Why Should Content Marketers Understand NPS and Include Content Users in Measuring Satisfaction?

 

Content marketing creates various types of content, each with its own purpose and specific goals. These can be divided into two main categories: storytelling and branding content, intended for the early stages of the purchasing process, and sales or product content, aimed at the final stages of the purchasing process.

Understanding how the audience perceives this content is crucial for optimizing content strategies and maximizing the effectiveness of content marketing.


1. Storytelling and Branding Content

Purpose of This Content: Building an emotional connection with the audience, enhancing brand recognition, and encouraging influence spreading. This type of content contributes to raising awareness and understanding the problem. Through this content, companies often wish to communicate their values and brand identity.

Why Measure Satisfaction with This Type of Content: Measuring satisfaction helps us identify which content inspires the audience, grabs their attention, and encourages social sharing. It is important to understand how strong an emotional response the content elicits and whether it helps spread brand awareness.

How to Measure Satisfaction?

  1. Use a tailored NPS question: "How likely are you to share this content with your network or recommend it as worth attention?" with a classic NPS scale of 0–10.

  2. Invite all respondents to explain their rating:

    1. Rating 9 and 10 (Promoters): "Thank you for the high rating! What impressed you the most, and why would you recommend this content to your network?" If a response is received, immediately provide sharing buttons.
    2. Rating 7 and 8 (Passives): "Thank you for your rating! What do you think we could improve to make this content exceptional or worth recommending?"
    3. Rating 0 to 6: "We are sorry this content did not inspire you. What could we do differently to better meet your expectations or make it more useful for you?"

  3. Place the measurement in one of the following ways:

    1. As an evaluation widget at the end of the content,
    2. As a sticky bar or pop-up with an evaluation widget appearing after 60% of the average reading time,
    3. As a special email inviting a rating, particularly for content requiring a conversion form to access, provided consent for direct communication exists.

  4. If the respondent is identified through HubSpot cookies, record the results in the HubSpot CRM under a contact property, enabling further automation and segmentation in HubSpot.

How to Use the Feedback?

Our options depend heavily on whether we know the evaluator's identity and have their consent for direct communication.

  • Positive Feedback: If we have identified promoters willing to share content, we encourage them to become brand ambassadors. In an automatic thank-you email, we re-invite them to share the content while also sending them similar content that they rated highly (by topic, author, or content type). An example of such automation can be found below.

  • Negative Feedback: Negative ratings are primarily used to guide authors in creating new content. Additionally, users who frequently rate content negatively can be excluded from actively encouraging content consumption, such as newsletter lists.

 

2. Sales or Product-Focused Content

Purpose of This Content: Sales and product-focused content on websites should be designed to quickly and clearly answer key visitor questions:

  • "What is this?"
  • "Is it suitable for me?"
  • "What can I do with it?"
  • "Why is this a better choice than alternatives?"

The goal of this content is to present value directly and encourage the visitor to take action, such as requesting a free demo, signing up for a trial, or submitting an inquiry or order for e-commerce. Expecting a visitor on a sales or product page to immerse themselves in your story is, in most cases, too high an expectation at this stage of purchasing maturity. As the potential customer transitions from problem awareness to solution or product awareness, there is much less room for storytelling.

Why Measure Satisfaction with This Type of Content: Measuring satisfaction is crucial for determining whether the content effectively conveys benefits, is clear and relevant, and encourages visitors to take the next step. The goal is to optimize content for improved conversions and persuasiveness. Moreover, it is particularly important to identify potential customers through interaction or their inclination and involve them in the sales process. This is especially significant in environments and industries where multiple individuals are involved in the customer's purchasing decision, making it crucial for salespeople to identify allies who can help shape and accelerate the purchasing decision.

Tailored Question for Measuring Satisfaction:

  1. Use a tailored NPS question: "How likely would you, based on this content, consider using our product/service and recommend this content to others?" with a classic NPS scale of 0–10.

  2. Invite all respondents to explain their rating:

    1. Rating 9 and 10 (Promoters): "Thank you for the high rating! What in the content helped you most in considering using our product/service or convinced you to recommend it to others?" The goal is to find out which information was key to persuasiveness.
    2. Rating 7 and 8 (Passives): "Thank you for your rating! What should we improve to make the content more convincingly showcase the value of our product/service and encourage your recommendation?" This helps identify areas where the content was not clear or convincing enough.
    3. Rating 0 to 6: "We are sorry this content did not convince you. What was unclear or unconvincing, and how could we improve the content to better meet your needs?" Here, we look for specific improvements for better content effectiveness.

Consequent Actions:

  • Positive Feedback: Leverage promoters in a sales sense, such as inviting them to participate in referral programs or publishing positive reviews to build trust.

  • Negative Feedback: Optimize message clarity, improve the website user experience, or add persuasive proof, such as case studies or customer testimonials.


Conclusion

Measuring content satisfaction is not just an analytical exercise but a key method for strategically improving content marketing. Storytelling and branding content are measured to expand influence and build long-term relationships, while sales or product-focused content is measured to increase effectiveness and conversions. By tailoring NPS questions to each content category, we can precisely understand how our content resonates with the audience and make decisions that maximize its impact and ROI.