Wednesday, 25 May 2016

Is content marketing really working? Advice and insight from #ClickZChat

We talk a lot about content. How to make it, what makes it work, how to measure it’s effects, if there’s too much of it and more. The fact that we’re a good few years into the content marketing revolution but we’re still having these conversations is telling in itself.

Despite many, many assertions to the contrary, a number of people and organisations simply do not believe that content works.

We took to Twitter to find out why this myth persisted, and what we could do about it in this week’s #ClickZChat.

As always, we asked three questions in one hour. Here’s the insight and advice from our witter followers:

Q1: Do you think the C-Suite *really* believe in the value of content marketing Why or why not?

Many felt that we were still relatively early in the content marketing adoption cycle, and that this view would change given time (and proof of data)

However, when it came to companies already doing it, metrics were often a sticking point.

Last-click conversion was still being used in many cases, which made it harder to show genuine dollar value

It is worth mentioning that there are plenty of trackable numbers out there, some of which may not fall under the traditional ‘marketing’ banner. Search was a popular measure of success

And ultimately we may just need a little faith and patience. Not something we all have the luxury of unfortunately

So, how are marketers measuring ROI from content? Next up, we asked or followers for personal tips and examples…

Q2 How do YOU measure ROI from Content Marketing?

Starting with the basics. Having analytics in place, but also tracking human responses to content:

It’s also important to have clear goals to begin with. Success looks very different from company to company

Raj mentioned that simple actions could lead to larger results. It’s important to consider which action you are driving, and at what stage it sits in your sales funnel

With this in mind, it’s important to remember that it may not have to make ANY money. Content could reduce paid media costs, or work as a lead generation machine that does not convert directly

Q3: Which roles would you have as part of your content marketing dream team?

Initially, the focus was very much on creation, with lots of votes for key roles like designers, writers and editors:

As mentioned earlier though, once you have created something, you need to have it seen by the right people

it’s also worth pointing out that editorial and creative should have a strategic structure, rather than just concentrating on standalone pieces of content

And needs to know the brand and the audience intimately

And we received this remarkably thorough answer from Chris Lake which highlights the crossover between roles very nicely:

Overall it seems that marketers are convinced by the ability of content to go beyond push marketing and create measures like engagement which are more valuable over time, but currently many of us are lagging when it comes to proper planning and measurement techniques. Hopefully the continuing advance of digital transformation will see this change for the better.

If you’d like to know more about content marketing, check out this useful Content Marketing Strategy Documentation Map.

Thanks as always for all your fantastic answers. Join us over on twitter every Wednesday for the next #ClickZChat

Here’s a new content marketing strategy documentation map


The article Is content marketing really working? Advice and insight from #ClickZChat was first seen from https://searchenginewatch.com
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