In past blogs, we’ve had plenty of discussions about creating content—whether the topic was how to keep content production on track, using storytelling to mix up repetitive subject matter, or getting SMEs to write for your blog within your budget constraints. The premise behind those conversations has been getting your content game off the ground--building a library of resources.
But, once you’ve accomplished that, what’s the next step? What do you do with the robust amount of content at your disposal? More importantly, how is it performing? It’s critical to know if all the time and effort you spend creating this content and deploying it is really paying off or simply a waste of time.
You have the volume, now it’s time to maximize your marketing opportunities by taking it to the next level.
Metrics Tell a Story
I’m not a numbers person, but the only way to truly measure how content is performing is by looking at the analytics—the concrete data. A perfect place to start is by assessing your email marketing efforts. For example, let’s look specifically at newsletters. Analyzing metrics associated with email newsletters is a clear look into what resonates with your audience and what doesn’t. Consistently reviewing your analytics allows you to make the necessary changes to optimize for highest engagement.
For example, let’s say your company is a physical therapy clinic. You put out two newsletters per week, one on Monday and one on Thursday. Monday’s newsletter features a written blog-style Q&A with one of the staff members about a topic of their choosing. Thursday’s edition includes short synopses and links to three different articles on varying topics (e.g. benefits of stretching, preventative care, how diet impacts bone health, everything you need to know about plantar fasciitis, etc.).
After analyzing the metrics—looking at both Monday’s performance and engagement on each of the three individual articles—you discover that Monday gets very little engagement. You also determine that the more “medical” topics perform better than lifestyle content in Thursday’s send.
You would never have known that without taking a microscope to your analytics.
Instead of investing more time and money into creating the lower-performing topics, you now have the knowledge to move forward with content that caters to your audience’s needs and wants. Repeated testing and analysis of factors like content topics, assets, subject lines, and delivery times ensures you’re always in line with what your audience is asking of you. By continually measuring and analyzing your content, you can allocate more money to those topics and increase engagement with more qualified prospects.
You would never have known that without taking a microscope to your analytics.
Analytics Inform Future Content Offerings
Using this same example, the low-performing Q&A approach doesn’t necessarily have to die. Perhaps that is better purposed as a quick video clip that you can include in Thursday’s deployment—eliminating the resources required to craft and manage a Monday send.
Of course, measuring metrics is an ongoing process. You might learn that video isn’t the answer, either; that people really just aren’t interested in the Q&A format, regardless of how it’s presented. Or, you might find out that people really take to video, which informs how you budget for future content investments.
Your content needs a reason to exist.
Churning out content just for the sake of building and diversifying your content offerings is like jumping into a new project with no strategy whatsoever. Your content needs a reason to exist. By measuring and analyzing your content marketing performance, you can make better use of your marketing budget and make overall better decisions. More so, it allows you to implement the necessary adjustments in order to maximize efficiency and ultimately see a higher return on investment.
