When choosing key performance indicators (KPIs) for your content marketing plan, its important to focus on the right metrics. While it could be exciting to see your likes on Facebook skyrocket after you post a particular piece of content it may not be the best indicator as to how your content impacts your companys bottom line. As social media matures as a B2B marketing tool, its becoming clear that a person simply clicking a button to like your company or product doesnt tell you enough about the effectiveness of your content to drive growth.
In order to determine the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy as a driver of sales growth, you need to zero in on a few KPIs that demonstrate a direct tie to qualified leads and sales. A recent article posted on the Content Marketing Institute site recommends a short list of metrics that are reliable predictors of sales growth as impacted by content marketing. Here is a review of those metrics and a look at the missing tool that can propel your efforts even further with the human touch.
Sales accepted leads: Simply counting the number of leads generated is not enough to justify the resources your content marketing budget requires. You need to look at the leads that the sales team has accepted as qualified leads
A sales accepted lead is ideal because it reaches further into the sales pipeline and gives your sales team a clear view of the benefits of content marketing. For an even more useful KPI, you could demonstrate sales accepted leads as they are tied to a particular content piece or type. For instance, you can detail the number of sales accepted leads that have resulted from video content versus a white paper.
Share of voice: Your share of voice is a great metric to determine whether your content marketing plan is succeeding in improving your brand recognition, your reputation as a reliable source of information, and communicating the solution your product or service provides.
For instance, if you assess your content marketing efforts against your competition, you may have a sense of your share of voice in the industry as compared to theirs. Just because one company is blasting social media multiple times a day doesnt mean that they are capturing a major share of the conversation. By contrast, your company may post consistently but less often and when you do, the content is widely shared and cited by other major players in the industry.
There are analysis tools, like TrackMaven, that give you insight into how your share of voice compares to that of your competitors.
Branded search: This KPI is another way of saying word of mouth. Its direct searches for your company name that occur as a result of your effort to build your brand recognition. If your content is firing up conversation about your company, youll get more branded searches.
Leads generated as a result of searches could be further along their buy cycle, so they are particularly valuable to your sales team. These leads should not be overlooked; they are a key indicator of whether your content marketing efforts are effective.
Customer sentiment: This metric is a way of putting a quantitative measure on how your target audience is feeling about your company. While it may seem like the type of metric that cant be measured, there are tools out there that measure the appearance of particular words in comment streams, as well as the words that are used when a person shares your content piece.
This KPI is a way to better understand the type of content that resonates with your potential buyer in a B2B marketing setting. While likes and shares tell you a little bit about how popular your content is, customer sentiment tells you the feelings and thoughts that are connected with particular kinds of content.
How Telemarketing Drives These Metrics
Despite enthusiasm for social media-driven content marketing strategies, there are areas where telemarketing plays an important and irreplaceable role in driving growth. Each of the KPIs listed above are important metrics for driving the success of a content marketing plan, and telemarketing is an essential tool for improving each of these metrics.
Telemarketing delivers qualified leads: Telemarketing is the most effective tool in identifying the decision-maker and influencers in a B2B sales lead opportunity, providing qualified/actionable leads to your sales team in a sales accepted leads metric. A telemarketer has the ability to ask questions about where the buyer is in their buy cycle, the specific problems or challenges they are trying to solve as well as the budget and time frame for solving them. Furthermore, the telemarketer can easily identify the buyers next actions and buying signals; delivering them in real time to the sales rep.
Telemarketing increases your share of voice: Telemarketing is a great way to draw attention to your content pieces that may be otherwise overlooked on social media or through an email campaign. In a one-on-one conversation, a telemarketer can get a feel for the specific challenges that the decision-maker faces, and then direct them to an appropriate white paper or other resource. If the content piece solves a problem for your potential buyer, they will be more likely to share the piece on social media or mention it in their own blog posts.
Branded search for a company they got to know through telemarketing: A branded search represents a highly-valuable lead that is far enough along in the buy cycle to be considering specific brands and companies. Telemarketing boosts your branded searches through the building of trust and loyalty through personal conversation. When your potential buyer receives immediate feedback about their questions and about your company, they are more likely to go directly to your website when they are ready to engage.
Customer sentiment improved by human-to-human interactions: When you include telemarketing as a way to drive growth for your company, your customer sentiment metric is directly influenced by the trust and loyalty that is built in a personal conversation. While customer sentiment is measured by analyzing the words used in comments, the one-on-one conversations that occur through telemarketing have a significant impact on their perception of your brand. A positive telemarketing experience drives improved customer sentiment as they interact with your content online.
In order to execute a successful content marketing strategy, you need to be sure that you are measuring the right indicators for success. To learn more about how telemarketing can boost these four KPIs, make an appointment with Blue Valley Marketing.
Last Updated on September 14, 2023 by Ronen Ben-Dror