Why it’s Important to Review your Digital Content Marketing Activities

Time seems to move quickly in the world of digital, by the time you have finished working on one content marketing campaign, you’re straight onto the next. Brainstorm sessions are full of bright eyed marketers with the next ‘big idea’ and clients eagerly anticipating your next awesome move. You may feel like you’re ready to jump straight into the next project, but are you?

“If you have not looked back, can you look forward?”

In life we are told we shouldn’t look back if we want to move forward, however this is not something we apply to marketing. Looking back objectively allows us to learn from past mistakes or successes and take them into consideration when planning for a new content marketing strategy.

So where do you start?

The Who, what, where and why of content marketing

Look at who it was produced for, collate what work was produced, where it was shared/covered/talked about and why you did it (the end goal and KPIs). This is the base of the review, you are looking to see if the work which was completed matched the client brief and review KPIs to see if the goals set were achieved.

Asking the (tough) questions

How do you find answers to your questions? You can use a survey or questionnaire. For us, we have found one of the most effective ways to initially gain feedback from clients is through a questionnaire that is tailored to enable us to extract the information we need from clients such as what they think content marketing is and their goals from content marketing. We also want to find out more about the brand, some background information including their target markets and the type of content they do and don’t want us to produce.

This is the base when starting out with a client, but also important to follow up on as you review the work you do for them. Client goals change, perceptions change and how they want to work with you can also change, based on success or failings of previous work undertaken. So it’s important to ask these questions again before starting out on a new content marketing strategy. And the tough questions?

• Are you happy with the topic content we have been focusing on?
• Did the content marketing strategy we produced meet your expectations?
• If so, what aspects and why?
• If not, which aspects and why?

Nobody likes to receive negative feedback, however to move forward it is necessary from a marketing point of view and from a client relationship point of view. Sometimes it’s easier just as ask blunt questions outright.

And now for the team

One of the best sources of information to help review content marketing is your team; internal reviews of the work conducted for clients allows you to find out the details on the work completed. Look at communication, timescales, costings for the work and overall thought on the content marketing from your team.

Questions to ask

• Was there a good spread of content types and topics? Did you focus too much on one-time content? Do you need to look at focusing more on evergreen content?
• Was your content too niche? Did you struggle to gain interest outside of the market?
• Did the content engage with target markets?
• Were you easily able to measure KPIs and meet the goals set?
• What was feedback like from people you sent your content too?

It is hard to be objective with your own work, you can easily be precious about the amazing content you created, so it does also help to have others who are not actively involved to add in an objective view. You might just have to be prepared to grow a thicker skin.

The next step

What’s the competition doing?

So you have looked back at what you have done, before you move on to the next chapter, it’s time to also review what competitors have done. Competitor analysis is something undertaken when working with a new client for the first time or as a brand when you are just starting out with content marketing. It’s also an important aspect of reviewing and reporting before you start your next strategy, keeping an eye on what content marketing your client’s competitors or yours are doing.

What’s new?

It’s always good to ask: “What’s the next big thing in content marketing?” Look for top digital trends for the year and success stories from other content marketers. The tried and tested content marketing activities such as PR, infographics, Facebook and Twitter campaigns and videos are always good to rely on, but what’s next? This is something all good content marketers ask and with a quick Google search you will be able to reap a good number of answers. You want to be a leader not a follower when it comes to producing successful content marketing strategies, you want people to ask what is XXX doing? What new techniques are they using?

And so onto reporting

With a wealth of data to hand, you want to be able to share, show and learn from it all. Creating a content marketing review report is the best way to showcase all your wonderful bits of data and insights. Whether it’s with a formal report layout or something a bit more fun, it’s entirely up to you. Documents can be created purely for internal resources, however we feel it is beneficial for your clients to be able to understand where you’re coming from when pitching the next strategy for them, so it’s always worth writing the report with these two parties in mind.

So for your next content marketing strategy meeting or brainstorming session, your team will be armed with the goals, data and information needed to create an awesome content marketing strategy.