4 Reasons Why Content Marketing Fails
Content marketing is a modern-day online marketing strategy that you just can’t avoid.
It is, in fact, one of only the few online marketing methods that are still working and generating great results in terms of credibility, traffic, and leads for online businesses.
Seth Godin, the modern-day marketing guru, says that ”content marketing is the only form of marketing that is left.
And, despite all these wonderful facts, you wonder why content marketing isn’t working for you.
It’s frustrating, right?
The problem isn’t that you, your business, or your product isn’t good enough.
The problem is that you do not have a proper content marketing strategy.
And if you are thinking “I already have a content marketing strategy”, it may just mean that you have the wrong content marketing strategy.
The proof that you are still failing is the very evidence of that.
Here are a few reasons why your content marketing strategy might be failing you and your online business.
1. You Don’t Even Have a Content Marketing Strategy
No, we are not going to count the strategy that you have in your head. It must be properly written and documented.
You will be surprised to see that so many content marketers and digital businesses do not have a properly documented strategy.
8% of B2C marketers are unsure of their strategy. 15% do not have one. And 50% say that they have a content marketing strategy, but it is not documented (and we all know what that means).
First things first.
You need a proper content marketing strategy to kick-start your online campaigns.
A Harvard Business Review article says the following about strategy:
”So, what is strategy? It is fundamentally the movement of an organization from its present position to a desirable but inherently uncertain future position. The path from here to there is both analytical (a series of linked hypotheses about objectives in a market, where we do and don’t play among our opportunity spaces, and what this means for customer value proposition, sales tasks, and other activities) and behavioral (the ongoing coordinated efforts of people who work in different functions but must align for effective strategy execution). And the trail always begins with customers.”
2. You Don’t Know Your Target Audience
The entire purpose of content marketing is to reach out to your target audience and educate them about your niche, industry, and products or services.
But what if you are preaching the wrong people about the wrong topic?
No matter how good your content is, it will never be successful if it is not reaching the right group of people.
Know your target audience and learn everything about them before you create your own content marketing strategy:
- Who they are?
- What do they want?
- What are their deepest wishes and desires?
- What keeps them up till the middle of night?
- How can you, your content, and your products solve their problems and simplify their lives?
- What are they complaining about?
- How are the other products in your industry not serving them?
As the HBR article says above, ”the trail always begins with the customer”, knowing your potential customer is the first step to success for your content marketing strategy.
3. Alignment of Content Strategy with Sales Funnel
Forget about your content strategy for a minute here.
Your business must also have a sales funnel — which is an absolutely essential part of your online business.
The content strategy — or simply speaking, the content you create on a regular basis — must align with that sales funnel.
Otherwise, you’d be trying two different things and none of them will work. Your content marketing strategy and the sales funnel of your business should work with each other.
4. No Lead Generation
If you are not generating leads via your content, you are simply wasting your time, efforts, and resources.
It is true that there is no shortage of content on the web. However, there will be always some shortage of good content on the web.
Exploit that gap, provide your blog readers with high-quality content, and convert them into leads.
Take those readers to the next step by asking them to subscribe to your email list. Email marketing is the most profitable medium online with a 4300% ROI.
Do not waste your valuable traffic, or your content marketing strategy will never be successful.
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