It was hard to escape the phrase, “Content is king,” in 2013. Marketers realized that SEO is the first step toward search visibility, but discovered that custom content was the way to give their strategies mobility. Now that content is part of the SEO wheelhouse for savvy brands, it’s time to look at the feedback mechanism to ensure campaigns are working together as results-driving machines. According to Mathew Sweezey of ClickZ, 45 percent of brands drop the ball when it comes to follow-up, which means lost leads and conversions.
45 percent of companies are leaving their hard-earned leads in the dark and deflating their content marketing efforts.
Many brands are up to industry best practices where content marketing is concerned. Sweezey evaluated 38 B2B sites on the Fortune 500 list, and found that 78 percent had content on their websites. Perhaps more importantly, he noted these domains had a healthy mix of content, including written formats (white papers and industry reports) as well as visual collateral like video demos.
Unfortunately, brands may not fully be capitalizing on all of the great materials they’re producing for the web, he said. Just 55 percent of companies responded with an email or phone call 24 hours following an on-site conversion. This means, 45 percent of companies are leaving their hard-earned leads in the dark and deflating their content marketing efforts.
It will be crucial that marketers close this gap in 2014, because lead generation was listed as a top goal by 41 percent of B2B brands in a survey from WebMarketing123. Not only are brands looking to draw in more prospects, but 27 percent also said they want to turn leads into conversions or sales.
Search engine marketing is constantly evolving and brands must stay vigilantly on the lookout for improvement opportunities and make necessary changes to avoid missing the ROI mark.
