Content usage has evolved over the years with measurable successes. Businesses have taken a formidable approach to target content. They have worked on strategic planning so that markers can track the efforts and help them call the shots.
Content marketing is customer-centric and value-led, so that the approach will be completely different from the traditional form of marketing. The content generated has to drive positive brand perceptions. It needs to be more than just being creative but extend to the point of being inspiring and innovative to entice the audience.
Content can enable both direct and indirect revenue generation. However, we need to know how much ROI can be generated through content. For doing that, you need first to know how to calculate it. These benefits also can be analyzed using formulae to arrive at a percentage that gives the businesses an idea of the gains through content marketing versus the expenditure.
Measuring content and finding ROI
Content is a long-term investment for any business, which eventually boils down to sales and ROI, which requires the business to keep an eye on the expenses spent on content creation. We know that marketing is done to bring in business; hence most businesses are worried about how much sales it brings in rather than creativity.
ROI on Content Marketing = ( Returns – Investment) × 100
Investment
Knowing that content is measurable, businesses can now know how effective any piece of content is and its reach to potential consumers. The ROI could be calculated for the short-term and long term to acknowledge the content program costs. However, most of the time, the entire content is considered to determine the total investment, inclusive of overhead costs.
Why it’s critical to measure ROI
Several aspects go into ensuring accurate ROI measurement for content marketing. The intangible outcomes may be part of the content marketing, yet the need to justify the expenditure for content creation needs numbers that can happen only when measuring ROI.
When you can count on acquiring new customers, creating brand awareness, including amplified visibility on the search engines because of SEO-enabled content, content marketing leads the way. You should hire professional content writing services for high quality content to increase ROI.
The ROI measurement cannot capture the entirety of your content marketing efforts. However, many factors can enable the marketing team to get specific numbers to compare and analyze for further strategic planning.
Steps for calculating the ROI
- The most important factors would be the costs for creating content that often comes from paying for the writing, design, audio, video, other outsourced tasks that comprise creating a blog post, social media content etc. So, the costs include the payment made for getting the tasks done and the tools utilized to make the content.
- When the content gets made, you will need to distribute it to reach an audience. To do so, you will need several tools, advertising and other services in order to promote the content.
- Revenue generation through the content is hard to determine with specificity that a particular piece of content or the entire content program contributed. But ROI does measure the most part.
- Nest you calculate the ROI with the mentioned formula, which gives you a percentage
Analyzing ROI won’t give you overnight results because you publish content. It can take weeks or months for search engines and audiences to even discover it, unlike offline content, which may procure faster results. The decision-makers can wield their power in taking up the reasonable estimate of your ROI and approve for content market strategies.
Key metrics used for calculation
Various data gets used to check out content performance so that different analytical tools can better understand how impactful the content has been.
Search engine visibility through high-ranking keyword usage could lead to more clicks.
Brand awareness is created through increasing the brand-related search with content, social media following, a direct visit to the site and definitely media mentions contribute to better brand awareness.
Website traffic is crucial and can be noticed through key performance indicators. A significant crowd to the site can lead to conversion and sales. The interaction between the visitors and specific content can help identify which of the content marketing efforts are paying off.
Backlinks are attached to your content to increase visibility. These links belong to another website, leading to more organic search traffic to your site. It can provide crucial data as to which content the audience gets more excited about.
Engagement by the audience is important and the entire goal of the content is to engage and get people to know about your brand and what you do. Social media posts can be measured with the number of impressions, reshares, likes and comments it shows. You could find out by the bounce rate, page reviews, and scroll rate. When using videos, the number of views and view duration matter.
Qualified leads are often quantified to be a benchmark in measuring content marketing. The content that generates significant leads allows you to know what content works and gets the audience to the site, increasing sales.
Sales and revenue can be noticed through the number of people subscribing to the newsletter, getting engaged with the content you have put out and agreeing to receive the downloads from your site.
Brand affinity and loyalty can be attained by positive brand exposure through the content-generating organic traffic and leads. Increasing the brand sentiment can be powerful enough to increase customer loyalty. High-quality content can create that for you.
Your marketing goals may be centered around conversions that often lead to the budget allocation for content marketing. You may sometimes find it hard to put the exact numbers on the table with everything linked, especially the content’s brand awareness. However, when it’s hard to quantify, you can come up with ROI, which gives you a certain percentage that you can work around and enable decision-making.
