Nathan Safran’s article, “4 Intangible Benefits of Content You Shouldn’t Overlook” on SearchEngineLand.com, a daily blog posting organization for all things SEO (Search Engine Optimization). He discusses the benefits of having digital technology for marketing use because we are able to measure the impact of our online efforts like never before.
Along with being able to track content metrics such as traffic, downloads, and bounce rate, we must also remember that content has intangible benefits that should be considered for any ROI discussion. Safran considers the idea of intangible benefits of content, which has become the way for marketers to reach their audience and their content marketing strategies. Marketing executives are investing a lot of money into into content, and it’s challenging to actually measure the content’s quantifiable ROI. Unless you interview every converting customer about how your individual content assets influenced their purchase decision, it’s very difficult to measure content ROI.
However, Safran says that if your organization is evaluating content ROI, know that you won’t exactly get a full picture of the value and benefit of content strictly through your analytics. Safran provides a list to consider when evaluating your organization’s content ROI, beyond what is in your analytics.
Because consumers are becoming more accustomed to interacting with brands online, and on their terms, they expect their brand to product regular and quality content. According to a WP Engine Study, 46% of users read the blogs of their favorite brands, and 48% feel it’s important for a brand to produce content on their blog. There’s a big threat for loss of ROI if a brand does not regularly connect with their audience through content. Forty percent believe the brand suffers negatively if they do not regularly product content. Safran emphasizes the importance for brands to produce regular content to meet their audience’s expectations. The cost of not doing so requires an alarming ROI discussion.
Safran describes that buyers typically go through a buying cycle, gradually educating themselves about the criteria they will use to make a final purchase decision. Without content, marketers lose the opportunity to influence buyers where it really matters — early in this buying cycle before customers have formed strong opinions about their buying criteria.
Content has more power than you think. Safran says that if done right, content will serve to unify messaging by putting your company’s value proposition in front of your audience, and gets everyone talking about it in the same way.
Although it’s difficult to quantify your ROI benefits with content marketing investment, however, your company is absolutely capable to create and utilize effective content. Safran provides examples of businesses that effectively use content. For example, HubSpot has largely built their B2B brands on the backs of their content. Even bigger, Oreos earned a famous SuperBowl tweet that was retweeted more than 15,000 times and liked on Facebook more than 20,000 times. It is undeniable of the potential impact for content a brand has.
As an industry, we have increasingly powerful technology that is able to quantify the metrics of content’s performance and effect. Measuring metrics are a foundational part of any content ROI discussion, and marketers must learn to get the most from their analytics to accurately gauge the success of their content. Safran reminds us that we must also learn to take into account the real intangibles apart of any content ROI discussion.
Read the full article by Nathan Safran.