BusinessContent marketing Metrics: What It Is and How to Use It By Chris GreenwaltyDecember 19, 2022 Content marketing As a marketer constantly looking for ways to deliver more value to clients through your industry, you understand how to deliver a powerful digital experience using content marketing, and even your industry. How to use inbound and content marketing strategies to grow great. Now, it’s time for innovation, and you have all these ideas that you’re throwing out. The crowd thinks they’re great and maybe this marketing thing is starting to make more sense. But take a look at your analytics, and all that enthusiasm goes up in smoke. Because with content marketing, it’s sufficient not to simply connect great ideas. It’s also important to make sure these great ideas are relevant to your target crowd—and that’s where content marketing metrics (aka content metrics) come in. What are content marketing metrics? Content marketing matrix is a planning tool that helps you map your content inventory and content ideation to meet specific client assists at different stages of their buyer’s journey. This helps highlight what content is most relevant to the client based on their stage of purchase. It’s just like matchmaking, only this time, it’s between users and content. For example, a content marketing matrix will help a pet store owner know not to serve clients who are still deciding on the “best food choices for growing dogs.” ” content like what kind of pet to get. As defined and originally designed by Smart Insights, the Content Marketing Matrix is a content marketing planning tool that helps marketers generate ideas for the types of content most engaging to their crowd. I help. But just knowing what content marketing metrics are doesn’t make you a pro. Like all good marketers, your mind is probably buzzing with a few questions right now – and that’s okay because we have the answers. Should you be using content marketing metrics or a content inventory? Before answering that question, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page with the terms we’ll be considering here. As the name suggests, your content inventory is a collection of what content is on your website, from articles and videos to images and PDF files. Example: A woman is standing in front of a computer screen with a clipboard. She is taking inventory of her company’s digital assets. If you’re new to this and wondering why you need to review your content, it’s for the same reason every business takes stock of its products – to act on the data. Invented content is then reviewed to address issues that arise, update, or even contribute to the overall content marketing strategy. This is called a material audit and is used in conjunction with a material inventory. Now that you’ve reviewed your content and conducted a content audit to find flaws that could be improved, you can use content marketing metrics to turn that data into rewarding actions. So the answer to the question is not whether you should use one or the other, but whether you should use them together. How to use content marketing metrics? Now that you’re clear on what content marketing metrics are and how they relate to your content inventory, let’s talk about how it works. We’ll look at the main features of content metrics and help you understand each one and how they apply to your industry or image. The Four Quadrants: Determining Your Content’s Purpose The content marketing matrix describes the four primary purposes of content: to entertain, educate, inspire, or persuade. Let’s see what each might mean for you. For entertainment: Everyone loves a good voice! Content created to entertain your target crowd doesn’t necessarily directly sell a product. But it can excite and provoke a positive reaction that makes people feel emotionally connected to your industry or brand. To motivate: Inspirational content is also emotionally connected, but in a way that motivates your target audience towards making a purchase decision. For education: This is a favorite of almost every marketer because it’s a great place to demonstrate subject matter expertise. Content designed for education is usually more rational, aiming to provide a solution to a challenge faced by the target crowd. Persuasive: Persuasive content is usually where all the hard work pays off. Its purpose is to encourage your target audience to take the final step to complete the purchase. Content in this quadrant typically includes facts, figures, and analytics to appeal to your product or service’s advantages and rational audience interests. Check out this Stormed blog post to further understand the purpose of your content and decide what works best for you.