You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it again: measuring content marketing ROI is hard. But a simple, outcomes-oriented strategy can help.
That’s the optimistic olive branch put forward in Content Marketing Performance: A Framework to Measure Real Business Impact, a new report from Altimeter Group. This new research takes a closer look at the impediments to measuring content value, as well as offering a framework to address these complexities.
But first, what’s the problem? Why has content marketing ROI remained so elusive?
According to Altimeter Group, the problem is two-fold. Marketers are struggling to identify:
1) Which metrics to prioritize, and
2) How to measure the metrics they do care about.
Authors Rebecca Lieb and Susan Etlinger note that far too often, marketers default to measuring activity rather than outcomes:
“Content strategists and digital marketers struggle to select the right metrics and frequently opt for measuring volume rather than impact when impact metrics are too complex to measure, or the required data or tools are not available.”
So what’s holding marketers back? Why do they shy away from impact metrics? One of the biggest problems highlighted in this report is a mismatch between marketers’ needs and their technology investments:
“While marketers say measurement is a primary need, they are making content software investments elsewhere.”
As Rebecca Lieb noted in a previous report, The Content Marketing Software Landscape: Marketer Needs & Vendor Solutions, most marketers struggle to “feed the beast” with a steady output of content. Put differently, marketers become so focused on getting content out the door, that they forget to take a look at how that content is actually performing.
So, what’s the solution?
Rather than distilling the business impact of content marketing down to a single measure of ROI, Altimeter outlines a list of metrics segmented by business goals.
These business goals include: Brand Health, Marketing Optimization, Revenue Generation, Operational Efficiency, Customer Experience, and Innovation.
By first identifying the desired business outcomes for you content, Lieb and Etlinger explain, the process of measuring content impact becomes a simple means of matching metrics to outcomes.
In short: Start with strategy. Business outcomes beget measurable metrics. Measurement becomes much easier when you know what you’re setting out to accomplish!
For more on connecting the dots between content output and content impact, you might like Leading Metrics: How To Optimize Your Content For Bankable Long-Term ROI.