Joe Pulizzi
Blockbuster Content ROI
There are many contributors to the success of a movie. Everything from
production to marketing to the story itself. Whether you view the movie industry as
the pursuit of artistic excellence, a capitalistic venture to earn profits, or both, there
are numerous parallels to content marketing.
Investing in planned storytelling to connect with audiences in a meaningful way, to
engage and inspire them to take action relevant to a brand’s business goals, is an
essential for content marketing. Beyond the movie premieres, ticket sales and
awards, determining the success of a film is based on a very simple metric; how
much money did it make?
Many marketers have struggled to truly quantify the success of their content
marketing efforts and to uncover the behind the scenes secrets to measuring
content marketing ROI, we’ve partnered with TopRank® Online Marketing to
feature some of the top content stars speaking at Content Marketing World in
Cleveland, September 8-11, 2015.
It’s go time for content marketing ROI and our triple feature finale!
Joe Pulizzi
Founder, Content Marketing Institute &
Content Marketing World

CAST OF CONTENT CHARACTERS
CONTENT MARKETING INSTITUTE
XEROX
ALTIMETER GROUP
KRAFT FOODS
KING CONTENT
NEWSCRED
BRANDSCAPING
TYPE A COMMUNICATIONS
LINKEDIN
TOPRANK ONLINE MARKETING
ACTIONABLE MARKETING GUIDE
RAZORSOCIAL
RELEVANCE
JOE PULIZZI
JEANNINE ROSSIGNOL
REBECCA LIEB
JULIE FLEISCHER
TODD WHEATLAND
MICHAEL BRENNER
ANDREW DAVIS
CARLA JOHNSON
JASON MILLER
LEE ODDEN
HEIDI COHEN
IAN CLEARY
CHAD POLLITT

CLICK
TO
LEARN
MORE
ABOUT
CONTENT
MARKETING
WORLD

“If you are trying to measure
the value of your content
marketing, create a
subscription program.”
- Joe Pulizzi

Joe Pulizzi
Joe Pulizzi
@JoePulizzi
Founder
Content Marketing Institute
#CMWorld Presentation:
Welcome to the Content
Marketing Revolution
Favorite Movie:
The Godfather I & II
Oscar-Worthy Content Marketing
Requires a Subscriber Strategy
In the past six months, I've had the pleasure of meeting
with dozens of the largest and most innovative companies
on the planet. Not one of those companies (not one) was
working on an audience-building program focused on
subscriber growth. Sure, there were brand awareness
goals, perception goals, brand lift goals, lead generation
goals, and lead quality goals … but no subscriber goals.
The Importance of Subscription Growth
According to Content Marketing Institute and
MarketingProfs 2014 research, fewer than one in three
organizations have subscription growth as a content
marketing goal. And recent Association of National
Advertisers findings on native advertising didn’t even list
subscription growth as a possible metric.
Why is this important?

Joe Pulizzi
Joe Pulizzi
@JoePulizzi
Founder
Content Marketing Institute
#CMWorld Presentation:
Welcome to the Content
Marketing Revolution
Favorite Movie:
The Godfather I & II
Use Subscriptions to Measure Content Marketing Value
More and more, we see the ultimate measurement of
content marketing programs depend on answering this
question:
What is the difference between those that subscribe to
my content and those that do not?
If you are trying to measure the value of your content
marketing program, create a subscription program.
Something truly unique and valuable that you can
consistently send to subscribers. Execute this over time,
and promote your subscription offer as much as you can.
Then, measure the difference. It does take time (at least 9+
months), but it works!
Oscar-Worthy Content Marketing
Requires a Subscriber Strategy

Jeannine
Rossignol
Jeannine Rossignol
@j9rossignol
Vice President, Marketing for
Large Enterprise Operations
Xerox
#CMWorld Presentation:
How Senior Marketers & CMOs
Are Structuring Around Content
Marketing
Favorite Movie:
Charlotte’s Web
Content Marketing Measurement
Requires Ongoing Refinement
Marketing went from not being able to measure anything, to
being able to measure everything.
Determine Your Key Metrics
It is overwhelming, but pick a place to start… pick one
question you want to answer and go from there. Get it
roughly right, and keep refining. Continuously evolve and
add questions.
You also need to know what metrics are “useful” for you to
measure and keep a program on track (opens, click-
throughs, page hits, likes/tweets) versus “meaningful” – the
metrics that your business leaders care about (closed
deals, revenue, etc).
Always report to management meaningful metrics and use
tactical insights within marketing to improve content
performance.

Rebecca Lieb
Rebecca Lieb
@lieblink
Industry Analyst
Altimeter Group
#CMWorld Presentation:
Less-Than-Obvious Content
Metrics You Need to Pay
Attention to
Measure Content Marketing
Success - Meaningfully
The foundation of content strategy is goals. Without
knowing why content will be created and published -- to
what end, for whom, where, and how -- content marketing is
at best a spurious, ad hoc activity.
Yet when my colleague and partner-in-research, Susan
Etlinger, and I sat down around a year ago to discuss the
state of content measurement, we quickly realized growth in
that sector is nowhere near commensurate with the overall
growth of content marketing.
Content Marketing Performance
This lead to research into what KPIs marketers should be
working toward and measuring for in content, the subject of
our latest research report titled, Content Marketing
Performance: A Framework to Measure Real Business
Impact.

Rebecca Lieb
Rebecca Lieb
@lieblink
Industry Analyst
Altimeter Group
#CMWorld Presentation:
Less-Than-Obvious Content
Metrics You Need to Pay
Attention to
Measure Content Marketing
Success - Meaningfully
Content can indeed lift sales, but it can achieve so many
more measurable, revenue-linked goals associated not only
with marketing, but with other business areas, from product
development to customer service.
The Foundational Principle of Content Strategy
There is no content strategy without measurement strategy.
Before embarking on a content initiative, irrespective of
medium or platform, it's important to know what you want to
achieve.
• Is it to drive more awareness?
• Build an audience?
• Encourage people to convert?
• Reduce call center expense by deflecting appropriate
queries to a digital channel?
Each requires different metrics -- for content, yes, but also
to calculate whether you have achieved your goal.

“Content Marketing success starts
by first determining what critical
measurements drive spending
decisions.”
- Julie Fleischer

Julie Fleischer
Julie Fleischer
@jfly
Sr. Director, Data + Content
+ Media
Kraft Foods
#CMWorld Presentation:
Leveraging First-Party Data
From Content & the Impact on
Digital ROI
Favorite Movie:
Cinema Paradiso
It’s Time for Content Marketing
Measurement Intervention
With all of the articles, surveys and agencies calling for an
increase in the amount of strategic content that marketers
are producing, it would be easy to believe that we have
universally arrived at the Era of Content Marketing.
The Content Marketing Measurement Lag
But not so fast…content marketing measurement lags far
behind the common sense belief that if people don’t pay
attention to it, they can’t be persuaded by it. Marketing Mix
Models, while painfully flawed, have the solid advantage of
having been around for decades; they are built into
volumetric forecasts.
They represent a gross approximation of reality and cannot
read small spends, emergent media, or the diverse,
intimate, personal, service- driven nuances of content
distribution, but they have been around forever, so what
CMO is going to forgo their guidance to approve a plan that
is wholly ungrounded?

Julie Fleischer
Julie Fleischer
@jfly
Sr. Director, Data + Content
+ Media
Kraft Foods
#CMWorld Presentation:
Leveraging First-Party Data
From Content & the Impact on
Digital ROI
Favorite Movie:
Cinema Paradiso
It’s Time for Content Marketing
Measurement Intervention
How on earth can the esoteric, precious, and unproven
metrics we’ve been using in content marketing unseed the
dominance of Mix? If trust is built on credibility and
credibility is built on consistently delivering what you say
you’ll deliver, how can convenience metrics ever win?
The Basic Tests of Marketing Metrics
We’ve been so focused on measuring what’s easy to
measure and what’s unique by platform, that we’ve failed
the basic tests of marketing metrics: Do they measure what
we really need to know? Are they material? Can they
predictably guide our businesses?
The most important thing you can do as a content marketer
is determine what measurements are critical in driving
spending decisions at your company and then build an
analytic methodology that answers it for content.

Todd
Wheatland
Todd Wheatland
@ToddWheatland
Managing Director & Head of
Strategy
King Content
#CMWorld Presentation:
How Senior Marketers & CMOs
Are Structuring Around Content
Marketing
Favorite Movie:
The General
Linking Content Marketing
Strategy & Results
We’ve all seen the research that says organizations without
a documented content marketing strategy are most likely to
fail. But even those companies with a strategy often either
don’t know exactly what to measure against that strategy -
or do know, but don’t have the tools to be able to do it.
Show Real-Time & Long-Term Results
This is a huge issue. The purpose of developing a strategy
is to ensure that the business and marketing objectives
drive the execution. But if you can’t show content marketers
the real-time and long-term results of what they’re doing
relative to the business objectives, the strategy loses any
relevance.
Find the most simple, repeatable processes you can, and
make sure you’re getting the measurements that matter – in
real-time - to the people working on the execution. That’s
how you’ll link strategy to results.

Michael
Brenner
Michael Brenner
@brennermichael
Head of Strategy
NewsCred
#CMWorld Presentation:
How Senior Marketers & CMOs
Are Structuring Around Content
Marketing
Favorite Movie:
Shawshank Redemption
A Movie’s Success is Measured
by Box Office Sales
Measuring the success of your content marketing should
simply be based on the same criteria you measure your
overall marketing success. For me, that has always
included some measure of quantifiable results.
Hollywood doesn't care how many people are interested in
seeing a movie, watch the trailer, or hit their movie landing
page. The real measure of movie success is how many
tickets it sells.
Create Content Marketing People Want
Content Marketing is no different. You need interest. You
need to create content people want. You can measure that
by traffic. You can measure how good the content is and
how much engagement that content receives based on
shares, comments, and time spent. But clicks and shares
don't pay those movie star salaries, so you have to
generate real sales with real people.

Michael
Brenner
Michael Brenner
@brennermichael
Head of Strategy
NewsCred
#CMWorld Presentation:
How Senior Marketers & CMOs
Are Structuring Around Content
Marketing
Favorite Movie:
Shawshank Redemption
A Movie’s Success is Measured
by Box Office Sales
The Real Measure of Content Marketing Success
1. How many people opt-in to your content by
"paying" (subscribing) with their email address
2. How many people provide even more personal details for
your whitepaper and eBook offers
3. How many people register for your events
4. Best of all, how many people click to buy something
Content Marketing success should be
measured the same as overall marketing
success – through quantifiable results.

“The two simplest ways to
measure the value of your
content marketing: revenue by
post & subscriber.”
- Andrew Davis

Andrew Davis
Andrew Davis
@tpldrew
Author
Brandscraping
#CMWorld Presentation:
Moneyball Marketing: The
Simple Science Behind Mega
Content Success
Favorite Movie:
Fletch
Measure the Value of Your
Content Marketing
Instead of just measuring views, followers, fans, likes,
retweets, shares, and clicks, the smartest marketers in the
world are measuring the value of their content.
There are two simple ways to start thinking this way
immediately:
1. Revenue Per Post
Take the number of pieces of content you’ve distributed this
year and divide it by your company’s total revenue for the
same period. Now do this for the year prior. Is your revenue
per post higher than last year?
2. Revenue Per Subscriber
Take the total number of subscribers and divide it by the
total revenue generated by those subscribers who became
paying customers. Try this for a similar period and compare
the two. Is your revenue per subscriber rising?

Carla Johnson
Carla Johnson
@carlajohnson
President
Type A Communications
#CMWorld Presentation:
How to Build Content Programs
for Internal Audiences That
Create Distinguishing Brand
Experiences
Favorite Movie:
The Matrix
Attach Meaning to Content
Marketing Measurement
Content marketers now have the ability to measure a lot of
things, but that doesn’t mean that they’re worth measuring.
Monitor content performance across all channels. Look
for patterns, but keep common sense in play. Just because
something performs well one place, doesn’t mean that it’s
moving the needle toward overall goals.
Think progress, not perfection. Monitor, learn and adjust
what you’re doing as you go.
Remember what you’re trying to achieve. Not every
metric should be up and to the right. If that’s your goal, then
you’re risk averse and missing out on grand opportunities
for creativity with your content.
The point of measurement is for feedback, not to prove that
you always make the right decisions

Jason Miller
Jason Miller
@JasonMillerCA
Senior Manager, Global Content
Marketing
LinkedIn
#CMWorld Presentation:
How to Effectively Outsource
Content to Freelancers
Favorite Movie:
This is Spinal Tap
Measure Progress with Traffic
Engagement & Quality Leads
Referral Traffic. You can measure this super easy, non-
complicated metric with Google Analytics. I suggest you
focus on non-branded keyword referral traffic, which refers
to people who are coming to your site without typing your
brand name into the search engine.
Engagement. I personally think it’s only a matter of time
before engagement plays a role in search engine rankings.
The idea with engagement is if your content is encouraging
interactions – people sharing it, liking it, plus-one-ing it –
that is a sign of relevance. So, the more customer
engagement, the more relevant your content is.
Higher Quality Leads. How quickly is your content
accelerating the funnel or shortening the buying cycle? If
your leads are coming in by way of your content and they
are much closer to purchasing your product, that’s a clear
sign of success.

“For content marketing
success, make all content
accountable & measurable to
attract, engage & convert.”
- Lee Odden

Lee Odden
Lee Odden
@leeodden
CEO
TopRank Online Marketing
#CMWorld Presentation:
Participation Marketing: How to
Co-Create, Optimize & Socialize
Content with Influencers
Favorite Movie:
Braveheart
Don’t Let Content Marketing ROI
Be Your Horror Movie
Do you know what’s scarier than SAW 7 in 3D?
According to Content Marketing Institute and
MarketingProfs 2014 research, this:
• Only 21% of marketers are successful at tracking their
content marketing ROI
• 64% of marketers are neutral, or not successful
• A full 15% don’t track ROI at all
Can I Open My Eyes Now?
I’ll admit, I’m not much of a horror movie fan, but there are
few things scarier than managing content marketing
investments as a mystery.
If you’d like to avoid your CMO's leatherface and chainsaw,
make sure all of your content is accountable and
measurable to these three things:

Lee Odden
Lee Odden
@leeodden
CEO
TopRank Online Marketing
#CMWorld Presentation:
Participation Marketing: How to
Co-Create, Optimize & Socialize
Content with Influencers
Favorite Movie:
Braveheart
Don’t Let Content Marketing ROI
Be Your Horror Movie
1. Attract - How does your content attract readers? How do
search, social, publications, subscriptions, advertising,
influencers, or events pull them in?
2. Engage - When customers consume your content, what
topics do they prefer? What formats and media types (text,
video, audio)? How do they interact and react?
3. Convert - What offers do you provide to collect inquiries,
subscriptions, downloads, registrations, trials, demos? How
effective are you at inspiring readers to take the next step?
If you want a real thrill in your content marketing, make sure
all of your content is accountable for attracting a target
audience, engaging them in a meaningful way and inspiring
them to take action.
Do that and you’ll find yourself in a safe happy place vs. a
leatherface the next time you meet with your CEO.

Heidi Cohen
Heidi Cohen
@heidicohen
Chief Content Officer
Actionable Marketing Guide
#CMWorld Presentation:
Moderator: Social Media Track
Favorite Movie:
When Harry Met Sally
Create Actionable Content
Marketing Measurement
To get your content marketing efforts up in lights within your
firm, track your success back to your business objectives by
target marketing personas. Roughly one out of five B2B
marketers can successfully measure their content’s
success according to Content Marketing Institute and
MarketingProfs 2015 research.
Organizations tracking ROI perform 17X better than those
that didn’t according to Hubspot’s The State of Inbound
2014.
Create Content to Meet Business Goals
Start by stating your business goals and creating content to
achieve those objectives. Make your goals as tangible and
measurable as possible to increase your likelihood of
success. This translates to adding quantities and time
periods. To ensure that your goals are reasonable, create
them relative to your past year’s performance.

Heidi Cohen
Heidi Cohen
@heidicohen
Chief Content Officer
Actionable Marketing Guide
#CMWorld Presentation:
Moderator: Social Media Track
Favorite Movie:
When Harry Met Sally
Create Actionable Content
Marketing Measurement
Among the top 5 content marketing goals are:
• Build brand awareness.
• Generate leads.
• Drive sales, cross-sells and upsells.
• Retain customers.
• Grow thought leadership.
To improve content measurement, follow these 3
actionable content marketing tips:
1. Include a call-to-action (aka CTA). Ask prospects to do
something you can measure.
2. Use related landing pages rather than a one-size fits all
approach. The more tailored the landing page is to your
content, the better it should perform.
3. Continually test your results. Take what works and find
ways to improve your performance.

Ian Cleary
Ian Cleary
@IanCleary
Founder
RazorSocial
#CMWorld Presentation:
15 Essential Tools to Optimize
Your Content Marketing
Favorite Movie:
Gladiator
Scene-Stealing Content
Marketing Measurement Tools
There are a variety of tools and tips available that enable
more effective content marketing measurement. Here are 5:
1. You can build promotion campaigns around content and
use unique tracking links to measure success.
2. Use Google UTM builder or tools such as trks.it to track
important content you share.
3. Find your most linked to and shared content and
produce more of it.
4. Use BuzzSumo to find the most shared content and
Ahrefs to find the most linked content.
5. Pixel your website visitors according to the category of
content they consume and remarket to them. Track
conversions through Facebook of your pixeled
audiences.

Chad Pollitt
Chad Pollitt
@chadpollitt
VP of Audience, Co-Founder
Relevance
#CMWorld Presentation:
Advanced Content Promotion
Techniques (Paid & Unpaid)
Favorite Movie:
Glengarry Glen Ross
It’s All About the Baselines for
Better Content Performance
There’s lots of different ways to measure content marketing
performance. Marketers can measure topline goals,
strategies and tactics.
Identify Solid Baselines
Measuring all are important, but having solid baselines
defined by appropriate research are just as important. This
can be accomplished by collecting and interpreting
audience, media, competitor and trend data.
Where these categories intersect can provide content
marketers with an end-to-end roadmap that defines goals,
strategies, promotion, execution and measurement.
By learning how to collect baseline data from others,
marketers can master how to measure themselves.

CONTENT MARKETING WORLD
EBOOK CREDITS
MEASURING YOUR
CONTENT MARKETING
BOX OFFICE SUCCESS
DESIGNED BY
JOSEPH “JK” KALINOWSKI
CREATED BY
TOPRANK ONLINE MARKETING
VISIT
CONTENTMARKETINGWORLD.COM
•••
TOPRANKMARKETING.COM

HELP US SPREAD THE WORD!
CLICK BELOW TO SHARE THIS EBOOK ON YOUR
FAVORITE SOCIAL NETWORKS!