A Torture Free Way to Get Your Partners to Spend More $$ On Content Marketing

14 Ways to Measure - and Prove - Content Marketing Program Effectiveness

content marketing

There’s no quicker way for the marketing department of an accounting, consulting or other professional services firm to get an increase in their marketing budget than by accurately pinpointing results and return on investment (ROI).

One of the areas where firms are indeed making bigger investments is in content marketing – the art and science of packaging and promoting thought leadership for purposes ranging from brand building to lead acquisition and nurturing. In fact, according the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, on average, B2B content marketers are spending 33% of their marketing budgets on content marketing, up from 26% last year; also, 54% plan to increase content marketing spending next year.

Higher Performing Firms Do More and Spend More on Content Marketing

But content marketing requires money and other resources, and professional services firms are notoriously tight fisted when it comes to increasing marketing budgets … even though studies by folks like CPA Trendlines and Hinge Marketing show time and time again that higher performing firms do more (and spend more) on marketing initiatives.

So here’s a list of 14 areas of content marketing activity that you can and should be measuring. You should be sharing these results with your partners. And when you see the needle move in a positive way, it’s time to pull out your ROI card and make a strong quantitative case for increasing the budget.

How and What to Measure to Grade the Effectiveness of Your Content Marketing Program

Below, I’ve summarized a findings from the "B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America" study done by CMI and MarketingProfs. It shows both what B2B firms are measuring in order to see how well their content marketing program is working, and the percentage of firms surveyed that are using this measurement.

Web traffic (60%)
Sales lead quality (51%)
Social media sharing(45%)
Sales quantity (43%)
Direct sales (41%)
Qualitative feedback from customers (41%)
SEO ranking (41%)
Time spent on website (39%)
Inbound links (35%)
Benchmark lift of company awareness (26%)
Increased customer loyalty (24%)
Benchmark lift of product/service awareness (22%)
Cross-selling (13%)
Cost savings (5%)

Are You Reporting Marketing Metrics to Your Partners?

In addition to content marketing, there are other metrics you should be reporting and discussing with your partners, that we have addressed in other whitepapers. Our suggestion: pick 6 to 10 key metrics and start reporting them to those who hold the key to the treasure room in order to get more treasure for funding your marketing.

You don’t have to torture partners to get more funding if you can prove your case. That doesn’t mean, however, that you won't have to use some creative “incentives” to get them to step up the plate to give you content …. that’s another story altogether!

VLLC is a marketing agency that helps accounting, consulting and other professional services firms grow their top line via digital and online marketing strategies and tactics.