Content Marketing Problems 101
In an ever-changing competitive world, content marketing is essential for growing your brand or business. While it will provide excellent results, content marketing takes time and resources, along with a positive attitude because things sometimes go wrong – especially during the initial stages of building your brand through content.
Recognizing there is a problem with your efforts, and taking the steps necessary to fix it will make your business more successful. Here, we’ll talk about some of the most common problems businesses encounter in their content strategies, which include everything from blogs to social media to video.
1. Have You Set Goals?
It is vital to set content marketing goals to know what exactly you are looking to achieve and which direction to gear your content. This will help measure your results. Do you want additional newsletter signups? Leads? Direct Sales? All must be considered when creating your goals.
2. Are You Putting Enough Time Into Your Efforts?
Content marketing is exceptionally time-consuming and something that needs to be done frequently and consistently. Setting publishing schedules and hiring the right team – whether in-house or outsourced – will ensure you are putting the proper time and care into your content marketing efforts. Make sure the voice and tone are consistent across every piece of content, from blogs to video to product pages.
3. Are You Meeting Your Publishing Deadlines/Are They Consistent?
Did you set a realistic yet consistent publishing deadline for yourself? Are you meeting it? Setting these deadlines can help make sure you are giving yourself enough time to create the content, are not forgetting to post your content, and that your page/blog looks clean. Randomly posting can seem sloppy, and perhaps some crucial information will get missed by your following.
4. Do You Have Help Producing Content?
Consistently Producing engaging content is one of the biggest challenges of content marketing. Getting the resources, you need to help create and publish a variety of content will allow you to focus on running your business.
5. Has Your Content Become Boring?
Keeping your content relevant and engaging is not always easy. You can keep your customers engaged by asking questions, providing feedback, and relating to their pain points.
6. Does Your Content Establish “TAR”?
The easiest way to lose a customer is not showing that you have any credibility in what you are promoting. Do your research, become an expert on the subject matter, and relate to your customer. You can also establish what we call “TAR” – trust, authority, and reputation – by maintaining a consistent voice and providing proof.
7. Are You Stepping Out Of Your Comfort Zone?
Once you gain a following and are seeing results, we tend to stick with what is working. To continue to grow, you need to step out of your comfort zone and go against the status quo. Trying out different types of content can be a low-cost way to engage new customers. Look for what Seth Godin calls the “Smallest Viable Market,” and experiment.
8. Are You Only Writing For Search Engines?
While optimizing keywords is crucial for your content to gain hits in a Google search, if your only writing with that in mind, your content will lack creativity. You need to maintain an equal balance of SEO and unique, punchy, and creative content to catch the eye of your audience.
9. Are You Using Content Syndication?
Getting third parties to republish your content on their websites or social can build your following tremendously. It potentially can reach a different target audience who will fall in love with your brand and content. Another way to use content syndication and build traffic is by using backlinks and optimizing SEO.
10. Are You Only Promoting Your Content?
Content syndication can go both ways. While using third parties to share your content, you should also be republishing like-minded, influential business’s quality content. Establishing connections creates more significant brand awareness, meaning an increase in sales for your business.
11. Are You Pushing To Sell Your Product?
Pushing your products on your customers is going to push them away. Your content should not be about selling your products but providing your target audience with information relevant to the business/market.
12. Have You Used Other Forums To Publish Content?
Many businesses strictly stick to using social media to publish content. While it is proven that most consumers purchase something they’ve seen on social media, it is not the only forum to publish your content. You can use press releases, print outlets such as magazines and newspapers, and other industry-related forums.
13. Is The Market For Your Product Overcrowded?
Building a unique identity for your brand will help you stand out from the crowd. You can differentiate yourself by using a specific voice, creating a superb company culture, and relating to your customers.
14. Do You Measure Results?
There are multiple aspects to measure when it comes to your content marketing; traffic, sales, conversion, SEO rank, customer feedback, and subscriber growth. Some programs can help you measure all this, such as Google Analytics. Keeping track of these statistics will allow you to see where your content is flourishing and what needs work.
15. Do You Have Unrealistic Expectations?
Producing and marketing your content doesn’t happen overnight. Building a following and compelling content can take years. It is crucial to have patience and be consistent with achieving results.
Concluding Thoughts
It is not uncommon to make mistakes when it comes to your content marketing. The key points to remember to be successful is to set goals, be consistent, produce unique, high-quality content that is relatable to your audience, measure your results, and be patient.
