Marketers who rate themselves as effective make sure at least 37% of their budgets go toward their content and content goals.
The problem:
How do you explain the ROI of content marketing in a way that’s immediately understandable to people who aren’t you?
Important people like…
Clients
Executives
Stakeholders
Business partners
Instead of putting these key players to sleep with a long list of incomprehensible stats, you need to be more persuasive.
We put together a guide that might help you, with formulas based on realscenarios, and language that even the toughest boss will understand (ROI speaks for itself!). This piece was a collaborative team effort between myself, our lead Content Strategist JJ, our creative full-time writer, Alyssa, and our amazing designer.
Please share if you enjoyed this infographic. Let’s spread the word about content marketing ROI! And, we’d love to hear in the comments what you think!
The ROI of Content Marketing: In Numbers Everyone Understands and With a Case Study (Infographic)
Explaining the ROI of Content Strategy Through Numbers Everyone Understands (Infographic)
The way to make a client’s or high-level executive’s ears perk up when you talk about content marketing is not by showing them examples of others’ success.
Instead:
They want to know how this strategy will help THEM.
They want to hear about the dollars, cents, and ROI THEY will get.
How do you estimate what this will be?
You need the Content Marketing Trifecta.
The Content Marketing Trifecta: Earned Traffic = High Quality Leads = Sales
A great content marketing benchmark to use for estimating dollar signs is conversions.
At its most basic level, content marketing’s main goal is to drive targeted traffic to a website, where that traffic is converted into high quality leads. These leads are thenconverted to sales.
Earned traffic, high quality leads & sales.
This is a simplification, but that’s the goal.
We need to translate conversions into dollar signs, A.K.A. speak the most simple yet persuasive language for key players to get on board.
The Benchmark Numbers
How do we compute the ROI associated with conversions from content marketing? We need some benchmark numbers.
We need to know:
The average rate at which targeted traffic coming into a website converts to high quality leads
The average rate that those leads convert into sales
16% Traffic & Leads
According to Marketing Sherpa, the average rate for converting traffic to leads across industries is 16%.
14% Leads & Sales
SEO leads convert at a higher rate than outbound methods, like paid advertising.
Studies have shown that leads generated from SEO have an average close rate of 14%, while outbound-generated leads have a close rate of 2%.
The Content Marketing Trifecta Equation
Using our benchmark numbers and monthly traffic numbers, we can plug them into an equation that will estimate how many leads and sales we can expect to see per month using content marketing.
Monthly Visitors x 16% Organic Traffic to Lead Conversion Rate = X Leads/Month
X Leads/Month x 14% Lead to Sale Conversion Rate = X Sales/Month
Example Scenario
If Business A gets 1,000 visitors to their website monthly:
1,000 Visitors x 16% = 160 Leads/Month
160 Leads x 14% = 22.4 Sales/Month
According to average conversion rates, out of 1,000 visitors in website traffic per month, Business A could expect 160 leads and 22.4 sales per month if they use content marketing.
Judging the Content Marketing Trifecta Equation Against Real Numbers: Case Study
To show how well the equation holds up in real life, let’s compare actual results with what the equation predicts.
The monthly traffic for Express Writers in January 2018 was about 15,470.
15,470 Monthly Visitors x 16% = 2,475 Leads
2,475 Leads x 14% = 346 Sales
Do the numbers hold up?
Expected: 346 orders
Actual: 289 orders
While we did come up 57 orders short of the expected total, this was a deliberate move for 2018 as we have shifted our focus to serving only clients who we believe are the right fit.
Due to this shift in focus, our average order size for January 2018 was $416 (new record for us at EW).
3 Steps to Explain the ROI of Content Strategy to Clients and Superiors
You’ve got some good numbers up your sleeve that are immediately understandable and persuasive for higher-ups and clients. This will help push them toward investing in content strategy.
Now it’s time to pull it all together.
1. How Will Evergreen Content Make Their Garden Grow?
Organic traffic from content marketing will help a business’ garden plot grow lush and thriving – think lots of green growing on that money tree.
The evergreen effect makes it possible:
According to a SEMrush traffic analysis, Express Writers earns 22.1k visitors in monthly organic traffic.
Our evergreen content pieces do most of that legwork.
If we didn’t have an evergreen content strategy in place, SEMrush estimates that we’d have to pay $45,400/month on Google AdWords (over $500,000/year!) to achieve the same results.
2. What Will They Need to Fertilize Their Content Soil for ROI?
In content marketing, to get the green rolling in, it takes some investment up front.
How do you fertilize the content soil to grow your business garden? What must be put into content marketing at the outset to see your efforts grow tall?
Example:
Estimate what you’re willing to invest.
If you outsource to a copywriting agency like Express Writers, the cost would average about $375 for one authority content piece.
If you commit to one piece per week, that’s an investment of about $19,500/year.
How does this investment shake out?
If we focus on low competition, high volume keywords, we could safely estimate ranking 3rd place in Google results within a year for 2/3 of those keywords (around 34 out of 52).
Assuming those keywords had a search volume of 1,500/month each, we could expect a click-thru rate of 13.4%, according to Ignite Visibility.
We’d also get an overallsearch volume of 51,000 (34 keywords x 1,500 monthly search volume) and an average of 6,701 visitors per month (51,000 total search volume x 13.4% click-thru rate).
Why is this investment better
According to the numbers, we would pay $19,500 per year (or $1,625/month) to reach 6,701 visitors per month.
To get the same amount of traffic with paid advertising, we would have to spend around $17,000 per month, according to SEMrush data.
That’s 10x more expensive.
That means investing in organic content marketing is 10x cheaper than paid advertising.
How does this investment translate to leads and sales?
Use our content marketing trifecta equation to predict the leads and sales you’ll get from that traffic influx of 6,701 visitors per month.
6,701 Monthly Visitors x 16% Organic Traffic to Lead Conversion Rate = 1,072 Leads/Month
1,072 Leads/Month x 14% Lead to Sale Conversion Rate = 150 Sales/Month
3. Show Them the Green
Once you understand the potential leads and sales your business could earn per month, you need to show your clients/bosses/higher-ups/stakeholders the green.
Pull the numbers together to illustrate the revenue potential of content marketing
Show them what they must invest to see real ROI
Compare what they’d have to spend on paid advertising versus getting the same results with organic content marketing
Show them what the ROI looks like in the form of potential leads, sales, and increased revenue
Once your key decision-makers can see the green potential for themselves and their business, it’s in the bag.
They’re buying content and are, at the very least, satisfied with your services.
But there’s a problem.
While you’re getting clients to purchase, the content they’re buying is always of the general variety. The type of stuff where the margins are low and the stress is high.
You and your staff are constantly grinding out huge quantities of content.
Your writers are getting burnt out, you’re getting burnt out, and you may even be wondering if all the stress is worth it.
And while this is a scenario that plays out for agencies around the world, I want you to know that it’s possible to turn things around.
It’s possible to go from an agency grinding out low margin content to one that consistently earns content orders with high margins and happy clients.
How do I know it’s possible?
Because it’s exactly what we’ve done at Express Writers.
And I’m going to show you the strategies we used to do it.
How to Sell Your Clients on Buying Better Content (Higher Level Experts, Higher Spend)
1. Provide Immediate Value
One of the most difficult aspects of selling content to clients is the fact that, no matter how good your content is, a long term approach is necessary to maximize success.
Unfortunately, not too many businesses have the patience to commit to a long term marketing strategy.
Your clients want value in the short term AND long term. But how can you accomplish both?
“Nobody is going to invest additional resources in your agency until you’ve proven that you can deliver tangible results for their business. To set yourself up for a long and mutually beneficial relationship with a client, you should focus on providing quick wins as soon as possible.”
But how exactly are you supposed to prove that you can deliver tangible results and quick wins if your clients are ordering general content?
Well, at EW, we do it by offering free content strategy sessions.
Anyone, from business owners and agencies to entrepreneurs and bloggers, have the opportunity to book a call with our Content Strategist.
Advice on the direction their content strategy should take
Assistance identifying realistic goals for their content
Answers to their content related questions
Guidance on what type of content will help them achieve their goals
And not only does this session provide immediate value and a ‘quick win’ for the client, but it helps cultivate the trust necessary to develop a long term relationship.
Takeaway: Provide your clients with ‘quick wins’ that will make them more apt to invest in better content.
2. Help Clients Accomplish Current Goals and Work to Build Bigger Goals
When a potential client comes to you to buy content, they’re likely to be at one of the following stages:
Beginner to Content Marketing. This client has recently become convinced that content marketing can yield real results for their business and are ready to give it a go. It’s likely, however, that they don’t really know how or where to get started.
Semi-Experienced. This client has been blogging for a few months but is getting frustrated at a lack of results. They know content marketing can work, they just don’t know how to make it work.
Experienced. This client has been participating in content marketing for over a year and knows exactly what they want. They’re looking to free up time in-house by outsourcing their content to capable writers.
Knowing that these are the types of clients that you’re going to be dealing with, it’s important to know how to handle each situation for the benefit of both sides.
Because, as we’ve already identified, nobody is going to invest additional resources unless you’ve already proven to them that you can deliver tangible results.
But there’s also another element to this. As the authors of Marketing Metrics tell us,
“The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%. The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%.”
With this information, we can conclude that the best way to sell better content to clients is to first turn them into a customer and help them accomplish their initial goals.
At EW, we do this by making sure that we understand their current goals and only offer content that helps them accomplish those goals.
Let’s take a look at how we might do this when encountering a beginner to content marketing:
1. Set Them Up On a Call With Our Content Strategist. We’ll discuss their goals as it relates to content and provide suggestions for a strategy that can help them accomplish those goals.
2. Talk to Them About the Types of Content We Offer That Can Help. We’ll continue communicating with them after the call, via email or live chat, and identify the types of content we offer that can help. For example, if they’re looking to use content to build an email list, we might point them towards an ebook that can be used as a ‘freebie’ on opt-in forms.
3. Continue Offering Support as Needed. We’ll continue offering our support and suggesting content services that are relevant to their goals.
As this relationship continues, and they begin to work their way towards their goals, they start to see us as a partner rather than a business that’s selling something to them.
And, at this point, we’re now in prime position to help them identify bigger goals that allow them to further scale their business through content marketing (which therefore leads to us being able to offer better content to help them accomplish those new goals).
While we may take a similar approach with semi-experienced and experienced clients, they’re much more apt to have goals that require better content in order to accomplish them.
So, if their goal would be to generate more organic traffic, our content strategist may identify that accomplishing it means consistently publishing expert level blogs.
And, as our relationship grows and bigger goals are identified, accomplishing them may mean moving from expert level to authority level content.
Takeaway: Focus on helping your clients accomplish their current goals first and, as time goes on, help them identify bigger goals that require better content.
3. Offer Social Proof & Present Case Studies
At this point, the strategies outlined have been focused on a long term approach.
And while it’s important to understand that developing long term relationships is key, offering social proof is a strategy that can expedite the process.
Let’s revisit Karla Cook’s quote from earlier where she mentioned,
“Nobody is going to invest additional resources in your agency until you’ve proven that you can deliver tangible results for their business.”
While this is true, social proof presents an opportunity for you to prove that you can deliver tangible results for their business without actually doing it for their business.
So, if you’re able to prove to potential clients that other, similar people, have had a successful experience with your brand, you’ve now proven that you can do it for their business as well.
At EW, we provide social proof two ways. The first is through testimonials from people that are similar to our target clients:
When they see the success we’ve had with other similar agencies and businesses, they come to us with a ‘I want what they got’ mentality.
And, since our most successful clients generally order expert content, it puts us in a position to offer better content from the start.
Since our target client is agencies that need content for clients or their own site, and we’re an agency ourselves, they’re able to relate to our story about how we used high-level content to build Express Writers.
And, in addition to our own story, we feature case studies of other agencies that we’ve helped.
This type of social proof, from an agency similar to our target client, helps us prove that we can help other agencies achieve the same results.
Takeaway: Once you’ve helped other clients achieve their goals with high level content, use case studies and testimonials for social proof to convince new clients that you can do the same for them.
Focus on Building Long Term Relationships
If you want to convince your clients to buy better content, it starts with a focus on building relationships first.
Position yourself as a partner that’s helping them achieve their goals instead of a convenient business where they can make a one-stop purchase.
At the end of the day, that’s the key to selling better, high margin content.
If you’re an agency that would like help creating high level content for your clients, get in touch with our Agency Specialist. We’ve helped dozens of agencies increase their revenue and would love to do the same for you.
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