Semalt: Why Is Your Content Marketing Strategy Failing?



Are you investing in content marketing, but it's not working out the way you hoped? Well, then you're certainly not alone. But, why is your marketing strategy failing? Indeed, many organizations are trying their best to use content marketing to attract more visitors or generate leads. Yet, no matter how hard they try, they fail and don't know why.

However, for you to know the reasons behind the failure of your content marketing strategy, we invite you to read carefully this article that talks about the 11 most common mistakes when creating your content marketing.

Before we start with today's topic, we also invite you to discover the best SEO tool you will necessarily need to succeed in your content marketing: the SEO Personal Dashboard.

1. Not knowing your customer

It is very common to find clients who have been working for the same industry or company for years. However, to rely on past situations is a big mistake.

This is because people are constantly changing and modifying their buying and consumption habits. If you don't have a defined process to collect data and process your customers' information for analysis, you may not truly understand the needs of your customers.

 As a result, this can harm your brand positioning.

2. Put the sales process first

Not putting the sales process first is a mistake you make in your content marketing. 

This is because it is essential to prioritize the sales process over actually meeting the needs of your audience with authenticity, agility and sympathy. 

Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has raised this issue. Because of this, the traditional buying process has become unnecessary for many companies.

3. Forcing the connection 

Forcing connection is a bad habit that leads to failure in your content marketing. However, the content team or producer thinks that the best customer experience is to force customers to visit a certain platform. 

Yet, self-service is the key today. Therefore, the best customer service and self-service happen where the customer wants so. 

4. Operate without structure

It is not about having a defined strategy in order to:
  • focus on the initiatives and strategies your team will execute;
  • clearly establish the governance model that drives content operations;
  • detail the Objectives and KPIs that will be used to monitor and measure the progress of the teams in achieving the objectives.
This is because marketing teams sometimes waste time, resources and energy when they don't have a plan in place early on in the content creation process. Perhaps it is difficult to anticipate the use which will be given to each particular case.

But, if you make a video and know that it will also be edited for Social Networks, Ads, and Emailing, then you can plan how you are going to record it. Besides, these types of decisions help you save time and money.

5. All in one

Having campaigns for every step of the buying process can be overwhelming. But having a campaign that tries to cover the whole process once and for all: attraction, conversion and fun is not the right answer. This is because your marketing team should have targeted campaigns for specific moments in the buying process.

Having a more specific approach not only helps you clarify content creation, but also to simplify your metrics. Likewise, it also helps you define the performance metrics that need to be tracked to ensure the success of a campaign.

In addition, the personalization of content has become a strategic axis for many companies. Yet businesses continue to struggle to personalize content and make it scalable. As a result, brands make three mistakes when trying to deliver personalized content and experiences:
  • To start at the end instead of starting at the beginning: Many businesses focus on the end part of the content - delivery or distribution.
  • To deliver a personalized content experience at scale, you need to change the way you generate your content.
  • New tools for old content: Many companies decide to use their financial resources to buy tools to promote their content that has proven ineffective. Before purchasing any software, focus on the content and what you need to do. Do it using certified tools like the DSD Tool.

6. Parallel universes

One of the big issues today is fragmenting the brand and wasting a lot of effort and time creating parallel content strategies. Indeed, our experience shows us that the customer experience must be flawless and multi-channel.

In addition, your content marketing team should seek out the root cause of the problem in order to empower themselves to build structures, models, governance and strategies that allow your team to work in different channels, regions and agencies, with standards, documentation and shared working methods.

Therefore, Buyer Persons, Customer Journeys, Taxonomies, are examples of what should be widely shared. Unfortunately, many marketing teams prioritize price and speed with content that looks cheap or out of date. Thus, it invariably leads to answering the question of why the content did not achieve the stated objectives.

Moreover, today's audiences know how to discern. They are more aware when they share content that they perceive to be of quality and that may be of interest to colleagues and friends. Therefore, your marketing team should invest a larger budget in designing personalized content instead of promotional campaigns or paid ads.

 In the end, you will find that well-designed content with good visual communication will be more successful than cheap content that will only have visibility and dissemination thanks to a budget for its promotion.

7. Don't turn data into information

A great volume of data is generated in the digital world. Indeed, the first big mistake is about not having enough time to work on this data. The second mistake is about turning it into information for creating Buyer Personas and strategies for your content.

Similarly, not using enough data is a big mistake. However, it is common that when creating content, the manager ends up doing it for himself and not for his / her audience. Therefore, first, make sure you understand what your audience really wants. Then, with this information, you will start working and creating your content

In addition, avoid "hand-processing" all the data that is generated throughout the content creation process: research, planning, definition, writing, editing, publishing, optimization and reporting. The days of manipulating information "by hand" are long gone. Because of this, marketing teams fail to keep working this way.

8. Create content with SEO in mind only

For some reason, businesses continue to create worthless blogs with only certain SEO metrics in mind, regardless of the user's search intent or emotional state.

These posts are hidden in a Blog section that no one visits on a website and are often written by inexperienced support staff.

Also, if you are creating content or spending time writing and designing: think about how the user wants to be able to see information; stop using photographic stock and create something ad-hoc for your content.

9. The strategy is not documented

In the event that an action plan has been developed, it is possible that it is not reflected on paper and is only a set of ideas in the mind of a manager of the company. In fact, 38% of people surveyed by the Institute of Content Marketing admitted their strategy was not documented.

10. The content is not professional

With the abundance of content on the web, there is only one way for yours to stand out by being exceptional. Poor content delivers inconspicuous results and can even damage brand image.

However, put yourself in the hands of writers, designers, and SEO experts who can create quality, optimized content for you. That's why at Semalt we have thousands of specialized content providers. We guarantee quality with a good community.

11. Expectations are unrealistic

Content takes a long time to be effective, and not all businesses have a long-term view. If immediate results are needed, it is best to combine it with other techniques such as native advertising or promotions. Remember that in the medium to long term, successful content lies in a good SEO strategy.

Content marketing feeds on good content and its affinity with the brand's audience until it ends at the time of purchase. As in real life between people, the customer-brand relationship takes months to develop.

Conclusion 

In short, to make mistakes is human, but when you invest, the result is very important. So it is not good to persist in your mistakes. Rather, they must be identified and analyzed. Indeed, this allows you to review your content marketing strategy for good improvement. It is without these provisions that your marketing strategy may fail.

If when creating your content marketing you can avoid these 11 common mistakes that we just highlighted in this article, your content marketing strategy can produce incredible results.

Also, it's important to remember that content marketing isn't just about posting a blog post. You need a strategy and you need to have a better all-in-one SEO tool like the SEO Personal Dashboard available.

In the end, you will definitely get results with the necessary effort. Do you want to know more? Do not hesitate to contact us.


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