Like all brands or marketers, you’ve likely experienced a few content marketing campaign mishaps in your day. Despite your best efforts, sometimes a campaign just doesn’t quite reach its objective or it outright flops. And when this happens your disappointment typically spurs you into action as you work furiously to pin down exactly where you went wrong.
On the flip side; however, you’ve also experienced some big wins in your day. Some of those wildly successful content campaigns that crushed objectives and had the entire organization riding high. But in these situations, how often can you say that you dug into what made things go oh so right? Or regrouped and committed to keeping the momentum going?
From our perspective, those big wins can often teach you the most, not only providing helpful insights to keep things rolling, but also help you identify actionable next steps to make your next campaign just as—if not more—successful.
But how? Here are some tips to help you learn from your best content marketing work and continue to drive its performance.
Driving Continuous Success
Regardless of how successful a campaign is out of the gate, your work shouldn’t stop once you’ve released everything into the wild. But for those campaigns that are really flying high, they present the biggest opportunity to drive bigger and better results. So, you should continue to optimize and amplify these campaigns using a mix of content marketing tactics. Here are a few suggestions:
- Test a new paid channel. If a campaign is already exceeding objectives and expectations, consider pushing the limits a bit by experimenting with paid tactics. For example, if you’ve had great success with LinkedIn, consider building a similar audience on Twitter. Or add more budget and expand your audience on the channels that are already working.
- Repurpose campaign content. Repurposing content will not only add some freshness, but also help drive more traffic and signals to your main landing page or content asset. For example, consider creating an infographic or a motion graphic. Or put together a webinar that infuses existing and new related content or thought leaders.
- Audit other existing content for cross-linking opportunities. Your campaign is successful for a reason, so why not add a little extra boost by helping direct more eyeballs and authority to your campaign content through cross-linking? So, take a look at other existing, relevant content and add an inline ad, CTA or link to it.
- Try to secure third-party coverage or links. Pitch a guest blog or try to secure a third-party editorial to grow off-site links to your campaign content.
Uncovering the Why Behind the Win
While we all know that failure can unleash some of the greatest learning opportunities, the same holds true for success. So, when it comes to learning from your biggest marketing campaign wins, ask yourself the following questions:
- Did I reach or exceed my objective? For example, if your objective was to drive brand awareness, which metrics can you point to that bolster achievement? Did you actually achieve other KPIs such as MQLs or SQLs?
- How did I reach my objective? Some things to consider are: your content mix, top-sharing influencers, where the traffic came from (i.e. organic, social, etc.), the internal resources you leveraged, timing or seasonality, and so on.
- What hurdles did I encounter? Even your most successful campaigns likely hit a snag or two along the way to launch. So, think about any hurdles you encountered and how you overcame them, and document opportunities to streamline your processes going forward.
- How can I do even better next time? Use what you uncover from the “how” to document must-dos for the next campaign. For example, if a particular influencer was instrumental in driving shares, consider a full-length interview with them if relevant for your next campaign. As another example, if Twitter was your top-referring social channel, consider budgeting for some sponsored posts for the next campaign to get more traction.
The Success Factor
Simply put, by continually refining and evaluating your top-performing marketing initiatives, you’re not only capitalizing on the great work you’ve already done, but also laying the foundation for the next big success.
Speaking of learning from big wins, check out our Case Studies to learn how we’re helping our clients reach and exceed their objectives.
