It’s hard to imagine a business that doesn’t have a blog these days. Blogs have become an essential part of the equation to marketing and overall success. SaaS companies, in particular, have the opportunity to use their blogs to leverage their expertise and knowledge-hungry fan base into a lead-generating, engagement-driving machine.
In fact, HubSpot reports that marketers who make blogging a priority are 13 times more likely to reap a positive ROI. However, part of maximizing that ROI lies in making your blog valuable.
Any good business blog has a set of short-term and long-term goals for their venture. Perhaps you want to add more subscribers to your email list or establish your authority in the industry. Whatever the goal, you’ll need a handy set of measures to determine your progress. Consider the following measures like formulas for a math test. They’ll help you plug in the right figures to find the answer you’re looking for.
A new subscriber will make even the most seasoned marketer’s heart go "pitter-patter." It feels good knowing that people enjoy your content and want more. But how else do subscriptions factor into the worth of your SaaS marketing blog? A signup gives you that valuable contact information and converts what was once a visitor into a lead. With the right steps, you can nurture this lead into a legitimate, long-term customer. So keep track of what type of content is pulling in the most subscribers.
You post blogs with an objective in mind. The idea is to, of course, share a piece of valuable information, solve a problem, or otherwise entertain your readers. And it’s great when you get a little help with spreading that message via shares.
Tracking social media shares shows you which posts are gaining traction – and which aren’t. Monitor your retweets, likes, and shares to take note of which content is most enjoyed by users. You’ll want to be able to determine which shares on which platforms result in the most return shares to your SaaS marketing blog.
Sure, the traffic gained from social media is often short-term in nature, but it goes a long way in generating brand buzz, awareness, and trust.
There’s nothing like writing a blog post and knowing it’s been read. After all, the idea behind inbound marketing is to naturally draw in potential customers with fantastic content. Is your SaaS blog making this happen? Monitoring your unique visitors will give you an idea. This number tells you how many pairs of eyes are truly viewing your content.
Combine this data with pages per visit and you’ll have a good idea of just how much pull each piece of content has.
Once your readers have read your content, what do you they do next? Do they click the red "x" and move on to another blog? Or do they poke around for a while and learn more about your business? Hopefully, it’s the latter. When visitors check out multiple pages per visit, it means you’re on to something. Your content has struck a chord, and now they’re looking for more information.
This measure is useful on its own, but offers more insight when used as a comparison tool. Take a look at your SaaS marketing blog posts and note the ones that lead to the most pages per visit (and the least). Do these blogs have anything in common – perhaps a topic, style, or call to action? It pays to repeat successful efforts.
As you prepare to increase your blog's value, also check out the 3 traits of every successful SaaS marketing blog.
