Hi Reader,

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Happy Friday! I'm back to pick up where I left off last week with Part 2 of our series about... how to know if your content is actually working.

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I've been on a content bender lately, I guess you could say. If you've missed any of the emails, read them here:

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• ​Do you need to niche down in your business for content creation?​
• ​How do you find content ideas anyway?​
• ​How do you know your content actually works (Part 1 of 3)?​

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Here's a quick refresher on what we talked about last week before we jump right into it...

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When you're measuring the effectiveness of your content, you've gotta understand that content analysis falls in line with the marketing funnel.

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Why? Because you should be creating content for each stage of the funnel.

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Why? Because not only does the funnel exist for your business, but each person you come into contact with is also in their own imaginary funnel that follows the same stages.

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Everything aligns - between your business offers (services or products), your content, and the potential client or customer who just came across your path.

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As a refresher, here are the stages of that funnel:

• Awareness - as it relates to content, this is stuff you share that explores the behind-the-scenes of your life/business, introduces people to your values and beliefs, and shares your story. As it relates to the customer journey, people in an "awareness" phase are just becoming aware they have a desire you can fulfill and they're looking for more information on what that even means in their life.

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• Consideration, aka Growth - as it relates to content, these are things that show your authority as a business owner, teach the specifics around what you do, and get people talking with one another and sharing your content. As it relates to the customer journey, people in the "consideration" phase have finally been able to determine they have a specific desire that you + several other options can potentially fulfill. They're trying to narrow down their choice (hopefully it's you!).

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• Purchase, aka Promotion - as it relates to content, this is stuff where you plainly state what you offer, provide testimonials and make it super easy for someone to become a client or customer. And in the customer journey, this is when that person finally decides you're the best choice for them and they buy!

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This is why having touch points / content at every stage of the funnel is so important.

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And it's also why measuring your content is NOT so simple as "Hey, I got 31 likes on that post... it worked!" because there are specific metrics to track at every stage.

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When you start tracking those, you'll get a snapshot of the health of your funnel - and you'll be able to pinpoint specific areas you need to optimize.

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For example, after last week's email about Awareness Metrics, maybe you went to your content and checked out engagement rate for the last 2 weeks on your posts (read the email linked above to find out what engagement rate is and how to figure it out). That helped you realized the topics of X, Y, and Z are best on social media.

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Now you can zero in on those more regularly.

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And that brings us today... the content metrics to track for the Consideration / Growth phase of the funnel.

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Similar to Awareness, you're still going to be looking at social media content and website content except, you're specifically going to be zero'ing in on how many interactions or website visits turned into something like:

• An email sign-up
• A discovery call booked
• A contact form submitted
• Sending you a direct or private message on social media with the intent to learn more about what you do
• Leaving a comment on a piece of content asking you to reach out to them for more information about what you do

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And so on.

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Consideration / Growth phase is content designed to move someone closer to taking that ultimate action you'd like to see (becoming a client or customer).

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When someone interacts with content in this phase, they're looking for answers.

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Specifically, they're trying to learn:

• More about what your business does (less about you as a person at this point... that's what Awareness is for)
• More about how your business can make their life better
• More about the way you work with people

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So, this type of content really focuses on sharing information/expertise and authority.

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A great example of this type of content is the quintessential "swipe to read" carousel style post that breaks down a complex subject in sequential text images.

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Another great example of this is a piece of content sharing about a recent interview someone had where they got to talk about their expertise.

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Or, another example could be a free resource you offer that someone can only receive if they join your email list. Ideally, that free resources gives them more information, helps them associate their desire with your business, and shows them what to do next to fulfill that desire by working with you.

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Which means when you're measuring its effectiveness, you must zero in on directly connecting the Consideration content with an ACTION.

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How do you do that? Through attribution.

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Attribution is a marketing term that refers to the ability to connect one action to a prior action. Or one step to a prior step.

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For example, when I run ads, I want to know what ad generated sales - the pixel is my attribution method because it connects those 2 pieces together and tells me which ad caused sales and which did not.

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You can set up a similar flow of attribution with your content. But you have to be super purposeful about it.

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Before I explain more in depth, one thing to note: this really only applies when you're trying to attribute something like a social, blog, video or podcast content piece to something like an email signup, discovery call submission, etc.

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In other words, when you want one channel to connect the actions of the consumer to another channel - "I want to know how many podcast listeners from this episode downloaded my free resource."

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Or... "I want to know how many social media impressions on this post resulted in a discovery call form filled out."

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This isn't as important for things like comments and DMs because the post or content piece itself will report that information - it has innate attribution as a result.

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Okay, so here's how you get attribution set up for your consideration phase content, so you can measure the effectiveness of it:

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First - choose a channel to measure: social, blog, podcast, etc. Just start with one. Since we've been talking about social, let's stick with that for our example.

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Second - choose your action you want attributed. You can only measure 1 action at a time, for a certain period of time.

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Some examples are:

• Asking people to fill out a discovery call form
• Asking people to go to a blog post and download a free resource
• Asking people to fill out a contact form

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I said you can only do 1 action at a time for a certain period of time because it's a bad practice to have MANY calls-to-action on your social, blog, videos, podcasts, etc.

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Too many CTAs = confusion and no action.

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I'm not a fan of those Linktree sites for this reason. It's just too many options on one menu for people to find the actions that matter MOST.

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You can always cycle your CTAs, though. You could cycle them weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc. I'd do a week at minimum because most organic content has a lifespan of 5-7 days. So it would be safe at that point to start promoting a new link, and you'd be able to attribute the traffic for that very easily since the prior piece of content with a different call-to-action would have "expired" (or been less popular, at least).

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Third: choose your UTM parameters. Using a free tool like this one from Google, you can set up UTM parameters for the link you'll be sharing.

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Don't skip this step. This is literally the life or death step. When you create UTM parameters, you can specify things like the channel that should be associated with the link, the content topic, etc.

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Remember: a channel is a pathway you create content on. Like: Facebook, Instagram, Blog, Podcast, etc.

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UTM parameters are bits of text appended to your link. They do not change how your link works. They simply pass information back to your analytics software.

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This means, for example, you can create a link for your contact form with UTM parameters unique to the channel you're sharing the link. It would look something like this:

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yourwebsite.com?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=staticpost&utm_campaign=teachingcontent

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See those bits of info there? Instagram. Static Post. Teaching Content.

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Because you're only sharing ONE call-to-action at a time, one ONE channel at a time, you should definitively be able to tie back the actions to the channel.

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All this to say: if you want to share multiple calls-to-actions, you need to divide them out by channel.

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If you don't, you just won't be able to tell who came from where. You'll only be able to see the website visits, but not really what those visits ultimately mean when it comes to people wanting to connect with you.

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In practice, this would look like:

• On Instagram, I am only sharing my contact form link on my website
• On YouTube, I am only sharing blog post links with free resources
• On Facebook, I am only asking people to join my email list through my Subscribe link on my website

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Then, I'll know for certain that people who are filling out the contact form are from IG, and people downloaded freebies are from YouTube, and people on the subscribe form are from FB.

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What about organic traffic? Well, the only way to truly divide it out and close your attribution loop so you can see what your content is doing versus what organic traffic is doing (like, say, from Google Search)... is to have duplicated content on your website that isn't indexed by search engines and not put on a menu.

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But that gets super complicated! So, I'd say you'll have to accept this method isn't totally foolproof, but it's pretty darn close.

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Let's recap:

In order to understand the effectiveness of Consideration/ Growth content, you have to tie the content back to an action that resulted in someone connecting with you (most often that means joining your email list).

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You can do this by isolating your calls-to-action by channel, and using UTM parameters to create tracking traffic a lot easier.

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Pro-tip: You can get as sophisticated with this as you want by using different opt-in forms for different free resources / offers, etc and then using those forms for specific channels.

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And that's it. This was a pretty technical one, but you're gonna see as we get deeper in the funnel, measuring content effectiveness gets more technical by nature.

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Next week we'll talk about how to attribute the content for Promotion / Growth. This is all about conversions and it's my fav type of thing to measure.

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Have a great weekend and thanks for reading this book of an email,

Amanda

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PS: Here's an update on the program I will be launching in June. I am not going to be launching this through the traditional webinar > sales pitch model because, quite frankly, I hate that.

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I'm going to email you about it, the good old fashioned way. And I will have a sales page you can check out and decide if it's right for you.

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In advance of that happening in a couple weeks, here are the high level details you can start mulling over now:

• 6 month program designed to help you find your place in the market online by focusing on content, tech and ads. We will be working on your full funnel, from awareness to conversion. Each month we focus on a different aspect - you'll have action steps to work through, guided by me.

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• Blend of 1:1 calls and group calls - one 1:1 call per month; bi-weekly group calls. This enables you to get feedback, be guided, and complete what we're working on as we move through the program. It also gives you the opportunity to have me review what you're working on during our 1:1, give you feedback, help you tweak etc - this is how I'm hoping to make this program more personalized than others out there.

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• Private community somewhere. Not sure yet if it will be Slack or Facebook.

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• I will only be accepting up to 15 people in the program due to its nature of being a blend of 1:1 and group calls.

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And that's it. This six month program is going to be $7,800. You can pay in full or divide that out over 6 monthly payments ($1,300). When I officially launch and share all the info with you, you'll have the ability to book a call with me to talk more in depth about how the program can help you - because I know this is a big investment.

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Why is it such a big investment? Well, because a program like this is one step before you would work with me as a 1:1 client. I will be walking alongside you through a full build of a comprehensive online marketing strategy.

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Why am I telling you this price now? So you can start thinking about it now. Nobody wants to be surprised with stuff like this, right? Also, one of my brand pillars is radical honesty so... take what you will from that.

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Stay tuned. And, if you have any thoughts about this program and how it would be MOST useful to you, please reply. I love reading your feedback.