Have you ever tried calculating your content marketing ROI?
Measuring your ROI is one of the most efficient ways to know how successful your marketing efforts are. If your marketing strategy is a successful one the results will automatically reflect in your ROI. The better your marketing strategies are the higher your ROI will be.
On the other hand, a lower ROI may indicate poor marketing strategies. So instead of continuing to implement the ineffective strategies, you can instantly take steps to improve them for better results and more profit.
It also helps you plan, set specific goals, and even decide what metrics to track to know how effective your content marketing efforts are.
But how do you measure your content marketing ROI? Let’s find out. Before that let’s have a quick look at what content marketing ROI is.
What is Content Marketing ROI?
You must have seen different content marketers measure their ROI. But do you know what exactly it means to measure your ROI?
In simple words, it is the percentage that tells you how much revenue you have gained via your content marketing efforts as compared to the amount you have spent for it.
What is Good ROI in Content Marketing?
There isn’t a specific ROI that’s considered to be a good one. Ideally, it varies from business to business depending on the type of marketing strategy, your distribution channels, and your industry.
However, you can consider your ROI to be a good one if you can make more than a dollar for every dollar you spend on your marketing efforts.
So if your content is bringing you more than 1 dollar to the table against every dollar you’re spending, then you’re probably going in the right direction.
How to Measure Content Marketing ROI?
To measure your content marketing ROI you can use the following formula.
Content Marketing ROI = (Return – Investment) / (Investment) X 100
However, to get the exact result using the above formula, you need to follow 4 important steps.
Step 1: Calculate Content Marketing Cost
The first step to calculating your content marketing ROI is to find out the total amount of revenue you have spent on creating your content. This includes your content creator’s salary, outsourced work, image, and video creation cost, etc. Once you know this amount you can move on to the next step.
Step 2: Figure Out Content Distribution Cost
In this step, you need to calculate the amount of money you’ve spent on distributing your content. This includes the tools and software you use to distribute them, the paid promotion you do for it on social platforms, PPC, etc.
Now add the result of step 1 and step 2. This will give you the total amount you’ve spent on creating your content.
Step 3: Find Out the Dollar Amount You Got in Return
This step is a slightly complicated one. Here you’ll have to calculate the total amount you’ve earned for your content marketing investment. If you want to determine the ROI for several pieces of content together then you’ll have to consider the sales you made with these content separately.
But the best way to figure out this number is to add up all the sales that come from your content. Your content helps you create leads. And sometimes it even generates sales by directing people to click on your CTA. This may be a time-consuming process. But no matter how long it takes, you’ll definitely have at least some sales from your marketing efforts.
So watch out for the sales. Now add up the amount of money you make from each of these pieces of content.
Step 4: Calculate Your Content Marketing ROI
Now in the final step, you can use the formula discussed above to get your final ROI.
So if you’ve invested an amount of $200 for creating your content and get a lead worth $1200, then your ROI will be 500%. Here’s how you do it.
(Return) $1200 – (Investment) $200 = $1000
$1000 / $200 = 5
5 x 100% = 500% (ROI)
Now since you have invested less than 500 in creating your content, it means your content marketing efforts are going in the right direction. However, if your final result is less than your total investment, then you should probably reconsider your content marketing strategies.
So now that you know how to find your content marketing ROI, it’s time to know how to make your content marketing more effective.
How to Make Your Content Marketing Work?
Just like you want to make your content deliver effective results, thousands of other small and big companies are strategically working hard for it too. So unless you have a definite plan, it can be difficult to make it happen. That gives you your first point for making your content work.
1. Have a Plan
Having a strategic plan for creating and marketing your content for results is extremely important. And for that, you first need to know who your target audience is, the type of content they want from you, the tone you want to use in your content, etc. Once you know all of these, set a specific goal that you want to achieve. Also, make sure that you have a defined time frame for reaching these goals.
2. Create a Content Calendar
Many people don’t consider it important. But having a content calendar can help you be consistent with your content. Also, it’s a more practical way to achieve your goals because it lets you break down bigger goals into smaller ones. So if you want to publish 7 posts a week, you can easily break them down to 1 post a day without overwhelming yourself too much.
3. Know the SEO Game
As much as it’s important to create and post great content consistently, it’s equally important to optimize them for search engines. For that, you need to know your SEO games well. So polish your SEO skills if you haven’t already, even if it means taking a course.
4. Promote your Content Thoroughly
Once you create your posts, leverage the power of social media to promote your content. This will increase visibility and help you boost your conversions. After all, you can’t expect people to know about your content if you don’t promote them.
Although there are various other ways to ensure that your content brings in the best results, the above points are the basic ones that every marketer should start with. Doing this will lead you in the right direction to maximize your content marketing ROI.
