10 Ways To Establish and Increase Content ROI

by | Mar 2, 2015 | Business, Digital, Marketing, Social Media

Content has become noticeably more popular in recent years and you have probably seen on many of the social media channels the onslaught of articles, infographics, blogs, photos and videos all trying to communicate a message and compete for the readers’ attention. All types of companies, big and small as well as entrepreneurs, and consultants are producing content to let their voice be known, all while trying to carve out their own slice of the market. It’s a daunting task to say the least.

The Content Marketing Institute’s 2015 Reports show that 69% of B2C and 70% of B2B marketers are creating more content this year than last year.                             – Content Marketing Institute

Those of us who produce content for a living understand that our job is not just about telling a story to engage the prospective customer or even just to obtain eyeballs on our content. Yes, that is very important. The real factor that is rarely discussed and even more rarely executed in marketing departments is how to measure content so that ROI is determined.

Do you know what your ROI is on the content your marketing team is producing?

Marketers cringe when the CFO strolls in the office and asks the question, “Do you know what your ROI is on the content your team is producing?” You better have a well thought-out answer for this or else your job may be on the line. Here are 10 ways for your marketing team to create a heightened content awareness as well as determining an increased market share metric for your content. Then, when the CFO walks in your office, your answer won’t be a fluffy, creative response that sounds like you really have no idea what you’re talking about. Remember, in business, content may be important, but increased revenues and profitability are the goals.

  1. Repurpose Content: Don’t just create content once and use it once. That’s bad business. Make sure you create it once and post, tweet, produce and tweet it several times to get maximum value. Tip: Count the number of times you re-purposed that content and re-posted, tweeted on social. If you can also determine how this content lead the customer to a conversion activity, that is even better.
  1. 10 Item List: Just like this blog has 10 items, you should create lists that have ten items as well. Research shows that lists with 10 items had 4 times as many social shares than the second most popular list that had even more items on it. The goal here is to generate more eyeballs and shares so that your content is seen and more customer touchpoints are created. If you know your blog for instance took 1 hour to create, and is also getting 1000 eyeballs per month and then shared 4 times beyond that, you can then provide a metric that determines the cost of producing that content along with the number of people that saw it. This can become a great data point that suggests your content marketing is far more cost effective than even paid media.
  1. Byline: Sometimes these are overlooked and sometimes they are not. However on Google +, articles with bylines receive a 42% boost over those without them. Bylines add credibility and consumers trust credible brands. That 42% boost is huge and your cost of producing that content is reduced significantly.
  1. Images: On Facebook, posts with images receive more than twice as many shares than posts without images. The same is true with Twitter. Tip: Take photos with your smartphone to help tell the story, or you can use apps like Canva to help spruce-up your articles. If you knew that your next post was going to double in shares because it had a nice image, would you use it? Of course you would.

Posts with visuals receive 94% more page visits and engagement than those without. – WishPond

  1. Long Form Content: If you’ve been told like I have to write content articles and blogs to be less than 1,000 words, you better think again. Longer articles that are 3,000-10,000 words in length get shared approximately twice as much as articles that are 0-1,000 words. Wow, I guess size does really matter!
  1. Quizzes: 80% of the most shared articles in the past 8 months were quizzes. Whoa, that’s a lot. Take time to think about what quiz questions you want to ask your audience and get it out to the constituents that mean the most to your brand. You will be surprised at how much it will be shared far beyond your followers. Tip: Quizzes are great ways to conduct market research.
  1. Infographics: These have become very popular now because people like to view and scan photos and imagery more than read long streams of text. Infographics are shared more often than any other piece of content, even more than photos and videos. Use these to tell a complex story that has lots of data. It will help to simplify the process and get your point across faster. Tip: People’s brains process imagery 60,000 times faster than text.

Infographics are shared 2x more than presentations, and 3x more than documents on other social networks, such as LinkedIn,Twitter and Facebook.     – Slideshare

  1. Post On Tuesday: You may not think that days of the week matter when posting, but believe it or not, they really do. Tuesday is by far the best day in which content receives the most total shares – over 3 times more than content posted on Saturday, which is the lowest. Tip: The best day for Linkedin and Pinterest users is Monday.
  1. Influencers: Before you begin creating your content, think about what influencers you can contact that can help give your content a huge boost. In doing so your content will get in front of more people than just your native audience. The concept here is to leverage people with a larger audience to obtain more eyeballs on your content.
  1. Customers: If your content is being shared, discussed, liked, favorited and even commented on, you are building brand affinity and establishing brand equity. Monitor what customers are saying on social since that’s the best place to capture the immediate pulse of your customers and their feeling about your content. Also think about directing those customers into the sales funnel so that you can begin to capture data and convert.

We all pretty much know that content is king and it always has been. But, can the King deliver the goods when it comes to revenue? That’s a really good question that not every marketer can answer. Let’s get back to the original scenario of when the CFO walks in your office and asks, “Can you tell me what the ROI is of your content?” Your answer should be, “I am so glad you asked” — then you can dive into how much more visibility and share-ability your content received because of the 10 items above. Don’t forget to include all the numerical data to help support your points as well as how your content not only attracted more prospective customers but also lead them to increased call volume with the sales team and inquiry responses. Content is King and it can lead to increased revenue if you plan your strategy correctly.

YourBrandExposed.com is designed to look at digital with an eye into the future using a creative, innovative marketing perspective. We’re a consultative and tactical resource for companies looking to leverage the power of digital, web, social and content marketing strategies.

Scott MacFarland

Web: www.Yourbrandexposed.com

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/scottmacfarland

Twitter: @scmacfarland

Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-macfarland/

Email: Yourbrandexposed@yahoo.com

Photo Credit: UnSplash – Timothy Muza

Graphic Credit: Canva

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