The Definitive Guide to Automated IVR Phone Surveys 1

white paper

Marketer’s Guide to Proving

(and Improving) Content
Marketing ROI

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Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI 2

Executive Summary
Content marketing is now a way of life for most businesses.
It’s one of the primary ways marketers generate and nurture
leads, establish thought leadership, build their brands,
expand their social following, and engage with and retain
customers.
This white paper provides tips for how marketers can prove
to their executives (or clients) the value of their content
marketing initiatives. It also explains ways to improve your
content marketing ROI, and introduces technologies you
can use to do both.

A 2013 study by the Content Marketing Institute even found

that 33% of B2B marketing budgets are now allocated to
content marketing, which is up from 26% in 20111. If you’re
a content marketer, that may be reason to cheer, but it
should also be reason for apprehension. Increased spending
almost always means increased scrutiny from executives,
and if you haven’t been asked to defend your content
marketing budget yet, you probably will soon. You should be
prepared.

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Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI
Proving Content Marketing ROI Takes the Right Data
When it comes to proving content marketing ROI, marketers
often try to drown executives in a sea of metrics, hoping
the cumulative effect will either dazzle or confuse them into
buying in. But most CEOs don’t want to hear about site
visits, video views, blog subscribers, retweets, and likes.
Those are good metrics to have to help you shape your
content marketing strategy, but they rarely impress C-level
executives.
CEOs care about money. That’s why the best way to
prove content marketing ROI is to show its impact on lead
generation, followed by how those leads are translating to
revenue. If you can do that, you can defend the content
marketing budget you have now and even make a
compelling case for an increase.
Tracking Web Leads Is the First
Step
First, content marketers should track how their work
generates web leads and revenue. In a nutshell:
1. Your content should include calls to action that drive
potential leads to visit a special landing page to fill out a
web form or, depending on the nature of your business,
make an immediate purchase.
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2. The lead or purchase should be tagged as belonging to
the appropriate content marketing source.
3. If the lead did not make a purchase, they should be
either passed to sales for follow up or entered into a
nurturing program until they are sales-ready.
4. The lead should be tracked through the sales process to
see if they eventually turn into revenue.
5. This data should then be presented regularly to your
executive team to demonstrate content marketing’s
impact on the business.
Gathering this data requires two pieces of technology: a
marketing automation tool and a CRM system. Marketing
automation tools like Marketo, Eloqua, or Pardot enable you
to capture leads from web forms and to tie those leads to
the marketing source that referred them. This means that
you can create reports on how many leads each of your
eBooks, webinars, and other content generated, as well as
the email, web page, social media post, blog, video, PPC
ad, SEO term, or other source the lead used to find you.
 Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI
What’s more, when you integrate your marketing
automation tools with a CRM system like Salesforce.com
or SugarCRM, you can track each of those web leads
through the sales cycle. And that means being able to
prove to execs that your content marketing has generated
X amount of web leads, Y amount of opportunities, and Z
amount of revenue.
The Often-Overlooked Analytics
Tool: Call Tracking
If your content is effective, tracking web leads and online
sales makes a strong statement about the value of content
marketing. But it still only tells half the story. What if instead
of visiting your web page or filling out your form, the lead
picks up the phone and calls you? Can you tell exactly what
piece of content drove that call? Can you tell if the call even
came from content marketing at all?
Failing to track the inbound phone calls your content is
generating can be problematic for two big reasons:
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1. You might not be getting credit for a ton of content
marketing leads. If someone reads a blog and calls
sales, for example, or calls after watching a video,
reading collateral from a trade show, or getting a
nurturing email, you can’t prove it. And any CPL (cost-
per-lead) data will be wrong because your lead numbers
are off, making it seem like you are spending more per
lead than you really are.
2. Inbound phone calls are often from leads who are ready
to engage with a sales manager, and therefore more
likely to become revenue than a web lead. (An internal
study of our own leads at Ifbyphone uncovered that
phone leads are 3x more likely to become accounts.)
They are the lead type more sales managers prefer (see
Figure 1). Phone calls are the leads you most need to
track back to your content.
Figure 1: Larger percentage of sales managers rate telephone leads as “excellent” or “good” – more
than any other lead type. 2
Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI 5

That’s why the third analytics tool marketing teams should

use is a call tracking tool. Call tracking software enables
you to include unique trackable phone numbers in your
downloadable and printed content, videos, trade show
presentations, emails, ads, direct mail blasts, and other
content to measure the calls they generate. Even if a lead
visits your web site before calling you, call tracking tools
can still tell you how that caller found your site and the web
page or blog posts they called from.

And like marketing automation tools, you can integrate

call tracking tools with your CRM system (see Figure 2)
Figure 2. Include phone call data in your CRM dashboards and reports.
to follow each phone lead through to revenue. If you use
these three technologies together, you have the data
you need to paint a simple, powerful picture of content
marketing’s effectiveness. Instead of forcing execs to sit
through 30 slides of data on how content marketing is
impacting everything from page view duration to email click-
through rates, you can show them what they really care
about: a single impactful slide proving how your content is
generating leads and revenue.

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Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI 6

Tips for Improving Content Marketing ROI

Once you have the tools to measure ROI by accurately
reporting on the leads and revenue your content helps
generate, the next step is to improve it. Obviously the best
way to do this is to keep generating valuable, engaging
content. If your content isn’t valuable to your target
audience, you will struggle to get a meaningful return on
your investment.
But assuming your team understands the needs of your
target audience and the buyer’s journey, and assuming you
are creating a steady stream of quality content, there are
still ways to improve your ROI. So here are some tips to
help you squeeze more value out of your content marketing
investment.
Be sure the content you ask people to register for has value
to them regardless of whether or not they buy your product.
If you force people to give you their information for content
that is too product-focused or salesy, they will resent it.
You should also monitor monthly registration numbers for all
gated content. If you see the numbers tail off over time and
remain consistently low, consider taking down the form and
make it accessible to anyone without registration. This can
help not only increase views, but also make that content
indexable by search engines so it can improve your SEO
efforts.

Put High-Value Content Behind

Registration Forms
This is very basic, but if you aren’t using any of your content
to generate leads, your content marketing ROI will suffer.
You should put some of your high-value content behind a
registration form so it can generate leads that can be either
passed to sales or put in a nurturing campaign.

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Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI
Leverage Your Content in Multiple
Forms
When you spend a lot of time creating a great piece of
content, get more value from it by using the content in other
forms. For example:
• When you write a new white paper or eBook, you can
take excerpts from that content to create one or more
blog posts.
• When you create a research report, you can reuse some
of the data as an infographic.
• When you give a presentation at a trade show, you
can record it as a podcast. You can also reuse that
presentation in a live or on-demand webinar.
The reverse of this idea is also true. If you have several blog
posts on a common topic or theme, for example, you can
gather them together to make an eBook. You can then ask
people to register to download it, thereby transforming the
blog content into a lead generation asset.
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Link Content Together to Tell a Story
Content should never live in a silo. Each piece should point
to another piece, creating a content chain that takes readers
on a journey that teaches them about the need for your
products and services. The final destination of that journey
should be the reader’s understanding of why your products
and services are the best option.
For example, a Twitter message that gets retweeted links
to a YouTube video that directs people to download a white
paper that points to a customer case study that sends
readers to a joint webinar that asks people to register for a
personal demo of your product.
Or an SEO search reveals a syndicated blog post that points
readers to an infographic that sends people wanting more
data to download a research report which triggers an email
nurturing campaign with customer success stories and
industry best practices while asking the lead to call or email
your sales team to learn more. You get the picture.
Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI
The order of this content is up to you, but most content
chains begin with either easy-to-digest content that piques
a person’s interest, or else more detailed content full of best
practices people can put to use right away. The important
part is to keep your content from leaving the reader unsure
of what to do next. Content shouldn’t be a dead end.
Maximize Your Content’s Potential
for Exposure
Promoting your content in multiple locations on your
website is a must, obviously. But there are also many tactics
you can use to raise awareness of your content and make it
easier to find:
• Stay on top of SEO: Hopefully you are actively
monitoring search engine traffic to your site and
optimizing your content for important search terms. If
you aren’t, you need to start – this is critical. If you want
tips for improving your SEO, there are best practices
and a list of good resources on SEO in our white paper
found at http://public.ifbyphone.com/landingpage/
marketers-guide-to-call-tracking-for-google-seo-and-
ppc.
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Case Study: Beacon Technologies
Sees Over 400% Higher ROI with
Call Tracking
Beacon Technologies is a web technology and marketing
agency. Beacon uses Ifbyphone as the critical link between
online marketing spend and offline phone call conversions.
For one client, Beacon used unique phone numbers
from Ifbyphone to track call activity from sites like
Lawyers.com, FindLaw.com, Google Local, and social
media outlets. They now understood which channels
were working and adjusted spending accordingly.
The end result was a significant increase in ROI.
“A lot of companies don’t just get leads that take
place on the web. Consumers often pick up the phone
and call,” said Brad Henry, Director of Web Marketing
at Beacon. “It’s important to know where that lead
originated, particularly if the web is involved, in order
to optimize marketing initiatives moving forward.”
Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI
• Leverage social media: Participating in social media
is no longer an option for content marketers. Twitter,
Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other sites
and services are an excellent way to generate exposure
for your content. Providing a list of best practices for
social media would require its own white paper, but
luckily there are many great sites and articles available
on the topic. Simply go to your favorite search engine
and search for “content marketing social media” to get
started.
• Post content on SlideShare: SlideShare is a good
way to share your presentations and PDFs. They have
a free plan that enables you to upload content under
a certain size, and also offer paid plans where you
can collect leads from content, view analytics, upload
videos, and more. Educational content performs better
than salesy content, so chose what to share wisely.
• Drive web traffic with StumbleUpon: StumbleUpon
is an online content discovery tool and one of the
Internet’s top sites for web traffic referral. To give
StumbleUpon a try, set up your company profile and
begin submitting content to promote. It’s always a good
© 2013 Ifbyphone, Inc. | (866) 244-5872 | www.ifbyphone.com | twitter.com/Ifbyphone | Ifbyphone.com/blog
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idea to promote other people’s content just as often
(or more often) as your own, so you don’t appear too
self-promotional. You should also focus on promoting
only your most useful content in order to cultivate a
reputation as a trusted and valuable sharer. Give your
content good titles and descriptions so it stands out,
and include important keyword tags to help people find
it. StumbleUpon also offers paid promotion options if
wish to spend budget to achieve short-term boosts in
content traffic.
• Syndicate your blogs: Having great content on your
blog that gets people to register for other content is
good, but having dozens of other blogs do the same
thing for you is better. Getting blogs to syndicate
your posts can be an effective way to gain exposure
and leads. The key is to establish relationships with
influential blogs that other blogs syndicate – you might
want to ask them directly if they permit guest blogs.
Once they post your content, it can spread like wildfire.
 Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI
• Issue a press release: Press releases aren’t just
about spreading news anymore. Now that releases get
posted on websites and picked up in various email alert
services, they can play a role in both SEO (by linking
back to your site – though how much of a role is a topic
of debate) and lead generation. Next time you have
news to share, include links in your press release to
your site (tip: don’t over do it; one link per 100 words
is a good rule of thumb) and include a call to action to
download a piece of content that is behind a registration
page. You can even try issuing a release announcing the
availability of your next eBook. You might be surprised
how many leads it generates.
• Try PPC and banner advertising: Even the most
amazing content has little value if no one sees it. If free
tactics aren’t getting you the views you want, try to
jumpstart traffic using paid advertising. Many vendors
like Google, Bing, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn
have PPC (pay-per-click) or pay-per-impression
advertising options to help you get your content in front
of your target audience. You can use your content as a
call to action in your ads, then send people to a landing
page where they can register to download an eBook,
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white paper, webinar, report, buyer’s guides, or other
content. You can also run banner ad campaigns for your
content with display networks. (Because the stakes are
higher with paid programs, be sure to use call tracking
to tie every phone lead back to your campaigns).
• Sponsor a virtual trade show: Businesses sponsor
virtual trade shows to raise awareness, build their email
contact database, and generate leads. But another less
obvious benefit is the opportunity to spread content.
Unlike the physical content at traditional in-person
trade shows, which can be difficult for attendees to
collect and carry home, the content at virtual shows is
electronic and extremely simple for online attendees
to download. People will routinely download dozens of
pieces of content from a single vendor to peruse later.
It’s also easy for them to forward these PDFs to co-
workers and colleagues. (Having call tracking phone
numbers in your content can help you track any calls
back to your content and the specific virtual show.)
 Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI 11

If People Aren’t Coming to You, Go to Them

Inbound marketing strategies like SEO and social media are essential,
but you should also experiment with outbound marketing campaigns to
generate views and leads and improve content marketing ROI. For example:

• Send out email newsletters: If you are creating a steady stream of

great content, create a monthly or quarterly newsletter linking back to
your best pieces to send to customers and leads (see Figure 3).

• Create email nurturing campaigns: Just because you place links

in content to other content, doesn’t mean a person will click on them.
Drip campaigns, with each email promoting a unique piece of content,
can help guide people through the buyer’s journey and down your sales
funnel.

• Sponsor a newsletter or email blast: Expand your reach beyond

your email database by advertising your content in a third-party
newsletter. You can also pay vendors to send out a dedicated email
blast promoting your content to their targeted lists.

• Try a content syndication program: Many vendors offer syndication

programs where you can pay to list your content on their site or have
them run a lead gen program using your content as the asset.

• Experiment with ad retargeting: Retargeting is a form of online

advertising that can help you generate leads from website traffic that
didn’t convert. Most traffic to your site won’t convert by calling you or
filling out a form. Retargeting enables you to use Javascript cookies to
follow past website visitors as they browse the Internet and display ads
for your best content on the sites they visit. It can be an effective way to
Figure 3. Email newsletters can be a great way to gain exposure for content.
encourage potential prospects to return to your site, fill out a form, and
become a lead.

© 2013 Ifbyphone, Inc. | (866) 244-5872 | www.ifbyphone.com | twitter.com/Ifbyphone | Ifbyphone.com/blog

Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI
Help Sales Convert More Content
Marketing Leads to Revenue
The previous tips have been about generating more content
views and more leads from your content. But if the most
important ROI datapoint CEOs and execs care about is
revenue, then we would be remiss if we didn’t provide a few
ways content marketers can help sales close more deals
faster.
• Use email to move leads through the funnel: We
already mentioned the importance of email nurturing
campaigns for generating content views. But they can
also be effective at moving leads through the sales
funnel. Before creating your nurturing campaigns,
speak with your sales team to better understand the
buyer’s journey and determine the types of content
leads should receive at each stage. Then create your
drip campaigns accordingly. It can also be a good idea
to create separate campaigns for leads (to encourage
them to become an opportunity), opportunities (to
encourage them to become a customer), and customers
(to encourage them to upgrade, renew, or purchase a
second product).
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• Trigger immediate sales calls from web forms:
When a lead fills out one of your web forms, how long
does it take for your sales reps to respond and get the
lead on the phone? Research shows that a sale is 22
times more likely to happen when you make contact
within the first five minutes. Waiting even ten minutes
dramatically decreases your chances of converting
that lead to a sale. Marketing can help sales get leads
on the phone faster using technology by companies
like Ifbyphone to trigger an immediate call to your
sales team when a lead fills out a form. If your sales
rep decides to accept the call, the technology will call
the lead and connect both parties over the phone.
To learn more about decreasing lead response times,
you can watch an on-demand webinar on the topic at
http://public.ifbyphone.com/landingpage/close-more-
business-by-responding-faster-to-web-leads-webinar/.
Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI
• Ask people to call you: Putting a phone number in
your content and on your web pages sounds simple, but
you would be surprised how many content marketers
don’t do it. Encouraging people to call you with
questions is a great way to generate higher-quality leads
and move prospects faster through your sales funnel.
And if you use a call tracking solution like Ifbyphone,
you can track which piece of the content the call came
from.
• Control where calls from your content go: Call
tracking technology enables marketers to insert unique
phone numbers into their content to track calls. But that
technology also enables marketers to control where
those calls go. For example, perhaps you want calls
from a webinar or demo video to go to a certain sales
manager or subset of sales reps. Or you wish a larger
percentage of calls to go to reps with proven track
records of closing more deals. There are dozens of ways
you can route calls from every piece of content.
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How Fast Is Your Sales Team
Responding to Web Leads?
• Leads called within the first minute are
nearly 400x more likely to convert
• A sale is 22x more likely to happen when
you make contact in the first 5 minutes
• Waiting even 10 minutes dramatically decreases
your chances of converting that lead to a sale
Source: www.leads360.com/products/lead-distribution-routing
• 65% of leads that convert purchase
from the first vendor that calls them
Source: LeadQual, “Rapid Response to Internet Leads Drives Conversions”
• 63% of companies take longer than
an hour to respond to a lead
• 24% took longer than a day
• 23% didn’t respond at all
Source: Harvard Business Review, March 2011
Marketer’s Guide to Proving (and Improving) Content Marketing ROI 14

Conclusion
Content marketing has arrived. But with increased budgets
comes increased scrutiny from executives, and getting
Next Steps
management to buy in to the importance of content Call Ifbyphone today at
marketing – and the necessity of increasing their investment (866) 244-5872 to learn how to
in it – can be a challenge. It’s now no longer good enough
Ifbyphone’s call tracking software
can help you prove and improve your
to create engaging content, you have to be able to prove content marketing ROI. You can also
its ROI, and that requires the right data and analytics tools. request a demo of Ifbyphone’s solution
We hope you find the tips in this white paper useful in at www.ifbyphone.com.
formulating a strategy for measuring and improving your
content marketing ROI.

Sources:
1. http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/
uploads/2012/11/b2bresearch2013cmi-121023151728-
phpapp01-1.pdf

2. BIA/Kelsey report on Call-Based Ads, May 29, 2012

© 2013 Ifbyphone, Inc. | (866) 244-5872 | www.ifbyphone.com | twitter.com/Ifbyphone | Ifbyphone.com/blog

About Ifbyphone

Ifbyphone, the leader in voice-based marketing automation

(VBMA), connects, measures and optimizes sales and
service calls for businesses and organizations. Ifbyphone’s
VBMA solutions capture and manage phone leads and
information that often slip through the cracks of traditional
marketing automation and CRM software solutions.

The Ifbyphone product suite is a set of software-as-a-service

applications including call tracking, hosted IVR (interactive
voice response), call routing, virtual call center and voice www.ifbyphone.com
broadcasting. Organizations of all sizes in all industries use Twitter: http://twitter.com/ifbyphone
Ifbyphone, including marketing agencies, lead generation, Facebook: http://facebook.com/ifbyphone
e-commerce, direct response, financial services and (866) 244-5872
insurance, health care, retail and logistics, and SaaS and 300 West Adams Street, 9th Floor
technology. For more information, visit www.ifbyphone.com Chicago, IL 60606