3 ways to prove your content marketing is generating ROI

We all know that content marketing works – after all, the concept itself has been around for over a century. But as technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, it’s becoming harder and harder for companies to decide where they should try to distribute content.

Social media platforms should be your first stop. But first, you’re going to have to convince your boss that spending half the day on Twitter is somehow adding worth to your company.

A lot of older C-level executives are still wary about social media’s ability to generate tangible returns. It’s not difficult to see where they’re coming from. There’s rarely a thirty-day turnaround on social media investments, and it can sometimes take up to a year before a content campaign really starts to take off on certain platforms. Don’t allow your boss to pull the plug.

Instead, you should be tracking your social media activity through various metrics in order to chart whether your Tweets truly are generating some form of return. Chances are, your colleagues will be shocked to know how big a contribution social media activity plays in your company’s overall financial performance.

To help you get started, here are three of the best metrics with which to prove that all of your Facebook posts are worth their weight in gold:

1.Consumption

Consumption metrics help you to demonstrate how your content is being consumed, where it’s being shared and how it’s being utilised. By deploying services like Google Analytics, you’ll be able to develop a clear picture of how many people are visiting your site, who’s downloading your content and what social media sites they’re coming from.

These tools also map out how consumers click through your website from page to page – which can help you prove that your social media posts are turning into genuine sales. Because consumption metrics are directly tied to the overall value of your company’s investments, they simply cannot be ignored.

Also, if you’re keen to prove that certain social media sites are proving more effective than others, you can do this by A/B testing different posts to compare and contrast consumption levels on various sites. That way, you’ll be able to justify time spent on certain sites.

2.Generating leads

You can also demonstrate the importance of your social media marketing through lead generation metrics. By taking advantage of lead-capture forms, you can prompt customers to sign up for company newsletters or reminders – thus generating a new a reliable stream of business leads. So long as you can prove through consumption metrics that your content is being shared through social media, each new enrolment is thanks in part to your content marketing efforts.

Email marketing still maintains a relatively high conversion rate, and so you should always keep track of new additions to these sort of mailer lists. By putting a minimum price on each lead, it’s extremely simple to calculate how much your web content is worth – and more importantly, how important your social media shares are.

3.Sales metrics

When it comes to calculating ROI, one number stands out more than anything: sales. Consequently, sales metrics should be your absolute best friend when trying to assess whether your social media efforts are truly paying off. You should pay particularly close attention to sales close rates. These figures demonstrate specifically how leads from social media are turning into direct sales. However, close rates will only help to further your cause if you’ve got reliable CRM software in place that tracks how visitors interact with your site.

It’s worth bearing in mind that there are quite a few metrics out there with which to prove your social media activities are generating some form of return. Whether it’s by charting consumption, click-rates or the ways in which your posts are generating leads, there are literally dozens of different ways you can prove to your boss that social media is your most lucrative content marketing tool. So, deploy these tools now. You’ll probably be shocked to find just how big a chunk of your revenues originate from social media.

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