Is your content marketing strategy not working?Well, you are not alone.
A lot of companies fail at content marketing — and they can’t even figure out why. Markable Solutions has summarized the top 5 reasons why content marketing won’t always work:
Content is irrelevant, too technical or too slick
Content marketing should be an integral part of your business strategy. Aligning your content marketing strategy with your long-term organizational goals will help you achieve a clear sense of purpose. It is essential that the content you write, really connects with your audience. Disconnecting the content marketing strategy from your core business goals and brand can severely affect your marketing strategy, and here’s why.
According to a report by Conversant Media, 65% of users complain about companies and brands sending them too many irrelevant communications. Further, the research shows that clients are more likely to engage if companies interact with them on a more personal level: 87% of millennials aged 25-34 are very likely to connect with a company that sends them personalized offers.
Content writers get carried away and write highly technical content. It’s important to remember that these papers will not only be read by technical prospects, but also by high level management and general end-users. A balance must be maintained as content that is too salesy is generally disregarded and therefore not worth it.
Content is not unique or SEO friendly
Unique content plays a significant role in search engine rankings because algorithms value unique content and can penalize websites for publishing duplicate content. With search engines giving so much importance to quality, you need to be sure that the content is not only engaging and relevant, but also visible and unique on search rankings. Search engine optimization helps engines figure out what your web content is about, and how it may be useful for prospects. Search technology relies on the metrics of relevance and importance by tracking what people do such as what they search, discover, engage, comment, and link to. Writing good content is just not enough, you also have to optimize it and get that content shared and talked about.
Too much content and no/failed promotion strategy
Most digital marketers tend to focus on content creation and neglect promotions. In fact, content promotion is the most essential part of a content marketing strategy. Derek Halpern of Social Triggers promoted the new 80/20 rule that has echoed with marketers who haven’t seen the results they needed from creating too much content. To upsurge engagement, you need to expend 20% of your time creating content and 80% on content promotions.
Disregarding analytics
Once you start promoting you need to measure and analyze. If you disregard the analytics then there is no way to know what works and what doesn’t. Some of the best known metrics to analyze content marketing success is through:
- Website traffic
- Marketing leads – quality/quantity
- Social media sharing
- SEO keyword, page ranking
- Direct sales
- Time on website
- Customer feedback
Just remember that the metrics you choose to define your content marketing success will depend upon your marketing tactics and channels that you are using to promote your content.
Doing everything in-house
Content marketing is a titanic on its own. It requires varied skill sets to execute a content marketing campaign, such as:
- Research – For gathering information regarding prospects and developing compelling content
- Image designing– Like Paint, Photoshop for social media and blog updates
- Writing skills – For blogging, web content writing, marketing materials, social media content, etc.
- Proof reading and editing – Correcting grammatical mistakes
- SEO – Optimizing the website and link building
- PR and promotions – Working with major news portals
And so on…
There is no way your marketing team can handle all these tasks and still be able to manage other marketing tactics and campaigns. Therefore, it is worth your while to hire/or consult a professional content marketing expert to help streamline the whole process.
So, are you facing any issues with your content marketing strategy? If, yes then it’s time to gauge and analyze.
Markable Solutions takes pride in offering its popular content marketing service – White Paper Syndication. We help clients share their content through paid web syndication, digital marketing and tele-nurturing. For more information click here or Request a quote.
