More often than not, businesses will get started with a content marketing strategy, only to feel ready to give up months later, as a result of a lack of results. There are many companies that have invested in the content marketing world, yet only a small fraction of them are successful. However, content marketing itself is not the reason why businesses fail. Here are 10 reasons why your company may be struggling with content marketing.
1. Lack of a Solid Content Marketing Strategy
A poor or non-existent strategy is a big reason why businesses fail in the content marketing world. Businesses need a strategy modeled after their successful competitors. There are many companies out there that may be similar to yours, and if you do some digging, you can find their previous and current successes and failures. Using history, you can model your own content marketing strategy tailored to set you up for success.
Once your plan is created, it’s crucial to follow through and document it as time goes on. The majority of the most effective content marketers are documenting their strategy, and doing all of these things:
- Hiring a content marketing strategist to monitor the strategy. Make sure you know what to look for when hiring a strategist.
- Using around 7 different social media platforms to post content on. Check out the 7 biggest social media sites in 2022. Consider expanding your brand’s reach, and find your voice in the content marketing world.
- Spending and investing in content. 92% of marketers say their company views content as a business asset. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional, outbound marketing, and generates three times as many leads.
The key to preventing content marketing from failing is to have a great strategy in place. It’s easy to let a plan either become loose or never be made, and that’s a big reason why businesses fail.
2. No Target Audience
Knowing your audience comes first. If you didn’t know your audience, you wouldn’t know your place in the content marketing world. Not targeting an audience is a reason why businesses fail with content marketing. By knowing specific details about the audience you want to appeal to, you’ll be able to figure out and narrow down all aspects of your content. Buyer personas help tremendously with this. By specifying your audience, you’ll be on a path with more clarity and a greater likelihood of success.
3. Not Investing in the Content Marketing World
In the content marketing world, it’s important to make an investment and spend enough. Many companies consider content marketing valuable and able to bring a great ROI. 70% of companies are investing in content marketing today, and 24% have a plan to increase their spending on it. Consider the portion you are spending and remember that effective and high-quality content will cost more. Consider rearranging your budget to account for this.
4. Not Taking Advantage of the Analytics
If you don’t check your analytics (and that means multiple measurements – not just traffic), you won’t know what gives you success and what gives you less. Check how your SEO ranks, check engagement, check reach – check everything you can. As you track your goals and document your content marketing strategy, you can see if your strategy is actually working by looking at the analytics. From there, you can continue to update the strategy to work as effectively as can be.
5. Forgetting About SEO
SEO is still really important nowadays. Not many referrals actually come from social media. Most come from search engines. Make sure you have basic SEO knowledge, and apply it to your brand by optimizing your website and social media pages.. Here are some SEO tips to keep you savvy.
6. Unrealistic Expectations
So many of us have seen TV shows and movies, or just heard legends about companies becoming overnight smash hits. No need to feel inadequate compared to these stories: they are either extremely fake, or extremely rare. A huge reason why businesses fail with content marketing is they set goals that are far too high and on far too short of a timeline. Going viral is not something that happens after 3 posts go up. Make sure your goals are right for you, and simply send you on an upward path.
7. No Promo
Just posting your material on your social media platforms and then running away is not enough to promote your business and attract attention in the content marketing world. Use other forms of posting on social media, like stories and statuses, to promote your newly posted content, and don’t be afraid to take advantage of email marketing to do this as well. Stay consistent, and always update your website pages and all social media platforms your brand is on. Don’t post into a void!
8. Snooze-worthy Content
You’re putting effort and money into your content, and it reflects on your company, so you want it to be interesting and engaging. Even Dunder Mifflin Paper Company could potentially create something fun to promote their company – it just takes some creative thinking. A hair salon could do videos on hairstyles throughout the decades. A doctor or specialist could answer frequently asked questions pertaining to their expertise. Whatever the business, there is an interesting topic that can be used and explored.
9. Tough Niche
It’s easy to come up with fun examples for a business like a hair salon, but for something like a data protection software company, it can be a lot harder.
It’s not impossible to come up with interesting and engaging content for any company, although some require harder thinking than others. If you’re in a difficult niche, check out what your successful competitors are doing, and what your unsuccessful competitors are doing. Get creative, and try to focus on helpful and educational content for the people who are seeking your specific service. You also can dip your toes into brand storytelling, which builds trust with your audience. When they need your services, they’ll be more familiar with you in comparison to your competitors.
10. No Patience
Even though it’s possible to find fast success in the content marketing world, it still takes a little while to get going. Success usually goes up at the beginning of a content marketing strategy, and then it drops into a slog, which is where a lot of businesses give up. That’s why businesses fail often. When you keep your head down and persist through the slog, with lots of time and consistent effort, the success will steadily and strongly trend upward. Be patient, and watch what happens.
Knowing the biggest reasons why businesses fail in the content marketing world, it’s important to keep some things in mind before you go and tailor your own content marketing strategy:
- Make sure your goals are attainable and specified, because vague, high hopes are not likely to be achieved.
- Don’t forget to have fun, be human, and be creative with what you come up with.
- Let personality shine through and let your audience relate to you through your content.
- Make your audience feel at home and within a community, and make sure you know what social media channels will be the best hosts for that community.
- Keep your titles and headlines short, sweet, and captivating.
- Don’t focus on hard-selling.
- Use lots of different types and styles of content.
- Get comfortable with the fact that your content will flop from time to time. Learn from each failure, dust yourself off, and keep that killer content marketing strategy going! 🐢
