We’ve heard it before: Folks reveling in a newly published video receiving record viewership numbers on Instagram, a published article getting endless engagements on LinkedIn, or perhaps a freshly-minted infographic sparking a social sharing frenzy on Facebook.
Sometimes these so-called “vanity metrics” truly do serve as great leading indicators of downstream incremental lifts in revenue. The financial results are certainly worthy of inspection and also worthy of praise when it is discovered that organic social posts or SEO-related content additions are validated as having yielded a positive impact to customer acquisition and revenue.
However, we need to take pause whenever we hear someone chime in with the claim that, “it was all free!” due to the absence of advertising spend. No, it was not actually free. Often managers do not keep a complete accounting (or perhaps even awareness) of the true costs involved in supporting these programs. Some “free” channel activities for which costs may go overlooked:
· Someone took the time to come up with the idea for the content: The often-invisible labor of taking ideas and morphing them into something remotely usable is seldom accounted for. This includes the labor of figuring out how to hang an idea on a specific brand attribute, value proposition, or other tangible aspect of the company to help this idea’s manifestation fit within the company’s past and future narrative.
· Someone took the time to storyboard the idea and come up with the content for this piece in exhaustive detail: The labor doesn’t stop at the mere idea. Someone must define how exactly the idea should take shape, elicit emotional responses, engage audience visual and auditory senses, and what type of narrative may be conveyed through the piece.
· Someone produced and edited the content*: Additional resources are needed to physically generate the content according to plan, which involved human labor, possibly time and materials, and perhaps the aid of software that otherwise is not required for the overall company’s operations. If done correctly, there was review (perhaps even legal review). There’s sometimes even a project management aspect to the development of many content pieces concurrently and over time.
*In fairness, some of the creative product can be salvaged and re-purposed for other uses in the future, perhaps in a more evergreen capacity or for paid ads.
· Someone scheduled, posted, and monitored the audience reactions to this content.
· Someone else took the time to analyze the results. At least we encourage people to do so with greater discipline and frequency — the thrust of this very post.
The habit of not accounting for the full scope of costs can also be observed when people discuss the success of their organic search program. To remain in good standing within the context of evolving Google Organic Search ranking algorithms, most organizations’ organic search channels require an ongoing investment in conscious SEO management to remain in the search engines’ good graces. Costs may be incurred in association with the following activities:
· Technical SEO Management
· Backlink Management
· Content Management
As for attributing success to their “free” channels’ content publishing, bear in mind that there were (or will be) other content pieces that required all of this very same labor, and perhaps generated no incremental revenue at all (and in fact, may have even had a negative impact). An intellectually honest assessment of “free” channels should ensure that incremental revenue is aggregated across the entire program and that the costs of content ideation, creation, production, review, publishing, analysis, strategic project management, and other ancillary costs are burdened appropriately.
Content marketing and distribution via organic social and web channels should be an ROI positive component of your overarching marketing strategy; we simply advocate for better measurement and analysis!
In applying this additional rigor to understanding the ROI of “free” channels, we hope that marketing leaders make better-informed decisions about how to allocate the investments in staffing, tools, and other resource considerations in support of all programs within their purview. If you have questions or need assistance with crafting a marketing strategy that leverages this approach to meet your overall performance goals – inclusive of operational considerations – AB Growth Marketing is always here to help!