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So, Your Content Marketing Is Failing. Why Is This Happening?
Have you been trying to improve your business’ digital outreach to potential customers, only to observe that success fails to show? You are probably wondering why that is and what have you done wrong. For many businesses, turning away from the traditional marketing means and working towards attracting their clients online via content marketing can be difficult enough. And when you think you have invested enough time and resources into this new direction, only to see it fail, the feeling can be totally disheartening. Well, it looks like you are definitely not alone in this.
In a study conducted by the Content Marketing Institute, many business owners think they have a content marketing strategy in place, when in fact they don’t have one. Not one that is efficient, well put together and written down. Just take a look at these stats below:
What is a content marketing strategy, then, you may ask? Content marketing is a whole marketing approach that involves putting together a long-term plan of execution, establishing its aims in a clear way, establishing its costs and milestone targets, planning and executing, analyzing and improving. A content strategy is not something you will put together randomly one month and expect spectacular results and ROI. It requires a team to work on it, as it requires careful planning and execution and a good metrics measurement system. It will not yield any results without these aspects.
A content marketing strategy needs to be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely.
Specific: If you define your goals in a specific manner, make sure everyone involved in your strategy is working by these values. A specific campaign has clear established goals. It sets up the things you want to achieve and what needs to be done to get there.
Measurable: Now that you know what the desired outcomes are, how will you measure success? You need to have a good metrics system in place in order to determine how much you will know about the way your goal was accomplished.
Attainable: Are your goals achievable? Do they seem reasonable within the bounds of your business and specific industry? Are your content marketing aims out of reach or even subpar? You should have a way of analyzing this when you start your content marketing strategy.
Relevant: How relevant will your new content marketing campaign be? Does the goal meet your needs entirely and is it consistent with your other marketing goals? Is this strategy going to fit into your business’ plan and long term plans?
Timely: Will you have a timeline set for your campaign? Are your objectives aligned towards a final deliverable?
To further on in our attempt to answer the question in the title: why is your content marketing failing, let us consider a few questions to ask yourself. They may help determine why your overall content efforts may be directed in the wrong direction and failing your business goals.
Are you using authority content?
The world of online marketing is already pretty crowded. Everyone is doing it today. Every business has an online presence and working towards empowering it with content. So, understandably from the point of view of an audience, it is difficult to determine who has the best answers, who has the right approach and the most powerful voice. Who can consumers trust? Industry authority is of the utmost importance. And this means personal authority in most cases. If you try to establish your business’ name as a leader in the industry, you will need to put a face to all your content marketing efforts. Make them unitary and signed by an authority figure. Faceless content doesn’t necessarily create a lot of trust in your potential clients. If your content appears to have been created by people who have a well-established identity in your industry, the value of your online pieces will be raised exponentially.
Is your content aligned to your campaign objectives?
Everything you do in your content marketing efforts should be fully aligned. This doesn’t mean that you should try to sell your products or services with every piece of blog you publish. On the contrary, you should steer clear of this technique. You can generate relevant content that speaks to a target audience by instructing, informing it, rather than forcing it to take action in buying. Every piece of content you produce should keep this as its bone structure. An infographic should first of all present your industry’s data and facts your readers will consider relevant and important in helping them make a buying decision. A call to action is the last thing to add to such content.
Have you researched your industry enough to produce informative content?
The first objective of any great content marketing strategy should be to deliver value to your audience. And what is that value based on, you will ask? The best way to identify this is to conduct a thorough market research and see what will provide true informative value. You can use analytics data every industry will provide and even data from your own CRM systems. They might provide more useful than you think, and a source of worthwhile ideas for your entire content marketing plan.
How are you presenting and distributing your content?
Deciding in what form you should present your content is another crucial thing. For many businesses, only keeping a blog updated regularly will just not work. You will need a lot more content efforts put together to even succeed at making a name for your business. You may need whitepapers, infographics, eBooks, graphics, videos, you may require sales pages or even renewed web pages for your own site.
The below periodic table of content marketing, put together by Econsultancy might be a good way to start.
There are many more reasons why your content may fail and we will address them in a new upcoming post. One thing is sure: a well put together content marketing strategy is a must, no matter what your industry is. It has already been three years that this efficient marketing type has reached its peak online. Most of the online companies are doing it today, which has brought the market to a saturation point. What does this mean? Not that it would stop yielding results any time soon. Only that businesses are more determined to make it work and will continue to invest more into putting together valuable content marketing strategies. The bar is much raised and quality is nowadays more important than ever.
So, what are you waiting for? Take a look at your content marketing efforts today and if the answer to the above questions isn’t satisfactory enough to you, consider making amends. You may find Iris Content a good ally in your efforts. Reach out to find out how we can help.
Annie has 18 years’ experience as an editor and content creator and manager. With work in television and written media, she has dedicated her past 10 years to learning the ropes of online content creation, from writing to editing, from SEO to content management. [/et_pb_text][et_pb_social_media_follow admin_label=”Social Media Follow” global_module=”1314″ global_parent=”387″ link_shape=”rounded_rectangle” background_layout=”light” url_new_window=”off” follow_button=”off” saved_tabs=”all”] [et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”facebook” url=”https://www.facebook.com/IrisWebContent/” skype_action=”call” bg_color=”#6d3a6b”] facebook [/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”twitter” url=”https://twitter.com/Iris_Content” skype_action=”call” bg_color=”#6d3a6b”] Twitter [/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”google-plus” url=”https://plus.google.com/109475049038523411338″ skype_action=”call” bg_color=”#6d3a6b”] Google+ [/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”rss” url=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/IrisContent” skype_action=”call” bg_color=”#6d3a6b”] RSS [/et_pb_social_media_follow_network] [/et_pb_social_media_follow][et_pb_cta admin_label=”Blog post honeycomb CTA – trust” global_module=”1329″ saved_tabs=”all” title=”Trust Iris Content with your Brand’s Content” button_url=”https://iriscontent.com/contact-us/” url_new_window=”off” button_text=”Contact Us” use_background_color=”off” background_color=”#1f041e” background_layout=”dark” text_orientation=”left” header_text_color=”#fce1c1″ body_text_color=”#fce1c1″ use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” custom_button=”on” button_letter_spacing=”0″ button_use_icon=”default” button_icon=”%%238%%” button_icon_placement=”right” button_on_hover=”on” button_letter_spacing_hover=”0″]
When it comes time to pick a content provider, a bargain isn’t always the best way to go. Content is more than filler; it’s what draws visitors to your site, but inspired content keeps them there. It keeps them coming back. Content is a relationship. It’s your brand. We get it. Furthermore, we can deliver it. Contact us today for a quote.
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