Periodically we have talked about Marketing Funnels and using those to track the results of Content Marketing campaigns. In those we have said that the simpler each stage in the Marketing Funnel is the easier it will be for everyone to understand where you are at in any given campaign.
Most CMOs and marketing managers have no problem keeping the president and executive team of their company up to date on how well their marketing is doing. However, there is one area where they may be failing. It may be costing their company money.
Are You Guilty of This?
One thing most CMOs and marketing managers overlook is the importance of keeping their own people up to date on the results of their campaigns. While they give reports to their executive team, it’s more important for their own people to know how their campaigns are doing at any given time.
By regularly keeping your marketing people informed of the results of each campaign, you help them see how each of the marketing pieces (blog post, email, white paper, case study, etc.). is doing. They can see if each piece is getting the attention of the prospects targeted and moving them to want more. Any marketing piece not doing this is missing its mark.
This is the only way your people know if
- Each piece is having the impact they felt it would.
- The campaign will achieve the results desired.
- When a piece has to be revised or a new one written because the original did not get the response desired.
If you have not been doing this, here is a sample of an easy report you can use. It will help you track each and every Content Marketing campaign you run. As you will see, it tracks each campaign at four stages (prospects, leads, great leads and ready to buy).
At each stage, you enter the results you desire from your Content Marketing campaign. On a regular basis, you update the report to show how many people you have targeted in the campaign have moved on to the next stage.
Here is a Sample Showing the Current Results of a Content Marketing Campaign
As you can see, this campaign is at the Ready to Buy stage. So far, 8 are at that stage. The goal was 15.
The marketing department should be working on marketing pieces geared at moving more from the Great Leads stage to this one. If they have already published their last scheduled marketing piece to move people from the Great Leads to Ready to Buy stage, their campaign did not achieve the results desired.
They should modify some pieces they already used and resend them or they should develop some new pieces to get additional prospects to move to this stage.
Also — look at the Sales stage. Only 4 of the 8 Ready to Buy have purchased. The sales reps may be still working on the other 4. Hopefully, these other 4 have not purchased because they didn’t want the product or they weren’t ready to buy.
It’s Critical for Sales Marketing and Sales to Work Closely on Every Content Marketing Campaign
The Marketing and Sales departments have to work closely on these campaigns. Every time the Marketing Department turns a “Ready to Buy” prospect over to the Sales Department and they’re not ready to buy, the Sales Department is wasting its time. Furthermore, the overall sales goal is impacted. When that happens too frequently, the entire campaign can be viewed as a failure.
As the CMO or marketing manager, you should be tracking the results of each Content Marketing campaign regularly. You should have this report on a system and give it to each person in their department at least on a monthly basis.
You also can have this report on a white board in your office so that all can see the results of each marketing campaign regularly.
If multiple Content Marketing campaigns are running at the same time, the result of each should be tracked on separate reports. At the same time, the results should be going into one combined report.
If you want a template of these reports, you can get one by clicking here.
The more help you can give your marketing people know how their marketing pieces are doing to achieve the goals set in each campaign, the more likely it will be that the goals in each of your Content Marketing campaigns will be achieved.
