I love this, it rings very true. I was the director of marketing RJMetrics before it was acquired by Magento. I remember the turning point when our people started coming back from conferences saying, “People knew who we were! They said they love our content.” That was an eye-opening experience for me.

Based on that experience, I started mentally “updating” the way I defined high-quality. I started looking for 3 things:

1. Do results grow over time? If content stops generating views, leads, and backlinks as soon as you stop putting promotional weight behind it then it’s not high-value.
2. Would anyone pay for it? If you charged for your content would anyone pay? How much? $50? $500? If the answer is that they wouldn’t, then no, it’s not high-value. Content marketers have become skilled at optimizing for the lead form, our standard is most often, “Would someone give me an email address for this?” That’s a noticeably lower bar than actual $$$.
3. Do people ask you when you’re publishing next? Are reporters calling you for quotes? Are people emailing you asking when you’re publishing the next version? Do people ask questions about and comment on what you’re writing? If you stopped publishing, would anyone care at all?

I think URR fits perfectly on this list. I remember getting an email from a prospect that was sitting 100% in our target market and he said someone had shown him one of our reports and asked if I would send him one. I wasn’t calling it URR, but I remember thinking, this is the result of a good content strategy :)