Content Marketing ROI: How to Measure it the Right Way
“How do we measure the ROI of our content marketing?” It seems like a simple question at first but, hoo boy, it’s loaded like a baked potato.
On its surface, the answer to that question is easy:
You can effectively measure content marketing ROI when your marketing, sales, and leadership teams are aligned on what success looks like (and the KPIs by which you'll measure it), and you have the marketing and sales automation in place (e.g., HubSpot Marketing Hub and HubSpot Sales Hub) to produce the attribution reporting you need to prove the ROI of your content.
“How do we measure the ROI of our content marketing?” It seems like a simple question at first but, hoo boy, it’s loaded like a baked potato.
On its surface, the answer to that question is easy:
You can effectively measure content marketing ROI when your marketing, sales, and leadership teams are aligned on what success looks like (and the KPIs by which you'll measure it), and you have the marketing and sales automation in place (e.g., HubSpot Marketing Hub and HubSpot Sales Hub) to produce the attribution reporting you need to prove the ROI of your content.
However, when you peel back the layers exhaustive inbound jargon in that, the key players in the content marketing ROI conversation also have other much deeper worries and concerns that I hear a lot from my clients:
The content marketer:
“I need my boss to see that the work I’m doing is actually making a difference. Whenever I share numbers, it’s not uncommon for people in leadership to not see the growth as having a real impact on the business. I can’t connect the dots between the wins we’re seeing on the marketing side to actual revenue - what if one day they decide the work I’m doing is an expense, and I get cut?”
The marketing leader:
“I’m under a lot of pressure from sales and leadership to deliver with our content marketing – I need to demonstrate that my team is delivering qualified leads to sales that should be converted into closed deals. But somehow I’m always swimming upstream proving the value of the work they’re doing. If I don’t start showing that value soon, I may be on the chopping block - or my people might be.
I also need better reporting because I need to know, in real-time, what is and isn’t working, so I can make pivots faster to optimize the results we’re getting.”
The sales stakeholder:
“We need leads that are actually qualified, not just marked as qualified by marketing. Plus, if we're investing all of these resources in creating content, it only makes sense that we're making sure we're doing more than just 'increasing brand awareness,' because 'awareness' alone doesn't close deals.”
The business owner:
“If I’m going to invest in inbound and HubSpot, I need to know what we’re doing is actually working. Every dollar and cent we’re spending on marketing right now needs to count, we can’t afford waste.”
If any of that sounds familiar, you're in the right place. In this completely wild episode – trust me, this is NOT your usual episode of the HubHeroes, friends (more on that later) – we dig deep into every nook and cranny of the content marketing ROI conversation.
How do you get everyone – marketing, sales, leadership – on the same page about what success looks like? What should your technology stack look like to effectively measure the ROI of your content marketing? Those are just a few of the questions you'll get answers to ...
HERE'S WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE ...
- Overcoming the misconception that marketing is an expense and not a profit center, as well as why this myth persists.
- Why content marketing ROI is such a pain point for most organizations and what to do about, depending on where you're starting from.
- The most common mistake folks make when they first start out with the content marketing ROI reporting conversation and how to avoid them.
- From a non-technology standpoint, what needs to be true within an organization for effective content marketing ROI reporting to be possible.
- ....and from a TECHNOLOGY standpoint, what needs to be true within an organization for effective content marketing ROI reporting to be possible.
- What a smart content marketing ROI reporting cadence looks like ... or should you even have a cadence? (There's some debate here!)
And then there was one other big surprise bombshell we dropped in this episode!
THIS WEEK'S HUBHEROES BOMBSHELL
When you tune in this week, you'll notice something wildly different. While I'm 100% here, spitting HubSpot fire like usual, there's someone else who will now be permanently joining our ranks as a HubHero ... the one and only Liz Murphy:
Now, some of of y'all may be familiar with Liz, as she's been in the inbound and HubSpot world for years – most notably as the previous editor-in-chief at IMPACT. (She's also graciously contributed some great content nerd knowledge here before about blog outlining and developing a content strategy.) Today, Liz is out on her own as an independent content strategist and brand messaging therapist through her consultancy, Buona Volpe.
And she's also agreed to be the permanent HubHeroes Podcast facilitator and ringmaster on each week's episode. Why did we make this change? Well, I'll be honest with you, it's a pretty vulnerable story on why I decided we needed to do this, and I talk about it at the start of this episode, so tune in to find out ...
Creators and Guests
Host
Devyn Bellamy
Devyn Bellamy works at HubSpot. He works in the partner enablement department. He helps HubSpot partners and HubSpot solutions partners grow better with HubSpot. Before that Devyn was in the partner program himself, and he's done Hubspot onboardings, Inbound strategy, and built out who knows how many HubSpot, CMS websites. A fun fact about Devyn Bellamy is that he used to teach Kung Fu.
Host
George B. Thomas
George B. Thomas is the HubSpot Helper and owner at George B. Thomas, LLC and has been doing inbound and HubSpot since 2012. He's been training, doing onboarding, and implementing HubSpot, for over 10 years. George's office, mic, and on any given day, his clothing is orange. George is also a certified HubSpot trainer, Onboarding specialist, and student of business strategies. To say that George loves HubSpot and the people that use HubSpot is probably a massive understatement. A fun fact about George B. Thomas is that he loves peanut butter and pickle sandwiches.
Host
Liz Murphy
Liz Murphy is a business content strategist and brand messaging therapist for growth-oriented, purpose-driven companies, organizations, and industry visionaries. With close to a decade of experience across a wide range of industries – healthcare, government contracting, ad tech, RevOps, insurance, enterprise technology solutions, and others – Liz is who leaders call to address nuanced challenges in brand messaging, brand voice, content strategy, content operations, and brand storytelling that sells.
Host
Max Cohen
Max Cohen is currently a Senior Solutions Engineer at HubSpot. Max has been working at HubSpot for around six and a half-ish years. While working at HubSpot Max has done customer onboarding, learning, and development as a product trainer, and now he's on the HubSpot sales team. Max loves having awesome conversations with customers and reps about HubSpot and all its possibilities to enable company growth. Max also creates a lot of content around inbound, marketing, sales, HubSpot, and other nerdy topics on TikTok. A fun fact about Max Cohen is that outside of HubSpot and inbound and beyond being a dad of two wonderful daughters he has played and coached competitive paintball since he was 15 years old.
