Category Archives: Content Strategy

The importance of knowing your content marketing KPI

Content marketing is more effective if you know your KPIs – key performance indicators. What exactly do you want your content marketing to achieve for your business?

Engage your visitors
Improve your search engine rankings
Increase your revenue (this is something broad, actually)
Get more visitors from social networking and social media websites
Improve your conversion rate

These are the basic KPIs that you need to keep in perspective while working on your content marketing strategy. This way you know exactly what you are trying to achieve. Remember that the narrower your KPIs are, the better you will perform. This will also help you optimize your resources.

Why is it important to know your content marketing KPIs?

The problem with content marketing is most of the people don’t know exactly what they are trying to achieve. They know that it works. They know that it is working for other businesses. But all they know is, people are publishing one blog post after another, one article after another, and taking social media and social networking websites by storm with their “killer” content. Somehow they cannot figure out how to add method in the content marketing madness. Exactly what is happening? What sort of content gets you what? How does it actually get you more business?

As I mentioned in the above bullet, having a KPI like “Increase your revenue” is quite broad because by the end of the day, even if you have performed 1000 activities, you want to increase your revenue. Every for-profit business wants to get more revenue. This is an existential truth nobody can escape. So you can take “Increase your revenue” out of the bulleted list.

When you have figured out the KPIs of content marketing in your case, you don’t worry about other aspects of your business.

Suppose the most important KPI for you is, getting more newsletter subscribers. It doesn’t matter how your search engine rankings are. It doesn’t matter the level of engagement you can manifest on social media and social networking websites. Heck, it doesn’t even matter what sort of conversion rate your website enjoys. What matters is, if you were getting 5 newsletter subscribers per month previously, after you have set your content marketing ball rolling, and after it has been awhile since you set your content marketing ball rolling (for, it needs some time to show results) you should be getting 50 newsletter subscribers or 500 newsletter subscribers every month. If you set this as your KPI – getting more newsletter subscribers – then your content marketing is working for you. Once you have figured out that your content marketing is working for this particular KPI, if you want, you can put in more resources to get even better results. This is why it’s important to know the KPIs of your content marketing.

Some good examples of content marketing KPIs that you can set for your own business

People begin spending more time on your pages and blog posts: It means they’re finding what they’re looking for. It also means that they’re not being distracted by other things while they’re visiting your website. The more they stay on your website, the better will be the prospects of them turning into your customers and clients. If this is the KPI you have set for your content marketing, it can be good indicator of its success.
You’re getting more unique visitors to your website: Of course repeat visitors are good, but they will become repeat visitors if they come to your website for the first time, right? So the more unique visitors you have, the more repeat visitors you will get and repeat visitors are the ones who normally do business with you, the most. If you’re getting more unique visitors and if this is a KPI that you have set for your content marketing, you’re going in the right direction.
More people download your e-book, case study or report: Suppose the growth of your business depends on the number of people downloading your e-book, your case study or the report that you have prepared so that you are known as an expert in your field. If you have set this as your KPI, you will be publishing content accordingly.
You are getting more subscribers for your newsletter: Building your mailing list is a timeless piece of wisdom. The more people hear from you (without feeling annoyed) the more eager they will be to do business with you. This is why many businesses solely focus on building their mailing list and getting more subscribers for their newsletters. This sort of content marketing KPI would be perfect for those who are looking for long-term business development goals. They want to establish relationships and communication channels so that eventually these relationships and channels metamorphose into business partnerships.
You are getting more inbound links: There was a time when inbound links were extremely important for your search engine rankings. Although this no longer is the case, why solely depend on search engine traffic if you can get traffic from other websites? In fact there are many businesses that completely ignore search engines – something that I don’t advise – and completely focus on getting inbound links from high-traffic websites. Having this as your content marketing KPI will keep you focused on publishing highly useful and high-quality content so that people voluntarily link to it from their own websites and blogs.
Your search engine rankings are improving: Which business doesn’t want better search engine rankings? By the way having better search engine rankings as your primary content marketing KPI doesn’t always help because eventually it is the conversion rate on your website that matters. So, yes, aim at improving your search engine rankings but not at the cost of quality, meaningful content.
More people are engaging with you on social media and social networking websites: 82% people in the USA are engaging with their preferred brands on websites like Facebook and Twitter. I’m getting decent amount of work from LinkedIn. Some businesses are targeting Google+. No matter what social media or social networking channel you plan to target, eventually it is engagement that matters. If you’re simply posting content to fill your profile with information, it doesn’t help your business. People need to regularly interact with you, and this is a worth pursuing content marketing KPI.

Again, why haven’t I included things like “Increased revenue”, “more leads”, “more sales” and such terms as your KPIs? Because, no matter how important they are – in fact, the most important for any business – they are a by-product of the KPI attributes mentioned above. If your content marketing takes care of those KPI attributes, you naturally begin to get more revenue, more leads and more sales.

What to take care of while posting content on Facebook and Twitter

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As a business marketer do you take special care when posting content on social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn? In my case I’m not very particular about Twitter because there I exchange all sorts of views including content writing and content marketing, politics, religion, literature, philosophy, and pretty much everything I find amusing, interesting and worth sharing. If you want to follow me on Twitter for a particular reason, I’m afraid you’re not going to get it. These days I am mostly followed by either those who somehow discover that I post lots of stuff on content marketing and content writing, or the Indian right-wingers because of my political leanings.

On Facebook, on my personal profile I rarely post content marketing-related content. It’s mostly personal, political, social or religious and yes, literary.

On LinkedIn it’s strictly business. I use my LinkedIn profile to promote my blog posts, articles and other content writing and content marketing related webpages. I’m happy that, due to this, I have got some nice assignments from my LinkedIn connections.

Google+ is a mix of business as well as business-related interesting stuff. I don’t share my political opinions on Google+.

On Twitter I have a separate profile to handle my business content, though. Even on Facebook I have created a dedicated page to promote my content writing and content marketing services. But unlike my blog, I’m not very regular with my business profiles on Facebook and Twitter, although, I must dedicate some time to it.

Jeff Bullas in his recent blog post rightly says that not all social media networks are equal. He says:

Social media is a great way to attract that attention. But that doesn’t mean you can just throw your link out there and people will come flocking. If you want your content to succeed on the major social media networks, you must consider who you are sharing it with. Then, you can write the perfect copy and produce the best content and optimize it for each social network to lure them in.

He also explains, comprehensively, what sort of content is appropriate for which social network and which sort of content elicits the most vibrant response.

How do I write content for my clients for their social media and social networking platforms?

Yes, I do take up assignments for writing content for my clients for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and even Tumblr. How do I decide what to write?

Just as Jeff has explained, I choose different content for different social networking profiles. I also carry out a study of their connection profiles. For LinkedIn you can be sure that only professionals are going to exchange information but a platform like Facebook can be capricious. You can find professionals as well as colleagues and relatives. For instance, in the fag end of the previous year I got a very plum assignment from one of my Facebook friends. Even before that I got 3-4 good project from Facebook. So it also depends on what sort of people you follow and what sort of people follow you.

Fortunately, all the clients who have approached me are not as casual about their social networking platforms as I am with my Twitter profile. They normally post very focused content and this is what they want when they hire me. I carefully go through the content they have posted so far, and the content their followers and friends have shared, the nature of the content that elicits greater response (Likes, Shares, Plusses, Retweets and Favorites) and the frequency with which their users and friends use the platforms. Accordingly I formulate their social media content strategy.

Whereas I have got work from Facebook and LinkedIn, surprisingly, Twitter, where I am the most active, I have never gotten work from.

10 content marketing myths to avoid

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In every field there is herd mentality simply because it is much easier to follow a herd rather than chart your own path. Besides, we think that whatever the herd is doing might be the right way hence why not go that way? The problem is, when one of the sheep of the herd starts jumping over the cliff, sometimes all the sheep follow, including you. The same sort of mentality sometimes manifests in content marketing.

It is surprising that we are ready to put in more effort towards doing what others are doing whether they are doing it right or wrong rather than making an effort to understand exactly what our business requires. Every business has a unique content marketing requirement. So does your business. But are you losing the game simply because you are following the myths created or established by others? If this is the case, you might be wasting lots of money, time and worse, business.

This Business2Community blog post lists 10 content marketing myths that you can avoid and stay on the proper path. In brief, these myths are:

The more content you have the better it is: Well, sometimes it is true and sometimes it is not. Provided you can produce lots of targeted high-quality content and provided you have the budget, more content can certainly give you an edge, but if you are publishing content just for the sake of quantity, it does more harm than good.
Anybody can write content: Again, it depends on your ability to write, your experience as a professional writer and the time you have at hand. Content marketing is a full-time job better left to professionals. Simply because people can write a few sentences or a few paragraphs and sometimes a few blog posts, they get trapped in this notion that they can carry out the entire job of content writing and content marketing on their own.
Content marketing and content writing is the same thing: Just because you publish a blog doesn’t mean you’re doing content marketing. As the world goes, you need to market the content and just as you need to do multiple things in order to market something, the same is applicable to content marketing.
Content should be cheap: Why? It’s a business asset, just like your website. In fact your content is the most precious thing you have because people do business with you after they are exposed to your content. Getting cheap content means considering your business a cheap proposition.
It’s just about creating great content: Although having great content on your website is the topmost requirement if you want to execute an effective content marketing strategy, marketing per se, as already mentioned in bullet 3, is a lot more than that.
Content marketing is just a fad: Well, you think that? All the best with your business, really.
Content marketing isn’t for every business: It is a very potent tool and it depends on individuals and businesses how they use it. It isn’t about whether content marketing is for your business or not, it’s about whether you can use content marketing for your business or not.
You can use automated tools to carry out content marketing: I’m not totally against using automation tools like scheduling when your message is broadcast or scheduling when your email marketing campaign is triggered, but if you’re using automated tools to generate content for your content marketing, this is a sure shot way to fail. Content is all about human beings because it is produced for human beings.
Content marketing is a separate, unrelated business operation: It is not. Everybody needs to get involved otherwise it becomes difficult to create valuable content.
Content marketing needs to generate sales otherwise it’s a flop: The purpose of content marketing is of course to enhance your business presence but it rarely happens that it contributes towards an increase in sales directly. It solidifies your presence and it helps people engage with you. It increases your brand presence. It helps you get more leads.

What’s all this fuss about telling stories in content marketing?

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Everybody loves a good story, but what does storytelling have to do with content marketing?

Stories have been told since time immemorial. Even cave dwellers who hadn’t yet learned to use words (who knows? maybe they knew words but just didn’t know how to write them?) told their stories by sketching an drawing on cave walls.

The ancient traditions of storytelling

When there were no TV and Internet people would sit around a fire or near a hearth and tell stories, or listen to them with rapt attention. In India there are whole tribes of story tellers who roam from village to village, town to town, telling ancient stories and getting alms in return. In fact some of these storytellers are so famous that the government assigns a permanent salary for them so that they can keep the tradition alive.

What’s so fascinating about stories? We can relate to them. Whenever we’re reading a story, we see ourselves in one of the characters, or we have found ourselves in a similar situation, or we would like to get ourselves in a similar situation, or we strongly subscribe to the values represented by the story.

A story, in a logically arranged sequence, presents us with a problem, the ensuing struggle (or conflict), and then in the end, a resolution. After reading the story (let’s not talk about horror stories of the Stephen King variety) we can peacefully go to bed thinking that yes, it was a good end and no matter how many emotional ups and downs were there, in the end things worked out. A good feeling.

The same can be achieve with storytelling vis-a-vis content marketing. Instead of simply talking about your products and services in an uninspiring manner, tell the stories of people who were going through a problem that was eliminated by your product or service. People will immediately be able to relate to your story.

For example…

Peter always wondered why his website wasn’t converting well. He had purchased a very expensive template from one of the biggest companies that sold predesigned website templates. He had made sure that all the source code was search engine optimized. Since he didn’t find the photographs included in the template good, he spent further money to purchase expensive images from iStock.

After 5 months of relentless promotion and hiring a couple of content writers the results were as dismal as they were in the beginning. The bounce rate was more than 98% and at the most people stayed for 45-70 seconds on his website. He was running out of resources, he had started having constant fights with his wife as she thought he was wasting lots of money in the website, and found himself trapped in a vicious loop that was proving to be very difficult to break.

The story of how my content writing service helped Peter

Then one day Peter came to my content writing website.

He read about the importance of engagement. He read about how it is very important that your customers and clients should be able to relate to what you are conveying to them.

After reading a few blog posts and articles he logged onto his website and tried to look at it from a new angle.

Up till then he was simply interested in having a cool website with lots of content to improve his search engine rankings. Now he understood that it wasn’t just about looks and better rankings, it was about setting up long-term relationships with your prospective customers and clients through informative, helpful and expert content.

He realised that his website was lacking the most important ingredient: content that could convince. There was a sense of detachment. There was no “voice” in whatever was written on his website. The connection was missing. The business didn’t sound trustworthy. The writing didn’t try to solve any problem.

He contacted me.

From the beginning itself I told him I wasn’t interested in creating “tons of content” for his website. I would rather focus on improving the quality and effectiveness of the existing content.

We spent some time trying to understand exactly what he was trying to deliver to his customers? What was he trying to sell? What did his ideal customer want from him?

We shifted the focus from his product to the problem the product solved. Of course we talked about the product, but more than the product, we talked about the benefits, the ways around, and the various problems it could solve once his customers had purchased it.

We shared stories from happy customers. We collected as many testimonials as possible. We updated the content not because we wanted to cover as many keywords as possible, we updated because we wanted to share useful information with the visitors.

Gradually (actually, sooner than we had realistically anticipated) people started interacting with Peter. They would leave comments on his business blog. They responded to email newsletter that he broadcast once a week. He started getting email queries.

Then, two months after hiring me, and 7 months after having launched his online business, he made his first sale. He called me in the middle of the night to tell me that forgetting that I might be sleeping (it was daytime on his side of the globe and night time in my side).

It’s been a year now since I wrote the first web page for him. He has by now launched two more businesses, funded by the profits he made off his first business. 8 employees are working full-time under him and if things continue the way they’re right now, he plans to move to a bigger, upmarket office within the next six months.

Good story?

75% of it is true and the rest are some embellishments. But I’m sure you were able to relate to what Peter had to go through. This is what storytelling in content marketing does, it helps you help your customers and clients relate to you. Fill your website or blog with as many such stories as possible.

Content marketing means always being there

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Continuing with what content marketing means…

Continued visibility can be both positive and negative but of course here we are talking about positive visibility. A great benefit of content marketing is being there when your customers and clients need you. They shouldn’t feel at sea when they need to know something about your product or service before making a purchase, or if they are facing some problem after making a purchase.

Trust cannot be built overnight no matter how hard you try. It’s not something like you hire 10 content writers who write and publish 5 blog posts everyday (giving you 50 blog posts everyday) and suddenly people begin to trust you mainly on the strength of the content you have produced on your blog. Of course if you have the money to hire 10 content writers to create lots of content and if you strategically publish that content not just on your website or blog, but also on other websites, it definitely helps set up a presence for you, but if you’re thinking of building trust among people in a short span, it is not going to happen.

Trust is built over a long period of time when you publish helpful, interactive and engaging content consistently. This is why you cannot have a 2-week content marketing plan no matter how much money you have got. Even the biggest brands talk about strategy spanning multiple years rather than multiple months (although there are seasonal and occasion-based marketing plans, but that’s different).

Would you rather do business with a friend or a total stranger? With a friend of course.

When you strategically create, publish and disseminate content, it helps you strike up conversations with people. They talk about what they like about your content, what they don’t like, what they appreciate and what they object to and what they would like to be covered. You respond accordingly by modifying existing content and creating new content. Your gesture is then appreciated. The mere fact that you have responded to them makes them happy and they talk about your response on their own blogs and social networking timelines. Then more people get to know you.

Content marketing allows you to initiate such a cycle. Once you have established such a cycle people know that whenever they need you, you’re going to be there, and this is one of the greatest assurances on the Internet where physical presence is not possible. People might be doing business with you across oceans. They cannot suddenly reach you in case they are happy or unsatisfied. Your continued visibility is reassuring. Through your content you’re continuously talking to people and telling them that look, you know what you’re doing and if they have a problem, you are always there to provide an answer. People can live with substandard products and services, what bothers them is your absence when they need you.