CAN METRICS EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CONTENT?

Question: How do I create quantifiable metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of content and its sentiment?

Access to technology today is much easier and affordable than ever.  Whether you are an enterprise or a small shop, there are solutions that can help you keep your ear to the ground and measure the effectiveness of your content.

Of course, there are differing levels of sophistication in creating metrics around content effectiveness.  With any content or campaign in the digital realm, marketers should:

• Use test-and-learn messaging
  • Create multiple iterations of your content around a core set of principles, strategically place them into the market, measure engagement levels, and optimize.  The key here is to clearly identify your call to action, funnel all content toward that action, and then track the results.
  • Use social listening tools to understand the sentiment that comes from each iteration.
  • Move forward more broadly with the winner.
• Create an A/B test landing experience
  • Once you have identified the content that most resonates with your audience, A/B test the destination you are sending them to in order to fully understand what messaging, color pallet, UI and ease of use combination drives the highest level of conversion – such as purchase, download or share.
  • There are cloud-based A/B testing tools that leverage WYSIWYG editors that a marketer with no development experience can use.  This also makes your marketing much more nimble as you do not have to engage the development team or IT for tests.

The combination of optimizing the message to drive traffic with optimizing the experience to drive conversion is the magic formula for creating and tracking meaningful content metrics.

Got another question about content strategy?  Comment below or send it to us @gagegroup, and we’ll answer it.