After you’ve put your content out there, what happens? It can go around for a while. It may circulate to various circles. Some people will be moved by it, make a purchase because of it, share it to others. Some might put it on hold and think about it. Others will simply discard it.
Measure the returns of content marketing
So how do you really know if your piece of content has played a part in motivating a person to buy your offer? Content interaction and engagement can be complex to track. Here are some ways to measure the return of investment from content marketing.
Audience response – Google Analytics is a tool that allows you to get the numbers on the following: content views, unique visits, downloads, reading time, actions taken after reading the content, etc.
Leads – If you content was created for the purpose of generating new leads, then use tools that show you what directed your audience to your site and how many of those visits converted into a sale.
Social engagement – Use analytics for specific social media sites to know vital stats such as number of views, shares and comments. Examples of these tools are Twitter Analytics and Facebook Insights.
Inbound links – The number of hyperlinks from another website pointing back to your site can be used to measure the value of your content to your target market.
Others – Other metrics to track ROI: Number and quality of subscribers, page likes, profile follows, comments and opt-ins.