Optimizing various aspects of your content marketing strategy for the best results is time-consuming and complex.
While a lot of factors are involved in crafting a robust content marketing strategy, the most important of all is evaluation. Marketers should continually assess their efforts to optimize their campaigns for higher ROI.
Let’s take a quick look at how you can do this.
1] Set Your Goals
Before jumping on to establishing your key performance indicators (KPIs), you should be clear about what you’re trying to achieve. If you have multiple goals, list them down in order of priority.
Not only will this help you identify the right KPIs, but it will also give shape to your overall content marketing strategy. You will be able to focus your efforts on creating content that really matters.
Some of the important content marketing goals include:
- Increase brand awareness.
- Generate leads.
- Drive more sales.
2] Establish the Right KPIs
Once you have your goals in place, tie each one of them with relevant KPIs.
For instance, if your primary goal is lead generation, you might want to look at KPIs such as.
- Click-through rate.
- Cost per lead.
Your click-through rate will reveal if your call-to-action (CTA) is compelling enough. On the other hand, your cost per lead will help you gauge the cost-effectiveness of your campaign.
Instead, if you’re gunning for an increase in brand awareness, your basket of KPIs will look completely different. You can take a closer look at your:
- Website traffic: Discover how many people are visiting your website, the types of content they’re engaging with the most.
- Engagement rate: How many people are engaging with the content you create? After all, the goal is to create content that strikes a responsive chord in your target consumers.
3] Improve Your Content Quality
Provided you track the right KPIs, you’ll be able to identify gaps in your content marketing strategy. This will enable you to make informed decisions in the future.
The sole purpose of tracking content marketing KPIs is to enable marketers to hit the right targets and benefit from their strategy.
If your KPIs are painting a dull picture time and again, consider improving your content quality and experiment with other types of content and topic ideas.
You can use an efficient content marketing platform to streamline your content marketing efforts. I’ve listed and reviewed some of the best ones on my blog, ShaneBarker.com.
Also, check out the infographic below to learn about content marketing KPIs in detail.
