Creating great content is hard work. It takes time and effort to come up with the right message, to engage a writers and the people in your content with knowledge. And whether your newsletter, a blog post or an article in a publication it’s important to know if you efforts paid off.
So how do you measure effectiveness?
Here are 4 steps to get a grip on the effectiveness of your efforts.
1. You need to actually look in order to know the effectiveness.
This might sound obvious but it isn’t. We see daily that people are doing things ‘because the have been doing it’ or ‘because it was planned’ and then keep doing it without actually measuring. E-mail newsletters a great example: they are still super relevant, they can still be effective – but do you actually look at open rates and click rates? And if you do look at those rates, do you compare them with your last email campaign? If not – you should, right now. And certainly when you write your next email – compare the last two emails and set out to write a better, more compelling email.
2. You need to set goals and define the right metrics.
You cannot measure success if you don’t know what success looks like. In B2B, we believe that success is defined by helping to develop leads, nurture prospects and engage clients. Some activities can touch all three; some activities will be for a specific group. In general a rule thumb would be that you’d like to see actions of engagement. This often translates to ‘clicks.’ But clicks are only part of the story. The expensive google AdWord click you bought is a click – but was it successful? If you count the click as a success – it’s just part of the path OF successfully converting new business. But if that person did nothing else once on your website, i.e. bounced it was not a real success. Twitter followers are another example. Is more followers better? Maybe – but if they don’t engage with you – ie if they don’t click on any of your Tweeted links, do they matter? So where ever you are, measure where you are in terms of real engagement, and then test your way by trial and error into a culture of increasing engagement.
3. Adjust in order to improve your metric
Now that you’re really watching what you’re doing – every time, all the time – you will have to act on the insights you’re getting. Got adwords with a 100% bounce rate and less than 30 seconds on the website? Probably a waste of money. Restrict – OR – try to improve the landing page. Is it the right landing page for message? This is equally true for your Tweeted message. What does a mobile user see when they click on the link and read your blog post? Is there an easy way to ‘more’ – is your website responsive? Do you know how many of your traffic comes from a mobile device? Did you try your own website on a mobile device recently? Even for hardcore businesses, more and more traffic is coming from mobile.
4. Keep looking!
Starts to sound repetitive? It’s based on experience. A lot of people don’t like numbers. A lot of people prefer to just ‘do.’ But in this fast -hanging digital world, you have keep looking. Because what worked yesterday might not work so great today and will be completely outdated tomorrow.
AdWords are a good example: you have created campaigns, you put in bids. Your ads are running. You pay the bills. But do you look at their performance in Google Analytics on a regular schedule? Did you setup goals in to see if any of your AdWord visitors makes it to a place on the website that helps your business? And as the bids go up (Google is very good at optimizing this part) – do your ads even get clicked?
No social media campaign is a ‘one off’ these days – so make sure to measure, adjust and measure again as a process you build into your business.
So for this blog post I set out a few goals.
– At least 200 total views in the first 2 weeks
– 10 LinkedIn shares
– 10 Tweets
Got a favorite tactic for creating a self-learning process? Drop us a line and let us know about it. Want some support in creating and refining this process at your company? We’re here to help!