Your content strategy might need some help
Content marketing is one of the most important elements of your digital strategy, or so everyone is constantly telling you. But what if you aren’t receiving a ROI on all of the effort and capital you’ve put into that venture? More than likely it’s your strategy that’s broken, not content marketing in general. If you’re struggling to see positive results with your content marketing strategy, here are seven things you might be doing incorrectly.
1. You Don’t Have Goals in Mind
Content creation for the sake of content marketing isn’t going to cut it. You need a refined strategy that has a series of specific goals in mind. The Content Marketing Institute conducted a survey in 2014 that polled B2B marketers regarding their content marketing strategy. Of that group, 66 percent of successful marketers had a documented, goal-oriented strategy. Of those who were unsuccessful, only 11 percent had documented goals. If you want to find successful conversions with your strategy, you need specific goals and a purpose behind what you’re doing.
2. You Aren’t Spending Enough
A successful content marketing strategy will require a significant chunk of capital and wisely allocated resources. According to the same Content Marketing Institute survey, successful marketers spent an average of 39 percent on their content creation while unsuccessful campaigns allocated only 16 percent of their marketing spending towards content. The successful marketers spent more than double what unsuccessful marketers spent with double the returns.
3. You Aren’t Inspiring Your Viewers
Your content must inspire your viewers in some way if you want it to sell. Inspiring content refers to any piece that creates a connection between the content and your reader. When consumers feel inspired, they share your work with others, which sends your ratings through the roof.
If you don’t know what inspiring content looks like, research trending videos. For example, the Austrian National Tourist Office ran a marketing campaign in which they invited 16 travel bloggers to share a once-in-a-lifetime experience #inAustria. They created a video montage of the experience to share with consumers and get them excited about the project. The video has an incredibly inspiring tone that lets users connect with the content, and thus the strategy.
4. You Aren’t Solving Problems
The content you create in your marketing strategy must serve as a solution to a problem. This is another way of saying that it must provide some value to the client. Narratives are excellent for catching user attention, but when your content provides a solution for solving the impossible, it creates a bond of trust between you and the consumer.
5. You Aren’t Using Multi-Media
Today, there are plenty of avenues you can take when creating content, and if you aren’t using a combination of each, you’re missing a significant opportunity. Images, gifs, infographics, videos, and memes are all exceptional forms of media that help to elevate the written word and bring life to an otherwise boring content strategy. That doesn’t mean that you should forgo blog posts, but it does mean that you should include multiple types of media as well.
According to a 2014 study, Buzzfeed is one of the top Facebook publishers because of their use of imagery. They know that multimedia gets clients to share their content, and they utilize this. Using multiple forms of media is one of the best tools you have for attracting high volumes of customer attention.
6. You Aren’t Catering to Your Audience
Perhaps one of the biggest reasons your content isn’t working is because you’re marketing to a community that doesn’t care. Producing content that you think your customer base wants isn’t the same as producing content that they actually want. You need a thorough understanding and knowledge of who your target audience is and what they want, which can be found with customer personas.
To create a customer persona, think of the type of people who buy your products and services. Write down their demographics, interests, and cultural differences. Then, think of the kinds of problems that these people might be facing and how your product can serve as a solution. Your finished customer personas will be exactly what you need to give your content strategy a facelift and see increased user engagement.
