The ROI of a Blog Post

Content marketers understand the somewhat challenging concept of ROI when it comes to our work. The customer journey is rarely as simple as landing on a blog post via organic search, downloading a lead magnet and signing up. We’ve seen the reported number of touch points needed to make a sale range from 6 up to 21. Many of these will be from sources that are essentially impossible to track, such as review sites, Reddit posts, podcasts or in-person events.

But we all understand the value of a blog across the entirety of the sales process. We’ve seen how it grows a business, builds authority and creates customers, clients and brand evangelists for years.

Let’s be honest though, it can be pretty difficult to quantify until it's already been implemented over months and years. Even then, attribution can be pretty tricky, though multi-touch attribution is improving all the time.

Blog post ROI calculator

So I’ve to put together something that could help with that. Now, don’t come at me with all the reasons why this doesn’t work. I know. It’s basic, and it relies on a lot of assumptions. But even so, this calculator might help give you a rough idea of the ROI that your blog posts can generate over a long period of time.

It’s important to keep in mind that this isn’t going to be true for every blog post you write. If you write 1 or 2 and then never do another one again, I can tell you your ROI without a calculator.

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It’s only through consistent investment in content over a long period of time that you’re going to be able to see any ROI at all. That’s why I’ve included the details at the bottom which gives you a bit of an idea on the value of your content strategy overall. We’ve used some assumptions on CTR from the SERPS, as well as the conversion rate. It’s that conversion rate that you should likely play with, as it can serve as a decent proxy for content marketing effectiveness, even if a lot of those conversions aren’t tied directly to the blog as the initial source of traffic. The blog lifespan is set at 2 years, to account for decay.

Anyway, let me know what you think!

Jason
Founder @ Hedge