It’s great, right? We are all publishers and mini-media companies today. We all have the opportunity to create relevant and compelling content to attract and retain customers (content marketing). There are no barriers.
Well, it’s usually not so great.
Now that we are all content creators, there is more bad content out there than ever before. To top that, although we are all doing the activities of a publisher (good), marketers actually feel they are less effective at some pretty important content marketing tactics than they should be (not so good).
For example, take the Content Marketing Confidence Gap below (full content marketing research here):
69% of marketers feel they are ineffective at delivering content through social media outlets.
60% feel they are ineffective at blogging.
55% videos.
You get the point.
10 Reasons Your Content Stinks and How to Fix It
Although your content probably doesn’t stick for all of the reasons below, a couple of these surely ring true. How can you improve your content today? (Full Presentation Below)
Lack of Content Marketing Goals. You either have too many goals and objectives for your content marketing or you have no clue why you are doing what you are doing. Do you know what GM’s goal is for producing Corvette Quarterly magazine? To convert Porsche buyers into Corvette drivers. FIX: Pick a goal.
Your Content is about Everything. You have no niche. You create content on the entire industry. You end up going big, and now no one cares. For example, why does this HVAC company blog about breadsticks? FIX: Pick your niche.
The Content is about YOU YOU YOU. Remember, your customers don’t care about you. They care about themselves. You are not as important as you think you are. You will be ignored. FIX: Focus on your customers’ pain points and create content around that.
Good Enough is not Good Enough. You are not just competing with your product or service competitors when it comes to content. You are competing with everyone and everything, even traditional media companies. FIX: Invest in your content. Create a unique point-of-view. Develop a content marketing mission statement. Make your content unique, interesting, fun (if possible), multichannel and execute the crap out of it.
Lack of a Content Calendar. Stop thinking from a campaign mentality. Content for your customers is a promise. FIX: Keep a content marketing editorial calendar. Create a consistent content marketing plan.
Not Leveraging Your Employees. Your employees are perhaps your greatest content marketing assets (in a close run with your customers themselves). FIX: Find the 10-15% of your employees that are inherently content creators and start to nurture that.
That People will Magically Engage in your Content. Your content probably isn’t good enough that the magic content fairies will find it and start spreading it around the internet. Unless you are in actuality a rock star, you’ll have to work for it. FIX: Find out where your customers are hanging out on the web and be active in those communities.
Your Content Has No Chief Content Officer. Look at the great media brands like the Wall Street Journal or New York Times. All of them have a chief editor that owns the content mission. FIX: Find your chief editor internally or hire own. Whoever feels most responsible for your company’s story is probably your best bet.
You Don’t Have Content Experience. Most brands don’t, so get over it. FIX: Hire a journalist or find a content marketing agency.
You Don’t Have Senior Level Support for Content Marketing. Those brands that don’t have senior level support for content marketing are 300% more likely to stink at content marketing. FIX: Do the previous nine steps and, as Matt Heinz says, “Don’t invent new metrics. Track more but report less. Just because you can track it, doesn’t mean you should or that you should report it.”
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