If content marketing experts don’t even know the signs of their own success, what hope is there?

It’s a question that’s been raised, rather alarmingly, by The Drum’s State of Content Marketing Survey. Let’s look at the numbers to kick things off.

Three years ago the study found only 6% of marketers were clear on what a successful content marketing campaign looks like.

In 2019, that number has grown to 30%. Sadly, though, this means 70% of marketers don’t know the signs of a successful content marketing campaign. Things get worse when it comes to the perceived effectiveness of content marketing.

Only 18.92% of marketers believe content marketing is effective. 2.7% believe it is not effective at all.

Similarly worrying, 43.08% of respondents said they are on board with the concept of content marketing, but do not fully understand its value. 6% do not understand the process and see no value.

Content marketing experts need to get better at proving value, and identifying key metrics to prove that value.

Smoking Gun’s blog contains various posts on content marketing. How to give consumers the digital marketing content they want. The perils of causing ‘content pollution’. Top tools for streamlining your content marketing processes.

But once you have the campaign running, how do you identify success?

Success means content marketing experts making brands understand identify specific goals

Content marketing can be used for a variety of purposes. Each relies on its own measures of success and failure.

Here are a few examples of what content marketing is used for, and key metrics for measurement:

Driving web traffic from socials— Track visits to your website or domain of choice from the posts you share

Sales— How many conversion journeys stemmed from clicks generated by your content? 

SEO— How much positive impact has your content generation had on search engine results page rankings? 

Exposure and authority— Is your content generating feedback, engagement and referrals from those consuming it? 

ROI in content marketing

Depending on the raison d’être for your content marketing campaign, proving ROI can be simple or complex.

In sales look at the campaign against the value of sales. Exposure should be treated in the same way as a PR campaign; what reach and authority do any inbound links or engagements offer.

Looking to bring in some measurement experts?
That’s us.