Is your marketing strategy driving content engagement and delivering measurable results? According to the American Marketing Association, only a quarter of B2B marketing professionals think their content marketing strategy is effective, with many saying they’re unsure how to accurately measure results.
Your own analytics can be one of the best tools to increase relevance and engagement of your content. There’s no single number that captures your prospects level of interest, but the following numbers in Google Analytics offer a place to start:
Average Time on Page: Measured in seconds, this is an estimate of how long a typical user spends with a given piece of content based on what Google knows about user behavior.
Bounce rate: This is the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing a single piece of content. These visits are recorded as 0 seconds long because the user did not take another action that Google Analytics could reference to learn when that user left the page.
Session duration: This measures the average time spent across your entire website over a given period of time.
Know how you compare: Content engagement benchmarks
Every industry, site, and marketing strategy is unique. So the performance of these metrics over time will be the best benchmarks for your individual site.
When getting started, though, test yourself against these broad averages for performance:
- The average SaaS blog generates 573 organic search visits per month
- B2B websites typically report bounce rates between 25% and 55%
- On one survey, most marketers reported average session durations between 2-3 minutes
In B2B, engagement metrics vary substantially. Readers with purchase intent will likely spend much longer with product content than those looking for an overview of your solution. Experiment with your content to maximize time on page while continuing to make the most important information discoverable within the first few seconds on the page.
B2B blogs: A mixed approach can help drive content engagement
Once you have your benchmarks in place, a great next step is to use those benchmarks to measure the performance of your company blog—unless you’re one of the 11% of SaaS companies that lack any kind of B2B blog. We certainly hope this isn’t the case, but if so, now is a great time to get started. B2B blogs can be a major driver of cost-effective content engagement and lead generation, delivered for a small fraction of your marketing budget.
When designing your blog content, give some thought to your call to action. A whopping 36% of SaaS blog posts have no call-to-action (CTA), creating a dead end for the buyer’s journey. At the very least, include an opportunity for readers to subscribe to your blog—the CTA found in 31% of Saas blog posts. For 33% of SaaS blogs, the CTA is lead-generating.
PR and news-focused blogs are 3x as likely to have no call-to-action than educational blogs. This could be a great opportunity to add a subscribe CTA. Educational blogs, on the other hand, are 7x as likely to have a lead generating call-to-action than PR/News blogs.
Whichever CTA you choose, keep in mind that the value of your content depends on its ability to move prospective customers further down the funnel. By setting your benchmarks and considering the purpose behind your content you’ll help move your readers one step closer to a sale.
Accelerate your B2B marketing strategy today
PMG partners with B2B tech and SaaS marketing organizations to drive business value through high-impact content and digital marketing programs—helping companies like yours define their strategies, deliver on their objectives, and smash their KPIs. That’s why we’ve developed How to Engage B2B Prospects: Content strategies that earn and hold the attention of potential customers. This comprehensive B2B content engagement guide takes a deep look at how marketing informs B2B purchases in the real world, the ways this audience consumes content, and how you can make your work stand out in a crowded marketplace.
Download How to Engage B2B Prospects: Content strategies that earn and hold the attention of potential customers or contact PMG today.
