Measure Results and Pivot

08.09.2017 |

Episode #10 of the course Content marketing fundamentals by Courtney Goes

 

Welcome to the final lesson of this course, which is all about measuring the results of your content against the goals you set, and pivoting as needed.

One of the biggest fails companies make when it comes to content is spending too much time creating a lot of content without measuring what works and what doesn’t. In other words, they go full steam ahead, and in most cases, when this happens, 90% of it ends up being a waste of time.

A far better approach is to start small, find what works, then scale up and keep moving. Test new channels and content types one by one, then look at the data to see whether or not the investment was worth it.

If it’s not working, it could be due to a variety of reasons. Let’s say that I create a video with the aim of getting 100 new email subscribers, but it doesn’t result in a single one. It could be because:

• The channel wasn’t right—e.g. I promoted it on LinkedIn, when my audience prefers YouTube.

• The content type wasn’t right—e.g. My audience prefers written content.

• The content wasn’t right—e.g. It didn’t provide answers or wasn’t valuable.

• The CTA wasn’t right—e.g. I wanted to drive email subscribers but didn’t prompt viewers to subscribe.

Get to the bottom of what’s not working before deeming it a failure, but be careful with experimenting. Launching several tests at the same time will confuse your audience and provide inconsistent data. Test one thing at a time, analyze, prioritize, and optimize. Rinse and repeat.

It’s also a good idea to create a spreadsheet or some way of keeping track of your content inventory. Listing each piece of content across all your channels and the results of each will help you spot trends and decide what to keep, improve, or remove. Throughout the process, listen to your customers for feedback and improvement opportunities, and weave these into new content ideas.

Remember, content marketing is a continuous process and one that requires a great deal of trial and error. Given it’s unique to each business and industry, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach or blueprint to follow. It’s not an easy initiative to take on, but the investment can have incredible long-term rewards.

You’ve already taken the first exciting step by reading these emails over the past ten days and hopefully put into action at least one thing from each.

Now that you’ve gained some momentum, try and keep it going. And who knows, maybe I’ll be part of your audience some day!

Until then,

Courtney

 


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Recommended book

Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising by Ryan Holiday

 

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