Report: Lead Gen Results Are Helping Content Marketers Measure Success

Marketers are still trying to create the perfect content marketing strategy, and research shows they are using a wide array of metrics to gauge their success.

The “Content Marketing and Distribution: From a Leadership Perspective” report from Publicity.ai discovered that lead generation/nurturing (55 percent) is considered to be the most useful metric for gauging content marketing success. This is followed by customer engagement (52 percent), website traffic (46 percent) and return-on-investment (36 percent).

In many instances, there is a disconnect between what marketers consider to be important objectives and the useful metrics they gather from certain tactics. For example, 47 percent consider brand awareness to be a critical objective, but only 34 percent say they receive useful metrics on this goal. On the opposite end of the spectrum, 46 percent claim lead generation is an important objective, and 55 percent receive useful metrics on this tactic.

“The most effective content marketing and distribution strategies not only consider the importance of objectives, but also the usefulness of measuring them,” wrote the authors of the report. “From a practical standpoint, if achieving an objective can not be measured, it is less useful than objectives that can be measured.”

At the time of this report, the majority of respondents (52 percent) stated that their content marketing and distribution strategy was only “somewhat successful.”

Understanding Customers’ Marketing Content Preferences

Marketers may be able to enhance the success of their strategies by understanding what their target audience looks for in marketing content.

The “How Content Influences the Purchasing Process” survey from the Content Marketing Institute and SmartBrief found that most customers (62 percent) prefer marketing content that speaks to their specific pain points and/or needs. Approximately 57 percent want content to provide specifics on products/services.

In addition, 74 percent of buyers claim that marketing content that includes original research influences their purchasing decisions.