The number of people reached is a key metric used to measure the success and impact of content marketing campaigns. It refers to the total number of unique individuals who have been exposed to a particular piece of content.
Measuring reach is important for several reasons. Firstly, it gives content marketers a quantifiable way to track the scale and scope of their efforts. Understanding reach helps inform decisions around content distribution and promotion strategies to maximize impact.
Secondly, it allows marketers to report on campaign effectiveness to stakeholders and justify continued investment in content initiatives. High reach numbers demonstrate that content is resonating with target audiences.
Lastly, reach provides a goalpost for optimizing content performance over time. Marketers can test different headlines, formats, distribution channels and more to improve reach. Let’s explore some common questions around calculating and making use of reach metrics:
How do you calculate reach for a piece of content?
There are a few key data points that factor into calculating content reach:
- Number of unique visitors – The total number of different individuals who have loaded the page containing the content. This is a core component of reach.
- Social shares – The number of times content has been shared on social media platforms. Each share exposes the content to new networks.
- Backlinks – External websites linking to your content also facilitate discovery and extend reach.
- Subscribers – The number of email, RSS and social followers provides a baseline reach number.
- Paid promotion – Reach can be amplified through paid ads and sponsored distribution.
By tallying up unique visitors, shares, links and distribution channels, marketers can arrive at a total reach estimate for a content asset. Google Analytics provides built-in tracking for many of these data points.
Why is reach important for content marketing?
There are several reasons why reach is an indispensable metric for any content marketing program:
- Benchmarks success – High reach signals content is resonating and engaging with audiences. Poor reach may indicate content quality issues.
- Informs distribution strategy – Analyzing reach by channel identifies opportunities to improve promotion and visibility.
- Tracks growth – Comparing reach over time – monthly, quarterly etc – demonstrates the growth and momentum of content marketing efforts.
- Drives production priorities – Top performing content can be doubled down on. Low reach content may need reworking.
- Reporting – Reach helps demonstrate content impact and justify marketing budgets.
In essence, reach enables data-driven decisions to maximize content effectiveness and align to business goals.
How can you increase reach for content?
Here are some proven tactics to expand the reach of existing and new content:
- Distribution – Actively promote content across social channels, email, paid ads, aggregators, influencers and more.
- SEO optimization – Include target keywords and optimize technical elements to improve organic search visibility.
- Retargeting – Run ads and promotions to re-engage visitors who previously consumed a piece of content.
- Repurposing – Turn existing content into new formats like videos, podcasts and infographics to extend reach.
- Embeddable elements – Design content with reusable elements like quizzes, templates and tools that readers can share easily.
- Backlinking – Build links from external websites back to content to multiply referral traffic.
What are some benchmarks for good reach?
As reach varies greatly based on factors like industry, marketing budgets and content formats, there are no universal benchmarks. However, these benchmarks can provide initial guidance on assessing reach:
| Content Format | Good Reach Benchmark |
|---|---|
| Blog post | 5,000+ pageviews per month |
| Ebook or guide | 2,000+ downloads per month |
| Video | 30,000+ views |
| Social media post | 5x total followers |
| Infographic | 10,000+ views |
| Podcast | 5,000+ downloads per episode |
Benchmarking against industry averages for your content vertical is also recommended. As a rule of thumb, aim for maximum reach within budget constraints.
What are limitations of using reach as a metric?
While reach is critical for content marketing success, over-optimizing for reach alone has some limitations:
- No engagement measure – Reach alone doesn’t indicate if readers truly engaged with content.
- Difficult to accurately track – Some reach comes from secondary sources hard to fully measure.
- Susceptible to vanity metrics – Reach can be gamed through clickbait or bots.
- Not directly tied to ROI – Big reach doesn’t automatically equal revenue impact.
That’s why reach is best analyzed in conjunction with other metrics like engagement rate, click-through rate, lead generation and sales to get the full picture.
How can you improve content reach over time?
Here are some proven strategies for improving content reach month-to-month and year-over-year:
- Analyze performance to identify best-performing content formats, topics and distribution channels.
- Set clear KPIs around reach to motivate continual optimization.
- Monitor engagement and feedback metrics beyond reach to tune into audience interests.
- Audit content and SEO regularly to identify issues impacting organic visibility.
- Build relationships with influencers and stakeholders to expand reach through advocacy.
- Repurpose top content into new formats and localize it for new markets.
- Test paid promotion through social ads, retargeting and content recommendations.
Driving continual reach gains involves learning from past performance, diversifying distribution and providing audiences with fresh, relevant content over time.
How can you demonstrate value through reach metrics?
Some tips for reporting on reach metrics to demonstrate content marketing value include:
- Compare reach to costs for a sense of ROI.
- Note percent increases over specific periods.
- Highlight best-performing pieces of content.
- Report reach by channel and how channel mix has shifted.
- Contextualize reach within target KPIs and goals.
- Relate reach to downstream sales and conversions data.
- Share testimonials and reviews illustrating engagement.
Emphasizing multi-channel distribution, role in the customer journey and alignment to business goals can help reach shine as a key content marketing KPI.
Conclusion
In summary, reach reveals how far content spreads to find and engage with target audiences. It’s a versatile metric content marketers can optimize, track growth with, demonstrate impact and justify marketing investments. While not the only important metric, maximizing reach acts as a core content marketing objective. By continually working to extend reach through relevant and compelling content, marketers gain data, visibility and value.