Content Marketing and ROI

Here’s how to ensure a good return on your investment in content marketing.

When it comes to connecting with customers, content is king. If you’ve turned to blogs, articles, infographics and other rich content to educate, entertain, and inform your customers, you might be wondering whether your efforts are truly paying off.

As Scott Severson, president of the content firm Brandpoint (Opens in a new tab), puts it: “If you’re developing blog content and sharing it socially, how much traffic are you getting back to your blog and what is that traffic worth?”

Want to make sure your content is adding to your bottom line? We can help. These tips can help you keep tabs on your return on investment (ROI) of developing content.

Count your audience. Your content is only valuable if someone is reading it and if it motivates them to take action. To figure out your traffic numbers, use Google Analytics or a similar tool to determine how many visitors came to your website through your blog posts and other content. Those are customers that you might not have reached otherwise.

Determine the cost of advertising. Once you know how many website visitors your content attracts, ask yourself, “What would that equivalent traffic cost me if I had to pay for it?” To do that, determine what keywords are most relevant to your content and look up what it would cost to bring in the same number of clicks through Google AdWords (Opens in a new tab). For business owners who aren’t comfortable digging into the analytics manually, there are services such as SpyFu (Opens in a new tab) that can also tell you the dollar value of your site’s visitors.

Compare the two numbers. If you’re paying less for content creation than you would for clicks, congratulations on a positive ROI. If you are paying more, it may be time to reevaluate your strategy by making sure your content is responsive to your customers’ needs and interests.

Consider the intangibles. It’s good to keep in mind that the AdWords comparison may not necessarily give you a complete picture and could even undervalue your content marketing ROI. “It’s an extremely conservative view,” Severson says. “It’s an easy way to prove the value, but it doesn’t tell your whole value story.”

That’s because content has more benefits than simply bringing isolated traffic to your website. A larger Web presence boosts the visibility of your brand in social media, and could encourage your visitors to be more engaged with your site. Companies that use content marketing effectively are generating more leads, seeing higher conversion rates, getting more inbound links to their sites, and ultimately, are closing more sales.

What’s more, the posts you create can drive traffic to your website forever for no extra cost to you, so the ROI of your content will continue to go up over time.

Content marketing will only grow in importance as more businesses enter the online fray. If you are smart about the content you produce and carefully evaluate how it affects your traffic, it can be an essential and lucrative part of your marketing toolkit.

“It allows that brand to have a one-to-one relationship with customers in a more meaningful way,” Severson says. “Once you get an audience, hopefully you’re retaining and nurturing that audience based on the value of your content.” Building an online presence and developing your content strategy will evolve over time as your process matures. So, while you’re considering your next steps, take a moment and contact an American Family Insurance agent (Opens in a new tab) to explore your policy options. You’ll feel great with the knowledge that your investments and your business are well protected.