In The Seven Habits of Successful Content Marketers series, we have looked at many ways you can succeed with creating, sharing and monetising content. Now it’s time to look at how you can measure and assess the impact your content is having on your target audiences. So what will your dashboard include?
Habit #7: Measure your Content Marketing, Often
Content marketing drives traffic to your website, which is one of the main reasons why we all do it.
It’s like sending out an invitation for people to come back to your house for a great party.
If you have good content on your website, people will stay for longer and look at more pages, and develop a deeper connection with you.
Ultimately, they will buy from you.
Audience Size
The obvious result of successful content marketing is followers and connections – how big is your audience?
If you want sponsorship, this is what people will look at. If you have back links from a respected website, this will move you up the rankings, because it’s the kind of thing that Google likes.
However, you can have a small following but if they are the right people, either as customers or referrers, this may be all your business needs.
Never buy followers.
Repeat, never buy followers.
Repeat, never buy followers.
Audience Engagement
The size of your audience is important, but the level of engagement is the most important metric. Facebook’s Edge Rank is based on this and all the other platforms are gradually cottoning on. If engagement is low, or zero, don’t expect any of your posts to be seen.
Increased comments, particularly on blogs and videos, are also valuable, because people look at these and this encourages them to engage and look closer at what you have to offer.
Repurpose Older Content
If you’ve been in business for a while, the chances are that you’ve amassed an extensive back catalogue of brochures, web copy, press releases, sales proposals and customer feedback.
Conduct an audit and get everything you have together in one place. Start by looking at what you’ve been saying about yourself. Think about rewording some of this.
For all of us the blank page is a tough place to start. It’s much easier if you’re building on something you want to edit and modify.
The most important word in marketing is “you”, not “I” or “we”.
Your customer wants to know what’s in it for them, and the benefits of buying from or working with you. Rephrase your existing content so you can share it with customers – explain the benefits to them.
Develop a Content Plan
It’s true that content marketing and social media are time-consuming, but so is marketing and running a business, and we’re all busy.
Remember to be efficient and have a plan, decide how you’ll share the links, and then think about batching your activities. Carve out some time in your diary, even if just a day per month, where you’ll focus on creating a nice, big, juicy piece of content that you can then slice and dice – repurpose your content.
Work out how you’ll share it on social media and look for a nice image to go alongside it. Can you record it to your camera and upload it to Facebook? What are all the different ways you could spread the message about that piece of content?
Batching, planning and scheduling are the keys to success.
Otherwise you’ll find that you frittered your time away and don’t feel that you have something you’re proud of. When you feel proud of your content, that encourages you to share it, just in the way you do when you’re proud of your website.
What it takes to succeed with Content Marketing
We’ve now looked at all seven of the habits of successful content marketers, some of which are skills and some are ways to manage yourself and your time.
Being a good communicator and putting yourself in your customers’ shoes is really important.
Forget what you’re trying to sell and find out what they’re looking for – it’s not a named product our service, but a solution or a resolution, or to feel different.
Whatever you decide to do, do it regularly and consistently. Don’t make your plans too ambitious – nobody expects this from you and you’ll just run out of steam, quickly. And don’t forget to measure the impact: likes, shares, comments, web traffic, dwell time, page views, etc.
Start with something you know you can do, put the time in your diary and do the graft.
Once you have a plan and you know what you want to write about, the universe starts to deliver.
What are the Seven Habits of Successful Content Marketers?
Tips and real examples from people who’ve inspired me over the last five years. They demonstrate, by using Content Marketing, how it has worked for the businesses they run.
We hope you’ve enjoyed the 7 Habits of Successful Content Marketers. Why not check out the other blogs in the series:
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- Tell them what they want to know – often
- Follow the plan and pick the right tools
- Be efficient – reduce, re-use, recycle
- Master social media, especially TWITTER
- The 80:20 rule: 80% theirs: 20% yours
- Earn Active Passive Income with RITE content
- Find your niche… the smaller, the better
- Measure your content marketing, often
Or if video is your preferred content type, click here to view the recording.
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Photo by David Zawila on Unsplash