5 Reasons Your Content Marketing Strategy Isn’t Working

Content marketing is becoming more important as time goes on changing the way that bloggers engage with their readers. Through content, we connect with our readers providing them with resources they need to solve a problem. However, it can work both ways, allowing us to accomplish our objective as well. For example, through the right content marketing strategy, we can sell products, increase conversions, build an email following and create a buzz on social networks through social shares, etc. Many would agree a solid content marketing campaign can be the key to a successful business. However, many would also agree that it’s not easy coming up with a strategy that resonates with your readers.

Here are five reasons why your content might not be giving you the kind of results you expect.

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No Purpose or Objective

You write content for a reason and not having a clear cut plan in mind will destroy your content marketing strategy. You need to know what you’re trying to accomplish when you hit publish, and your content goes live. Having a clear cut plan in mind will guide your content creation allowing you to focus on your end goal. Before writing content, ask yourself these questions…

  • Am I trying to sell a product or service?
  • Am I trying to increase email subscribers?
  • Am I trying to increase social shares or user engagement?
  • Am I trying to advertise through PPC, banners, etc within my content?

Your content is only as good as your end goal so make sure you know what you’re trying to accomplish which will help you understand the next point much better.

Targeting Wrong Audience

Targeting the right people is very important when building a successful content marketing strategy. Without having content which resonates with your audience, your going to lose readership, loyalty and credibility. Imagine having a blog on “digital marketing” and then writing content about “cooking”, your readers are not going to find the content there looking for and leave. You need to provide content that keeps attracting the right audience so they’ll find it valuable and engage with what you’ve written. Your content, in order to be effective, must provide value to your audience.

In order to determine what has worked well in the past and to keep your content strategy moving in the right direction, go back and look over the content that has been performing well in the past. Social media has been an awesome analytical tool which provides valuable content marketing data. For example, if you know the content has been shared several times, it must be valuable and provides substance. If your running out of ideas do the following:

First, focus on the purpose of your blog and what your trying to accomplish. This will help you understand your audience better and the type of content, you think, they will find engaging. Next, make a list of high performing content with an awesome social profile. Social shares show user engagement and what your readers have “liked” in the past. Not to mention, it’s a great way to attract more people through social networks. Think about these metrics the next time you write content: All these metrics can be found using simple tools like Google Analytics.

  • Age– What is the age group of these engaging with your content?
  • Gender– Are you writing for males and/or females?
  • Location– Knowing where most of your audience is located can help you target your content marketing to that area.
  • Language– No point writing content in English if most of your audience won’t understand so find out what language will get your message across.

Low Conversions

Using analytical tools can provide important metrics about your content marketing like conversions, landing pages, organic traffic, etc. You can use this data to tweak content that has high levels of engagement to increase conversions. If I know my content on “effective link building techniques” is outperforming others, I’ll make sure to add banners, email opt-in forms, call-to-action text to increase the chances of a conversion. It’s shocking how many people don’t utilize free tools like Google Analytics to keep a track on their content and overall metrics.

One of the best ways to find a failing content marketing strategy is to view your conversions and if you’ve achieved your purpose. If I’ve published content and two months later I’ve had few conversions, it’s time I tweak the strategy until it’s showing a proven track record of success. This strategy is easy to implement as it requires checking your statistics more often and making changes right away. We have several free tools available like Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools which will give you everything you need to optimize your content marketing. Take advantage of them!

You easily connect your GWT account to your GA account to view queries, landing pages and geographical structure

In Google Analytics, head over to Acquisitions>Overview

Here you’ll be able to determine what “keywords” are generating organic traffic. Next, you’ll see what pages people are landing on so you can later tweak that page to increase conversions.

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Traffic Is Too Stable

The best indication of your blogs growth is an increase in traffic and profit. Both factors complement each other, so it’s important to analyze how your content marketing strategy increased your traffic overtime. If you’ve been producing content for 6+ months and have noticed your growth has been stagnant, you’re doing something completely wrong. The purpose of your content should be to increase user engagement, build loyalty, increase social shares and produce conversions.

How is content marketing and growth related?

Simple, you’re able to use content as leverage to increase your traffic. With the right content marketing strategy, you can double or triple all of the factors listed above. For example,

People are going to engage with content they find resourceful often sharing or leaving comments. Next, if they own relevant blogs, they’ll often link back to it using it as a reference within their content. They’ll become loyal readers purchasing products or services recommended by you!

If you’ve noticed your blogs traffic has not increased in several months it’s time to change the game plan finding ways to attract more people. Use Google Analytics to analyze your data over a couple months looking for jumps in your traffic. If you notice traffic hasn’t increased over several months, you can use the trial and error methods to find something that works well.

Here’s what I do…

I’ll try different methods to generate traffic to my blog and will analyze the results once each session has completed. I’m looking for something cost effective, but that provides the results I’m looking for. For example, I’ll start with general link building and then move into banner advertising. I’ll play around with guest posting, purchasing sponsored tweets, and I’ll even hire an SEO company to move me up the search engines. My objective is to find which methods produce the best results and long term which are the most cost effective. The good thing about using such an approach is I’ll know what works well and stick to that method NOT wasting my time on strategies producing no results.

Prove It To Them!

A huge reason people don’t succeed in their content marketing strategy is because they fail to provide proof that reading and implementing the strategies will produce results. With so much junk available online, it’s important people find what they’re looking for without being given the run around. If you’ve created content on “effective link building techniques” then prove to your readers, the strategies discussed provided results.

Your readers should never have problems believing what’s written in your content, and it should be your priority to prove your advice makes a difference. This is EXACTLY why case studies continue to build momentum as being some of the best pieces of content available online. Case studies will often start with a purpose then a series of steps to produce the required results. However, you’ll document and provide data along the way so readers can see for themselves that the plan works. Even though it’s not important each piece of content you write be a case study, it is important to provide the same proof that results can be achieved implementing your strategies.

These days gathering proof is not difficult as you have many analytical tools available to test different methods used. You have infographics, images and videos which can be embedded into your content showing the final results. Make use of visual aids that your readers will find easy to follow.

Keep these things in mind…

First, providing proof is a great way to increase user engagement and social shares as people love to link to valuable content. Google, over several months, has been updating its algorithm to reward high-quality content that enhances the user experience. Writing content that is in-depth and provides useful strategies is a great way to boost your rankings within the SERP.

Final Thoughts

If you utilize content marketing, it can be an awesome tool to increase traffic and grow your blog. In order to make sure your marketing strategy is working, you have to test out different things until you find one which produces optimal results. I’m surprised how many people don’t analyze their strategy and are often left with inadequate results. Imagine making a few simple tweaks which can increase your conversions by 20%-30%.

If you feel that your results have been stagnant, go through some of the factors listed above looking for ways to add them going forward. After, analyze the results looking for differences in the traffic, engagement, conversions, etc.

I would love to hear what you think, please provide your feedback below.

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