When it comes to branding, content is one of the aspects that can be hard to see the value of when starting. As much as content is king, especially today, where online marketing is vital, the value is hard to calculate. Proving value to others is also an uphill task.
One thing, however, is sure, around 90% of people find content to be a valuable tool with regards to branding. Most people know about most brands reading or watching the content produced. So, how can you calculate the ROI of branded content? Below are a few ideas.
Calculate The ROI
Like any other calculations done regarding investment, you need to figure out the profit brought by the measure. In this case, you’ll be looking at the amount obtained by branded content and subtract it from the investment. You’ll need to find out how much is invested in the content. Then figure out the metrics of how much business the content brought. You may also have to factor in the time invested in crafting the content too.
When all goes according to plan, the return should be positive. If things don’t go according to plan, the campaign will fall in the red. At that point, you can decide whether to move forward or change tact.
N.B -Metrics used by content marketers may not be good enough to evaluate the ROI. Most marketers tend to look at engagement, traffic, and email sign-ups. These, good as they are, are not enough to get the total value unless turned to hard cash.
What Affects ROI
Branded content ROI is affected in many ways – both negative and positive. Several factors contribute to either outcome. When you think of adverse effects on content, the first has gone to be not using content.
It happens that there is much content that is paid for but is never actually used. If you lay it down statistically, around 70% of paid-for content by marketers is not used. This is money invested that has gone to total waste. But will still count as an investment.
When you do this, the ROI is pulled down, and you’re likely going to land in the red with this. The other thing that will negatively impact the ROI is when you have content, just sitting there. When you don’t invest time to share and promote the content, it’s a waste.
All published brand content needs a bit of push for it to be a hit – and maybe even go viral. If you share it, there are chances an influencer picks it or even a wider audience and has massive ROI. When there is enough exposure, sales are made.
Measuring ROI
When you want to measure a brand content’s ROI, you only need to check two factors that will determine success. The first is how much you spend on the whole campaign, and the second is the conversion.
For the first factor, check how much you’re spending on content creation, salaries for the campaign and the tools used because managing brand compliance comes to effect at this point as you have to do five things below:
- Creating a brand department
- Convince employees to get involved
- Test your communication material
- Check and recheck different branding on different products
- Use of software
Now to conversion rates after brand compliance, you need to check the amount you have put into the marketing process. It’s all a numbers game here; if you invest $200 for content, it should bring more.
If you have two customers who buy at $200 each, you’d have $200 in profit. And since you’ll be performing different campaigns, you can gauge each on how they bring in. For example, have a look at how much your blog is converting as opposed to other campaigns.
If social media ads aren’t bringing in the same ROI as the blog conversions, yet you put in the same amount for marketing, you can opt to stop. It would help if you were result-oriented here not to pump money where there are low returns.
- It may need time to see results, but have a time limit to gauge each campaign.
Branded content ROI is one of the most challenging aspects of marketing that can be hard to figure out. Several factors come into play, and different measures can be employed with branded content. The trick is to use conversion rates to figure out which one works better and which one doesn’t. If not, your ROI will be in the red, where you don’t want it to be.
