Measuring content marketing metrics: A guide for Estate and Letting Agents.

Measuring success may be the last step in your content marketing strategy, but that doesn’t make it any less crucial. I can’t stress enough how important it is to evaluate your tactics against your goals; to see what is working, what you need to change and where you might want to invest more.?

The good news is that with content marketing, measuring the metrics is easy - in fact it is built in to most of the channels you will be using to implement your strategy. It is surprising then, that one in three estate agents doesn’t know what they are achieving with their marketing spend or even what the point of it is.??

To help you get a grip of your metrics, here are seven things to consider:?

1. Align your metrics to your goals?

As with so much in content marketing, which metrics you focus on will depend on your marketing goals. For example, if you want to convert more vendors, you need to measure how many people clicked on your call-to-action button to book a valuation. If you’re after landlord leads, ask how many downloaded your guide to becoming a landlord in exchange for a newsletter sign-up.?

2. Set your benchmarks?

When deciding how to measure success, it’s a good idea to have quantifiable goals —a 25% increase in buyers on your list, for example. To make your goals meaningful, you should benchmark your current performance so you know where you're starting from.??

3. Be wary of vanity metrics?

Not all metrics are equal. Some tools at your disposal will give you what we call vanity metrics. Vanity metrics include Facebook likes and followers or website page views, with no obvious actions as a result. In other words, nice to have stats about how much people like you but no concrete results in the form of vendors and landlords on your books or properties sold.?

Having said this, if you use your social media feeds to connect with your customers, by commenting on local issues on Facebook groups or inviting Google reviews, the feedback you receive can offer valuable data on how people perceive your brand and your campaign.?

4. Maximise valuable metrics?

The key metrics that should concern you most are the ones that affect your bottom line - so conversion rate, customer acquisition cost, sales or marketing qualified leads (those leads reasonably likely to convert). In practical terms, these are the vendors who book a valuation based on your content strategy, either online or by giving you a call or the people who join your mailing list after attending a webinar - on landlord tax, for example.?

5. Decide which measuring tools to use?

There are plenty of tools at your disposal, starting with the free tracking that comes with most digital applications, Google Analytics or Mailchimp’s reporting tools, for example.??

Once you have this data, the next step is to interrogate it to find out which channels and messages are resonating best with your core audience. If your analysis shows that something is working well and bringing great results you may want to invest more in this element of the campaign. Conversely, if some of your tactics are not achieving your objectives, you need to decide whether to divert your investment elsewhere.?

6. Know when to bring in the professionals?

For many estate agents, this type of detailed data crunching may feel too specialised. If you are uncertain, it’s a good idea to bring in a professional marketing company to carry out your analysis. Just be sure to draw up a clear brief with your business goals, your benchmark based on past performance, and the level of information and analysis of results that you wish to have reported.?

7. Don’t rush it?

We’re often asked how quickly content marketing will begin to bring a return on investment.

You need to see content marketing as a long-term strategy that consolidates and builds over time, as long as your website and social feeds remain fresh and attended to. It can take around three months for your content to start to resonate with search engines, so be patient. Expect it to take around six months before you really see a return on your investment.??

Measuring, metrics was our fifth and final deep dive into the world of content marketing. We hope our tips will work for your business. If you’re looking for one thing to take away from our series of articles, we’d say it’s about defining your audience; then matching your messages and channels to them and always measuring your results with the audience in mind.??

>> Want to chat about it further? Book a call with me personally using this link or visit us at www.artdivision.co.uk