Hey friend!

One of the biggest questions I get about building a distribution system is measurement.

And you know the typical content measurement drill...

• Pageviews
• Sessions
• Click-through rates
• Likes
• Shares

And let's be honest. Seeing a “spike” on any of those numbers can feel awesome. That little dopamine hit is what keeps us going.

But if you’re like most content marketers, you’ve also felt that crash.

That realization that these numbers you’re chasing might not tell the full story.

They might even be hiding what’s actually moving the needle.

And what if you're doing all the "right things" and the traditional metrics aren't showing any movement yet?

I love looking at quantifiable data. It's easy to wrap your head around and gives you the details in black and white.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: we’ve been conditioned to believe that every move we make can be measured, analyzed, and improved.

And there's a whole lot more grey to our data than we want to admit.

We’ve been sold a lie that everything in marketing is attributable to a set of numbers on a dashboard.

And worse, we’ve been trained to think that quantitative metrics are the only metrics that matter. But when it comes to content distribution, if you're only looking at hard numbers, you're only seeing half the picture.

The "why" behind your measurement

If those quantitative metrics are about “how much,” then qualitative metrics are about “why.”

• Why did someone spend extra time reading your article?
• Why did they send you a DM?
• Why did they bother to leave a comment instead of just clicking “like”?

Qualitative metrics capture what the numbers can’t. And they can let you know if you're on the right track even if the hard numbers are always up and to the right.

Here are a few examples of what qualitative data can look like:

Direct feedback: Comments on social media or DMs, not just how many you get, but their content and context. Are people sharing their thoughts, asking questions, tagging friends, or disagreeing? Each of these interactions you a ton of insight into how the market is reacting to your content and messaging.

One DM that leads to a closed deal is worth infinitely more than a post with 300 likes from your peers.

In-depth engagement: This is on the verge of qualitative, but did someone binge-watch multiple videos? Did they watch the end of a video or listen to 70% of a podcast? These insights tell you how well the content is performing.

If 100 people start your video and only 10 watch it through, now you have some data to back and look at what might not be working.

Customer conversations: When you talk with your audience you get unfiltered insights into what’s resonating. I'm not sure there's anything you can spend your time on that's more valuable than listening to your audience's problems and trying to solve them.

And this reveals insights you will never get from analytics, keyword lists, and spreadsheets alone.

The power of qualitative metrics is in their ability to tell you why something works (or doesn’t).

Qualitative data can be messy, subjective, and harder to collect.

But it doesn't make it any less important.

This is where the real gold is found.

Have a great week! 👊

Justin

Founder, Distribution First Academy

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