It’s no longer enough to create content, pop it onto your website, and hope it attracts mission-appropriate students and families to your school. You must have a content strategy in place to create and distribute content effectively. Many teams have created such a strategy but forget an extremely important aspect—measurement and analytics.
Measurement and analytics refer to a better understanding of what content your audience gravitates toward and what actually drives inquiries—and maybe even enrollment. Measurement can help prove return on investment (ROI), helping marketing professionals understand which activities prove fruitful and support their goals. And, according to Hubspot’s 2017 State of Inbound report, proving the ROI of marketing activities is a top concern for marketers across all industries and geographies.
Technological advancements allow marketers today to measure website performance and ROI more granularly than ever before. But if you’re not currently measuring anything at all, or measuring intermittently, here are a few basic tips to get started. Once you’ve begun the process, you can analyze the data you’ve collected and see trends over time.
Collect website metrics
Your first order of business is to see the number of views, clicks, and interactions each piece of content on your website receives. A common web analytics tool is Google Analytics. You could also use information from Twitter and Facebook to measure referral clicks to your content.
Analyze your findings
Look at the data you’ve collected, especially as they’ve trended over the past month, six months, or a year. Which content has garnered the most views? What content has driven the most clicks? Did a specific piece of content promote a call to action for the reader to get more information about your school? How many followed through? This analysis helps you understand what content is effective, what topics attract readers, and where you can focus your efforts to earn the most bang for your marketing buck.
Fill content gaps
Now that you’ve discovered the types of content that receive the most views, clicks, and possibly conversions, it’s time to create. Focus on presenting popular topics across different mediums—such as blog posts, podcasts, and videos—to see if one platform performs better than the others.
Repeat
Continue the process of creating content, analyzing performance, and optimizing your strategy based on what’s most effective. Following these steps helps ensure you create content that resonates with your audience and drives them to action.
Measurement can often be an overlooked part of the content creation process but is one of the most important—and can make a big difference in the ROI of your content strategy.
Additional ISM Resources:
The Source for Advancement Vol. 15 No. 5 Your School’s Newsletter: Is It Informational or Considered Junk Mail?
The Source for Advancement Vol. 16 No. 4 Small Tweaks That Can Make a Big Impact on Your Website
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 41 No. 7 The Marketing Communications Director: The School’s Bridge
I&P Vol. 40 No. 10 Marketing Communications and the Student
