Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ultimate Guide
to Content
Marketing ROI
2013 NewsCred
NewsCred.com
(212) 989-4100
sales@newscred.com
Table of Contents
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Working Backwards:
Forecasting ROI to
Plan Your Budget
Filling the Funnel:
Aligning with the Sales
Conversion Funnel
Content Marketing:
Uniting a Brands Left & Right Brain
Content marketing is a discipline where art meets science.
In response to strong consumer demand for informative,
high-utility content, brands are launching newsrooms to
produce original content and license timely relevant stories
from top publishers. Why? Content marketing has the potential
to generate significant ROI for your business through new
leads with intent to purchase and upsell opportunities.
Engaging videos, blog posts, infographics, and multimedia
comprise the creative, artistic side of content marketing.
But what about the science?
The process of quantifying your content marketing efforts can
seem daunting to a creative types, especially if youre not regularly
using spreadsheets and forecasting tools. Even if your content
goes viral, your CMO, CEO, and CFO will want to see results in
terms of cost, revenue, and margins.
2013 NewsCred
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2013 NewsCred
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Metrics like brand awareness, page impressions, and search ranks need to sync up with bottom-line
concepts like costs, revenue, profits, and pipeline. The following framework will help you connect the dots:
GOAL
CONCEPT
METRICS
Reach, Brand
Awareness, and Virality
Return visits
Social media shares across channels including
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest
Subscriber count
Leads
Subscriber count
Aggregate growth of leads
Visits to contact us page from articles,
videos, or webinars
Revenue
2013 NewsCred
Deals closed
Monthly recurring revenue
Long-term value of all customers
Long-term value as a proportion of customer
acquisition cost
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03
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Awareness
Early Stage
Goal: Generate traffic, awareness
Tactics: Blog posts, curated lists, email marketing,
thought leadership, social media, events
Evaluation
Middle Stage
Goal: Generate leads
Tactics: Case studies, analyst report, webinars,
best practice guides, newsletters, events
Purchase
Late Stage
Goal: Convert leads to customers
Tactics: Newsletters, demos, trials, comparison
guides, price sheets, analyst reports, events
Retain
2013 NewsCred
Customer Stage
Goal: Retain customers, upsell, advocacy
Tactics: Case studies, consulting services,
events, product updates, tutortials/training,
advocacy program
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Your framework for measuring ROI, user behavior, and sales should capture transitions between
each of these conversion steps, not just the final jump from email subscriber to customer.
A report card can provide your organization with transparency to the ROI of your content marketing.
At NewsCred, we update our demand generation report card daily; however, you could share your
progress periodically, weekly, monthly or even quarterly. *These numbers have been modified.
2013 NewsCred
Content
Type
# of
Campaigns
$ Spent
Leads
to Date
CPL
Whitepaper
$3,011.59
129
$23.35
Webinar
$4,509.56
316
$14.27
Tutorial
$4,738.18
344
$13.77
TOTAL
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$12,259.33
789
$15.54
Channel
MQL
This Month
MQL
Change %
Sponsored Webinar
398
30%
123
20%
Sponsored Email
337
28%
202
23%
Online Advertising
2015
50%
1,219
30%
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Program
Channel
Total
Members
Net New
Names
MQL
(defined by
channel)
Cost
per Member
Cost per
New Name
Sponsored Webinar
425
398
123
$23.53
$37.68
$121.95
eMarketer Email
Sponsored Email
339
337
202
$18.73
$18.84
$31.43
Online Advertising
1714
1696
1028
$15.06
$15.21
$25.11
Native Ad
Online Advertising
319
319
191
$31.34
$31.34
$52.35
2013 NewsCred
MARKETING SUMMARY
Inbound
/Adwords
Inbound
/Other
Conference
/Events
Outbound
Cold
Outbound
Referrals
TOTAL
July 13
Adwords
Direct emails,
PR, content
marketing SEP
Conference,
events, workshops,
sponsorships
Intros,
relationships,
referrals
Leads
2000
5000
3000
1000
1000
Deals Closed
60
100
90
60
30
340
Conversion Rate
3%
2%
3%
6%
3%
2.8%
$150,000
$110,000
$80,000
$10,000
2,000
$430,000
MRR / Customer
$1,333
$1,500
$1,222
$1,333
$333
$1,265
% of Total Revenue
19%
35%
26%
19%
2%
Cost
$70,000
$100,000
$80,000
$60,000
$9,000
$35
$20
$27
$60
$9
$1,167
$1,000
$889
$1,000
$300
% of Total Costs
22%
31%
25%
19%
3%
Gross Margin
13%
33%
27%
25%
10%
26%
$167
$500
$333
$333
$33
$326
Months to Break-even
7.0
2.0
2.7
3.0
9.0
2.9
8.0
7.0
10.0
9.0
11.0
8.7
$640,000
$1,050,000
$1,100,000
$720,000
$110,000
$1,333
$3,500
$3,333
$3,000
$367
1.1
3.5
3.8
3.0
1.2
100%
COST
$319,000
$27
$938
1
100%
VALUE
2013 NewsCred
3,620,000
$2,833
3.0
10
04
2013 NewsCred
Definition of Terms
In online marketing, phrases and marketing terms
can have different meanings between business
units. Make sure that your definitions are outlined
for your team and stakeholders to understand.
Streamline Sampling Processes
Your sampling methodology can skew the numbers
that you report. To minimize the potential for
error, make sure that the data sampling steps are
consistent across your team.
Data Consolidation
Identify which data sources you want to work with
and how to best synthesize relevant information.
Growth
All reporting should be actionable and positioned
towards growth. Dont track something just
because its interesting. At the end of the day,
marketers are growth engines, not historians.
Consistency
Establish how frequently you need to create
reports. At the very least, you should be tracking
progress quarterly, but some reports will be
necessary on a weekly or monthly basis.
Staff Appropriately
Decide which team members should manage
reporting for content marketing. Have this team
generate reports and make sure that systems are
fully integrated and consistently online.
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Conversion Reports
This functionality will help you track revenuegenerating actions from your website.
Social Sharing & Engagement
Monitoring and measuring the activity around your
brand and content across social channels can help
you optimize your content strategy and advertising
budgets. Clicks, mentions, sharing actions, and
audience growth are several figures that indicate
successful marketing.
Its also important to choose tools that complement
your existing marketing systems, like Marketo
and Eloqua. For example, if youre running email
automation campaigns, youll want to make sure
that your tools are in sync to measure the same
data points.
2013 NewsCred
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04
Focus on Efficacy
This process requires relentless self-discipline.
You might love your content, but does your
audience love it too? Be critical about your
content programs performance. Give yourself
a reality check by asking the following question:
Did you underachieve, achieve or overachieve
your marketing goal?
The answer to this should be highly data-driven,
with major and vanity KPIs accounted for.
Marketing leader and author, Andreas Ramos,
outlined the steps your team needs to take:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
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2013 NewsCred
NewsCred.com
(212) 989-4100
sales@newscred.com