You may have been told that content marketing as a growth marketing strategy will increase revenue, maximize ROI, and generate leads.
The question is: how do you know it’s working?
Content marketing – when done right – will elevate your brand, provide value to the community, and generate a following, especially on social media. However, to do this, you need to be tracking key marketing metrics to figure out what’s working!
In this blog post, we cover metrics for social media, videos, and podcasts. Check out our other blog post on how to track metrics for websites, blogposts, and newsletters.
Growth Marketing Strategy Metrics Per Channel
As a growth marketing strategy agency, we believe that tracking the success of your digital content marketing efforts over time is an important part of a digital content marketing campaign. What the data analytics show based on the traffic sources will determine the next steps of your campaigns, and what needs or doesn’t need to be changed.
Determining what social channels, video platforms, and podcast platforms are right for your business is key. The digital marketing metrics you pick to measure the success of your content marketing should be personalized according to what types of content you will be releasing, your digital channel selection, your key performance indicators (KPIs) and target goals.
There are so many marketing technology tools available. Read this guide to learn which tools to use for your needs.
Here are some digital marketing metrics for videos, podcasts, and social media that you can use to get started:
Metrics for Videos and Podcasts
Videos and podcasts are the go-to digital content marketing tactics and have been proven to be the channels that most people prefer. As mentioned, for newsletters, display ads, and websites, analyzing the metrics and popularity of your videos and podcasts is crucial.
Here are the digital marketing metrics you need to analyze the success of videos and podcasts:
View count
As you may have expected, the view count is the simplest metric of all. It tells you how many times the video has been viewed.
Play rate
Play rate is the ratio that calculates the number of plays your video receives divided by the number of times your video is shown to people. This metric is more relevant than view count as it tells you how many people clicked the play button to watch your content in an active way. Keep an eye on play rate as it highlights whether your video content is relevant to the platform where it’s been posted (YouTube, website, etc.) and if it’s intriguing to potential viewers.
Engagement
The most important metric of all! Engagement tells you how effective your video or podcast is. Are people liking your content? Leaving comments and sharing it with their friends? Keep track of this engagement to help learn what type of content your audience prefers.
The strategic B2B video Pace Creative did with the energy and resources company Schneider Electric is an example of how you can use key marketing analytics to track the results of your digital marketing efforts.
Metrics for Social Media
Implementing a good social media strategy takes a lot of time and effort. Measuring its progress on all of your selected digital channels is part of the work! Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn offer built-in metric dashboards, making it very easy to pick specific metrics that give you the most value for your growth driven agency. You can import the results from the metrics listed below into a spreadsheet for further analysis. You can combine this data with Google Analytics for a more comprehensive analysis! Understanding target audiences, traffic sources and returning visitors are your next hurdles.
Number of Likes
This is a great indicator of how popular your content is. However, the metrics listed below are even more important as they show real interaction with and commitment to your brand.
Number of Comments
Comments are a good indicator that people take time to interact with your content. Take this as a real reward! To get more comments, make sure to adopt a conversational tone of voice by asking questions and being inspirational and approachable.
Number of Shares
Some people will enjoy your content so much that they decide to share it with their own networks. Shares are the ultimate sign you’re doing a great job because this means your content is valuable. Keep up the good work!
Conversion
Social media channels should be used as a method to interact with your audience and learn more about them, not to push a sales pitch every five minutes. The 80/20 rule works very well when it comes to posting more “sales like” content such as announcing product launches or promotions. If you stick to talking about sales or deals just 20% of the time, you’ll be just fine. Be sure to keep track of the conversion rate! This tells you who is interested in your content. You can use this data to update your personas and target audience.
Did you know? A big part of a social media strategy is to help generate organic traffic to your website.
After working with Pace Creative to create a strategized marketing plan, the Canadian provincial utility and electric crown corporation, BC Hydro, was able to meet their campaign goals and conversion targets.
Conclusion
We hope this blogpost was helpful and that you can confidently measure the success of your content marketing strategies! If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the first part of this blog post that talks all about marketing metrics for blogs, websites, and newsletters.
We know how to craft strategic, value-added and relevant content! To learn more about how we can help you, make sure to get in touch with us!
In the meantime, check us out on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook to see what innovative projects we are working on!
