Is your content marketing strategy failing you? Here's 4 Reasons why.
You might have the most creative Instagram aesthetic or the wittiest social media captions, but without the right content marketing strategy, your efforts might all go to waste.
Developing a unified content plan is the best way to ensure that you’re meeting your targets and your content is effective.
Interestingly, a study says that nearly 60% of B2B marketing professionals don’t document their marketing methods, disallowing to properly measure the efficiency of their efforts.
Whether you run a business or manage a brand, content marketing can be a tough beast to conquer, so it should always be in your best interest to make sure your work is accounted for, well thought of, and executed to a tee.
Here’s why your content marketing strategy might be failing:
1. YOU MIGHT NEED TO DIVERSIFY YOUR CONTENT BUCKETS
These days, putting out only one type of content isn’t going to cut it. The internet is a vast place, so if you’re only investing in social media cards, for example, and not influencer marketing or virtual events, there’s a strong chance your brand will stagnate.
The digital scene is a universe in itself. Take advantage of everything you can, and be clever with budget allocation. From whitepapers to blog posts and case studies to videos, the more visible your brand is on different mediums, the easier it will be to establish brand recall.
Of course, this doesn’t only apply to business entities.
Personalities and gurus today are making the effort to expand, as well - both in terms of content themes and executions. Take Megan Young and Michael Daez, for example.
Although they have a solid following on their Youtube account, the couple has also created significant leaps in terms of creating various forms of content such as Instagram Reels.
Whether you run a product-driven business or manage personality-centric brands, the objective is to be as present as possible in as many relevant platforms.
2. UNCLEAR TARGET AUDIENCE AND PERSONAS
We talk about this a lot—and for good reason. If you plan to produce engaging content, you’ll have to know exactly who you’re talking to.
Having a clear understanding of your target consumer is the end-all, be-all for brands today to ensure that the content that you produce will resonate and get the traction it deserves.
With the new year creeping up on our sleeves, this might be a great opportunity to revisit your audience personas and start looking into developing them further to help make your strategy more pointed.
Asking the following questions below are some good thoughtstarters:
Who is my audience?
What are their hobbies?
What platforms are they most likely to consume?
What entertainment do they subscribe to, and why?
If your marketing initiatives are hinged on a vague assumption of what your market looks like, your content won’t bridge gaps, let alone solve problems.
That mentioned, talk to your customers, ask questions, run surveys, and pick their brains. Market research is even more critical today.
Here’s another quick cheat sheet on how to craft effective audience personas.
3. MISSING OUT ON USER-GENERATED CONTENT
User-generated content tackles any type of content that users extend for free. This can cover everything from vlog reviews to Tweets, and Instagram stories to Facebook posts.
According to a study, 70% of people patronize images from actual paying customers as opposed to beautifully curated brand photos.
This means that marketers who dismiss user-generated content are foregoing any chance of building customer trust, not to mention the opportunity to cut down on finances and marketing resources.
Furthermore, brand experts and entrepreneurs can bank on this strategy by finding out what makes their audience tick.
Instead of overtly promoting products and services, let’s see how these local brands harness the power of their communities and honest customer feedback to rake in more loyal customers.
Skincare is very personal, and it’s all about highlighting the experience for each and every individual. To help attain customers’ buy-in, Cult skincare brand, Saipo Skin regularly posts honest reviews about their various skincare products.
4. YOU’RE NOT MARKETING YOUR CONTENT ENOUGH
Finishing articles and editing well-produced video content aren’t the end of your marketing initiatives.
As a matter of fact, these are only the beginning. What’s the point of taking the time to put out good work if no one is there to appreciate it?
One good method to approach this is to follow the 75/25 rule.
Spend only 25% of your time creating content, and use the remaining 75% to promote whatever work you made. Naturally, the objective is to make sure that your content isn’t buried in your sea of platforms.
For example, if you’re releasing a podcast episode, make sure that snippets of your episode appear on your Instagram account and a dedicated post and copy of that episode appear on Facebook.
Meaning to say, the goal is to be as present as possible in as many controlled mediums as your resources allow.
An even better approach to this is incorporating your content into your social media content calendar. For instance, if you share a particular Instagram story today, make sure that a TikTok version of your content is available too.
This affords you more exposure for your business and also allows you to scale when ready.
Here’s Bianca Gonzales sharing the link of her Youtube podcast on Facebook, while also retweeting screenshots from a fan.
Knowing how to adopt your content according to each platform is a guaranteed way to help ensure that your content reaches the right audience in the most effective way possible.
This also helps create an ecosystem of optimized content that will allow you to maximize your reach and encourage engagement across various platforms, too.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Content marketing is on top of its game, and unless you’re prepared, your direction could wobble.
Determine which steps and strategies work for you, and find out what makes your market giddy.
If you’re looking for a team that can help you manage these initiatives, look no further. The answer is Near.