simple primer of a checklist for involving measurement in your content marketing strategies, remember these two key points:
- Measurement is about planning. And if we fail to plan…..
- More than simply protecting your investment, measurement is about learning – and applying these learnings toward enhanced engagement and increased results.
Now….how ‘bout a Fresca?
Keith Wiegold is Chief Content Evangelist at Nutlug Content Marketing, and creator of C.A.R.E ™, a proprietary strategic framework for Customer Acquisition and Retention through Engagement. He can be reached at keith[at]marketingcontentstrategy.com.
Great stuff and such an important topic as ROI is coming home to content efforts. Would love to get your thoughts on how to benchmark engagement.
Posted by: Jean | April 07, 2009 at 03:48 PM
Excellent post. I think content marketing has a great future but needs firm objectives, suitable metrics and measurement of the results. Fail to do this and we will never improve, can't align content within our overall marketing strategy and can't argue a hard case for Content Marketing in the boardroom.
From my situation, that is essential. If you can't argue the case, it ain't going to happen!
Posted by: Nigel Dean | April 08, 2009 at 09:42 AM
@Jean and @Nigel: thanks for the comments!
Jean -- would enjoy chatting further about benchmarking engagement.
Contact me on Twitter (ContentKeith) or via email keith (at) marketingcontentstrategy (dot) com .
Posted by: Keith Wiegold | April 08, 2009 at 05:22 PM
Content marketing efforts needs those who have creativity and passion to be successful apart from planning the metrics and having firm objectives.
-Jonathan
http://www.p2w2.com
Posted by: N.Jonathan Christopher | April 09, 2009 at 01:26 AM