Consumers are being hit with more messaging than ever before. If your content isn’t getting through to them, it might be time to perform an audit.

This article was published for Marketing Content Partner Marketo to let readers know about the ‘Introduction to Content Marketing’  webinar on 14 December.

Buyers are being bombarded by 2900 messages per day. Each day they’re able to recognise 50 and remember only four.

With 93% of B2B marketers and 90% of B2C marketers using content as part of their strategy, it’s not hard to see why only the most relevant and well-distributed material will earn their engagement.

According to the ‘State of Marketing Engagement’ report, the number one reason consumers give for not engaging with content is that it is irrelevant to them. One-in-two think brands could do a better job of aligning with how they prefer to engage, suggesting distribution can also make or break your campaigns.

Even if your content is outstanding, distribution is also a key factor that could be affecting your engagement levels. Half of the consumers think brands could do a better job of aligning with how they prefer to engage. This has to do a lot with where they want to see your content. What platforms are they on? What are their media consumption habits?

If your content isn’t performing as well as hoped, or you’re having trouble tracking its success, it might be time for an audit.

Conduct an audit

First, review all your existing materials against your audience and buyer lifecycle – is it moving them from awareness, to purchase, to advocacy?

Identify the content stakeholders across your business – do they work in media, demand-gen, marketing, corporate communications or sales? Talk to them, ask how they use content, what is working for them, what’s not working, and what’s missing from their content mix.

After performing this content review – as an individual and in teams – and doing some qualitative research with your stakeholders, you should hopefully have some ideas around what new content you’ll need to create, and what old content you’ll be able to refresh.

Develop a process

Before developing the process itself, consider how it will address the needs of all stakeholders, and how you’re going to communicate it to the rest of your organisation. Your process should be transparent and tied to a content calendar and broader strategy.

A clear plan will mean stakeholders are clear and comfortable with your plans.

Rethink distribution

What type of content are you producing? Where it will appear, and at what stage in the buyer journey? Depending on your product, service and target audience, the distribution could span all functions across the journey – paid programs, email, web personalisation, website, social, SEO, press, training and enablement, advocates, customer community, influencers and blogs.

A thorough understanding of your target will mean the right content can be distributed in the right place, without any wastage.

Success and measurement

Define your business goals and objectives early.

Early in a campaign look for lifts in traffic, new visitors, social activity, comments and form fill-outs. As the campaign for a piece of content develops, look for subscriptions to email, new names and percentage of new names per program.

Towards the end of the campaign, evaluate your leads – are they the right demographic, did they perform the desired behaviour? Finally, develop an engagement score (perhaps an engagement score for a set of programs per month).

For more about understanding your results, from first-touch through to conversions (or lack thereof), sign up for up for the ‘Introduction to Content Marketing’ webinar, on 14 December at 11.30am, AEDT.

Content marketing webinar

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