Reports indicate that 86% of businesses around the world are now using some form of content marketing. In recent years, brands and businesses in Indonesia have begun to show more interest in the idea of using original articles, photos, and videos as a way to drive web traffic and audience engagement. Some firms, particularly tech startups, are even placing it at the epicenter of their offering.
One of these companies is Jakarta-based food inspiration and discovery site Qraved. When the business launched back in 2013, it had a vision of becoming the OpenTable of Indonesia, meaning it would become the platform where locals looking to dine out would go to make restaurant reservations. But Qraved’s customer acquisition turned out to be too high, according to management.
As a result, the site soon pivoted its business model, and began focusing more on interesting content as well as building an online community for foodies in Indonesia. Today, Qraved is indeed the go-to place for finding culinary reviews, and figuring out which restaurants in your area are running discounts.
But how does a firm like Qraved measure success? How does a company that deals primarily in information— but that is not a traditional media per se’ — know if it’s making the right moves? To make sure it is on the right path, Qraved has specific metrics and KPIs to rationalize its value to customers and investors alike.
Steven Kim, CEO and co-founder of Qraved, claims he started the business to help the culinary connoisseur and traveler find restaurants and interesting events in cities across the archipelago. “A business like Qraved needs to be able to deliver curated customized and relevant content to its customers so they keep on coming back. This is the key to why metrics are so important,” says Steven.
“Qraved is a platform, and content will constantly play a big role in helping users find what they want.” According to the young CEO, the first thing to consider when choosing the right metrics is to know the objective of the business itself. This is important because the types of metrics you select will surely vary, depending on your goals.
For a content-focused business, Steven says you need to keep an eye on how often each piece of content is viewed by a unique visitor, liked, and shared on social media. This seems logical, but apart from that, the number of times a post is read by a returning visitor, and what content that user ultimately moves on to next are also important ingredients, explains Steven.
He also believes companies that produce, broker, deliver, live, and breath content also need to dive deep into why certain demographics and psychographics — such as age groups, people in similar locations, and folks with comparable overall worldviews — are consuming certain content. Understanding why certain articles and posts spike in readership can give firms like Qraved a proverbial North Star to follow for future content strategy.
According to Forbes, one popular way to measure content marketing success is to simply look at the traction a post gains through the lens of social media. Depending on the number of likes, shares, tweets, and views, companies can get a decent idea of how well a post is performing. Author Denis Pinsky categorizes these marketing signals into two groups: Buzz (shares and tweets) and Impact (comments, downloads, clicks, views, and backlinks to page or domain).
Pinsky says Buzz is intended to measure engagement, while Impact is perhaps indicative of a deeper and more relevant user experience. Believing that Indonesia is on the eve of a content marketing macro-trend, Steven adds, “Content is where people start the journey to discovering the industry of lifestyle, which is still new in Indonesia, and will ultimately be connected to services and commerce.”
When asked what advice he would offer to other content-focused companies in Indonesia, Steven says, “Customize, customize, and customize.” According to him, if you’re able to know your segment and track consumer behavior efficiently, you will be able to provide more suitable content for the readers, but also more precise advertisements for the clients, who are always concerned about seeing a healthy return on investment.
