After managing content programs for over 1,000 brands, we have learned that the teams who set clear content objectives outperform those who just “publish and pray” by a wide margin. A content marketing objective is a measurable KPI tied directly to the content you produce — and it plays a critical role in the creation, execution, and analysis of your larger content marketing strategy.
Let’s run through the objectives we prioritize at Relevance and why they’re important. From there, we’ll consider how to turn each one into a SMART goal you can act on this quarter.
Why we never launch a content program without objectives content marketing strategy
When a new client comes to us without defined content objectives, we build them before writing a single word. Before diving into the specifics, let’s consider the importance of content marketing and the benefits that having goals provides for your content strategy. The biggest benefit is straightforward: goals give you a clear picture of where your content marketing is headed and whether it is actually working.
Content marketing is a vast and complex part of the digital marketing world. From social media to a blog post, emails to ads, each content type stands on its own. Having goals ensures that all of these work toward the same results.
Once you have content marketing goals in place, you can also measure your success and failure easier. This ensures that your valuable content isn’t a black hole of expenses that isn’t performing.
We’ll discuss the specific ways to set measurable goals in a bit. Remember, though, having these metrics in place helps you gauge effectiveness and improve as you pursue your content marketing efforts.
The three objectives we prioritize for every client
There are dozens of possible content marketing objectives, but in our experience managing campaigns across SaaS, healthcare, ecommerce, and professional services, three come up again and again. The main objective of content marketing is to provide value for your target audience.
This should always be a factor, no matter what kind of quality content you create. Content production should strive to educate, inform, and resonate with potential and existing customers and their needs. But value isn’t the only objective.
Content marketing can also align with the three main pillars of a good growth marketing strategy. Here’s how.
(1) Improving your authority
This is the objective we push hardest at Relevance. When we helped a healthcare SaaS client publish a series of original research reports, their domain authority climbed 12 points in six months — and sales reps started hearing “I read your blog” on discovery calls. Authority is not a vanity metric; it shortens sales cycles.
Brand loyalty is a major part of sustained success. When you use your content to demonstrate your firm grasp of industry knowledge and expertise, it cultivates trust and establishes your brand as an authority in your industry.
(2) Building your credibility
Credibility is closely related to authority, but it is earned differently. We have seen it first-hand: when we secure guest posts, expert quotes, and media placements for clients through our digital PR work — over 700 placements to date — it creates a layer of third-party validation that no amount of on-site content can replicate on its own.
Content marketing allows you to show your superiority as a solution for the consumers that you’re targeting. You can use off-site content, like guest posts and other digital PR tactics, to create natural credibility in the eyes of consumers. You also gain some third-party credibility at the same time.
(3) Enhancing your visibility
Visibility is where content and SEO intersect — and it is the objective where we see the fastest measurable results. As you create relevant content, you can use an SEO strategy to optimize your site.
This boosts your visibility in search engines. As you associate yourself with various keywords, link to high DA websites, internally link between other pages on your site, and so on, a search engine will begin to prioritize you in SERPs, leading to greater visibility.
How we turn objectives into SMART goals (with real examples)
Authority, credibility, and visibility are the big-picture targets. But when we sit down with a client’s marketing team, we need to translate those into specific numbers with deadlines.
It’s all well and good to understand the big-picture benchmarks behind your content marketing strategies. But what do these content marketing goals and KPIs look like in action? What do content marketing objectives look like in real life?
This is where applying the SMART goals concept can make a big difference. Here are a few SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely) goals you can set to guide you as you create content:
- Maximizing Conversions: Conversions are your own self-defined actions that you want visitors to take. Tracking conversions with a tool like Google Analytics allows you to set specific content conversion goals, such as improving email sign-ups by 10% in the next month. (The right email marketing platform and marketing automation tools make this kind of tracking and optimization much easier.)
- Ranking Higher in the SERPs: There are many tools (including the keyword research tools we use daily), like Ahrefs and Semrush, that can show how high your content ranks in the SERPs. Moving up the rankings over time is a sign that your content is clicking with consumers.
- Increasing Website Traffic: One of the easiest trackable objectives is traffic to your site. Make sure to consider organic versus paid traffic and use them to create meaningful growth goals.
- Enhancing Engagement With Your Target Audience: Engagements can be anything from clicking on a link to filling out a form, commenting on a social media post, or responding to an email. When you formalize engagements and track them, they become conversions, which you can use to inform your goals.
- Improving Your Sales Funnel: Content can contribute to every part of your sales funnel. Considering your customer journey. How do you generate leads and guide them toward the point of sale? Can you create different content objectives to address weak spots in your funnel?
When you apply the SMART concept to your content goals, it gives them a greater purpose and potency within your larger content marketing plan.
Here are SMART goal examples you can actually run in a 30–60 day window:
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Pipeline: “Increase content-touched opportunities by 20% by February 15 by adding 6 BOFU assets (2 case studies, 2 comparisons, 2 implementation guides) and distributing via email + sales enablement.”
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Organic demand: “Grow non-brand clicks for our 25 high-intent queries by 15% by March 1 via 10 refreshes + 5 new pages.”
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Conversion: “Improve content → demo-request key event rate from 0.6% to 0.9% by end of January by adding stronger mid-page CTAs and tightening internal links to pricing/demo pages.”
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Audience: “Add 1,000 net new subscribers in January with two gated assets and a 3-email welcome sequence (built with the right content repurposing tools and automation workflows) that drives at least 8% of new subs to pricing pages.”
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Efficiency: “Reduce cost per key event by 10% in Q1 by consolidating production around 3 clusters and pausing the bottom 20% of posts by assisted conversions.”
Let your objectives drive every piece you publish
Content marketing is one of the most powerful growth levers available — but we have watched too many brands waste budgets by publishing without a plan. Consider partnering with a content marketing agency if you need an expert’s advice. We can help you build a sustainable strategy with measurable objectives that tie directly to revenue. Book a call and let us audit your current content KPIs for free.
Every piece of content you publish should have a clear objective behind it. When authority, credibility, and visibility goals are woven into your editorial calendar from the start, the results compound — and you stop guessing whether your content investment is paying off.
