Why Your Content Marketing Isn’t Working

If you’re reading this, it’s likely that your content marketing isn’t working as well as you’d like. But don’t worry – you’re not alone. In fact, according to a recent study by the Content Marketing Institute, only 26% of marketers feel their content marketing is effective.

There could be any number of reasons why your content marketing isn’t working. Perhaps you’re not clear on your goals and objectives. Or maybe you’re not creating the right kind of content for your audience.

Simple steps you can take to get your content marketing back on track;

First:

take a step back and assess your goals. Why did you start doing content marketing in the first place? What were you hoping to achieve? Once you know your goals, you can create content that is aligned with them.

Second:

take a look at the kind of content you’re creating. Is it interesting and informative? Does it offer value to your audience? If not, it’s time to make some changes. Try to create content that is truly useful to your readers and provides them with information they can use in their everyday lives.

Third:

don’t forget to promote your content. Just because you’ve created it doesn’t mean people will automatically see it. Make sure you’re using social media,, email marketing, and other channels to get your content seen by as many people as possible.

By following these simple tips, you can get your content marketing back on track and start seeing the results you’re after.

Where Does Content Marketing Go Wrong?

The underlying problem with this approach is a popular marketing idea. It’s known as the “Silver Bullet.” Avoid anything described as a “one-size-fits-all, completely transforms your business” magic bullet. That’s exactly what a silver bullet is: it can kill a werewolf in a horror film! In business… not so much. Other sites, on the other hand, will occasionally swap the silver bullet analogy for something more lighthearted.

More often than not, salespeople will oversell and present a sound solution to all of the company’s difficulties. We’ve all heard this story before: after a few months, the preferred social media network has been abandoned. When you ask the firm about it, they’ll tell you something like, “We tried Instagram but it didn’t work for us.” They haven’t looked at it in months and don’t appear to be planning on doing so anytime soon. It pains me to view organizations miss out on key chances in this manner. Perhaps you’ve done it yourself at some point.

Quality vs. Quantity

When a company employing content marketing outsource social media postings or material production, it is sometimes given a content plan. The content calendar is a timetable for the publication of new material. The objective is to give a structured viewpoint and to fill the month (or other designated period) with as many posts as needed. As a starting point, it’s also an efficient organizational tool.

However, this is precisely where many local content marketing firms go wrong. They prioritize quantity over quality — emphasizing the number of pieces published or rarely failing to create material. This leans the output toward quick, simple-to-edit photographs with little ‘taster’ of information at best.

People have seen a basic Canva mockup, in the company colors, that asks “Did You Know?” The message generally goes deeper than this, with a caption attempting to urge you to make a purchase right now. But branded content isn’t really content marketing (and, yes, there is a significant difference).

This is a misguided effort to satisfy the customer, who has been misled about the value of content marketing. If the client believes content marketing is “free” and intended to produce leads, it will not be long before the calendar becomes clogged with these uninteresting pieces. “Did you know we stock X? Call us now!” We can practically hear you shouting from across the internet. We’ve all seen it and understand that it only serves to reek of desperation. It does not just fail to gain any clients; it actually repels them.

PPC Marketing, unlike SEO and content marketing, is not a game in which prospects buy “today.” In fact, there’s no hurry with content marketing. That’s where sponsored traffic or PPC marketing comes in. nPPC Marketing necessitates a financial investment to reach your target audience; it will do so effectively. Some firms are unable to afford such an investment or simply don’t want to spend money on growth.

This is how content marketing becomes marketed as a silver bullet. Technically, you do not have to spend money to begin content marketing. You can post some photo or video content, use the business’s branding, and be on your way to attracting new consumers!

Organic Reach is a Lie: Content Marketing “Best Practices,” and Other Myths

Content marketing is frequently misunderstood as a technique for acquiring organic traffic. When it comes to business goals, “organic reach” as a goal for social media postings is often a fraud.

For years, Facebook has been restricting the number of people who see a page post. Its algorithms are as perplexing and opaque to us as Google’s, but just like Google has SEO experts analyzing and running tests, social media platforms have received similar attention and testing.

Only one percent of your audience will see a post organically if your Facebook Page has 10,000 “likes,” for example. The idea is to give you some advantage in posting while also encouraging you to pay to have advertisements shown to the general public.

When Facebook’s data mining came to light, the online community was furious. This is true of all marketing platforms (and, in fact, was planned for early in Facebook’s inception). We’ve seen more and more of a “curated” feed determined by our algorithm over time. We no longer see items in chronological order on our timeline – so why are you still scheduling your postings for “peak hours” such as 10 a.m. or 12:30 p.m.? Why do you publish three times a day to attempt to gain the most organic traffic possible?

Because they can’t, these strategies don’t work. The undoing of content marketing efforts is frequently due to a lack of understanding in the strategy of modern content marketing and the use of “best practices.”

Expanding Content Options

When it comes to organic traffic, SEO-focused content marketing should be the approach. One of the most common mistakes is to confuse ‘social media marketing’ with ‘content marketing.’ There are many different types of content available. These “nuggets of wisdom” style social media postings are just one type of content in this category.

The distinction between social media marketing and content marketing is significant. One type of content marketing is social media posts, infographics, and “fun facts.” They’re the first thing that comes to mind when you think about content marketing. This is due to the fact that they are often thinly-veiled sales pitches disguised as information. We’ve all seen them before, and we all know how distinct they are from a mile away.

Content marketing does work, but it must be created for the platform on which you’re viewing it. It must have a strategic aim, research, and distinct viewpoint to stand out from the crowd. Social Media isn’t the only place to try content marketing. This article is an example of different form of content marketing. It’s a piece of writing meant to rank in search engines for relevant keywords relating to our company.

Because people who are unconcerned with the subject will never Google it, this provides a certain level of targeting. You found this page because you were seeking for answers. Business owners without questions are unlikely to come across it. We know what audience would read an article on this topic, and we’ve done our homework to figure out how often people search for it. Furthermore, we examined the content of our competitors as well as the overall degree of competition for our keywords.

Content Presentation – Unique vs. Best Practices

The main objective of any content is to pique the reader’s interest. You’re producing “me too” material when you adhere to these endlessly recurring templates. These efforts fail to distinguish your company from the thousands of others who are doing the same thing.

We all skip over the first few minutes in order to get to the information we’re looking for. So, why does that long opening preamble appear before you get to the real content? The majority of the time, it’s because of SEO. That section you bypass has been designed (hopefully) to improve your rankings. To stand out and capture your click, it has then been blended with the most attention-grabbing thumbnail available. The problem is that this approach is frequently performed. By everyone. It isn’t special, and the handful of results in this sort are interchangeable.

How much more successful would your video be if it were brief and to the point? Of course, you’re losing out on some SEO factors – but the goal of search engines isn’t to show you what’s most pleasing to the algorithm. It’s all about giving the customer a positive experience.

Finding Your Brand Voice

Because all other businesses are already following the same best practice optimized content, your material cannot have the same ubiquitous tone as that of ‘best practice’ optimized content. Because of the greater competition surrounding those keywords, several firms who have already conquered that scenario have done so, often blocking new competitors out due to increased competition.

Your company’s distinctive style of delivering content is best. It has its own unique method of video editing that isn’t a carbon copy of the three to four Youtube channels that are next to it. Its own branding and style of image postings, which do not appear to be like any other company’s attempts at Instagram. And, lastly, its own writing tone, which cuts through the internet and informs individuals what you stand for.

Your brand voice is the result of decisions you’ve made. While many businesses will regurgitate the same ideas about constructing a customer avatar, ‘audience persona,’ or whatever new phrase they’ve coined for it, they are frequently ineffective at creating one that truly distinguishes you from rivals. You don’t need a complicated questionnaire or a cutesy checklist to figure out what your brand voice is. Even if you use one of these typical techniques, you’ll likely modify your thinking or update this character on a regular basis.