Measures of Success

For the most part, I think we all know when we’re successful and when we’re not. Unfortunately, it’s usually not enough to simply “know something.” Ultimately, we need to be able to prove it, and that’s never been more true than it is today—especially in content marketing.

Without hesitation, I know I do good work. But how do I validate it? If asked for it, I could add up the articles I’ve worked on over a specific period and point to how many were published without errors or typos. But in the same way I know that people watching ads doesn’t equate to people purchasing products, I know that collecting a list of “clean” articles I’ve published isn’t the full picture for true success.

As a content creator, I’ve worn many different hats over the years, and I’m now very distanced from my early days as a beat reporter. That said, I think I’m as comfortable as I’m ever going to be with knowing that I’m now a line item on a budget sheet that doesn’t generate any revenue. But it's still a scary thought when I stop and really think about it.

It’s an interesting position to be in—one that companies pay good money for without really knowing what they’re going to get back in return. But as we’re all keenly aware, there’s never been more focus on ROI, and I find myself exploring the myriad ways I can define success and the return I actually do bring in.

As an editor, my first measure of success probably doesn’t matter to anyone but another editor: telling good stories without flaw or inconsistency. As someone working with digital content, I can expand my parameters to include things like page views, article shares and downloads. I can also look to social media: who’s commenting on articles, who’s “liked” a post about an article, or how many re-tweets a post about an article racks up.

But these off-the-cuff metrics are just the lede in the story. I could write pages about the different numbers I can extract from an array of programs about article traction and stickiness. But when we get right down to it, they’re just numbers. And that gets me thinking: Is an article that gets 5,000 views more successful than one that’s only viewed 200 times? At face value, it may be. But the truth is, the numbers aren’t writing any checks. And the bigger truth is that some content is going to be far more popular than others—and just because something is popular doesn’t mean it drives business. It does however, raise brand awareness, which falls into that success bucket that I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to quantify.

Interestingly, I’ve come across very few cases where popularity influences business. In more cases than not, the popular content fuels conversation and engagement more than corporate wallets. In my current role, I’ve only come across a few isolated situations where content has directly led to a sale. Additionally, I’ve found that the most popular content (via page views/social media shares) has pertained to industries and categories where there’s little opportunity for new business. That’s not to say that I’m opposed to posting an article that garners 20,000 page views and blows up across social media. I’m just not ready to believe that success and eyeballs are mutually exclusive.

My counterparts in communications have a completely different perspective about success. For them, success hinges on media coverage (or a lack of media coverage when something blows up in a negative way). Much like in my realm, communications professionals don’t generate any revenue or directly produce any business. That’s not to say that a big splash on the front page of the New York Times or a juicy feature in Adweek won’t get the execs charged up–they will. They’ll also be heralded as massive successes.

From where I sit, however, pitching a media outlet means giving up a story—putting something with significant value in someone else’s hands and hoping they do good by it. We really don’t know how the story will play out until it’s published. We can ask to fact check it ahead of time, but you never really know what the text is going to say until you read the published piece.

And to me, that’s a big risk. Like I said, it’s been a long time since I was a reporter, but there was never a time when I let someone hand me a story and run it as is. That would never happen. There was no way I was going to let someone else tell my story. Not only would that be bad journalism, it wouldn’t have sat well with me as a storyteller. With content marketing—as a brand journalist of sorts—I’m driving the story. I’m also in control of the timing. Not only do I not have to worry about having my words or storylines corrupted, I can move at my pace, not someone else’s.

So I can’t say which content is more successful. I can, however, see value in every piece of content because I know it gets views, social media traction and generates brand awareness. I also know that other brands are actively seeking to pay to use the content for their own thought leadership portals. So with all that said, maybe I’m closer to proving success than I thought I was.