Ways Measuring Content Marketing To Meet Business Goals

Ways Measuring Content Marketing To Meet Business Goals

Doing your analysis for content marketing is not the only factor related to evaluating how booming your strategy is and associating it with stakeholders or revenues. In fact, it's the only way you'll further make more improvements in your strategy, to achieve business goals with higher efficiency.

This blog will discuss the right metrics you need to have to know how to attain what is aforementioned.


How do most content marketers’ measure content?

Currently, in B2B marketing there is a lot of room for improvement, and many marketers are struggling to define which type of content is most effective, and which isn't.  Also, if you're doing better than your competitors, you have a competitive advantage, and that's a proof you're doing better. 65 % of B2B marketers are struggling to draw the line between what content works for them, and what shouldn't be continued with.

Choose your ‘Content KPIs’?

Metrics for content marketing vary from the following with their purposes/descriptions; let's discuss two important ones below.


1.For consumption

Consumption metrics are related to the number of people who receive and absorb your content. What the depth and frequency of consumption is; what channels is the audience using to reach your content.
Goals achieved through the consumption metric?

•Brand awareness

•Lead generation

•Lead nurturing

2.Retention

What are the metrics taken to retain the current customers? Those, which are there for years with your company? The key is to not keep your focus off them. 31% marketers spend time on working for new ones, according to analytics of content market, which should not be the only thing.
Be sure to deal with the following areas:

•Check your website metrics – how many old customers visit – daily, weekly, monthly, or annually.

•Email metrics – the number of subscribers

•Social media metrics – followers across all channels

•News feeds, according to some subscribers.

Goals achieved through the retention metric?
Keeps your audience engaged and motivated.

The Smart Approach to Measure Content

This ‘Smart Approach' will assist you in focusing on desired outcomes, and in making smarter content marketing decisions regarding developing and improving content strategy, linked to the overall integrated marketing strategy– with more advantages.

•It will make the overall marketing strategy a success (which is usually the paramount goal of most B2B marketers).

•It will aid B2B marketers to catch up with the latest content trends, especially when they are most talked about – incorporating Virtual Reality, AR, 360-degree videos, Artificial intelligence, and more.

•It will help a majority of marketers move away from the regular, habitual content strategy they continually follow (mainly because its worked for them since years, so they think it'll work for them now too; in every trend – which is not the case – mindset should change).

•It will enhance the beauty of all marketing campaigns

•Your content will grow and boost, meeting more of customer expectations, and there will also be positive changes in content marketing best practices.

•This method will further lead to implying an advanced ‘Analytics-driven' method paving the way to look for new opportunities, and experiments.

•It will bring more refinement in the entire strategy – how different chunks of content are impacting your assigned marketing metrics.

•Track the ‘right numbers' – this process won't leave you trying to make sense out of around thirty content marketing metrics, with multiple KPIs; having various touch points, and aims, leaving you confused – there's more amplification – for good.

4 B2B Marketing Challenges with their solutions (And How CRM Can Help)

In 2018, with the shifting paradigm in the B2B market, are you among those who adopt the necessary approaches according to the technology shift; embracing the trends and new tools? Or do just wait for your competitors to explore those changes first, and follow the league. If you are flexible to market or industrial modifications, you will be in the race, in which your competitors are also. In this scenario then; how would you address the main B2B marketing challenges? This article provides solutions to some major problems and they can be solved via the usage of CRM platform.

Challenge #1. Preserving Integrity Of Data
The basic information of your audience, which may include your prospects, partners, partners; keeps changing. They might get promoted, fired or get married – change their surname. Their email address or phone number might change, they may move to another country. These things are very unpredictable, and you cannot control, what would you do as a B2B marketer; hence, having complete and accurate data about your customers matters a lot because the bracket in which your audience is; the segments are altered, you cannot engage them in a meaningful way.

The Solution
To improve the condition of data preservation, you can use Data Ladder or Acixom.

If you have the internal capacity, conduct an internal audit.

Ensure that reliable data flows through the platform of CRM.

Use a copy lead identifiers (alternate email addresses or phone numbers)

Through CRM you can verify your incoming data.

Challenge #2. Integrate CRM with Social Media
Social media is a wealthy medium to obtain a plethora of information, relevant to your business segment or industry. Know about the presence of your prospects there. Follow and keep all details; their needs, clicks, shares, likes, social posts, and conversions. It is important B2B marketers not only remain track of all these activities but also integrate them on the CRM so that all social data which is spread across different social media platforms can be collected in one place.

The Solution
By having Oktopost, you will bid farewell to your unorganized social data.

Oktopost is the collaborative tool that works efficiently in the sales process, and all your social data gets a push - From clicks to conversions

You can obtain insight into your marketing environment in different ways

You can visually present results of latest trends and stats to the higher officials.

Lead generations, ROI of employee advocacy to stakeholders can also be shown – the options are not limited

Challenge #3. Align Marketing and Sales
The goal of every B2B marketer is to generate qualified leads; ones that match the criteria of a perfect buyer persona. This can only be done if you identify the core issue your target audience has, maybe they have problems related to sales (the sales funnel is usually lengthy), working collaboratively and discussing things together with the sales team can help resolve this issue. There is a lack of synergy, and the gap is a challenge for overall company revenue.

The Solution
Having a shared CRM dashboard will allow both, the sales and the marketing executives to view the number of qualified; even how many are transformed into clients.

From a marketing position, the CRM can be used to create new opportunities whenever a lead is qualified automatically.

How To Get The Right Results For Your Website

Recently, a lot has of viable changes are uniquely influencing the digital world, especially concerning search engine optimization  (SEO) and keywords. So, with this fact around, how do we improve our website results? How to get the most out Google Analytics?

The fact is, getting successful results for your website is now far beyond having to do with just ‘keywords’ or SEO. For instance, for a small manufacturer the main practical concerns would be regarding growth, expansion, closed monthly sales, customer inquiries and tracking, but are you promoting your website well?

Answering queries

When small manufacturers want to revamp their websites, the most relevant question to ask is – how many queries are you getting on a per month basis? We stress on this because answering to customer queries can lead to sales or lead generation more quickly. Customers like attention, and when you give them what they need, they will provide you with what you need! It’s a two-way process to the road to success.

How to get more inquires

It is essential to know how your prospects are getting to know about you. Which channel? Was it at a trade show that you exchanged your business cards? We all know the power word-of-mouth carries but its rare when someone connects with your directly through your website, especially organically. Paid search places your site on top of search results, and can make anyone approach you randomly. Adwords also pump up the game and make more potential clients contact you. Still, if these visitors don’t convert into leads, you can utilize re-targeting too.

Creating a strategy for AdWords and Paid Search
To handle a high number of queries (also to increase them), and to help prospects find your website easily, create a strategy and carefully place the use of paid search and Adwords in your budget. These will improvise the quality of queries to a fantastic level, and you will not feel your money is wasted. Varying as per industry – a well-managed, small campaign of, for example, $2000 per month will deliver at least more than ten profitable inquiries in a month.

Paid Search – Advanced Level

The best thing about paid search for your website? It provides search query data, which is then used to develop website content such as, for:
-    Page for products/services
-    FAQs
-    Case Studies or Brief notes
-    Diagrams  or charts
-    E-newsletter
-    Social Media Platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

This content can also be used to optimize your website better. Moreover, when a customer approaches you via organic search – it will increase the number of inquiries and organic goal completions. Also, optimizing your website’s images for Google Image Search will have a positive impact on your rankings too.

E-newsletters, trade shows, print ads and direct mail

These will generate your business long-term leads, depending on your budget or how much you spend on these channels to promote your website and drive traffic there, advertising your business well. Different channels may work for different industries or business types, and even in different seasons.

If you imply all the mix above, you can make the most out of Google Analytics too, and constant modifications on your website according to on-going trends will aid in getting monthly or annual progress for the overall business. To analyze the impact of marketing on the customers as well as on the whole company, ultimately crafting the value scheme with stakeholders.

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2 ways how B2B Lead Nurturing will Work Better

In B2B sales, 'Lead Nurturing' is a process whereby, marketers develop relationships with buyers at each different stage of the sales funnel, and also throughout every step of the buyer's journey. The marketing and communication efforts are directed towards understanding needs of prospects and answering all their queries.

Why your business needs Lead Nurturing?
On an average, 50% of the people who visit your website are not yet ready to make a purchase (Marketo), but in all honesty, these are the ones you need to tap and convert. So, ensure to allocate your resources well, and also train your sales team efficiently.

Why Lead Nurturing?
Today's B2B companies are more buyer-driven than they ever were. Companies which excel in the area of lead nurturing, generate 50 percent higher sales leads at a low cost of 33 percent. Have a productive lead-scoring system in your company's framework and include a content marketing plan in it so to have aligned everything appropriately.

The challenge of having good quality leads is, however, the biggest challenge that most B2B companies face and don't have an effective business-to-business (B2B) lead generation program. These two ways can help you nurture your leads more efficiently.

1.Marketing and sales team collaboration
In most companies both teams work separating, handling their responsibilities and day-to-day tasks, but the truth is, they both need to work together; collaboratively so that in the B2B sales the missing puzzles can be fitted. The B2B sales cycle is a long route, and frequently the primary cause of its failure is the misalignment between the sales and marketing. This is how you can improve the whole customer experience and nurture your leads, ultimately generating revenues, which is the strategic goal. Additionally, based on consideration of these issues, the B2B marketers can then easily develop an integrated marketing strategy, along with the sales team.

-Marketers can sit on sales calls to better understand where the customer backs off, in the middle of making a decision, and what challenges the sales team face.

-Marketers and sales team should exchange each with other information about what they think a ‘qualified' lead is. This will help both sides, to develop a common set of standards and policies to follow, together.

-Sales team should share details like notes and feedback on CRM (how they close their sales). This will assist marketers in understanding the sales process more in-depth and all challenges faced by them.

2.Implementing an ABM strategy
In the B2B world, Account Based Marketing (ABM) is an on-going trend, and many B2B companies are focusing on incorporating it their integrated marketing and sales / strategic plans. There are a few important points how you can get started with it:

-Identify key accounts concerning size, yearly income, type of customers they supply, their industry, location and similar vital factors.

-Identify their content requirements; give them what they need; verify a buyer persona is helpful too.

-After identifying target companies, their content needs, buyer personas; you should create a customized content strategy for them and help to nurture your leads in a more efficient way than usual.

How Much Should B2B Companies Invest in Digital Marketing?

Many B2B marketing companies are still struggling with whether they should invest in digital marketing. Those that have gotten on the bandwagon are facing the challenge of determining exactly how much should be spent. Columnist Dale Hursh has tried resolving this query, trying to provide a framework which will help B2B marketers set the ideal digital spend. He is also the CEO of a B2B digital marketing agency with 17 years of experience in this field.

Determine your B2B digital marketing budget
 
Hursh tells us that there is no perfect answer to how much you should spend on digital marketing. It will all vary as different activities of the business and how much and where it wants to expand. Still, there are a few critical steps that can help you incorporate digital into your marketing mix the right way.

•What role will digital play in your marketing mix?
Most B2B companies do not have a proper mind-set of implementing digital and resist to sell their products or services online.
•What type of product are you selling? Does it need to be promoted online?
•There might be a need to promote your business online but its not happening, either because of lack of knowledge or no budget for e-commerce.
•How complicated is your sales cycle?

Many companies work with SaaS (Software as a service) firms, where there is a possibility of high investments and risky partnerships.

According to CMO survey (figure shown below), it can be determined that B2B firms spend 6 to 9% of their overall revenues on marketing and it is different for both, product and service-oriented businesses.

So, our advise is that you should thoroughly view what type of business you are so that the spending scale can vary accordingly. Product-centric enterprises are at the higher-end, and those focused on providing services are generally, at the lower-end.

If we take some simple, standardized products as examples, and testing them - like a server, storage array or a high-priced proxy part is purchased online – Digital will undoubtedly play a vital role in the integrated marketing mix of the company, and there can be a jump in the entire digital spend from perhaps, 35% to a 75%.

So, for the same firm if we devise a fair digital marketing budget, it will be as follows:

•    Annual revenues: 50 Million
•    Investment in Marketing: 8%
•    Digital marketing budget should be re-allocated between a 35 to 70%, approximately.
•    Annual digital marketing budget would then be:
•    $50M x .08 x (.35-.75) = $1.4–$3M

Furthermore, CEO Hursh says that through his experience, he has seen top B2B companies with expert digital marketing programs struggle in attaining ROI because of lack of resources and organization. They can articulate from two main reasons:

Department specialization – Each resource should understand their responsibilities and do them well. Timelines should be met, and also ensure that requests are catered on time.
Finance allocation – A small step, which is the real secret to success in digital marketing is good research. B2B marketing companies need to allot sufficient amounts of finances for extracting useful data, to achieve improved ROI.

Increase Brand Awareness With These 6 Digital Marketing Trends

The main component of any marketing strategy is Brand awareness. Every business strives to hammer the brand message to their target audience in a way that it builds and retains long-term customer loyalty.
The past few years have brought a high power digital transformation and with the rapid changes in trends – what works today for your brand- the same thing, might not tomorrow. What keeps your business going are the customers you attract and the leads you bring, but what companies need to inquire into is whether they are sufficient to develop a market funnel and keeping your hopes high for ROI along with that are unjustifiable? You will hit right on target if you up your game by enhancing your presence and being top of mind by paying attention to these six digital marketing trends.

1.Be relevant
Words don't matter when you speak. What you speak is what matters to who you're speaking to. The same way, it won't matter to your audience how much information you are giving them, what you are feeding them with is what matters to them. Feed them with what's relevant; create intimacy with them.

2.Is your attention-grabbing strategy accurate?
It's pretty much linked to the point of relevancy of what you are giving to the audience. Are you giving it what is required or deviating from the purpose? Capturing the audience's attention the right way is more important than just winning it! They won't stick around for long then, and you want long-lasting relationships to build brand relevance.

3.Be like Tai Lopez
He is merely just everywhere, and we cannot ignore the fact that he has mastered this skill. What brands need to extract from his example is the way he appears everywhere to everyone, the right way – the rare combo of relevance and omnipresence works wonders to create top-of-mind standing among the audience, who will know you, like and trust you as well.

4.Choose different platforms
Sometimes, one platform is just not enough to promote your brand or its message, and various promotions may impact the audience in unique ways we cannot imagine. For instance, there are different leads on Youtube; then there are on Facebook or website. Hence, the key is to revamp your brand across multiple channels – see what is more influential for your brand!

5.Evolve your marketing funnel
Focus on turning your marketing funnel a full-fledge fantastic experience for your customers, rather than just creating a funnel. There have been many marketing funnels which have been made, but they fail to develop significance and trust. What works best is to nourish your audience with content that is genuine and that too, at the right time, with regards to the current level of engagement and awareness. Winning audience's trust is one trend that will never be outdated.

6.Focusing on the invisible ROI
First, the priority of many companies was direct much of their ad spending on sales and lead generation. However, the focus is beyond that now - Clients are re-allocating their budgets, making brand awareness a priority. Leads have their importance, but you should feed your audience about your brand more; information about you, rather than focus on selling only. This action will only increase your spending, but your conversions will decrease.

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