How can you measure the value of content that doesn't lead directly to a sale?

Content marketing is a long game. Not every piece of content results immediately in a sale, but creating engaging content can help your brand build trust and familiarity, ensuring that at the point a prospect is ready to consider a solution, they’ll be primed to look more deeply at what your brand can offer them.

The reality is, most consumers aren’t ready to buy right away. The purpose of content marketing is to ensure your brand is top of mind with them when they are ready. When done effectively, content marketing creates a valuable relationship with a brand's audience, and positions them as an industry leader. When you begin creating content, you must determine the purpose of each piece of content you’re producing. Once you understand why you’re creating a specific piece and the benefit to the consumer, you will understand how to measure its success. Most of the content created is for the top/middle of the funnel. If you only measured converting content you would be missing the majority of the buyer's journey.

Beyond traditional metrics like conversion rates... Focus on qualitative indicators such as: - Brand sentiment - Social media interactions - Audience feedback Look for signs of increased brand awareness, customer loyalty, and community growth. Valuable content might not always translate into an immediate sale. But it DOES contribute to a positive and lasting relationship with your customer. By evaluating these metrics and aligning them with the business goals... You can measure the indirect but meaningful impact of content that resonates with your audience.

How can you measure the value? You cannot and should not!! It is like asking what use is a stone that is a part of the foundation of your house. That stone is of no specific utility to you, and one stone won't make a difference to the building. But it is there, and doing its part in making the whole structure strong. As a marketer, one needs to build up a larger image of trustworthiness, dependability and values that your target audience desires. It is only when these are in place, will prospective customers actually make a sale. Else, if they don't find your brand having the needed values, they will simply not buy, no matter what you do.

Measuring the value of content that doesn't lead directly to a sale involves looking at broader impact indicators. ??1?? Assess engagement levels: Track likes, shares, comments, and time spent on content to gauge audience interest and interaction. ??2?? Monitor brand awareness: Measure increases in brand searches, social media mentions, and website traffic attributable to your content. ??3?? Evaluate audience growth: Observe changes in your follower count and subscriber base to understand the long-term relationship-building effectiveness of your content

Not all content is about making a sale. Sometimes, it's about building relationships and trust. - I look at engagement metrics like comments, shares, and likes. These show me how my audience is interacting with my content. - I also look at dwell time. If people are spending a lot of time on my content, that's a good sign. - Finally, I look at the impact on my brand. Has my content increased brand awareness? Has it positioned me as a thought leader? Remember, content marketing is a long game. It's not always about the immediate sale, but about building a loyal audience over time.

Consider sentiment analysis. Dive into comments and social mentions to gauge audience emotions. Tools like Brandwatch or Social Mention can provide insights into whether the non-converting content generated positive sentiment, helping you understand its impact on brand perception and audience connection beyond conventional metrics. This unconventional approach delves deeper into the qualitative aspects of engagement.

Measuring the value of content that doesn't directly lead to a sale is about looking at the right metrics. Not every piece of content needs to be a direct moneymaker, but it should contribute to your overall marketing goals. This is where a team scorecard with individual KPIs comes into play, and not all these KPIs are about revenue. In my experience, some of the most telling metrics for non-converting content include "non-paid search sessions" and conversion rates from the page to email sign-ups. These metrics give insights into how effectively your content is driving organic traffic and engaging users enough to take an action, like signing up for more information.

Engagement Metrics: CTR, time on page, and bounce rate indicate content interest and quality. Social Interaction: Track social shares, comments, and feedback for content virality. Audience Reach: Measure page views, unique visitors, and organic vs. paid traffic sources. Audience Growth: Assess lead generation, subscriber growth, and micro-conversions. Content Performance: Analyze popular topics, content heatmaps, and scroll depth. SEO Metrics: Monitor organic search traffic, keyword rankings, and backlinks. Retention and Loyalty: Track return visitors, email open rates, and customer feedback. Customer Feedback: Utilize NPS and surveys for customer insights.

It is not always about the sale. Sometimes it is about the branding: Engagement Metrics: If a blog post generates numerous comments, indicating active discussion, it signifies the content's ability to engage the audience even if it doesn't directly drive sales. Brand Visibility: Consider an increase in direct website visits following a social media campaign. While it might not result in immediate sales, the heightened brand visibility can lead to future conversions. Audience Growth: Suppose a webinar attracts a significant number of new subscribers. Though these subscribers may not make immediate purchases, they represent a growing audience that could convert in the future.

A multi-touch attribution model recognizes the complexity of decision-making. By analyzing the touchpoints that precede conversions, you can find surprising insights, like an educational blog post or an inspiring video, that played critical roles. Adjust the content strategy based on these insights for a more cohesive and impactful journey, turning non-converting content into an integral part of the conversion path.

In the context of content, I would always look at first interaction attribution. Since its main goal is creating initial awareness of your solution. It then makes sense to add intermediate conversion goals for content further down the funnel, like visiting a marketing or pricing page. Sometimes the standard 90 day tracking is not enough to catch eventual conversions, especially in the context of B2B sales.

A multi-touch attribution model is the most effective way to measure the impact of a particular piece of content as well as how it collectively contributed towards a desired action. It can help you adjust the overall strategy to drive more conversions. Additionally, it is the most realistic way to tell the buyer's journey story accurately.

Goal-setting and measurement should be about learning, not just reporting. If you've done the work to set a goal around what matters most — whether that's page views, engagement rate, clicks, etc. — monitoring your performance against that goal should yield some strong hypotheses for how you can optimize your content.

Take a closer look at your audience, especially considering the evolving behaviors across various platforms. Nowadays, customers seek entertainment on TikTok, crave the latest industry insights on LinkedIn, and are interested in glimpses of personal lives, like holiday adventures, on Instagram. Consider these nuances to align your content with the expectations of each platform. Understanding the distinct preferences of your audience on different channels can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your content strategy.

I think a lot of content marketers and writers feel a vast amount of pressure to turn non-converting content that gains high amounts of traffic into content that converts. In some cases, it's just not possible. The best way to optimize non-converting content is not to try and shove a square peg into a round hole, but to incorporate it into the overall user journey. I have seen a lot of good data showcasing a distinct "halo effect" (a positive correlation) between digesting non-converting content and deal success at some point in the journey. So, think about what role your piece plays in the journey and help your reader take that next step (if they want it). Prioritize the optionality to continue the journey with your brand.

When treating your content as tools that help your customer take steps toward their goal, you will always identify ways that are more relevant to them than the original content might have been. Tune in with their struggles and optimize the content to help our hero overcome them.

Optimizing content and optimizing content strategy are two different things. Assuming that best practices were followed when designing the overall content strategy, a few simple tweaks to existing content can make a big difference. Updating the visual of an advertisement, changing the subject line of an email, updating the header on a landing page; these minor tweaks can move the needle. When optimizing existing content, leverage inbound best practices by changing one element. Marketing is all about experimentation; making small, measurable changes will ensure you are moving the needle in the right direction.

Not all content is designed to convert. It's crucial to set the intent of each piece of content before it is produced and be ready to explain the value of content that isn't designed to convert. For example, top of funnel (TOFU) content is rarely designed to bring in a ton of leads or sales. TOFU content is valuable because it builds up your brand's organic search presence (and domain authority), contributes to brand awareness, and serves as an early touchpoint for potential customers.

In the digital era, social and search platforms prioritize useful and valuable content. The content we generate must actively support the communities we engage with, emphasizing its significance. Marketing, driven by emotions crucial for commercial decisions, defies precise measurement and requires understanding from all stakeholders. Our brand values are conveyed in diverse ways, and content, whether it directly or indirectly impacts, should consistently reflect these values. The existence of non-measurable content remains essential in this landscape and their existence should be communicated to all stakeholders.

Every piece of content that is created should be built for a specific purpose that helps advance corporate goals, which usually go beyond just sales. That said, each content piece can play a crucial role in influencing a conversion, so with the right attribution model and buyer's journey, a piece can support multiple goals.

Conversion content is buyer's journey content. In B2B, most of your prospects aren't looking to buy right now, and generally don't want to be sold to when they're not looking to buy. Thus, it's not a question of whether content that doesn't convert is valuable. Because most of your content should not be conversion content. If everything is conversion content, you have a topless funnel with only the skinny little part at the bottom. You won't catch much with that.

At the core, all good content is converting content. It can turn a social follower into an engaged contributor, increasing awareness and building brand trust; a blog post can convert a stranger into a prospect through improved SEO; it can convert skeptics on a buyer's committee into champions. Investing in a solid content strategy will ensure you achieve desired outcomes across the board.

Non-converting content can be a valuable source of market intelligence. By analyzing interactions with such content, you gain insights into customer interests, preferences, and pain points that aren't directly tied to sales but are crucial for product development and innovation. This indirect feedback loop can guide the evolution of products or services, ensuring they meet evolving customer needs. Additionally, this content often serves as a testing ground for messaging and brand positioning, helping refine marketing strategies in a low-risk environment. This approach positions non-converting content not just as a brand builder, but as a strategic tool for continuous improvement and market alignment.

For those who are new to social media marketing, it is important to note that initial attempts at generating sales may not yield substantial results. However, with a well-planned content strategy in place, brand awareness can be significantly increased, eventually leading to customer acquisition. As such, focusing on crafting and implementing an effective content strategy is crucial to generate the desired results.