Why 'subscribers' are the most important metric for content marketing success

Last month I wrote a couple of articles (Part One & Part Two) that discussed the problems surrounding the content marketing industry. Essentially, I concluded that most marketers are still not clear on what content marketing is, how to do it well and how to report its success. A concerning conclusion.

The primary mistake most marketers are making with their content marketing efforts is that they approach the method as if it is another form of digital advertising. This means they create content that is highly product-oriented and then amplify it on digital channels that are built for advertising purposes (e.g. AdWords and some native channels). When it comes to proving the success of their campaigns, the primary goal for content marketing is usually measured by an ROI metric, often based on lead-generation and/or sales.

The problem with this form of measurement is that content marketing, at its core, is not advertising. It is an audience research method. And so its execution and goals need to be different to advertising. 

The reasons why leads, sales and ROI are poor metrics should be relatively obvious - a person is rarely in a ‘buyer’ mindset when they are consuming content. Rather, they are in a ‘discovery’ mindset. Most people simply don’t read a blog post and then suddenly realize that they need to ‘buy a boat’. See example below:

Sorry Business Cat, people just don’t engage with content this way!

A further case in point, I highly doubt that after you read this article, you will pick up the phone and call King Content for a quote on content marketing (though I’ve enclosed the link if you want too!)

Instead, if this article helps you understand content marketing, I would expect you to read another piece of content I've written or even ‘subscribe’ to King Content's weekly email newsletter so you can remain updated on future helpful content.

Subscribers are so much more than a ‘potential sales lead’, they are the bellwethers for change across all departments of your business

Indeed, the act of subscribing is simply a more natural and human reaction to quality content than someone changing mindsets and immediately purchasing a product. Because it is the most natural action, the acquisition of ‘subscribers’ really should be your only goal to prove that your content marketing is working.

Why are Subscribers so important?

A subscriber to your content is a person who has voluntarily said: ‘Yes, I like what I’m reading and I want more’. There is no better goal to prove that your content is resonating with the audience than if people choose to subscribe on their own accord. In order to prove your content is working, you simply want to monitor the rate of your subscriber growth over time and track what pieces of content are attracting the most subscribers.

A subscriber to your content is a person who has voluntarily said: ‘Yes, I like what I’m reading and I want more’. There is no audience more engaged than the subscriber who has chosen to opt into your content. 

That said, the value of a subscribe does and should not end with their acquisition. Once you have acquired your subscribers, you need to use content marketing to put them to work for your brand. Essentially, at King Content, our strategies for content marketing have three key phases that turn your subscribers into a research asset:

Content Marketing Strategy approach

1. Acquire new subscribers: This audience is usually acquired when they click the ‘subscribe’ button on the content assets you create; or by subscribing to your social media channels.
2. Research subscribers: This is an incredibly important phase that most marketers fail to do. Usually marketers will promote and drive traffic to their content assets but rarely have a plan on what to do once an audience has been attracted. The answer is research them. Use simple surveys, Google Analytics Demographics reports and even events and webinars to find out more about them.
3. Execute on the insights: Use this research to instigate real change to your business. This could be as simple as optimizing your content to attract a broader audience or changing how your advertising works; to complete game-changing business ventures such as creating new products that your subscribers are demanding.

How to use subscribers to provide value to your business

When your core goal for content marketing is to acquire and nurture subscribers, your marketing has the potential to bring real change to your business. This is how content marketing differs from advertising, whose goals are just focused on selling products.

Below is a typical content marketing funnel. You can see that it differs a lot from the standard advertising buyer funnel:

If you are curious about how content and subscribers can assist all parts of your business, here are a few examples:

• Advertising and Sales - research your subscribers around their interests, age, demographics, income, etc. via targeted surveys. This will give you extremely robust audience data, which you can use to improve the messaging and appeal of your future advertising campaigns. This will hopefully result in better quality leads and thus more sales.
• PR & Comms - subscribers are essentially a stable ‘community’ of advocates around your brand. Reward them for being part of your community. Look at what they are doing, where they spend their time, what their passion and pain points are and work out where your brand needs to be and who you need to partner with in order to own that conversation with the community. 
• Customer Service and Processes - listen to your subscribed audience's feedback and watch how they navigate the content. Use this insight to learn how can you create more content that assists in shortening the sales cycle with quicker and high quality information or even query subscribers on how to address issues with upset customers.
• Physical Retail Positioning - by analyzing where your subscribed audience’s live, you can position your brand's physical presence better in those regions or identify potentially new regional markets.
• Automation Methods - by building customer journeys from content efforts and then automating the process to provide better content cadence.
• Corporate Social Responsibility - by understanding what the subscribed audience cares about or the demographics in that audience that most need corporate support and then reaching out and partnering with like-minded groups.
• HR and Employer Branding - using subscribers to tell you what is attractive about your business. Create content that showcases the personalities and achievements of the brand’s employees in order to attract quality talent to your business.
• Product Production - using content to capitalize on trends driven by the subscribed audience and thus potentially build a product, and thus a new revenue stream, that is bespoke to them.

Subscribers have for too long been seen as just a group for which marketers can spam inbound marketing messages about their products. Don't do this. In reality, subscribers are so much more than a ‘potential sales lead’, they can be the bellwethers for change across all departments of your business, if you know where and how to look.

Content marketing is essentially audience marketing. In order to have an effective content marketing strategy you need to attract an engaged audience and no audience is more engaged than the subscribers who have chosen to opt into your content. Researching who they are, what they want and how they see your brand is why subscribers are the most important metric for content marketing success.