Interactive Content Marketing Toolkit
C H A P T E R 4
Evaluating Effort vs. Value
Evaluating Effort vs. Value
The Best Way to Determine Which Interactive Content Investment
One of the best ways to determine which interactive content you should invest in and which you should avoid boils down to understanding a simple exchange: The amount of effort (in time, resources and money) you put in against the value (awareness, leads and sales) you get back out of it.
This can feel like a bit of a slippery concept, but in this chapter, we’ll give you some tools to help make it a more concrete, informed decision.
How Can I Know if Something Will be Valuable?
Before you start thinking about effort, let’s more clearly define what “value” actually looks like.
If you’re wondering whether or not a piece of content will be valuable, ask yourself the following questions as an assessment:
Utility
Will your audience find it helpful or useful?
Be honest. Will what you’re proposing actually help your buyers become aware, evaluate a decision or close the deal? If not, it should be something easy to create and launch that doesn’t consume a lot of time, effort and budget. Avoid over-investing in something that is ‘fun’ versus ‘useful’.
ENTERTAINMent Value
Will your audience find this entertaining or educational?
Not every piece needs to be entertaining—but it should at least share valuable information. If your audience isn’t likely to have a use for the content, there’s limited reason to invest in it.
Shareability
Will it be the type of experience your audience will want to share?
Again, not every piece needs to be shareable. Assessments and calculators, for example, are by nature more private. But if your goal is awareness, your content should be something compelling or interesting enough to pass on.
call to action
Will you have a clear call to action such as lead conversion, purchase or contact sales?
If your goal is to get people to convert or move into the late stage of the funnel, your content needs to facilitate that with a clear call to action.
Cross-campaign ROI
Will it be used across a variety of campaigns and/or types of traffic?
How much utility will the content have? Content that can be used in multiple ways and for multiple audiences may give you more return on your investment—but keep in mind that some highly specialized content for a small audience or tailored for a specific vertical can also be very lucrative.
Shelf Life
There’s no sense investing a month of effort into content that will go stale in a few weeks. Evergreen content tends to come with more value, especially in the mid-to-late stages of the buyer’s journey.
Resources
If you don’t have the resources to create the piece, you’ll need to invest in acquiring them—whether in the form of a new hire or an outsourced team or tool. This shouldn’t keep you from proceeding—but in some cases, will prove to be a barrier.
If you’ve got more yellows and reds than greens, chances are that your content won’t bring back the kind of value you’re hoping for.
That said, some reds and yellows are to be expected, as not every piece will have the same goal. You’re not looking for 100%—just a majority of positive signals. Red and yellow indicate that you should consider limiting the investment in that interactive experience. Green shows it will provide higher value and is worth your time, effort and budget.
Potential Value Assessment
Determine the potential value of an interactive content asset by answering a few quick questions. Get instant recommendations.
Now, Map Out the Expected Value of Your Content Against the Effort You’ll Need to Invest.
As you might’ve guessed from this chart, you’re looking to identify and avoid pieces that require a high amount of effort for very little payoff.
Any content with a potential mid-to-high value is worth at least considering—but you still have some decisions to make.
To narrow it down, you can employ the matrix below to help you choose whether or not to go ahead with an idea.
Effort vs. Value
In this matrix, effort levels are defined along the left-hand side, and value is listed from highest to lowest on the right.
- High effort denotes resource-intensive content that will take 1 – 7 days (or more) to create, while low effort pieces could be created in a very short period of time—often less than a day if using a software platform or customizable pre-built templates.
- Value is as we defined it earlier. Pieces that are more likely to entertain or educate, facilitate sharing, drive a conversion and have utility across multiple channels are seen as higher value assets with a greater potential for ROI.
Any asset that is going to create a high level of value and is within your means to create should be pursued.
Pieces with a mid-level value that require mid to low effort are still great candidates—but if the effort is high, proceed with caution.
And content pieces that have low value aren’t typically worth investing in, unless the effort required to produce them is also proportionately low.
What’s Next?
Now that you’ve taken a hard look at not only what types of assets are feasible, but which will have the greatest payoff, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get it done! In the next chapter, we’ll introduce a process you can follow to create interactive content while avoiding snags and hassles.