With the help of our CMI contributors, we’re tackling how to make content more engaging, which was the biggest challenge identified in the new research about B2B Content Marketing. Over the past two weeks, our contributors answered these questions:
This week, our contributors answer the question, “How should marketers measure engagement?”
These are good metrics to start with, but remember to research your target audience. If they are not active in the “Forrester technographic ladder” don’t plan on much proactive content coming from your users. |
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Engagement metrics include comments, retweets, ‘likes’, shares and linkbacks. For web content, time on page and pages viewed are good engagement indicators. And don’t forget the softer metrics: being quoted, invited to speak or write an article or guest post. Anything that says they stayed for the whole show, wanted more and told their friends. Project Open Kimono on our blog goes through our real-life case study of a recent agency promotion campaign. It touches on all these engagement metrics — some might surprise! |
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We also look at the ratio of various interactions (likes, user generated comments and non-admin wall posts) against the weekly fan base growth. Each has a specific value that is ranked by the amount of effort it takes a user to interact. For example, an unsolicited wall post from a fan on our page would have higher value than simply “liking” a comment. – Nate Riggs (@nateriggs) |
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Once you have a clear picture of who your audience is, develop customized content. Now you are in position to develop metrics that reflect what success with this group of people will feel like. The benchmarks will vary greatly by company, but frequent starting points would be: 1) increased inbound links for key areas on your website, 2) click-throughs on social-only content offers or 3) active blog commentary. |
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I confess, I’ve subjected a number of my friends and family members to this field research! I’ve frequently been surprised by how someone finds a blog or website, and then what captures their attention once they are there–the places I might click or be interested in are sometimes very different. Besides telling us what is most engaging, it also shows us whether the user experience best practices we think about represent a common journey that real people are inclined to take. |
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The online world offers all kinds of measures: visits, page views, subscribers, comments, etc. So many in fact that you can lose sight of the bigger picture by focusing too much on the details. The bigger picture takes into account that you are looking to interact and engage with people, not data. Although the data offers perspective and insight on people and what they engage with, it is still data and doesn’t fully capture the human aspects of engagement. For example, depending on your audience, you may find your content generates more offline interaction. Or perhaps intense email exchanges. After two years writing a blog focused on the sights, sounds, history and community of my local neighborhood, word-of-mouth has led to two to three emails per month filled with personal stories and anecdotes – and photos. Those exchanges are poorly captured in data, but they are powerful signs of intense engagement with an audience more comfortable with traditional forms of interaction [e.g., email] rather than blog comments. Look for signs, both online and offline, that allow you to appreciate quality rather than than quantity and gain context for the engagement you’ve created. You’re much better off with fewer well-qualified visitors who are eager to consume your content – because it’s relevant to them – than with an army of readers bouncing off your [to them] irrelevant content. That way you can fine tune your content, strengthen the engaging qualities and possibly even capture more quantity! |
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Engagement shouldn’t be your end goal, but delivery on your objectives should be. (Nutlug’s C.A.R.E. ™ model identifies multiple stages in the Customer Journey, which match directly to marketers’ objectives.) Engagement means something different to different customers as they are in different stages of relationship with your brand – hence measuring engagement means looking at multiple metrics against achieving objectives. And, as true objectives, make certain they are measurable (in percentages, units or dollars) and contain a time element (next 18 months, next fiscal year, etc.). As a note, make sure that you include a line item in your budget for measuring engagement. While this is often only a minor percentage of your overall content marketing budget, too many practitioners pare that as an unnecessary expense and then scramble when they need to provide value. |
Summary
As a number of our contributors mentioned, measuring engagement is about how people respond to your content – and it goes beyond the number of downloads you have. What action is your audience taking? And are you reaching the right audience instead of a large audience?
While the type of content will impact what you measure, here are some common metrics:
- Your website:
- Are people returning to your site?
- How much time are they spending?
- Which pages are they viewing?
- Social sharing:
- Are people sharing your content via Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks?
- Are they referencing it in their blog posts and in other places?
- How is your fan base growing over time?
- Content interaction:
- Are people commenting on your blog or Facebook page?
- Are you being asked to write articles or speak at events?
- Are they engaging you offline or via email?
Other contributors provides ideas on how you can measure content:
- Research and identify the people you want to reach so you know you are interacting with the right people.
- Set up a specific call to action.
- Develop unique landing pages.
I’d love to get your thoughts. How else would you measure if content is engaging?
If you want to get more tips on how to make your content engaging, stay tuned to our posts on Tuesdays. Even better, sign up so to get all of our content marketing how-to articles.
Other posts in this series: