Content Marketing ROI: What's Your Content Formula?

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP The Content Formula Calculate the ROI of Content Marketing & Never Waste Money Again Michael Brenner CEO, Marketing Insider Group @BrennerMichael Liz Bedor Brand Strategist, NewsCred @lizbedor

What is Marketing?

What is the ROI?

MARKETING INSIDER GROUPWhat is the ROI?

What is the ROI? Let’s Talk About Banners? The 1st Banner (1994): 44% Click Thru Rate!

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP WARNING! Math ahead!

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP Less likely to click on a banner than…

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP “We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and give people what they are interested in. ”

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP Ann Handley: Take your brand out of the story and make your customers the hero.” Content Marketing What Brands Publish What Customers Want Business Instinct CharityEmpathy

Marketers need to measure things that have quantifiable value that they can take to the bank.

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP We hear lots of questions about content marketing . . . What is content marketing? How do I get my content shared? Should we hire journalists? How can I create a viral video? How do I map content to the buyer journey? How do I convince my boss to fund content marketing? What tools should I consider for my content marketing? What is the cost of content marketing? Is it ok to sell in my content marketing? How do I perform a content audit? Is content marketing the same as native advertising? Should our content be gated? What should we write about? How do I get my boss to see the value in content marketing? What are the factors of success with content marketing? How can I get good at content marketing? What does great content marketing look like? Why is content marketing important?

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP HOW DO I CALCULATE CONTENT MARKETING ROI? Is the most common question we hear from marketers struggling to build their own business case internally. “ ”

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP PART ONE / Build The Business Case BUILD THE BUSINESS CASE FIND THE BUDGET MEASURE RESULTS 1

Marketing should be tied to a business case that sales and executives can understand.

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP Reach early stage buyers Engage new buyers with your brand Conversions you would have never reached = $ BUILD THE BUSINESS CASE

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP Early-stage Searches Middle-stage Brand Searches Search/SocialVolume What is Content Marketing? (10-3000 X) How do I succeed with Content Marketing? (2-10 X) What tools can help me with content marketing? (1) How Much Early-Stage Search Traffic Comes To Your Website?

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP How Much Early-Stage Search Traffic Comes To Your Website?

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP Organic search is responsible for 64% of all web traffic Only 2% of users travel to the 2nd page of Google 18% of users click on the first organic listing Do You Rank In Position 1-3 for Your Product Category?

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP Do You Rank In Position 1-3 for Your Product Category?

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP IMAGINE: YOU OWN THE CATEGORY www.makeup.com -- (owned by L’Oreal)

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP IMAGINE: YOU OWN THE TARGET AUDIENCE www.CMO.com -- owned by Adobe

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP IMAGINE: YOU ARE A TOP SOURCE IN YOUR INDUSTRY www.health.clevelandclinic.org -- Top source for healthcare information w/ +2M visitors per month

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP IMAGINE: MARKETING THAT ATTRACTS NEW BUYERSAMEXOPEN Forum is the largest source of new leads for AMEX’s Small Business Division

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP PART TWO / Find The Budget BUILD THE BUSINESS CASE FIND THE BUDGET MEASURE RESULTS 2

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP Content Used 30% Content Not Used 70% 60% -70% of Content Goes Completely Unused* $100 Billion Opportunity** **Source: Econsultancy * Source: Sirius Decisions = $

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP How much your organization is wasting on unused content Amount that gets used Current content production costs Calculate The Cost of Unused Content

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP What Do You Spend On Paid Search Because You Don’t Rank Organically? =$

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP The average click-through rate of display ads is 0.1%. (DoubleClick).1% 8% Only 8% of internet users account for 85% of clicks on display ads (and some aren’t even humans!) (comScore) 50% About 50% of clicks on mobile ads are accidental (GoldSpot) Reallocate Budget From Low Performing Marketing Programs (Advertising?)

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP Run CRM ROI Report. Rank Low to High =$

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP CASE STUDY: ADVERTISING PARTNERSHIP FUNDED SAP CONTENT MARKETING

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP CASE STUDY: ADVERTISING PARTNERSHIP FUNDED SAP CONTENT MARKETING Saved / invested in content marketing platform $100,000 Reach, Engagement and LEADS SAP would have never seen. 1,000,000 Organic Visitors 10,000 Subscribers 1,000 Leads

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP We shifted investment from advertising to content marketing so we could shout louder than we spend. Beth Comstock CMO, GE ” “

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP PART THREE / Measure Results BUILD THE BUSINESS CASE FIND THE BUDGET MEASURE RESULTS 3

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP Content Marketing ROI is 4X our traditional marketing spend. ” “ Julie Fleischer Former Sr. Director, Kraft Foods

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP Paid vs. Organic Search Traffic REACH Organic Search Share of Voice Unbranded Search Traffic LEADS CONVERT OTHER CONVERSIONS SUBSCRIBERS Time on Site ENGAGE Social shares Subscriptions Bounce rate Retention Rate Upsells RETAIN CONTENT MARKETING ROI

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP CONTENT MARKETING ROI - REACH TheValue of Organic Search = (Paid Search Budget X Organic SearchTraffic) / Paid SearchTraffic TheValue of Unbranded SearchTraffic = (Paid Search Budget X Unbranded SearchTraffic) / Paid Search Traffic TheValue of Achieving Digital “Fair Share” = (Online Share of Organic Search / Market Share) X 100

HOW TO CALCULATE THE VALUE OF: PAID VS. ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC

Organic search traffic can be calculated easily via Google Analytics: 1 Go to Acquisition 2 Campaigns 3 Organic Keywords

In this example, the site has received 359,953 visits from organic search traffic, totaling 25% of overall traffic.

Assume we spend $100,000 for 1,078,799 visits. 1,078,779 359,593 $100,000 X CROSS MULTIPLY & DIVIDE TO FIND “X” ALGEBRA DOES COME IN HANDY! PAID ORGANIC TRAFFIC PERCENTAGE 75% 25% TOTAL TRAFFIC 1,078,779 359,593 COST/VALUE $100,000 $33,333 ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC IS WORTH $33,333

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP CONTENT MARKETING ROI - ENGAGEMENT TheValue of RepeatVisitors = (OnlineAd Budget / AdTraffic) * RepeatVisitors TheValue of Subscribers= (Sales from Email Nurture) / # Subscribers

HOW TO CALCULATE THE VALUE OF: Repeat Visitors

Source: Inc, 2 Web Metrics You Should be Watching All the Time, 2014 Repeat Visitor Ratio (RVR) measures the percentage of visitors who return to your site after an initial visit during some specific time period. Let’s say you got 4,000 visitors this month and 800 were repeat visitors. 800/4,000 = 20%

To put a monetary value on RVR, we need to look at the average amount you’re spending in advertising to drive net new traffic.

For our example, let’s say you’re spending $5,000 per month on advertising to drive new visitors. If 80%, or 3,200 visitors are net new, you’re spending an average of $1.56 per visitor. $5,000 / 3,200 = $1.56 Taking that finding, we can then calculate the value of our 800 repeat visitors. 800 * $1.56 = $1,250 Therefore, our repeat visitors are valued at $1,250 per month.

Don’t forget that while you want to increase the percentage of repeat visitors, you also want to increase the total number of visitors… Otherwise you’ll be preaching to the same choir.

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP CONTENT MARKETING ROI - CONVERSION TheValue of Content Marketing Leads = (Content Marketing Costs / Content Marketing Leads) (Content Marketing Costs / Event Registrations) (Content Marketing Leads * Content Marketing Conversion Rate X Avg. Sale Price) (Avg. Marketing Lead Sales / # of Marketing Leads) X Content Marketing Lead %

HOW TO CALCUATE THE VALUE OF: COST PER LEAD

In this example, we’ve created two pieces of content: • For the ROI Guide, we spent $3,000 to create and invested $10,000 to distribute. • For the Strategy Guide we also spent $3,000 to create, but spent $20,000 to distribute. • Combining these costs, we can see that the ROI Guide cost us $13,000 and the Strategy Guide cost us $23,000. CONTENT ACTIVITY COST TOTAL COST ROI Guide Creation $3,000 $13,000 ROI Guide Sponsored Email $10,000 Strategy Guide Creation $3,000 $23,000 Strategy Guide Sponsored Webinar $20,000

CHANNEL COST NEW LEADS MQLs CPMQL ROI Guide $13,000 550 205 $63 Strategy Guide $23,000 700 130 $177 Now that we know how much our content cost to create and distribute, let’s see how the content did in terms of lead generation to calculate cost per qualified lead. • To calculate cost per lead, we want to take the total cost ($13,000) divided by the total number of qualified leads (205). • $13,000 / 205 = $63 • Therefore, our ROI Guide cost $63 per qualified lead.

CHANNEL COST NEW LEADS MQLs CPMQL ROI Guide $13,000 550 205 $63 Strategy Guide $23,000 700 130 $177 To determine an accurate average total cost per lead of content marketing, we’d want to take a larger sample, but for the purpose of this guide, we’ll simplify and average these two costs. $63 + $177 / 2 = $120 Therefore our average total cost per lead for content marketing is $120.

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP CONTENT MARKETING ROI - RETENTION TheValue of Retention= Content Customers / Subscribers LTV vs. LTV Customers Who Don’t Read / Subscribe Content Customer Retention Rate vs. Non-ContentCustomers Revenue per Content Customer vs. Non-ContentCustomers

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP Thank you! Michael Brenner CEO, Marketing Insider Group @BrennerMichael Liz Bedor Brand Strategist, NewsCred @lizbedor

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP APPENDIX Michael Brenner CEO, Marketing Insider Group @BrennerMichael Liz Bedor Brand Strategist, NewsCred @lizbedor

HOW TO CALCULATE THE VALUE OF: UNBRANDED ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC #ThinkContent @lizbedor

To calculate unbranded organic search, we need to exclude your brand or products’ name from the search. To do this, create an “Advanced Filter” that will exclude those branded keywords. In this example, our brand and products contain the word “Raspberry.”

Let’s say the results showed that now with excluding branded keywords, your site’s organic search traffic accounts for 269,694 visits, or about 19% of total organic traffic. We go back to our table to calculate the value of this traffic. 1,078,779 269,692 $100,000 X CROSS MULTIPLY & DIVIDE TO FIND “X” PAID ORGANIC TRAFFIC PERCENTAGE 75% 19% TOTAL TRAFFIC 1,078,779 269,692 COST/VALUE $100,000 $24,100 ORGANIC UNBRANDED SEARCH TRAFFIC IS WORTH $24,100

HOW TO CALCUATE THE VALUE OF: ORGANIC SEARCH SHARE OF VOICE

This essentially measures how much your brand or product is talked about compared to your competitors. COMPETITOR 2 COMPETITOR 3 COMPETITOR 1 YOU

Now record the rankings for each keyword you selected for yourself and your competitors. If you do rank, record in what position. (Note: You can rank more than once) KEYWORD RANKING #1 RANKING #2 RANKING #3 DANCE SHOES 1 2 3 DANCING SHOES 2 3 4 CHEAP DANCE SHOES 2 AFFORDABLE DANCE SHOES 5 BALLET SHOES #ThinkContent @lizbedor

2014 GOOGLE CLICK THROUGH RATES POSITION CTR 1 31.24 2 14.04 3 9.85 4 6.97 5 5.5 6 3.73 7 0 8 0 9 0 10 0 Source: Moz, Google Organic Click-Through Rates in 2014. Now that you have your rankings, calculate your share of voice for each keyword using the chart to the left. KEYWORD RANKING #1 RANKING #2 RANKING #3 DANCE SHOES 1 2 3 DANCING SHOES 2 3 4 CHEAP DANCE SHOES 2 AFFORDABLE DANCE SHOES 5 BALLET SHOES

2014 GOOGLE CLICK THROUGH RATES POSITION CTR 1 31.24 2 14.04 3 9.85 4 6.97 5 5.5 6 3.73 7 0 8 0 9 0 10 0 Source: Moz, Google Organic Click-Through Rates in 2014. Now that you have your rankings, calculate your share of voice for each keyword using the chart to the left. KEYWORD RANKING #1 RANKING #2 RANKING #3 DANCE SHOES 31.24 14.04 9.85 DANCING SHOES 14.04 9.85 6.97 CHEAP DANCE SHOES 14.04 AFFORDABLE DANCE SHOES 5.5 BALLET SHOES

If your rank more than once, simply add the click through rates to find that keyword’s total share of voice. KEYWORD RANKING #1 RANKING #2 RANKING #3 SOV DANCE SHOES 31.24 14.04 9.85 55.13% DANCING SHOES 14.04 9.85 6.97 30.86 CHEAP DANCE SHOES 14.04 14.04% AFFORDABLE DANCE SHOES 5.5 5.5% BALLET SHOES 55.13 + 30.86 + 14.04 + 5.5 + 0 / 5 = 26.38 @lizbedor#ThinkContent

To find your overall share of voice, average the share of voice for all your keywords. KEYWORD RANKING #1 RANKING #2 RANKING #3 SOV DANCE SHOES 31.24 14.04 9.85 55.13% DANCING SHOES 14.04 9.85 6.97 30.86 CHEAP DANCE SHOES 14.04 14.04% AFFORDABLE DANCE SHOES 5.5 5.5% BALLET SHOES TOTAL SHARE OF VOICE 26.38% 55.13 + 30.86 + 14.04 + 5.5 + 0 / 5 = 26.38

HOW TO CALCULATE THE VALUE OF: SUBSCRIPTIONS

MARKETING INSIDER GROUP Source: AMEX Open Forum, What’s Your Email List Worth (In Actual Dollars)?, 2013 Your email list is an asset, and should be valued as such.

Source: MarketingProfs, The Art and Science of Growing Your Email List, 2014 FIRST THING’S FIRST:

FIRST THING’S FIRST: You must know your maximum allowable cost threshold for getting a new subscriber, otherwise, you’re spending in the dark. POSITIVE RETURN DIMINISHING POSTIIVE RETURN MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE COST Source: MarketingProfs, The Art and Science of Growing Your Email List, 2014

NEGATIV E RETURNS ! FIRST THING’S FIRST: You must know your maximum allowable cost threshold for getting a new subscriber, otherwise, you’re spending in the dark. or, worse yet, to the point of negative returns. POSITIVE RETURN DIMINISHING POSTIIVE RETURN MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE COST Source: MarketingProfs, The Art and Science of Growing Your Email List, 2014

METHOD QUANTITY OF SUBSCRIBERS (QOS) COST PER ACQUISITION (CPA) FACEBOOK AD 200 $2.30 TWITTER 400 $1.00 PAID SEARCH 300 $2.00 WEBINAR 100 $0.10 First, calculate what it actually costs you to get a new subscriber from each list-building method. Source: MarketingProfs, The Art and Science of Growing Your Email List, 2014

Let’s say you’ve tested a few tactics and decided that your maximum allowable CPA for a new email address is $1.50. MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE COST $1.50 METHOD QUANTITY OF SUBSCRIBERS (QOS) COST PER ACQUISITION (CPA) FACEBOOK AD 200 $2.30 TWITTER 400 $1.00 PAID SEARCH 300 $2.00 WEBINAR 100 $0.10 Moving forward, you’ll want to continue pursuing all methods costing $1.50 or less.

METHOD QUANTITY OF SUBSCRIBERS (QOS) COST PER ACQUISITION (CPA) UNSUBSCRIBE RATE (UR) AVERAGE SALE VALUE (ASV) FACEBOOK AD 200 $2.30 30% $100 TWITTER 400 $1.00 5% $100 PAID SEARCH 300 $2.00 15% $150 WEBINAR 100 $0.10 5% $200 Over time, we need to also measure the quality of the subscribers on your list by monitoring things like average sale value and unsubscribe rate.

METHOD QUANTITY OF SUBSCRIBERS (QOS) COST PER ACQUISITION (CPA) UNSUBSCRIBE RATE (UR) AVERAGE SALE VALUE (ASV) FACEBOOK AD 200 $2.30 30% $100 TWITTER 400 $1.00 5% $100 PAID SEARCH 300 $2.00 15% $150 WEBINAR 100 $0.10 5% $200 To calculate the value per subscriber, we need find the difference between the sale value and cost per acquisition for the subscribers. To do this, we use the formula below: VALUE PER SUBSCRIBER = ( QOS * ASV * ( 1 – UR ) – QOS * CPA ) / QOS

METHOD QUANTITY OF SUBSCRIBERS (QOS) COST PER ACQUISITION (CPA) UNSUBSCRIBE RATE (UR) AVERAGE SALE VALUE (ASV) TOTAL VALUE (TV) VALUE PER SUBSCRIBER (VPS) FACEBOOK AD 200 $2.30 30% $100 $13,540 $67.70 TWITTER 400 $1.00 5% $100 $37,600 $94 PAID SEARCH 300 $2.00 15% $150 $37,650 $125.50 WEBINAR 100 $0.10 5% $200 $18,990 $189.90 We’ll use Facebook Ads as an example: VALUE PER SUBSCRIBER = ( QOS * ASV * ( 1 – UR ) – QOS * CPA ) / QOS VALUE PER SUBSCRIBER = ( 200 * 100 * ( 1 – 0.30 ) – 200 * 2.30 ) / 200 Therefore, the value of each Facebook subscription is $67.70

METHOD QUANTITY OF SUBSCRIBERS (QOS) COST PER ACQUISITION (CPA) UNSUBSCRIBE RATE (UR) AVERAGE SALE VALUE (ASV) TOTAL VALUE (TV) VALUE PER SUBSCRIBER (VPS) FACEBOOK AD 200 $2.30 30% $100 $13,540 $67.70 TWITTER 400 $1.00 5% $100 $37,600 $94 PAID SEARCH 300 $2.00 15% $150 $37,650 $125.50 WEBINAR 100 $0.10 5% $200 $18,990 $189.90 Based on these calculations, we can see that paid search and webinar methods return the most value per subscriber.

METHOD QUANTITY OF SUBSCRIBERS (QOS) COST PER ACQUISITION (CPA) UNSUBSCRIBE RATE (UR) AVERAGE SALE VALUE (ASV) TOTAL VALUE (TV) VALUE PER SUBSCRIBER (VPS) FACEBOOK AD 200 $2.30 30% $100 $13,540 $67.70 TWITTER 400 $1.00 5% $100 $37,600 $94 PAID SEARCH 300 $2.00 15% $150 $37,650 $125.50 WEBINAR 100 $0.10 5% $200 $18,990 $189.90 Based on these calculations, we can see that paid search and webinar methods return the most value per subscriber. However, since paid search’s CPA is more expensive than our maximum allowance of $1.50, we should defer to webinar and Twitter tactics.

HOW TO CALCUATE THE VALUE OF: SOCIAL SHARES + FOLLOWERS

While social shares can be seen as an engagement metric, but should be quantified as a free source of distribution and reach.

Let’s say you spend $1,000 on paid social distribution and reached 5,000 viewers. For this campaign, each view was worth $0.20 ($1,000/5000). Now let’s say a social post was shared organically by your followers and reached 500 viewers. Based on the value of each view from our paid distribution, we can also value our 500 organic views at $0.20 each, or $100 total.

HOW TO CALCUATE THE VALUE OF: SHARE OF VOICE/OFFSITE SEO

How can you measure your off-site SEO? • Measure your inbound links and their value with Open Site Explorer. (https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/) • Do the same with your competitors’ sites and compare Source: Altitude Marketing, SEO Checklist Part 2: Measure and Improve Off-site SEO Factors That Drive Organic Search Traffic to Your Site,

What to do with this data? • Scan your highest-authority inbound links for opportunity to get other similar links. • Scan your competitors’ highest-authority inbound links. Can you get those links too, or do they provide ideas for getting similar links? • Inbound links from non-profit (.org) and education (.edu) sites are especially powerful. • Build your inbound links gradually. Google algorithms will notice, and may penalize a quick accumulation of links. Source: Altitude Marketing, SEO Checklist Part 2: Measure and Improve Off-site SEO Factors That Drive Organic Search Traffic to Your Site,

HOW TO CALCUATE THE VALUE OF: PERCENTAGE OF LEADS FROM CONTENT MARKETING

Looking at this gathered data, we see that content marketing accounts for 205 of the total 710 marketing qualified leads. PROGRAM MQLs Content 205 Events 300 Advertising 30 Email 100 Public Relations 75 Total 710

Looking at this gathered data, we see that content marketing accounts for 205 of the total 710 marketing qualified leads. To find the percentage, we take 205/710 to find that content marketing accounts for 28.9% of total qualified leads. PROGRAM MQLs PERCENTAGE Content 205 28.9% Events 300 42.2% Advertising 30 4.2% Email 100 14.2% Public Relations 75 10.5% Total 710 100% EVENTS ADVERTISING CONTENT EMAIL PUBLIC RELATIONS

HOW TO CALCULATE THE VALUE OF: CONVERSIONS

PROGRAM MQLs CONVERSION RATE AVERAGE SALES VALUE Content 205 50% $500 For this example, let’s say our content marketing has a conversion rate of 50% and the average sale is worth $500.

PROGRAM MQLs CONVERSION RATE AVERAGE SALES VALUE Content 205 50% $500 • To find our total conversions, we need to multiply our total qualified leads by 50%. For this example, let’s say our content marketing has a conversion rate of 50% and the average sale is worth $500.

PROGRAM MQLs CONVERSION RATE AVERAGE SALES VALUE CONVERSIONS Content 205 50% $500 102.5 For this example, let’s say our content marketing has a conversion rate of 50% and the average sale is worth $500. • To find our total conversions, we need to multiply our total qualified leads by 50%. • 205 * 50% = 102.5 conversions

PROGRAM MQLs CONVERSION RATE AVERAGE SALES VALUE CONVERSIONS Content 205 50% $500 102.5 For this example, let’s say our content marketing has a conversion rate of 50% and the average sale is worth $500. • To find our total conversions, we need to multiply our total qualified leads by 50%. • 205 * 50% = 102.5 conversions • Based on that finding we assume these sales will average $500, so to find the total value we multiply 102.5 * $500 = $51,000

PROGRAM MQLs CONVERSION RATE AVERAGE SALES VALUE CONVERSIONS TOTAL CONVERSION VALUE Content 205 50% $500 102.5 $51,000 For this example, let’s say our content marketing has a conversion rate of 50% and the average sale is worth $500. • To find our total conversions, we need to multiply our total qualified leads by 50%. • 205 * 50% = 102.5 conversions • Based on that finding we assume these sales will average $500, so to find the total value we • multiply 102.5 * $500 = $51,000 • Therefore, our total content marketing conversions are worth $51,000