Keeping it real – the 10 Biggest Challenges in Content Marketing
Creating and keeping your content marketing relevant and compelling can be a huge challenge – to make content that stands out among the hundreds – possibly thousands – of posts being made at any given time, look out for these ten common challenges to help you take action to get past them and succeed.
1 – Thinking outside the blog
Your blog is a hugely effective platform, but it can also be formulaic and limiting.
For both old and new customers, blog posts are at risk of being lost among thousands of others. Think outside of the blog and offer alternative content platforms that can disrupt your audience’s usual browsing and reading routine, and offer other ways of delivering different and in-depth information for example white papers, extended articles, case studies and videos.
2 – Lack of resources
Producing good content takes time, skill and research but the constant need to create plentiful content within tight timeframes can limit the creative resources at your disposal. The only way to produce the kind of content that will set you apart is to accept that it will come at a cost – either your time, or the financial cost of outsourcing the work. It can still be done cost-effectively, and great content does bring its own rewards.
3 – Battling quality over quantity
How do you keep quality at high levels while still producing sufficient content to feed the insatiable beast that is your digital marketing strategy? It seems inevitable that either your quality will suffer, or you will have to slow down to write good content, which means that you won’t be posting quite as regularly. It is possible to find the middle ground, and in order to strike that balance, it is well worth remembering that good content will make all the difference, both to your audience and to Google, so take a little more time to hone your writing skills and craft quality content.
4 – The Competition never sleeps
Producing excellent content at a reasonable speed and cost is complicated by the fact that your competitors are also trying to do exactly the same activity – some times they might be ahead of you BUT the trick is not to get caught up in what they are doing. Check what your competitors are up to, of course, but focus on your own digital marketing strategy and crafting content that serves it best.
5 – Harnessing the power of organic content effectively
With the rising popularity of paid content, making organic content work can become difficult. While it is very easy to pay for a Google Ad, it is also very important that you have content that draws in an audience on its own merit. Oversaturation and competition make it increasingly difficult to get your content in front of your customers’ eyes, especially when paid advertising might be pushing other content to the front of the queue. One of the most effective ways to keep harnessing the power of organic content is email marketing believe it or not!
6 – Unrealistic expectations
One of the biggest problems around content marketing is that people expect it to work right away. When you talk about this to management and tell them it could take years before it starts to show returns, you will get a hard time BUT unfortunately, that is how it is.
All stakeholders need to understand that content marketing can take time to produce tangible results, and set goals and expectations within a long-term framework.
7 – Getting burned out
Content producers put out thousands of words and brainstorm hundreds of topics. Eventually, they are likely to hit a wall. Ideas can dry up, deadlines can get harder to hit and the quality of content can start to suffer. The best solution is to pace yourself: set realistic deadlines and goals, and focus on content quality rather than quantity.
8 – Providing value to the customer, not just fluff
When chasing tight deadlines or focusing only on the quantity of content you post, it is very easy to fall into the trap of creating content simply to fill the page, rather than offering real value to your reader – be careful not to fall into it.
Step back and assess your content plan, and your content itself, on a regular basis, and ensure that your material is compelling and really gives your audience the benefit of your expertise.
9 – Balancing creative instincts and SEO needs
It can also be tempting to focus only on the right keywords for SEO purposes and make the quality of your content a secondary priority – DO NOT DO THIS .
Your customers and Google will punish you for doing so.
It is entirely possible to produce strong, valuable content that is also filled with all the keywords you need to improve your ranking. Remember that Google assesses the quality of your pages as well, so great content equals good SEO.
10 – Planning and tracking results
You and your team are putting all this work into producing great content, but is it actually worth it? Is it getting you more views? Increasing your qualified leads?
Use your analytics to help you answer these questions, but you need to have something to which you can compare the results. Planning is extremely important, don’t just start a content marketing campaign; first, decide exactly what you want from it.
Then you can check the analytical data against the goals, and this will help you determine whether your strategy is working or not?
Hope this helps keep you focused – if you want a chat – then reach out to us.
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