14 B2B Metrics: How to Measure the Effectiveness of B2B Content Marketing

 Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action [Content Marketing Institute].

Content marketing products can take the form of custom magazines, print or online newsletters, digital content, websites or microsites, white papers, webcasts/webinars, podcasts, video portals or series, in-person roadshows, roundtables, interactive online, email, events.

To achieve business goals such as: thought leadership, lead generation and  customer retention, B2B marketers use the multiple methods to measure effectiveness of content marketing:

1. Web traffic
2. Sales lead quality
3. Social media sharing
4. Sales quantity
5. Direct sales
6. Qualitative feedback from customers
7. SEO ranking
8. Time spent on website
9. Inbound links
10. Benchmark lift of company awareness
11. Increased customer loyalty
12. Benchmark lift of product/service awareness
13. Cross-selling
14. Cost savings

Source: Lee Odden via 100+ B2B Content Marketing Stats: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, & Trends Report

Photo Credit: By Leo Reynolds via Flickr