Chief Content Evangelist at Nutlug Content Marketing
Abridged with the author’s permission. Read the original on the Junta42 blog under the title “Keeping Score: Measuring the Effectiveness of Content.”

Amidst budget cuts and strapped resources, elements of a marketing communication plan that lack at least some metrics linking back to effectiveness tend to be early casualties.

Even placing some very basic metrics in place takes the first few steps to ensuring your content is doing its job. Here is a quick list to get your content marketing strategy in the swing of measurement:

• Define what ’success’ means for your program and get it down/approved in writing.
  Make certain your objectives are not only measurable (including specific growth number and timelines), but can be achieved directly through the use of content marketing.  Think of it this way:  Content marketing should not be tasked with “cutting operating costs by 15%” but can be challenged to “reduce customer churn by 15%.”

• Prior to writing word one, creating app one, or snapping photo one, put in place a budget for measurement. More times than I care to recall, marketers would eschew this as ‘cost savings’ up front, preferring to “get on with” the creative. Inevitably, someone (CFO, COO, etc.) somewhere else in the organization raises questions about effectiveness, ROI, accountability.

• Before the initiatives are introduced to the marketplace, take a benchmark reading of your planned metrics. Comparing post-effort results with pre-effort marks is valuable for new initiatives to existing efforts and brand-new initiatives alike.

• Our digital age provides the opportunity to link actual behavior directly to content marketing efforts. Metrics such as time spent on site, page views per session, repeat visits, and even click-throughs can indicate activity from the result of content marketing. Marketers with ecommerce capabilities can measure the ultimate behavior, transaction, and the role content plays on cross-sell, up-sell, and retention, amongst other metrics.

• A simple Experimental Design will hypothesize what your Content Marketing Strategy aims to achieve, then put in place a test to measure it. Choose a target segment that you believe will be most influenced by your content efforts and test that against a secondary segment. Or take a key segment and randomly separate out a test portion (those who receive the content) and a control portion (those who do not) and measure the effect over time. You’ll need the assistance of a data analyst, but will be pleased with the quality of measurement your data will unleash.

Keith Wiegold is creator of C.A.R.E ^TM, a proprietary strategic framework for Customer Acquisition and Retention through Engagement.  He also is an adjunct professor at Northwestern’s Medill School, Integrated Marketing Communications Department.  He can be reached at keith@marketingcontentstrategy.com, or follow him on Twitter:  ContentKeith.

Posted in Audience research and strategic planning