How to measure the success of content marketing

What do you know about how your content marketing strategies are performing?
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Interested in how they compare to industry standards/average and your competitors?
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And would you like some free tips on creating the best content marketing strategy possible?
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We thought so.
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That's why we put the following guide together. It focuses on the critical aspects of measuring and delivering a content marketing campaign guaranteed to attract more eyeballs and drive more sales.

Sales Performance

We'll begin with the big daddy of all metrics: SALES PERFORMANCE!!

Why is tracking sales performance important?

Tracking sales performance lets you know how much money you're bringing in, including whether you've got enough to cover the business' expenses. And that's important. However, tracking income will also help shape your company's goals and growth strategy for the future.
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To understand your sales performance, you should keep a close eye on...

• Conversion rate
• Cost per customer acquisition
• Lead nurturing rate
• Number of new leads generated
• Content marketing ROI

How to track and boost sales performance

Using analytics tools and CRM systems is crucial for measuring the effectiveness of content in converting leads into customers. Companies should analyse which types of content drive the most engagement and sales, then tailor their content strategy to focus on these successful formats. Enhancing content quality to address the target audience's needs can lead to higher conversion rates.

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Additionally, a balanced approach to content distribution, combining organic and paid methods, can broaden the reach to more potential customers. It's also essential to evaluate the effectiveness of sales enablement content—materials designed to support the sales process, such as case studies, product datasheets, and presentations. Optimising sales enablement strategies by ensuring sales teams have easy access to the most effective content can improve sales performance. Regularly monitoring these metrics and being prepared to adjust tactics based on insights gathered are essential steps in leveraging content marketing to boost sales.

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Content marketing is almost 62% more cost-effective than 'traditional' ways of marketing. The ROI of a successful content campaign is £5 revenue for every £1 spent. Much of that will come from new leads. On average, our clients see a 200% increase in lead generation rates within 12 months of a content campaign launch.

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Customer retention

Attracting new customers is a top priority for any business, But keeping the ones you have is just as important. We're talking about customer retention now.

Why customer retention matters

A 5% increase in customer retention can increase company revenue by 25-95%. Moreover, attracting new customers is 7X more expensive than retaining them.

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But there's more to it than that.

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A high customer retention rate is strong evidence that your products, services, messaging, and content aligns with your customer's needs and expectations.

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Put simply, customers aren't even thinking about your competitors because they're getting everything they need and want from you, including on-point messaging and content.

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Improving retention rates through better content

A 'good' retention rate is around the 80% mark.

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You can accurately understand your retention rates from data gathered from a CRM or other software. The metrics to focus on are...

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• Customer churn
• Customer growth rate
• Repeat purchases
• Product return
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Time between purchases
• Customer lifetime value

Delivering the right content at the right time via the right channel is crucial to retaining loyal customers. So find out about your customer communication preferences at the beginning of their sales journey.

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Always appreciate the value of personalised content. We're not just talking about using a customer's name in emails (although that helps).

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Things to consider when designing a personalised content plan to increase engagement include introducing loyalty programmes, special offers, customer anniversary or birthday discounts, and check-in emails for less-engaged leads.

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And remember the golden rule of customer retention: Nurturing doesn't end the second a lead becomes a customer. You should continue to add value by creating and sending relevant content to keep customers engaged, satisfied, and loyal. Because if you don't, your competitors will.

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Regular newsletters, industry blogs, quarterly whitepapers, and social media posts on trending topics are all ways to create and maintain an engaging customer retention strategy that holds and nurtures your customer's attention and sense of brand loyalty.

Online engagement

Let's look at online engagement.

Why is online engagement important, and how can you track it?

Online engagement is one of your most valuable resources. It's what converts browsers to prospects, prospects to customers, and loyal customers to brand advocates and promoters.

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When looking at engagement metrics on your website, focus on the following…

• Average time on page
• Number of site visitors
• Bounce rate
• Average session duration
• Returning visitors

These tell you how many people visit your site and, more importantly, how long they stay on the site and engage with your content.

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One of the key metrics to focus on is how the site visitor rate compares to the bounce rate (the number of visitors that bounce off the page back to Google without viewing any other pages/content.)

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You've probably worked this out already. But it's worth emphasising. A high site visit rate means nothing if your bounce rate is sky-high. This is one of the 'reddest red flags' indicating people are not engaging with your content.

Measuring and improving online engagement metrics

A bounce rate of around 41 to 55% is OK. Anything near the 25% mark is considered excellent. So let's aim for that.

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There are tonnes of tools for measuring bounce rate. Google Analytics is one of the best, cheapest, and easiest to use. It has an adjustable bounce rate calculation feature that allows you to monitor bounce rate data in real-time, showing which pages and content are the 'bounciest' of all.

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In terms of keeping people on the site longer, content is still king.

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"It's all good having high traffic, but it's essentially a vanity metric," says AXD founder Alan Davies. "If the bounce rate is also high, your content isn't persuasive or relevant enough to engage people. Content marketing is about enticing people to take action. And if it isn't doing that, then what's the point?"

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"Good content is value-led, relevant, and useful. From home page content to blogs, it's about answering customer queries, addressing their pain points, and clearly and concisely providing the information they're looking for. Do that, and they will stick around."

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Brand engagement

Let's shift the focus a little bit and look at brand engagement.

The value of brand engagement

Examples of brand engagement include social media interactions, newsletter subscriptions, user-generated content, purchases, loyalty programs, website visits, and recommendations.

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A high level of brand engagement is a sign that you're doing something right. Your customers aren't just customers. Instead, they're loyal members of a community that feel a genuine emotional connection with your service and products.

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Metrics to measure when analysing your brand engagement strategy include...

• Upvotes/like/shares
• Comment and mentions 
• A growing (good) or shrinking (bad) email subscriber list/loyalty program
• Referrals 
• Incoming requests, including guest blog invitations

How to build better brand engagement

Brand engagement is about...getting people to engage with your brand. In other words, you want customers to interact. So, give them plenty of opportunities to get (or feel) involved.

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Here are some of the best ways to create a more inclusive vibe around your brand…

• Hold giveaways, contests, and polls.
• Organise virtual or 'real-life' events.
• Personalise communications with clients on different channels.
• Encourage user-generated content.
• Ask customers for feedback, listen to it, and then implement it. Make your brand feel like their brand. 

Jef Bezos knows a few (billion) things about building a brand. He says brand engagement is about putting the customer experience at the heart of everything you do.

"We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we're the hosts," says the Amazon boss. "It's our job to make every single aspect of the customer experience feel a little bit better every day..."

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Sales enablement and content marketing experts

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Our proven playbook and compelling sales content move prospects forward and to conversion. We blend your market intelligence with our sales expertise to create an exceptional sales toolkit your team will be proud to use, enabling connections, starting conversations, and driving conversions, helping you win customers and beat competitors. It's everything your sales reps need for success, from engaging infographics to insightful solution briefs and email and messaging templates to factsheets and call scripts, delivering a 30% boost to your sales performance. Adopt the strategies used by big tech, build buyer trust, and start smashing sales quotas today.

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Book a free discovery call with our team to learn more.

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