Content marketing makes up a big part of most brands’ marketing tactics. It can produce amazing results that influence all areas of your business and its online presence. However, it is only if you do it right.
While many brands all over the globe are reaping the benefits of their content marketing endeavors, just as many are confused as to why it’s not working for them.
If you aren’t producing desired results, there are some common reasons why your content marketing isn’t doing its job. Here are some causes and resolutions on how to remedy the issue:
You’re Doing Content Marketing with No Goal
Most brands perform content marketing because they think it will help their company. Sometimes, though, that’s as far as their plan goes. They put out blog posts and hope to see what develops. They don’t have any precise goals for their content marketing plan, which is eventually why it fails.
You should ask yourself what you exactly want to accomplish with your blog posts. Do you want to improve your sales or get more leads? Display your industry expertise? Improve your SEO rankings?
You need to understand what you want your content marketing to achieve, and then adjust each post for the precise goal you want it to achieve. You can’t just hope for the best.
Your Content is Stagnant
If you discover something that works once in your content marketing, it’s only human to want to stick to that, regardless if it’s a post style or a particular subject. While this might do the job for a while, over time, users are going to get bored if they don’t feel like each post is giving them something fresh. Whether you’re only posting the same listicles or talking about the same topic over and over again, you could lose followers in favor of competitors that offer more diversity.
While it’s crucial to figure out what works well for your audience, you still need them to feel like they have to read each post because they’ll miss something if they don’t. Some tactics to stop unproductivity in your content marketing are:
- Having guest posts from industry experts
- Using videos
- Putting quizzes or polls in your content
- Using how-to information, industry news, or case studies
- Talking about what’s currently trending
Look at what’s working for you and always assess your analytics as it can change quickly.
You Aren’t Tracking Results
Some companies will run entire content marketing plans without ever carefully tracking any of their results. Observing analytics of your content can let you know what’s working and what isn’t. Additionally, it can give you some insight into how to produce better content.
Tracking the activity on your website is critical, but it’s also just as critical to see how your content marketing is influencing your email marketing campaigns and social media platforms. They’re all linked together, so seeing the big picture is critical.
There are plenty of good tools available to assist you in tracking all of this information about your content marketing, including Google Analytics and Cyfe.
Your Content is the Same as Everyone Else’s
There are plenty of posts done out on a daily basis. But how do you stand out? How can you be different?
Ultimately, you need to determine how you’re going to be different and what you can distinctively give readers that no one else can. Even if it’s nothing but your writing style and your voice that’s matchless, something has to be different.
There are some ways you can write distinctive posts. One way to do this is to search the online message boards for questions that haven’t been answered. If you see a question that keeps getting asked repeatedly, there’s obviously an audience and a need for content that answers it. Another great way of creating new posts is to take a broader idea and focus on a specific niche within it.
Sometimes, writing content that’s different from everything else will depend on a union of understanding and researching your specific niche.
It’s Not Actionable
This is one of the biggest issues a lot of content has. There’s tons of information, that readers leave still not knowing what to do. If you take a close look at a lot of how-to posts (or even content in general), they’ll talk about a problem, but don’t show you how to truly execute the remedy. Your content should provide specific actionable content that readers can utilize.
Actionable content translates to valuable content. This is what delivers results.
Like a Sales Pitch
While you can include products, place information, and pieces of content to drive conversions, your content shouldn’t seem like a sales pitch. It seems unreal, and in the era where reality rules, you’ll lose followers rapidly.
We’ve all read content that was written just to promote a product and the result is that users are less likely to trust you or anything you say.
If you’re going to endorse a product, it should never, never be the center topic of a blog post. Content marketing is all about developing relationships with your followers. If your lead magnet or blog post reads like a sales ad, it isn’t effective.
Using subtle mentions of a product, link, or call-to-action is all that’s needed. Also, you can put a call-to-action at the end of the post, enticing readers to contact you to find out more information.
Final Thoughts
Content marketing can work, and if you’re putting constant effort into it, it should be working. Even if your content served you well in the past, sustaining an effort towards adaptableness will keep you current on the top practices, keeping you heading towards the right direction and bringing you long-term great results.