Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) …...Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI When it comes to proving content marketing ROI, marketers often

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Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI

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Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI 2

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Executive SummaryContent marketing is now a way of life for most businesses.

It’s one of the primary ways marketers generate and nurture

leads, establish thought leadership, build their brands,

expand their social following, and engage with and retain

customers.

A 2013 study by the Content Marketing Institute even found

that 33% of B2B marketing budgets are now allocated to

content marketing, which is up from 26% in 20111. If you’re

a content marketer, that may be reason to cheer, but it

should also be reason for apprehension. Increased spending

almost always means increased scrutiny from executives,

and if you haven’t been asked to defend your content

marketing budget yet, you probably will soon. You should be

prepared.

This white paper provides tips for how marketers can prove

to their executives (or clients) the value of their content

marketing initiatives. It also explains ways to improve your

content marketing ROI, and introduces technologies you

can use to do both.

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When it comes to proving content marketing ROI, marketers

often try to drown executives in a sea of metrics, hoping

the cumulative effect will either dazzle or confuse them into

buying in. But most CEOs don’t want to hear about site

visits, video views, blog subscribers, retweets, and likes.

Those are good metrics to have to help you shape your

content marketing strategy, but they rarely impress C-level

executives.

CEOs care about money. That’s why the best way to

prove content marketing ROI is to show its impact on lead

generation, followed by how those leads are translating to

revenue. If you can do that, you can defend the content

marketing budget you have now and even make a

compelling case for an increase.

Tracking Web Leads Is the First Step

First, content marketers should track how their work

generates web leads and revenue. In a nutshell:

1. Your content should include calls to action that drive

potential leads to visit a special landing page to fill out a

web form or, depending on the nature of your business,

make an immediate purchase.

2. The lead or purchase should be tagged as belonging to

the appropriate content marketing source.

3. If the lead did not make a purchase, they should be

either passed to sales for follow up or entered into a

nurturing program until they are sales-ready.

4. The lead should be tracked through the sales process to

see if they eventually turn into revenue.

5. This data should then be presented regularly to your

executive team to demonstrate content marketing’s

impact on the business.

Gathering this data requires two pieces of technology: a

marketing automation tool and a CRM system. Marketing

automation tools like Marketo, Eloqua, or Pardot enable you

to capture leads from web forms and to tie those leads to

the marketing source that referred them. This means that

you can create reports on how many leads each of your

eBooks, webinars, and other content generated, as well as

the email, web page, social media post, blog, video, PPC

ad, SEO term, or other source the lead used to find you.

Proving Content Marketing ROI Takes the Right Data


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The Often-Overlooked Analytics Tool: Call Tracking

If your content is effective, tracking web leads and online

sales makes a strong statement about the value of content

marketing. But it still only tells half the story. What if instead

of visiting your web page or filling out your form, the lead

picks up the phone and calls you? Can you tell exactly what

piece of content drove that call? Can you tell if the call even

came from content marketing at all?

Failing to track the inbound phone calls your content is

generating can be problematic for two big reasons:

What’s more, when you integrate your marketing

automation tools with a CRM system like Salesforce.com

or SugarCRM, you can track each of those web leads

through the sales cycle. And that means being able to

prove to execs that your content marketing has generated

X amount of web leads, Y amount of opportunities, and Z

amount of revenue.


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1. You might not be getting credit for a ton of content

marketing leads. If someone reads a blog and calls

sales, for example, or calls after watching a video,

reading collateral from a trade show, or getting a

nurturing email, you can’t prove it. And any CPL (cost-

per-lead) data will be wrong because your lead numbers

are off, making it seem like you are spending more per

lead than you really are.

2. Inbound phone calls are often from leads who are ready

to engage with a sales manager, and therefore more

likely to become revenue than a web lead. (An internal

study of our own leads at Ifbyphone uncovered that

phone leads are 3x more likely to become accounts.)

They are the lead type more sales managers prefer (see

Figure 1). Phone calls are the leads you most need to

track back to your content.

Figure 1: Larger percentage of sales managers rate telephone leads as “excellent” or “good” – more

than any other lead type. 2

Salesforce.com

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That’s why the third analytics tool marketing teams should

use is a call tracking tool. Call tracking software enables

you to include unique trackable phone numbers in your

downloadable and printed content, videos, trade show

presentations, emails, ads, direct mail blasts, and other

content to measure the calls they generate. Even if a lead

visits your web site before calling you, call tracking tools

can still tell you how that caller found your site and the web

page or blog posts they called from.

And like marketing automation tools, you can integrate

call tracking tools with your CRM system (see Figure 2)

to follow each phone lead through to revenue. If you use

these three technologies together, you have the data

you need to paint a simple, powerful picture of content

marketing’s effectiveness. Instead of forcing execs to sit

through 30 slides of data on how content marketing is

impacting everything from page view duration to email click-

through rates, you can show them what they really care

about: a single impactful slide proving how your content is

generating leads and revenue.


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Figure 2. Include phone call data in your CRM dashboards and reports.

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Once you have the tools to measure ROI by accurately

reporting on the leads and revenue your content helps

generate, the next step is to improve it. Obviously the best

way to do this is to keep generating valuable, engaging

content. If your content isn’t valuable to your target

audience, you will struggle to get a meaningful return on

your investment.

But assuming your team understands the needs of your

target audience and the buyer’s journey, and assuming you

are creating a steady stream of quality content, there are

still ways to improve your ROI. So here are some tips to

help you squeeze more value out of your content marketing

investment.

Put High-Value Content Behind Registration Forms

This is very basic, but if you aren’t using any of your content

to generate leads, your content marketing ROI will suffer.

You should put some of your high-value content behind a

registration form so it can generate leads that can be either

passed to sales or put in a nurturing campaign.

Be sure the content you ask people to register for has value

to them regardless of whether or not they buy your product.

If you force people to give you their information for content

that is too product-focused or salesy, they will resent it.

You should also monitor monthly registration numbers for all

gated content. If you see the numbers tail off over time and

remain consistently low, consider taking down the form and

make it accessible to anyone without registration. This can

help not only increase views, but also make that content

indexable by search engines so it can improve your SEO

efforts.

Tips for Improving Content Marketing ROI


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Leverage Your Content in Multiple Forms

When you spend a lot of time creating a great piece of

content, get more value from it by using the content in other

forms. For example:

• When you write a new white paper or eBook, you can

take excerpts from that content to create one or more

blog posts.

• When you create a research report, you can reuse some

of the data as an infographic.

• When you give a presentation at a trade show, you

can record it as a podcast. You can also reuse that

presentation in a live or on-demand webinar.

The reverse of this idea is also true. If you have several blog

posts on a common topic or theme, for example, you can

gather them together to make an eBook. You can then ask

people to register to download it, thereby transforming the

blog content into a lead generation asset.


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Link Content Together to Tell a Story

Content should never live in a silo. Each piece should point

to another piece, creating a content chain that takes readers

on a journey that teaches them about the need for your

products and services. The final destination of that journey

should be the reader’s understanding of why your products

and services are the best option.

For example, a Twitter message that gets retweeted links

to a YouTube video that directs people to download a white

paper that points to a customer case study that sends

readers to a joint webinar that asks people to register for a

personal demo of your product.

Or an SEO search reveals a syndicated blog post that points

readers to an infographic that sends people wanting more

data to download a research report which triggers an email

nurturing campaign with customer success stories and

industry best practices while asking the lead to call or email

your sales team to learn more. You get the picture.

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The order of this content is up to you, but most content

chains begin with either easy-to-digest content that piques

a person’s interest, or else more detailed content full of best

practices people can put to use right away. The important

part is to keep your content from leaving the reader unsure

of what to do next. Content shouldn’t be a dead end.

Maximize Your Content’s Potential for Exposure

Promoting your content in multiple locations on your

website is a must, obviously. But there are also many tactics

you can use to raise awareness of your content and make it

easier to find:

• Stay on top of SEO: Hopefully you are actively

monitoring search engine traffic to your site and

optimizing your content for important search terms. If

you aren’t, you need to start – this is critical. If you want

tips for improving your SEO, there are best practices

and a list of good resources on SEO in our white paper

found at http://public.ifbyphone.com/landingpage/

marketers-guide-to-call-tracking-for-google-seo-and-

ppc.

Case Study: Beacon Technologies Sees Over 400% Higher ROI with Call Tracking

Beacon Technologies is a web technology and marketing agency. Beacon uses Ifbyphone as the critical link between online marketing spend and offline phone call conversions.

For one client, Beacon used unique phone numbers from Ifbyphone to track call activity from sites like Lawyers.com, FindLaw.com, Google Local, and social media outlets. They now understood which channels were working and adjusted spending accordingly. The end result was a significant increase in ROI.

“A lot of companies don’t just get leads that take place on the web. Consumers often pick up the phone and call,” said Brad Henry, Director of Web Marketing at Beacon. “It’s important to know where that lead originated, particularly if the web is involved, in order to optimize marketing initiatives moving forward.”

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http://public.ifbyphone.com/landingpage/marketers-guide-to-call-tracking-for-google-seo-and-ppc/



Lawyers.com

FindLaw.com



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• Leverage social media: Participating in social media

is no longer an option for content marketers. Twitter,

Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other sites

and services are an excellent way to generate exposure

for your content. Providing a list of best practices for

social media would require its own white paper, but

luckily there are many great sites and articles available

on the topic. Simply go to your favorite search engine

and search for “content marketing social media” to get

started.

• Post content on SlideShare: SlideShare is a good

way to share your presentations and PDFs. They have

a free plan that enables you to upload content under

a certain size, and also offer paid plans where you

can collect leads from content, view analytics, upload

videos, and more. Educational content performs better

than salesy content, so chose what to share wisely.

• Drive web traffic with StumbleUpon: StumbleUpon

is an online content discovery tool and one of the

Internet’s top sites for web traffic referral. To give

StumbleUpon a try, set up your company profile and

begin submitting content to promote. It’s always a good

idea to promote other people’s content just as often

(or more often) as your own, so you don’t appear too

self-promotional. You should also focus on promoting

only your most useful content in order to cultivate a

reputation as a trusted and valuable sharer. Give your

content good titles and descriptions so it stands out,

and include important keyword tags to help people find

it. StumbleUpon also offers paid promotion options if

wish to spend budget to achieve short-term boosts in

content traffic.

• Syndicate your blogs: Having great content on your

blog that gets people to register for other content is

good, but having dozens of other blogs do the same

thing for you is better. Getting blogs to syndicate

your posts can be an effective way to gain exposure

and leads. The key is to establish relationships with

influential blogs that other blogs syndicate – you might

want to ask them directly if they permit guest blogs.

Once they post your content, it can spread like wildfire.

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• Issue a press release: Press releases aren’t just

about spreading news anymore. Now that releases get

posted on websites and picked up in various email alert

services, they can play a role in both SEO (by linking

back to your site – though how much of a role is a topic

of debate) and lead generation. Next time you have

news to share, include links in your press release to

your site (tip: don’t over do it; one link per 100 words

is a good rule of thumb) and include a call to action to

download a piece of content that is behind a registration

page. You can even try issuing a release announcing the

availability of your next eBook. You might be surprised

how many leads it generates.

• Try PPC and banner advertising: Even the most

amazing content has little value if no one sees it. If free

tactics aren’t getting you the views you want, try to

jumpstart traffic using paid advertising. Many vendors

like Google, Bing, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn

have PPC (pay-per-click) or pay-per-impression

advertising options to help you get your content in front

of your target audience. You can use your content as a

call to action in your ads, then send people to a landing

page where they can register to download an eBook,

white paper, webinar, report, buyer’s guides, or other

content. You can also run banner ad campaigns for your

content with display networks. (Because the stakes are

higher with paid programs, be sure to use call tracking

to tie every phone lead back to your campaigns).

• Sponsor a virtual trade show: Businesses sponsor

virtual trade shows to raise awareness, build their email

contact database, and generate leads. But another less

obvious benefit is the opportunity to spread content.

Unlike the physical content at traditional in-person

trade shows, which can be difficult for attendees to

collect and carry home, the content at virtual shows is

electronic and extremely simple for online attendees

to download. People will routinely download dozens of

pieces of content from a single vendor to peruse later.

It’s also easy for them to forward these PDFs to co-

workers and colleagues. (Having call tracking phone

numbers in your content can help you track any calls

back to your content and the specific virtual show.)

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If People Aren’t Coming to You, Go to ThemInbound marketing strategies like SEO and social media are essential,

but you should also experiment with outbound marketing campaigns to

generate views and leads and improve content marketing ROI. For example:

• Send out email newsletters: If you are creating a steady stream of

great content, create a monthly or quarterly newsletter linking back to

your best pieces to send to customers and leads (see Figure 3).

• Create email nurturing campaigns: Just because you place links

in content to other content, doesn’t mean a person will click on them.

Drip campaigns, with each email promoting a unique piece of content,

can help guide people through the buyer’s journey and down your sales

funnel.

• Sponsor a newsletter or email blast: Expand your reach beyond

your email database by advertising your content in a third-party

newsletter. You can also pay vendors to send out a dedicated email

blast promoting your content to their targeted lists.

• Try a content syndication program: Many vendors offer syndication

programs where you can pay to list your content on their site or have

them run a lead gen program using your content as the asset.

• Experiment with ad retargeting: Retargeting is a form of online

advertising that can help you generate leads from website traffic that

didn’t convert. Most traffic to your site won’t convert by calling you or

filling out a form. Retargeting enables you to use Javascript cookies to

follow past website visitors as they browse the Internet and display ads

for your best content on the sites they visit. It can be an effective way to

encourage potential prospects to return to your site, fill out a form, and

become a lead.

Figure 3. Email newsletters can be a great way to gain exposure for content.

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• Trigger immediate sales calls from web forms:

When a lead fills out one of your web forms, how long

does it take for your sales reps to respond and get the

lead on the phone? Research shows that a sale is 22

times more likely to happen when you make contact

within the first five minutes. Waiting even ten minutes

dramatically decreases your chances of converting

that lead to a sale. Marketing can help sales get leads

on the phone faster using technology by companies

like Ifbyphone to trigger an immediate call to your

sales team when a lead fills out a form. If your sales

rep decides to accept the call, the technology will call

the lead and connect both parties over the phone.

To learn more about decreasing lead response times,

you can watch an on-demand webinar on the topic at

http://public.ifbyphone.com/landingpage/close-more-

business-by-responding-faster-to-web-leads-webinar/.


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Help Sales Convert More Content Marketing Leads to Revenue

The previous tips have been about generating more content

views and more leads from your content. But if the most

important ROI datapoint CEOs and execs care about is

revenue, then we would be remiss if we didn’t provide a few

ways content marketers can help sales close more deals

faster.

• Use email to move leads through the funnel: We

already mentioned the importance of email nurturing

campaigns for generating content views. But they can

also be effective at moving leads through the sales

funnel. Before creating your nurturing campaigns,

speak with your sales team to better understand the

buyer’s journey and determine the types of content

leads should receive at each stage. Then create your

drip campaigns accordingly. It can also be a good idea

to create separate campaigns for leads (to encourage

them to become an opportunity), opportunities (to

encourage them to become a customer), and customers

(to encourage them to upgrade, renew, or purchase a

second product).

http://public.ifbyphone.com/landingpage/close-more-business-by-responding-faster-to-web-leads-webinar/.

http://public.ifbyphone.com/landingpage/close-more-business-by-responding-faster-to-web-leads-webinar/.

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• Ask people to call you: Putting a phone number in

your content and on your web pages sounds simple, but

you would be surprised how many content marketers

don’t do it. Encouraging people to call you with

questions is a great way to generate higher-quality leads

and move prospects faster through your sales funnel.

And if you use a call tracking solution like Ifbyphone,

you can track which piece of the content the call came

from.

• Control where calls from your content go: Call

tracking technology enables marketers to insert unique

phone numbers into their content to track calls. But that

technology also enables marketers to control where

those calls go. For example, perhaps you want calls

from a webinar or demo video to go to a certain sales

manager or subset of sales reps. Or you wish a larger

percentage of calls to go to reps with proven track

records of closing more deals. There are dozens of ways

you can route calls from every piece of content.


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How Fast Is Your Sales Team Responding to Web Leads?

• Leads called within the first minute are nearly 400x more likely to convert

• A sale is 22x more likely to happen when you make contact in the first 5 minutes

• Waiting even 10 minutes dramatically decreases your chances of converting that lead to a sale

Source: www.leads360.com/products/lead-distribution-routing

• 65% of leads that convert purchase from the first vendor that calls them

Source: LeadQual, “Rapid Response to Internet Leads Drives Conversions”

• 63% of companies take longer than an hour to respond to a lead

• 24% took longer than a day

• 23% didn’t respond at all

Source: Harvard Business Review, March 2011

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www.leads360.com/products/lead


Content marketing has arrived. But with increased budgets

comes increased scrutiny from executives, and getting

management to buy in to the importance of content

marketing – and the necessity of increasing their investment

in it – can be a challenge. It’s now no longer good enough

to create engaging content, you have to be able to prove

its ROI, and that requires the right data and analytics tools.

We hope you find the tips in this white paper useful in

formulating a strategy for measuring and improving your

content marketing ROI.

Sources:

1. http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/

uploads/2012/11/b2bresearch2013cmi-121023151728-

phpapp01-1.pdf

2. BIA/Kelsey report on Call-Based Ads, May 29, 2012

Conclusion


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Call Ifbyphone today at(866) 244-5872 to learn how to Ifbyphone’s call tracking software can help you prove and improve your content marketing ROI. You can also request a demo of Ifbyphone’s solution at www.ifbyphone.com.

Next Steps

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/b2bresearch2013cmi-121023151728-phpapp01-1.pdf



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About Ifbyphone

Ifbyphone, the leader in voice-based marketing automation

(VBMA), connects, measures and optimizes sales and

service calls for businesses and organizations. Ifbyphone’s

VBMA solutions capture and manage phone leads and

information that often slip through the cracks of traditional

marketing automation and CRM software solutions.

The Ifbyphone product suite is a set of software-as-a-service

applications including call tracking, hosted IVR (interactive

voice response), call routing, virtual call center and voice

broadcasting. Organizations of all sizes in all industries use

Ifbyphone, including marketing agencies, lead generation,

e-commerce, direct response, financial services and

insurance, health care, retail and logistics, and SaaS and

technology. For more information, visit www.ifbyphone.com

www.ifbyphone.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ifbyphone

Facebook: http://facebook.com/ifbyphone

(866) 244-5872

300 West Adams Street, 9th Floor

Chicago, IL 60606

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Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) …...Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI When it comes to proving content marketing ROI, marketers often

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