Do you feel like you’re constantly pushing out content that nobody is reading? If you’re putting in a lot of effort for no return, and wondering if it’s worth it, don’t despair. Content marketing is definitely worth it, when you’re doing it the right way. Here are some reasons why content marketing might not be working for you.
No documented strategy
A documented content strategy helps you to maximise your efforts by way of targeting, streamlining and measuring your content marketing activities. You can also share it with your employees, so everyone is working towards the same goals. If you don’t have the knowledge or resources to do this in-house, look for a good content marketing agency to do develop a strategy for you.
No understanding of your audience
If you don’t have an understanding of your audience or buyer personas, you could be barking up the wrong tree. If you don’t know what your audience pain points are, how will you know what type of content they will find valuable? Your copywriters might craft well written content, but it won’t necessarily be the right content if they don’t understand the audience, or if they’re attempting to appeal to different buyer personas (who may have different pain points) with the same piece of content.
You don’t promote your content
Content marketing is about being proactive: don’t wait for your audience to find you, you need to go and find them. Share it on social media and send it out in your email newsletter. If your social media audience is small, you may need to invest in boosting posts or paid advertising to build your audience.
You are too concerned with sales
Content marketing these days is more about building relationships and being social than broadcasting sales messages. When your writers focus more on sales pitches, it’s very one-sided, making it difficult to build trust with your audience. Avoid the sales pitch, and focus on providing valuable, high quality content that will help people instead.
You are keyword stuffing
No one wants to read an article with the same words used over and over. This will also damage your search rankings with Google. Focus on writing relevant content with a more natural flow, so keywords will fall in as you go. If you’re struggling to write good content in-house, hire article writers or outsource to content writing services.
You don’t measure your results
You simply can’t improve if you don’t measure your activities, which is why a documented strategy is so important. If your content marketing efforts are not giving you the results you’d hoped for, you’ll likely find out why by looking at your metrics.
Content marketing is not about sharing content that you think might be interesting, it needs to be strategic. Taking the time to document your strategy, learn about your audience, and refine your approach will reward your efforts.
