How much has content marketing done for your business? For many business owners, offering high-quality content has helped them increase both their quantity and quality of leads. But it’s important to realize that this marketing technique is an investment, one you have to keep track of in order to account for gains and losses. While it’s easy to determine how much it costs you to hire freelancers, an agency, or in-house employees to produce content, you should familiarize yourself with the hidden costs of content marketing as well.
1. Data-driven analysis
When a newly-published post receives a large number of views, many would already consider it a success. But you’d want a more data-driven strategy to optimize future campaigns and learn more about your target audience. Free tools such as Google Analytics allow you to glean information about what content visitors like the most. You can also use tools that use heat maps to determine where visitors spend most of their time on your site.
2. Research
A lot of webmasters do a bit of keyword research and look at similar web pages before they come up with their own content. However, this strategy isn’t far from pure guesswork. To produce the best content, a more comprehensive research is in order. This involves the initial topic research including keyword research, reading industry publications, and monitoring social media. But you have to factor in competitor research as well to help determine what kind of content and format works wonders for them. In addition, you may have to conduct interviews, experiments, and surveys – all of which influence your bottom line.
3. Project management
If you can’t handle all the content needs of your website yourself, then outsourcing is always an option. But if you take this route, project management costs start to creep in. You need to ensure that all collaborators have the means to share, edit, and comment on all projects. The same applies when working with an online marketing agency. SEO Resellers Canada says that a solid communication system between the agency and the webmaster paired with the effective use of content marketing tools allows for a harmonious project management system.
4. Search engine optimization
Optimizing your content for search engines goes beyond adding your target keywords and LSI terms. There are a variety of content optimization tools that help you craft higher-quality posts. These range from content ideation tools that allow you to organize your thoughts and ideas to promote tools that schedule your content for publication across multiple online platforms.
5. Design
Even if the content of your competitors couldn’t match the quality of your own, it proves useless if visitors leave your website within a few seconds because of terrible design. Using visuals is a proven way of increasing engagement rates. You can start with free graphic design tools to help you produce professional-looking visual content such as infographics and GIFs.
Conclusion
Content marketing has evolved over the years. It should now be at the core of every marketing campaign. Identifying all the investments you make helps establish accountability and determine what tools and strategies are worth keeping.