How to measure Content Marketing ROI.
Content marketing is here to stay – it’s a proven strategy used by the world’s most successful marketing teams. Despite …
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How to measure content marketing ROI.
Content marketing is here to stay – it’s a proven strategy used by the world’s most successful marketing teams. Despite this, proving the value of your content to your bosses and peers is another task entirely.
Measuring the return of your content strategy sounds straightforward. You probably already have an idea whether it’s working or not. But how do you measure return on investment (ROI) in practice? Here are some of the best way of doing so.
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Calculating ROI
In plain terms, to calculate ROI, subtract the spend from the return, then divide the return by the amount spent – in this example, our return is £20,000 and our spend is £10,000:
(£20,000 – £10,000) / £10,000 = 1.00
ROI = current value of investment minus cost of investment divided by cost of investment.
This will give you a decimal that can be expressed as a percentage (in this case, 100%). You’ll already know this but if it’s a positive number, well done, your activity drove more money than you spent. If it’s negative, it probably wasn’t worth the effort.
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Lead generation
Identifying the return is easier for some types of content over others. If your content is behind a lead-generation form that requires users to enter their details before accessing the file, you’re in luck. Evaluating the amount of business it drove is as simple as matching the lead value to the downloads. It may be worth doing this with potential lead value (whether it was won or lost) and actual sales value. This way, you can prove the worth of your content – it’s up to the sales team to close the lead.
You can see this method in action with Hubspot’s Complete Collection of Content Creation Templates. If you want to download them, you have to tell Hubspot who you are, and you can bet they’ll get in contact afterwards. If your lead-generation form is connected to your customer database – like Hubspot’s will be – then this process is even more simple.
