Your content is getting attention, but is it generating revenue?

Marketers have never had more ways to prove their content is ‘working’.

Views, impressions, clicks, likes, shares and engagement rates can all tell us whether we’ve captured attention. But there’s a more important question businesses need to ask: what happened next?

After more than two decades working across digital marketing and business growth, I’ve seen a growing disconnection between content performance and commercial performance.

A piece of content can perform brilliantly on a platform and contribute very little to the business. Equally, content with modest reach can influence a valuable customer at exactly the right point in their decision-making process.

The problem isn’t necessarily content quality. Often, it’s that businesses have become very good at measuring attention without connecting that attention to customer intent, sales and revenue.

Start with the customer journey

Before creating another article, video or social post, ask: what job does this content need to do?

Is it introducing the business to a new audience? Answering a question? Building trust? Helping a prospect compare options? Giving someone the confidence to enquire?

If you can’t answer that, it becomes easy to create content that generates activity without creating momentum.

One of the most valuable sources of content strategy is also frequently overlooked: the sales team.

Salespeople know the questions customers repeatedly ask, the objections that stall conversations and the information prospects need before making a decision. Those insights should directly inform what marketing produces.

Content also cannot be separated from the digital experience around it. It’s something we see repeatedly with clients. Sometimes the greatest opportunity isn’t generating more traffic, but making it easier for existing visitors to progress.

A meaningful outcome isn’t simply greater visibility. It’s translating digital activity into genuine customer action.

Measure movement, not just attention

Reach and engagement still matter. They’re valuable indicators, particularly at the top of the funnel. But they’re not the finish line.

For content intended to support growth, I’d look at four things: intent, progression, conversion and revenue.

What brought someone to the content? What did they do afterwards? Did they move deeper into the website, make an enquiry, book something or return later? And, ultimately, can that behaviour be connected to a commercial outcome?

That requires marketing, sales, website experience, CRM (customer relationship management) and analytics to work together. If those functions operate independently, businesses risk producing content that looks successful on a marketing dashboard, but has little connection to growth.

Give content a commercial purpose

This doesn’t mean every LinkedIn post needs a call to buy. Great content should still educate, entertain, challenge and build trust.

But marketers need to stop treating attention as the outcome.

For every piece of content, define the audience, the customer need, its role in the journey and what meaningful action should follow.

The businesses generating the greatest return from content aren’t necessarily producing more of it. They’re creating a clearer connection between what customers consume and what customers do next.

A million views may look impressive in a marketing report. But if none of those people move closer to becoming a customer, we need to ask what those views are actually worth.

Michael Gerardis is the general manager of Click Click Media

Image: Andrew Neel, Unsplash