You most often hear the phrase “return on investment” (ROI) in the financial world, but it’s a mantra that holds merit in the world of sports media, too. It’s relevant for both content development and revenue generation, and the two categories are intricately intertwined.
To flourish and make money in the sports media industry, you need to create content that gets eyes and ears on it. It’s as simple as that. But how do you measure what a good output is for a certain input? How do you determine where extraneous effort and misplaced inputs might be holding you back? That’s less simple, and that’s where ROI comes in.
By tracking and measuring ROI, you can quantify effects that are sometimes nebulous, and you can improve your ability to make informed decisions as a content manager. Here’s how you get it done.
How to Measure a Return on Investment on Your Content
1) Pinpoint Relevant Statistics
No matter how you break it down, ROI is a metric – a calculation. It’s a relationship between inputs and outputs, so you’ll first need to pinpoint relevant statistics within those categories. To isolate these statistics, you can ask yourself: What am I putting in, and what am I getting out? What is spent, and what is received?
For most companies, you can use time as an input – such as working hours invested in a project. Then, for outputs, you can use a tracking metric like page views, or an end-result metric like dollars earned through ad revenue. To make calculations, you must have a database with these statistics available and up-to-date.
2) Develop Unit Conversion Rates
Once you pinpoint your relevant statistics, you can go through the process of creating unit conversion rates, based on what kind of ROI you want to measure. To develop a unit conversion rate, you can simply divide the output value by the input value.
For example, let’s say you have a project that takes half a day of working hours to complete – around four hours. You want to know how efficient this piece is, in comparison to a project that takes two hours to complete. After tracking views and interactions over a period of time, you can divide each output (interaction figure) by each input (time expended) to get a rate.
If the two-hour project puts up comparable numbers, then the ROI suggests that it would perhaps be beneficial to distribute the four-hour project’s time elsewhere. The key is creating a metric that efficiently communicates the relationship between what you invest and what you produce.
3) Use Estimates to Your Advantage
For longer-scale ROI measurements, estimates can be a great way to track expected earnings versus actual earnings, and adapt accordingly based on that information. Using past numbers, cyclic trends, and market conditions, you can project your inputs and outputs into the future, and analyze your actual numbers with a baseline to reference.
The difference between estimated and actual ROI can be a guiding light toward areas where your company needs to either shift focus or adapt entirely. Was a market disruption to blame for a downturn in production? Was there a sudden uptick in viewership? If so, what was the correlation? By using estimates, you can prepare for these types of exploratory conversations.
4) Assess the Process vs. Results Balance Situationally
ROI is naturally a results-based metric. But it’s unique, in that it naturally traces back to your inputs. From there, you can take a process-oriented approach in re-evaluating your strategy. That said, every project’s situation will be different. You need to decide on a case-by-case basis how strictly you’ll scrutinize early ROI.
Some projects just need time to get off the ground and gain traction before ROI can be effectively measured. Others can be quickly integrated into the market for swift evaluation. Understand that a strong process doesn’t always produce immediate ROI. Keep an open mind, keep your data set comprehensive, and use every piece of information at your disposal to accurately gauge your standing and potential.
