You’ve got a whole bunch of awesome content. People are commenting and liking your posts in hordes. You’ve figured that using cute cats in anything you write is well received. You start to wonder what your life would have been if you were a cat instead. Oh, distractions! You snap back into thinking about great content and wonder what’s the real impact of all this effort, all these likes and these cat memes.

Content marketing is an integral part of the marketing mix. As it continues to be able to demonstrate the value on business outcomes, it becomes a heavier and heavier investment.

To create content that people love and enjoy is probably the most important metric. But beyond that, how do you understand the value that it is driving for your business? What is a framework to think about the effectiveness about content marketing? What are the right metrics to use?

Goodbye likes and shares, hello pirate metrics.

I love the pirate metrics because it is so easy to understand, so intuitive and just badass.

Assuming you have setup all the right UTM tracking, let’s deep dive into the framework that I believe works for everyone – AAR (just like the pirates say it).

(A) Acquisition

How do your customers find you? How do they know about you? How do they end up subscribing to your future content? It’s the beginning of your relationship with them and you want to always be aware of what channels are driving this for you. Perhaps it’s word of mouth, conferences, sharing content on Facebook or tweeting quite often. Whatever works for you, it’s surely worth knowing the how.

(A) Activation

How do they first try your product? Or in many cases, what makes them tick? If you write a blog, how do you become a part of their weekly ritual? It’s probably the aha moment when they connect a particular subject matter to you.

(R) Retention

The holy grail of content? Having your users come back to you over and over again. You have brought them into the circle of value – always providing more and giving more.

Retention patterns are starting to understand who consistently comes to you and why but also why some people are not coming back. Retention is a great gauge for the lifetime value that you can provide to your readers and make your one time visit into a long lasting love story.

So, what does this all mean for me?

A) Write for each part of the funnel

You want to be sure that you are writing not just to acquire people, but also to activate – move them to their ‘aha moment’. Think about how different people are simultaneously moving through the funnel and be deliberate to write for each part of it.

B) Measure correctly

If you are not measuring, how will be you be able to understand the value of your work? Be sure to tag (all source, medium to the URLs) and measure all your content and understand the implications across the pirate metrics. Many times you might find that you have too wide an upper funnel and too narrow a lower funnel.

C) Problem solve for drop offs

The AAR framework will give you the ability to understand where people are dropping off in a very simplistic framework. Try to understand why perhaps a specific group of people aren’t coming back to your content pages and start perhaps catering to their needs or questions. A great starting point is to understand who is leaving and then test consistently to understand what makes them tick.

Pirate On: The AAR framework is a very versatile way of measuring the effectiveness of your content marketing. Spend 15 minutes to customise it for your business and you will be amazed by the laser sharpness that it gives to your entire content marketing strategy. Aye, Aye Captain?