5 Metrics Every Content Marketer Should Use & The Power of Experiential Marketing

Businesses big and small are swimming in a sea filled with unlimited access to data. Even though the waters are murky with all sorts of metrics, they can be cleared when digital marketers fish for the most important data, and know how to present it. After a few months working as the Digital Marketing Specialist for a Lehigh Valley Marketing Agency, I have developed a passion for data, analytics and the visually dynamic reporting tools that we use to present our results to clients. Additionally, I have developed a strong understanding of the importance of experiential marketing and how to use it most appropriately. Before I dive into how experiential marketing should be used in correlation with traditional content marketing alone, let’s look at how to determine the overall success of a content marketing strategy. Below are my 5 must-collect data metrics that every brand should measure to determine the overall effectiveness of a content strategy.

What data should you be collecting to determine the value of your brand’s content marketing strategy? In my experience there are 5 metrics that every brand should use to determine the value of their content marketing strategy.

1. CTR (click-through rate) – A strong click through rate determines that content is engaging and encourages users to click around on a website. The CTR shows which pieces of your content have the strongest engagement.
2. Conversions – How many users completed a desired action? A conversion may refer to a sale, calls or form completion. If conversions are low, the content strategy may need to be reconsidered. If you have low CTR’s, ask yourself why your content is not leading to conversions on your website. If you have strong CTR’s but low conversions, the content you are providing on your landing pages may not be strong enough to earn the conversion of a user, and needs improvement.
3. Bounce Rate – The bounce rate helps to determine if the content on a landing page needs improvement. The bounce rate will tell how many people have left a site after viewing a page. If you have a high bounce rate, that could mean that your users did not find the information they were searching for, or simply did not see value in the content you were providing. A low bounce rate shows that users viewed multiple pages across your site before exiting, which is great!
4. Time on Page – There is another crucial factor to consider when looking at bounce rate; time on page. This metric helps to determine the value of your content. If you have a high bounce rate, but the user is spending a long time on a webpage, you may be providing too good of content. This means that it may be beneficial to break up your content by utilizing internal links within your text to drive users to other articles and pages within your content.
5. New vs. Returning User – Last but not least, type of user. In order to determine the overall effectiveness of your content, it is important to pay attention to how many users come back to your site after an initial visit. If your content is not bringing users back to the site, you may want to look at the value of your content to a user. As mentioned before, including internal links within your content will show users that you also provide other valuable information. (Tip: Internal linking benefits SEO, too!)

Now that you have the metrics, let’s assume you have collected the data and are looking at multiple reports filled with the content that your audience is most receptive to. This is where an experiential marketing campaign comes into play. After listening to our guest speaker, Brendan Walsh, the Founder of Mole Street Digital, it became clear that for some brands, an experiential marketing campaign is crucial to a successful content strategy. Brands where its revenue is driven strictly through an online viewership or an intangible product will a lot of success with an experiential marketing campaign.

One of my favorite examples Brendan and I discussed after our meeting was his work with the New York Rangers and their Cheer Machine. This campaign brought a physical experience to a product that was previously only experienced through visiting a game, or purchasing merchandise. Aside from Mole Street’s work, one of my favorite experiential campaigns is that of Refinery 29’s 29Rooms Tour. Refinery 29 is a digital media content website catered to young female millennials. Their product is content viewership and remains behind the screen. With 29Rooms, Refinery 29 understood what its users are most interested in through metric tracking and brought it to life.

“The makers behind Refinery29 have collaborated with visionaries and brands in the fields of arts, activism, style, and technology to bring you 29 spaces that tap into the conversations of today and our hopes for tomorrow. Through multi-sensory installations, performances, and workshops, we present you with a new way to connect with creativity, culture, and community.” – Refinery 29

These rooms are traveling on tour as pop-up experiences for a week at a time in various cities. The goal is to get people engaged by visiting the pop-up experience and sharing their photos on social media, promoting the Refinery 29 brand.

All in all, tacking content marketing is important to understand the success of a content strategy, but knowing how to use the data to continue the success is what counts.