How do you define success in B2B content marketing?

I was discussing this with one of the startup owners. Over a coffee, we were pondering on a deep question. 'How should we measure success in B2B content marketing? and what are the best tools we should use to measure the impact of marketing efforts from different channels?'.

He asked me one simple (so simple) question. "Sateesh, say you are selling chairs to companies, and how do you measure the success of B2B marketing. How many companies bought chairs from you is the metric you have to measure. After all, you are in the business of selling chairs, and obviously, your goal of any marketing activity is to sell chairs".

The question is the relationship between ROI on content marketing spend and immediate return on sales is so simple?

Definitely not.

The metrics in B2B content marketing are not very simple.

In the B2B landscape, metrics for B2B content efforts are in fact very complex to measure. In the SaaS business, customers can any day discontinue their subscription, and 'sales today' does not guarantee your 'sales tomorrow'.

The question is, what is it that matters? (may not very true to your industry)

1) Brand visibility

2) Market value

3) Engagement

B2B content marketing is a long-term game and the 'sales today may not be the right measurement for B2B content marketing efforts. Let us take an example of video posts/case studies or blog posts. Let us assume that your post has been viewed by one million viewers. This may not result in immediate sales and there may not be any active conversion. However, the blog or video can create brand familiarity in the long run and result in sales.

In fact, the metrics one will measure depend on the type of industry, and it differs depending on the goals of the sales and marketing departments.

I am giving some examples of some of the metrics we can measure.

1) Website visitors in terms of volume, how long they stayed on the website, on which content, from where they were referred, and what triggered them to visit your page. (Google Analytics has all these metrics).

2) New visits and conversions as leads

3) Shares and Comments

4) Positive feedbacks

5) Positive mentions

6) Domain Authority

7) Page Ranking

8) SERP Data (search Engine Results Page)

The following is the report by FirstPageSage on the ROI of B2B content marketing. If we look at the B2B SaaS industry, the ROI is 702%.

Source - https://firstpagesage.com

The question is how can we increase the impact of B2B content marketing?

1) Create content that is relevant to your audience.

2) Update the content regularly.

3) Promote content.

3) Repurpose content.

4) Identify which form of content is performing better.

5) Understanding user intent is really important.

6) Engagement is the key.

7) Be open-minded, be agile in content marketing, and focus on what works for you.