The Know-How to Boosting Your Content Marketing ROI
You’ve probably heard it said that “content is king” when it comes to online marketing. That’s because high-quality, well-written, informative content can help attract and engage potential customers, build trust and credibility, and drive conversions. But what’s often missing from the equation is a discussion of content marketing ROI – or how to measure the return on investment on content marketing efforts. There are many ways to determine content marketing ROI, but before we get into that, let’s take a step back and look at what ROI is and why it matters. Content Marketing ROI “ROI” stands for “return on investment,” a way of calculating the profitability of an investment – in this case, content marketing efforts of any business. Therefore, content marketing ROI is the return on investment you get from one’s content marketing activities. Content marketing ROI is important because it helps you to understand how effective your content marketing performance is in relation to the amount of money that you have invested. Interestingly, there are a number of different ways to calculate it, but the most basic formula is: ROI = (Net Income – Cost of Investment) / Cost In other words, ROI measures how much income or return from investment in content marketing activities minus the cost of those activities, divided by the cost. For example, let’s say you spend $100,000 on content marketing in a month. From that investment, you generate $200,000 in return. The ROI would be: ($200,000 – $100,000) / $100,000 x 100 = 100% So, in this case, the ROI is 100%. That means you’re generating an additional dollar as income for every dollar spent on content marketing. If there are doubts about things to include in the calculation of the ROI, a good rule of thumb is to think about anything that goes into producing and distributing the content, such as: Writing or creating the content itself Editing and proofreading Tools for content marketing Publishing or hosting the content Promoting and distributing the content Measuring and analyzing the results And anything else that’s involved in the process Make sure to have Google Analytics set up to track traffic from the website to the content accurately. That’s because Google Analytics is very handy in determining which pieces of content are most successful in attracting an audience and what topics they’re most interested in. It’s also useful for understanding how people interact with what’s on the website after they’ve read the content. It provides deep insights into the changes needed to improve the user experience. Once you have google analytics set up and can track organic traffic from the website to your content, you can start calculating the content marketing ROI – easy After calculating the ROI, use that number to compare the profitability of different content marketing successes, activities, and strategies and decide where to allocate resources going forward. This way, you can continue to invest in and improve upon what’s working for your business. 6 Reasons Why Content Marketing ROI Matters When content marketers don’t track and measure the ROI of their content marketing efforts, they simply won’t know whether or not they’re actually paying off. And if they don’t know whether or not their content marketing is working, they could be wasting time and money on activities that aren’t actually helping you achieve their business goals. So, why does it matter after all? Here are six reasons: 1. Improved Decision Making With awareness of how much profit your content makes, you can more efficiently use your resources by making smart decisions on where to invest time and money in the future. For example, let’s say you’re trying to decide whether to produce more blog posts or create more videos. If you know that each blog post generates $100 in revenue on average, but each video generates $500, then it’s a no-brainer – you should create more videos. 2. More Accountability Measuring ROI holds content marketers accountable for their actions and ensures they produce profitable content. Having high website traffic and social media engagement is not enough. The content must ultimately drive profits for the company. With this, content marketers will be motivated to produce content that generates revenue for the business. 3. Better Budgeting To maintain or increase your budget, you need to be able to justify your expenses – and that’s where content marketing ROI comes in. Suppose you show that a content marketing program generates a positive return. In that case, it will be much easier to convince decision-makers to give the needed resources to continue doing what you’re doing. 4. Setting Realistic Goals Measuring ROI helps set realistic goals for content marketing strategies and campaigns. It can clearly show whether or not a campaign is successful and if it needs to be tweaked or improved upon in the future. It will make it possible to measure progress toward reaching specific business objectives, such as increasing sales or website conversions. Usually, setting specific and measurable goals is a crucial step in successful content marketing. 5. Competitive Advantage Competitive advantage is said to be achieved when a company can successfully offer the same or similar products or services as other businesses but at a lower cost or higher profit. Businesses that don’t bother to calculate their ROI are flying blind when it comes to making decisions about their content marketing strategy. So, understanding your content marketing ROI can help compare and analyze how your performance stacks up against competitors in the industry. This can give any business a competitive edge and provide insights on where to improve for future success. 6. Better Demonstration of Value Measuring ROI allows content marketers to demonstrate the value and impact their efforts have on the overall success of a business. This can be crucial for securing buy-in or budget from higher-ups in the company. In essence, tracking ROI helps justify the time and resources spent on content marketing. What’s more? It can also attract potential investors or partners as they will be
