Blogs, whitepapers, eBooks, infographics, videos - content is crucial to Inbound campaigns.
It forms the foundation of lead nurture resources and helps prospects reach that final decision stage.
But while creating valuable content is important, research shows many marketers spend too much time creating, and not enough on measuring content marketing ROI.
Detailed on B2B Marketing, while over 57% of marketers say content creation (briefing, writing, editing) is the highest priority, only 5% give a top level priority to measuring, auditing and reviewing content. 53% stated measurement as their lowest priority action.
Only 5% of marketers give a top level priority to measuring, auditing and reviewing content.
The fact that B2B organisations don't track the success of content indicates that while they are no strangers to the importance of digital content and strategy, they fail to prioritise, or realise the impact poor reporting has on future marketing resources.
This same message is often true with Inbound campaigns; while we know Inbound marketing works; generating 54% more qualified leads than traditional (outbound) paid marketing, 76% of marketers still track ROI effectiveness wrongly.
76% of marketers still track effectiveness wrongly. - Fournaise
Failing to report the ROI value of any part of an Inbound marketing campaign - whether content or otherwise, has direct and dramatic influence on securing marketing resources.
If you can't/don't prove ROI, or make errors during the reporting process, you can't measure accurate return on activity, and won't obtain confidence or budget for your campaigns.
However, proving ROI and securing marketing budget are still the leading challenges marketers face. 51% of B2B organisations cite proving marketing ROI as their primary challenge according to the 2015 HubSpot State of Inbound.
Effective closed-loop reporting, monitoring the effectiveness of CTAs on site content, and monitoring the effect of promotion (workflows, social media) on conversion can all help content and Inbound marketers assess the ROI of their content.
The top 3 ways to measure content success are: social media engagement (71%), site traffic (63%), and sales stats (26%) - Sticky Content
By creating content as part of an Inbound strategy and using buyer personas to inform topics, it is possible to address the 'lack of content direction' that over 60% of marketers feel.
The result? Effective content that converts, can be tracked, and proves certain ROI for better budgets.