You’re measuring the wrong metric for content marketing

Many content marketers and founders get this wrong.

They think that organic traffic is the north-star metric for content marketing.

But in reality - usually, it isn’t.

Let me explain this by asking you a single question:

What’s the goal of your content? What are you trying to achieve?

Are you trying to improve your overall brand awareness?

In that case, organic traffic MIGHT be a good metric to follow.

But this is not the most common goal for many SaaS founders.

Or they think it is, but in reality, it isn’t.

So let me answer this question for you:

That’s it. Simple as that.

You’re using content as a medium to drive more conversions and sales.

There are two main ways to do this:

• By focusing on the ROI-led content marketing (First checkpoint goal are sales/demos/trials/free users) - this strategy speaks to people who are ready to buy solutions like yours pretty much immediately (they’re already looking for solutions to their problems). Still, they just yet don’t know about you.
• By growing your brand awareness with inspiring, thought leadership, educational content (first checkpoint goal is to grow your brand, which will later result in more sales/demos/trials/free users).

The first strategy is more appropriate for early or mid-stage SaaS brands since it quickly brings new leads.

In this case, your north-star metric is the amount of sales/leads/trials or free users that you’re getting.

The second strategy is more of a long-term game, and you should focus on it if you’re a mid or latter-stage company. It’s focused on building your overall brand and then later getting more leads.

In this case, your north-star metrics are:

• Direct traffic that comes to your website
• Newsletter subscription conversion rates
• Lead conversion rates

Now don’t get me wrong.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t track overall and organic traffic.

You should.

But it shouldn’t be the north-star metric.

You shouldn’t optimize your entire content marketing strategy towards getting more traffic.

It’s just a vanity metric.

To be honest, I would rather have 10.000 organic visitors each month and 500 conversions than 100.000 organic visitors and 500 conversions.

It takes me way fewer efforts to get 10k visitors and 500 conversions than 100k visitors and 500 conversions.

Create your strategy around the right metrics, and believe me, you’ll have more success with content marketing.

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