Hi Reader,

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It's time for the final installment of this 3 part series where we've been talking about how to analyze whether or not your content is working... aka, driving sales, bringing clients, etc.

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There have been 4 emails in this series. Here's all of them if you need to catch up:

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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)? (analyzing awareness content)
• ​Part 2 of 3: How to tell if your content is actually WORKING! (analyzing growth content)

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Just to recap... When analyzing the effectiveness of your content, it's super important to remember: you must analyze it from the perspective of the marketing funnel. ​
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A marketing funnel is a lot more than a veiled reference to a kitchen gadget. (It has nothing to do with kitchens but I can't help but think of an actual funnel every time I mention it.)

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At its most basic level, a marketing funnel describes 3 stages: awareness of a problem/desire, considering how to solve it/fulfill it, taking action to solve it/fulfill it.
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There's more to it than just that. There's actually a 2-sided funnel that exists at any given moment when you're sharing content online about your business to the public at large.

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One side is the person you're trying to reach (your target audience). The other side is your business.

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At any given moment... a person will see your content and be in 1 of 3 stages (aka, their buyer journey... or, as I like to call it, their own funnel):
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• Aware of a desire they want fulfilled / problem solved (awareness phase)
• Actively seeking how to fulfill it / solve it (consideration phase)
• Taking purposeful action to fulfill it / solve it (conversion phase)

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And at the same time, your business has mechanisms that correspond to those different stages:

• You've got content channels with free info you share (social, blog, podcast, video, etc - awareness content)
• You've got an email list someone can join, a DM someone can pop into, etc (growth content)
• And you've got a website with sales information, contact forms, etc (promotion content)

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See how these 2 "funnels" align? This is why measuring your content effectiveness must take into account these stages.

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When you understand the performance of your awareness content in relation to what someone would be doing at that stage of their journey... you'll know how to troubleshoot if things aren't happening the way you think they should. This is true for the growth/consideration phase, and the conversion/promotion phase, too.

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And that brings us today... We've talked about how to analyze awareness and growth. Today is about conversion / promotion.

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Here's what you need to know about promotion content:

You can share promotion content on social media, but it's very challenging to attribute this type of content back to an actual purchase or a client booked.

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So while you should share promotion content there, the bulk of your analysis at this level is going to exist inside your email system and your website.

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Why? Last week when we talked about growth content, there was one key thing...

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Growth content focuses on driving an action that moves someone off a channel like social media and into something a little more "intimate" like your email list, a DM, etc.
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Your goal should be to bring as many people as possible onto your email list. It doesn't matter if you're a product or service business. You must focus on growing that email list!

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Your email list is more important than any number of social followers, video views, podcast downloads, or TikTok fans.

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Why? For two reasons:

• On a practical level, your email list is your best form of "first party data". First party data is data you've been given direct permission by the owner to access. In this case, we're talking about email addresses and potentially some other information like a first and/or last name, and maybe a phone number. As the privacy "wars" continue in online paid media, first party data will become even more important. Especially as cookie technology becomes less and less reliable. (If you need some deeper info on this, check out my newsletter where I cover this more in depth through the lens of the recent iOS14 stuff. Read it here.)

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• On an obvious level, the followers, downloads, views, listens, etc on channels that are not your email system are somewhat pointless in the grand scheme of things... without a way to talk to those individual people, through a channel that gives you a greater level of control. Like email. Otherwise those people are pretty nameless and faceless. Especially if your primary content creation channel is something like a podcast.

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All that to say, promotion content analysis is going to focus on email metrics (like open rate, click rate and unsubscribe rate), as well as website analytics on the pages where you want conversions to happen.

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Let's talk about email stats first.

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With your goal being to move people from the growth phase onto your email list, here's what you need to focus on:

• The performance of your opt-in forms. This is called a "conversion rate". Remember engagement rate? This is a similar formula. You figure out your conversion rate by dividing the number of email signups by the total number of views of the form. Then multiply that number by 100 to get a percentage. Very broadly speaking, a "good" conversion rate for an email sign-up form is anywhere from 5-15+%. A low conversion rate tells you your headline and copy on the page is not compelling enough.

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• The open rate of your emails. Once someone signs up, you should have a welcome sequence in place. A sequence is just a series of emails that go to a specific subset of your email subscribers. A "welcome sequence" is a series of emails just for new subscribers. Usually there are 4-5 emails in this sequence. They set someone up to understand you, your business, etc. You'll want to pay close attention to the open rate of these emails. An open rate above 25% is ideal. This means of all the people who've received the email, 25% are opening them. A low open rate tells you your subject lines need improvement.

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• The click rate of your emails. If you're including links in any of your emails new subscribers get, check out your click rate. Click rate means that of the people who opened the email, X percent clicked a link in it. A click rate above 2% is ideal. If your click rate is lower than that, your new subscribers don't understand their relevance.

In terms of website stats, there are 2 main things to focus on:

• Unique page views on webpages where actions happen. You'll want to check your analytics software for this information. Focus on pages with the most valuable actions. For example, if you're a product business, focus on the pages with your "bread and butter" products (you probably have a handful of products that drive the most sales). If you're a service-based business, you'll want to focus on things like your contact form, or an email signup page, or even a sales page if you offer that. You'll need to track this over time so you can establish a baseline for yourself. The baseline will help you see trends. If your traffic decreases, you'll be able to see that pattern and do something about it.

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• Bounce rate on those same pages. Your bounce rate may be high on these pages, especially if people are going directly to them with 1 thing in mind (just purchase an item or just fill out a contact form). That's okay. A bounce rate of 50-70% may be what you see. Again, you'll need to track this over a period of time so you can see a baseline. If you see your bounce rate drastically increase, you need to adjust your copy and check your site speed / functionality (for example, you may discover your form is broken).

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Last, you need to piece together a data story with this information that connects it to the ultimate action you'd like someone to take with you (become a client or customer).

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Again, this is why email is so important.

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If you have someone on your email list, you can use it as a CRM of sorts to be able to track all sorts of data - from the awareness level to the conversion level.

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This means, if you're a product-based business, having your cart software integrated to your email system so purchase data is passed back to it.
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And, if you're a service-based business, it means having a process in place to tag email subscribers as clients once they sign with you.
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Most importantly, it means periodically running reports within your email system where you can piece together the journey from an email signup form to becoming a client or customer. You will also need to verify this information with your website analytics.

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This is especially important if you have multiple forms in different places on your website. Once you start paying attention to this information, you'll see which forms are the winners and which ones can be improved.
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One last thing. I want you to visualize an actual funnel in your mind. Like, the shape of it. It's kinda like this: > (except upright, not on its side).

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Awareness is at the top where it's widest. Lots of people hang out here. You're measuring the performance of your content in terms of likes, comments, shares, saves, follows, etc. as well as website clicks from the content you share.

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Growth / consideration is in the middle. Less people make it here. You're measuring how many people moved from that social channel where you shared awareness stuff to taking an action like DM'ing you, joining your email list, filling out a form, etc.

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Promotion / conversion is at the bottom. The least number of people from the top make it here, and that is totally normal. You're paying close attention to conversion rate for email sign ups, your open / click rate, and you're also watching your website stats. Lastly, you're setting up systems where you can tie email subscribers to customer or client actions.

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A normal flow of data is going to look something like this over the course of a month:

10,000 follows on Instagram > 2,000 email signups > 100 customers.

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Or... 1,000 followers on Instagram > 25 email signups and 10 DMs > 5 clients (3 via email, 2 via DM)

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Until you start seeing what your own flow is in terms of awareness > growth > promotion, you can't really troubleshoot any of your content. This is why it's super important to start tracking that information.
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Just as an example, let's say you start tracking your data and discover while it seems like you do a great job of getting engagement on social... no one is joining your email list.

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That's a huge red flag that your growth content needs improvement.

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Or, let's say you have email sign ups but no one is converting. This means you need to troubleshoot your promotion content that you're sending out via email.

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Alright. That wraps up this series. I hope this was helpful! Let me know if you had any “ah-ha”/lightbulb moments or takeaways. Or if this was like your least favorite thing ever. I can take the heat.

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Have a great weekend,

Amanda