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Three years ago, our Chief Financial Officer (CFO) asked one simple question that would lead us to completely reengineer how we track content value: "Can you show that the $43K per year we are investing in content operations will generate returns over and above general statements regarding brand awareness and 'industry thought leadership'?"
At the time I could not answer his question, that wasn't because the content didn't work for us. Rather, we created no infrastructure linking published content to client acquisition or measurable revenue attribution. We could clearly demonstrate increased website traffic. We could also provide clear metrics around engagement levels. However, we could not provide evidence of which content produced which deals that ultimately closed or contributed to significant business growth.
This conversation highlighted a basic problem faced by nearly all content organizations: the practice of publishing content without tracking conversions is organizational procrastination disguised as strategic planning. The content organization has been able to create a perception of marketing activity, yet at the same time maintain perfect deniability that it produces any real business value.
The Attribution Gap
Nearly all content organizations report activity rather than measure outcomes. Monthly blog posts. Weekly social media posts. Increasing engagement levels across each platform. These numbers continue to be circulated throughout the team and into boardroom meetings as if increasing publication frequencies correlate directly with business results. It does not.
Content operates within an environment in which there are numerous points of contact between when the customer initially consumes the content and makes their purchasing decision. The customer reads a blog post. Several weeks later, they discuss your company with coworkers. They review case studies. They watch a webinar. They ask for a demonstration. They begin negotiating a price. Sometime during those several months, your content influences their thinking. But since you have implemented no technology that tracks the impact of your content on their eventual buying decision, you are simply making guesses about which content really impacted their purchase decision and which content was merely pretty pictures and video that happened to be pushed out very broadly.
It took us six months to implement systems that would allow us to answer this question. We integrated HubSpot with UTM parameters on every single piece of content we publish. We configured Google Analytics so that behavioral data can now follow the prospect's interaction history with our content. For example, how long did they spend consuming each article? Which other articles did they consume? How many times they came back to read additional articles before converting. Finally, we connected Salesforce to our content tracking system so sales teams can see what content the prospect interacted with prior to having their first phone call.
The immediate impact was surprising and extremely actionable. Only 23% of our total closed revenue included any reference to content anywhere along the buyer journey; however, that 23% equated to £217k in annual contract value attributable solely to content. As such, our CFO stopped questioning the cost of our content program.
Perhaps even more impactful was understanding which content pieces were responsible for driving the attribution we identified. In terms of overall revenue attributable to content, only 84% of total revenue was driven from just 11% of all pieces of content. Case study-based content converted 3.2x higher than thought-leadership-type-based content. Implementation guides resulted in twice as many qualified leads as trend-analysis-type pieces. Founder-perspective-based content helped build trust with customers but rarely influenced final purchasing decisions.
The Transformational Change
After our data collection process was complete, we changed how we produced content. We stopped producing trend analysis content. We significantly increased case studies & implementation guides. Although we continued to produce Founders Content to foster relationships, we no longer expected the founders’ content to generate new leads. Our six-month results were dramatic. Content-attributed revenue grew to 31% of all closed deals. Our Annual Contract Value (ACV) for the period grew by £342,000. We did all of this at the same budget as before. However, our approach dramatically changed due to an understanding of what type(s) of content are actually converting.
Most content operations will never undergo this transformation because building out an accountability structure is uncomfortable. This means that although beautiful writing & impressive traffic may be great, they do not matter if conversion does not occur. Additionally, there could be instances where the content that everyone "loves" or that "performs well" may not actually be providing business value.
The Accountability Framework
Content budget allocation should only be provided for content that has been tied to specific business outcomes. Not Traffic. Not Shares. Not Engagement. Revenue Attribution. Lead Generation. Reducing Customer Acquisition Costs. Specific Measurable Impact(s) on Growing Your Business.
When you do not have an accountability framework, your Content Department can become expensive, procrastination disguised as strategy, and create the illusion of marketing progress while being completely insulated from any inquiry into return on investment related to your Content Department.
If your Content Department cannot tell you which specific pieces of content are responsible for which specific revenue, then you do not have a Content Strategy. You have a publishing operation.