Metrics to Measure Monthly for B2B Marketing Content
Did you know a recent study found only 23% of companies are exceeding their revenue goals? If your B2B company is part of the majority who are not exceeding their goals, there might be a very simple explanation. And it has to do with marketing.
The same study also found that, of those companies who were not exceeding their revenue goals, 74% were not keeping track of some very important B2B marketing content metrics, such as site visits and lead conversions.
There are a variety of metrics your company should be monitoring on a monthly basis in regards to your marketing content. This is because, when your buyers are in the Awareness stage of their buyer’s journey, they won’t be contacting you but they will be silently monitoring. The only way to make sure they are moving forward, or to understand why they aren’t, is to identify engagement metrics.
You can start by keeping track of volume-related metrics, such as web traffic. Knowing the visits to your entire website is a place to start. However, more important than the entire site is tracking the visits to specific pages. Understanding which of your pages are most popular can be a great starting point to understanding what your potential clients are looking for.
Still, more important than any volume-based metrics are engagement metrics. Volume of visits can be misleading for a variety of reasons. More importantly, “vanity metrics” that show off sheer numbers mean nothing when it comes to increasing lead conversion and revenue.
Related: Content Marketing Metrics that Matter
So how do you measure engagement?
Bounce rate is one engagement metric that can help B2B companies understand whether their website is truly working. Bounce rate measures the number of people who visited your site, took no action, and left immediately. If your site has a relatively low bounce rate, you can be assured your content is engaging and relevant to potential customers. Don’t confuse this is exit rate, which shows you how many visitors left your site from a specific page. This is also helpful to help you figure out which of your pages need some work.
Metrics to Measure Monthly
On your website, you can also measure how many people who visit your site follow or subscribe to your content, such as blogs; repeat visits; click-throughs on ads, and more.
But remember, website content is only 20% of marketing. Measuring social media engagement metrics are another very important aspect of your B2B marketing content. Particularly on LinkedIn, to get a clear picture of whether or not people are actually consuming your content, make sure to measure a variety of aspects. These include, likes, comments, shares, click-throughs, and amount of followers. Make sure to do this not only for your business but for your “rock star” sales manager, advisors, etc. who have lots of followers.
Video content advertising is another metric to measure for your B2B marketing. Your videos don’t need to be fancy, in fact, they don’t even need to be selling anything. They just need to advise on a potential buyer’s pain points to draw attention to your company. For example, if you are a technology-based SaaS company, your video could feature your technical consultant demonstrating how they stop a threat.
Once you put out the video, watch the engagement metrics. How many people viewed the video? How long did they watch? Did they go on to engage with any of your other content?
If you have a good grasp on all of this, you can see whether your content is really addressing the pain points of your buyers, if they’re moving along in their buyer’s journey with you, and most importantly, if they are leading to increased revenue and growth for your company.