Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for content marketing
KPI (that is Key Performance Indicators) are used as measures of the effectiveness and degree of achieving given goals, assumed when taking some actions. Of course, they are also used in field of content marketing. We will analyze them in the following article.
Why is it so important to know KPIs?
Content marketing, like any other type (and basically, as well as any action taken to bring desired results) must have precisely defined, measurable goals. Without them, it will be difficult to see progress. We have already mentioned this once in the text about effective setting of marketing goals.
However, despite a precise vision of the final result and the use of various marketing techniques, we also need indicators whose changes we can track to estimate the effectiveness of the actions taken.
Let’s illustrate it – if your goal is to accelerate your car from 0 to 100 mph, then we have a clear goal, but it is zero-one. Let’s assume that when we reach 100 mph, we will be signaled by a diode on the panel. However, we do not have a meter that would allow us to track the progress. In this example, the KPIs will be our speedometer which tell us whether we are on the right track to our destination and goal.
The traditionally understood marketing, the KPIs will be number of copier of product sold or the trends expressed in a number of new customers in a given period of time.
Although content marketing is its type, it has slightly different rules. We will get a closer look at it in the next paragraph.
KP determinants for content marketing
Content marketing is a promotional activity aimed at increasing the number of customers.
Although the effect are not immediate, they are permanent and relatively stable, generating the organic traffic on your website. This, of course, is a highly desirable situation for anyone who wishes to broaden their reach. Now we would like to list a few indicators thanks to which we will be able to assess whether we are closer to the desired goal.
UV
The so-called unique visits is the basic tool that let us check how many new users we reach during a given period. However, what does “unique” mean? For example, within a month we know the number of individual IP addresses from which the visits to our websites were observed. Even if someone who uses one computer has accessed our website many times, it is still counted as one entry. Thanks to this, we know the exact number of “quests”.
Time spent on the website
Of course, the number of visits does not allow our website to be consider as popular. The more time the average user spends on our website, the greater the chance that he or she has found our website a satisfactory source of information. We may also have the product they are looking for. What is more, the recipient might have even started browsing other subpages, which will certainly be facilitated by a well-designed and thought-out website appearance. The situation is extremely desirable, especially if we run an online shop. TO achieve satisfactory results, it is worth taking the time to create appropriate structure, convey information or use internal linking.
Bounce rate
A specific variation of the time spent on the website is so-called “Bounce rate”, that are visitors who leave our website very quickly after they enter it. You should consider whether such subpages actually provide information that they supposedly contain or if there are any other mistakes because of which users directly decide to close our website.
A way to struggle with this factor is also the placement of eye-catching elements. However, we must not combat it in an “offensive” manner under any circumstances (i.e. pop-ups, texts that are calling to action, etc.). In general, it is always counterproductive.
Page views
An obvious indicator that tells you which of your websites is the most interesting. Therefore, it is worth taking advantage of this and take care of appropriate linking, both inbound and outbound, so that we will transfer some views of ours to less popular websites that we want to promote.
Additionally, it is worth observing the relationship between the previously mentioned UV and the page views. If, over many units of time (e.g. months) a website has a high UV index, then it means that people can return to it on a regular basis. Therefore, you can make use of it and place the links we have just mentioned. It will also increase the amount of time users spent on the website.
Comments
Another indictor of the popularity of a website (whenever the published material is commented by the real users). The more, the more emotional the content is – that is good, of course. The comment section should be free to use and respect all standards of online discussion. Block or remove offensive content. Leave negative feedback be – answer it.
Summary
- The above list presents the most important, though not the only determinants of the effectiveness of content marketing.
- Much depends, among others, on the exposure of the campaign, available resources or the complexity of the content or website itself.
- Nevertheless, the use of the above components will certainly give you at least representative viewing of the effectiveness of your actions.
- Remember – more tools can be added to our list as long as your campaign grows in scale, and the indicators we have listen can be a good start.
Comments
I found this article very informative and useful. Thank you for sharing these helpful tips for online marketing.