4 Tips for Testing and Measuring Content Marketing Results

Many internet marketers underestimate the value of testing and measuring their content marketing results. But to do so is to blindly plan and create content that may or may not be what your target market is looking for. All that leads to is low ROI and burnout. Testing and measuring is the way new small businesses become trusted, big businesses. Taking the time to test and measure is one of the smartest things you can do for your business and yourself. Here are some tips for making testing and measuring your content marketing easier.

1. Pay attention — it’s easy to assume you know what your target market wants and needs likes and dislikes. But without paying attention to what they pay attention to on social media, in particular, you are wasting your time producing content. To grab their attention so that you can start really engaging with them, you have to hit the mark of what they find fascinating. Learn what type of content they share and comment on. Keep up with what topics are trending within your niche. Some great tools to get started with this are Twitonomy and Facebook Karma.
2. Try different things — you are going to have to take risks if you are going to be an internet marketer. Just because some tool or technique is shiny and new and seems to be working wonders for everyone else doesn’t mean that your market will respond to it. Likewise, sometimes things you don’t think will be a hit are. Make sure when you try new things you track how it works for you. If it does reasonably well, tweet it until it works great. If it’s a flop, shrug it off and try something else.
3. Spy on your competition — learn who the leaders in your industry are and then mimic them using your own style. Everyone does this–that industry leader that you spy on surely did the same thing. Find out what types of content they share a lot. What social networks are they on? What kind of content do they get the most engagement with? You can use tools like SEMrush and Social Mention to see what’s working for them so that you can start using it to work for you.
4. Create useful content — instead of focusing on producing a lot of content, focus on creating the right content. Take the time to develop content that wows your target audience. You might check out sites like Renoun.io and EpicBeat to create content that turns your fans into customers.

Spinning out useless content is a total waste of time. It will only exhaust you and bore your fans. It’s better to spend time planning, developing, testing and measuring content than to pump out endless amounts that aren’t hitting the mark. Put your energy there and watch the results and ROI improve.