Content marketing is THIS effective: - Content marketers get 6x more website conversions than non-adopters. - Marketers who rate themselves as effective make sure at least 37% of their budgets go toward their content and content goals. But the problem: How do you explain the ROI of content marketing in a way that’s immediately understandable to people who aren’t you? We're here to help. This infographic will {FINALLY} help you solve the content marketing buy-in problem with important people like… Clients Executives Stakeholders Business partners Instead of putting these key players to sleep with a long list of icky stats, you need to be more persuasive. We put together a guide that might help you, with formulas based on real scenarios, and language that even the toughest boss will understand (ROI speaks!). This piece was a collaborative team effort. See more here: https://expresswriters.com/the-roi-of-content-marketing/ Follow the Write Blog: https://expresswriters.com/write-blog

1. EXPLAINING THE ROI
OF CONTENT STRATEGY
THROUGH NUMBERS EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS
THE CONTENT MARKETING TRIFECTA:
EARNED TRAFFIC = HIGH
QUALITY LEADS = SALES
3 STEPS TO EXPLAIN
THE ROI OF CONTENT STRATEGY
TO CLIENTS AND SUPERIORS
Need great content
for your marketing?
Let our strategic team serve you.
SOURCES:
https://neilpatel.com/blog/38-content-marketing-stats-that-every-marketer-needs-to-know/
https://www.slideshare.net/CMI/mastering-the-buyin-conversation-
on-content-marketing-the-essential-starter-kit/15-The_B2B_marketers_who_ratethemselves
https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/conversion-rates-organic-traffic
https://www.business2community.com/brandviews/shelley-media-arts/70-seo-statistics-prove-
power-search-01946881
https://ignitevisibility.com/ctr-google-2017/
e x p r e s s w r i t e r s . c o m / c o n t e n t - s h o p
THE PROBLEM:
How do you explain
the ROI of content
marketing in a way that’s
immediately understandable
to people who aren’t you?
Important people like…
THE ROI OF
CONTENT
MARKETING
Content marketing is effective – but you certainly don’t
need convincing. You already know how good it is:
The way to make a client’s or high-level executive’s ears
perk up when you talk about content marketing is not by showing
them examples of others’ success. Instead:
A great content marketing
benchmark to use for estimating
dollar signs is conversions.
At its most basic level, content
marketing’s main goal is to drive
targeted traffic to a website, where
that traffic is converted into high
quality leads. These leads are then
converted to sales.
They want to hear about the dollars,
cents, and ROI THEY will get.
They want to know how this
strategy will help THEM.
• Content marketers get 6x more website
conversions than non-adopters.
• Marketers who rate themselves as
effective make sure at least 37% of their
budgets go toward their content and
content goals.
Instead of putting these key players to sleep
with a long list of incomprehensible stats,
you need to be more persuasive. Here’s how.
• CLIENTS
• EXECUTIVES
• STAKEHOLDERS
• BUSINESS
PARTNERS
How do you estimate what this will be?
You need the Content Marketing Trifecta.
• Earned traffic & high
quality leads & sales.
• This is a simplification,
but that’s the goal.
• We need to translate
conversions into dollar
signs, A.K.A. speak the
most simple yet persua-
sive language for key
players to get on board.
THE BENCHMARK
NUMBERS
16% TRAFFIC & LEADS
• According to Marketing Sherpa, the
average rate for converting traffic to
leads across industries is 16%.
14% LEADS & SALES
• SEO leads convert at a higher rate
than outbound methods, like paid
advertising.
• Studies have shown that leads
generated from SEO have an average
close rate of 14%, while outbound-
generated leads have a close rate
of 2%.
How do we compute the ROI associated with conversions from content
marketing? We need some benchmark numbers. We need to know:
• The average rate at which targeted traffic coming into
a website converts to high quality leads.
• The average rate that those leads convert into sales.
The Content Marketing
TRIFECTA EQUATION
Using our benchmark numbers and monthly traffic numbers, we can plug
them into an equation that will estimate how many leads and sales we can
expect to see per month using content marketing.
• Monthly Visitors x 16% Organic Traffic
to Lead Conversion Rate = X Leads/Month
• X Leads/Month x 14% Lead to Sale
Conversion Rate = X Sales/Month
EXAMPLE SCENARIO
If Business A gets 1,000 visitors to their website monthly:
1,000 Visitors x 16% = 160 Leads/Month
160 Leads x 14% = 22.4 Sales/Month
According to average conversion rates, out of 1,000 visitors
in website traffic per month, Business A could expect 160 leads
and 22.4 sales per month if they use content marketing.
JUDGING THE
CONTENT MARKETING
TRIFECTA EQUATION
AGAINST REAL NUMBERS: CASE STUDY
- While we did come up 57
orders short of the expected
total, this was a deliberate
move for 2018 as we have
shifted our focus to serving
only clients who we believe
are the right fit.
- Due to this shift in focus,
our average order size for
January 2018 was $416 (new
record for us at EW).
You’ve got some good numbers up your sleeve that are immediately
understandable and persuasive for higher-ups and clients.
This will help push them toward investing in content strategy.
Now it’s time to pull it all together.
Organic traffic from content marketing will help a business’ garden
plot grow lush and thriving – think lots of green growing on that money tree.
The evergreen effect makes it possible:
• According to a SEMrush traffic analysis,
Express Writers earns 22.1k visitors in
monthly organic traffic.
• Our evergreen content pieces do most
of that legwork.
• If we didn’t have an evergreen content
strategy in place, SEMrush estimates
that we’d have to pay $45,400/month
on Google AdWords (over $500,000/
year!) to achieve the same results.
HOW WILL EVERGREEN CONTENT
MAKE THEIR GARDEN GROW?1.
Once you understand the potential leads and sales your business could earn per
month, you need to show your clients/bosses/higher-ups/stakeholders the green.
• Pull the numbers together to illustrate
the revenue potential of content
marketing.
• Show them what they must invest to
see real ROI.
• Compare what they’d have to spend
on paid advertising versus getting
the same results with organic content
marketing.
• Show them what the ROI looks like in
the form of potential leads, sales, and
increased revenue.
SHOW THEM THE GREEN3.
In content marketing, to get the green rolling in, it takes some investment
up front. How do you fertilize the content soil to grow your business garden?
What must be put into content marketing at the outset to see your efforts
grow tall?
WHAT WILL THEY NEED TO FERTILIZE
THEIR CONTENT SOIL FOR ROI?2.
EXAMPLE:
Estimate what you’re willing to invest.
• If you outsource to a copywriting agency like
Express Writers, the cost would average about
$375 for one authority content piece.
• If you commit to one piece per week, that’s an
investment of about $19,500/year.
How does this investment shake out?
• If we focus on low competition, high volume
keywords, we could safely estimate ranking
3rd place in Google results within a year for
2/3 of those keywords (around 34 out of 52).
• Assuming those keywords had a search volume
of 1,500/month each, we could expect a click-
thru rate of 13.4% according to Ignite Visibility.
• We’d also get an overall search volume of
51,000 (34 keywords x 1,500 monthly search
volume) and an average of 6,701 visitors per
month (51,000 total search volume x 13.4%
click-thru rate).
How does this investment translate
to leads and sales?
• Use our content marketing trifecta equation
to predict the leads and sales you’ll get from
that traffic influx of 6,701 visitors per month.
• 6,701 Monthly Visitors x 16% Organic Traffic to
Lead Conversion Rate = 1,072 Leads/Month
• 1,072 Leads/Month x 14% Lead to Sale
Conversion Rate = 150 Sales/Month
Why is this investment better?
• According to the numbers, we would pay
$19,500 per year (or $1,625/month) to reach
6,701 visitors per month.
• To get the same amount of traffic with paid
advertising, we would have to spend around
$17,000 per month, according to SEMrush data.
• That’s 10x more expensive.
• That means investing in organic content mar-
keting is 10x cheaper than paid advertising.
Once your key decision-makers can see the green potential
for themselves and their business, it’s in the bag.
To show how well the equation holds up in real life, let’s
compare actual results with what the equation predicts.
• The monthly traffic for Express Writers
in January 2018 was about 15,470.
• 15,470 Monthly Visitors x 16% = 2,475 Leads
• 2,475 Leads x 14% = 346 Sales
DO THE NUMBERS
HOLD UP?
• Expected: 346 orders
• Actual: 289 orders
THE ROI OF
CONTENT
MARKETING(In Numbers Everyone Understands
and With a Case Study)