Many companies spend a large percentage of their budget on ads created to attract old and new customers. While this strategy works, if you can’t retain these customers and convince them to revisit your website, you will have to keep spending money to attract new leads.
However, there is a way to not only attract visitors that you could convert into customers but to convince them to access your site in the future. They would only come back to your site if they knew it would be worth their time, that is, if you are offering relevant content that they won’t be able to find elsewhere.
According to statistics published last year by Content Marketing Institute, of 47% of companies surveyed that are working with a content strategy for a while, only 37% consider having a good level of maturity and knowledge in this area.
We should also consider that in 2017 this same study was performed and 10% of the interviewed professionals stated that Content Marketing wasn’t effective, differing from 29% of respondents who expressed that they considered it a relevant strategy.
Many of these companies, including those surveyed last year, said they would rather outsource their content marketing strategy.
So these statistics reveal that while there is a significant number of companies that understand the power of content to improve their SEO strategy, to gain internet notoriety and even drive traffic to their pages, there is also a relevant number of professionals that are still not getting positive results.
These statistics, rather than leave you worried, should prompt you to ask yourself: But are they really applying a good content marketing strategy?
The truth is that only the professionals responsible for each company can respond to this question, but maybe they believe they are following all the steps to the letter and, in their opinion, the strategy was well developed, but they didn’t get the desired results.
It may be that they are not taking into account the challenges we must overcome when working with a Content Marketing strategy, because yes, you will find many problems on your way! And before you discover that you were not prepared to overcome them, it is better to learn to recognize these challenges:
· Uninterested buyers
All marketers know that people are curious by nature.
Often when we see an ad, we will click on the banner to access the site, but in several cases, we are not really interested in buying the product, we just want to see what the ad is about. This is something that happens regardless of the marketing strategies that are being used.
We are continually being bombarded by ads on Google. No matter the products or services we are looking for, the first links will show us paid advertisements related to our search. Although it is impossible to force users to be interested only in your pages, your role as a marketer is to seek alternatives to stand out and convince the users who are browsing the Internet that is on your site that they should stop, because you are the one who will have the right answers for whatever they might be looking for.
Content marketing is a very useful tool to solve this problem.
When a user enters a website and is not comfortable, or doesn’t find the information he was looking for, he will likely close the page immediately. The problem is that as they are very worried about convincing visitors to buy, many marketers forget to think about offering solutions to the issues of these users, or give them exactly what they are looking for. This generates a kind of “noise” in communication when visitors begin to feel impatient and decide to search for the information they need on another website.
These sales messages hide the content that the visitors would actually consider relevant.
As a result, instead of looking for useful solutions or products they would want to buy, most consumers assume a defensive position against advertising. Your brand will face conceptions like:
- “I don’t want you to interrupt my day.”
- “No one asked you to contact me.”
- “Selling is bad and dishonest.”
- “All ads or other sales channels will use lies to convince users to buy.”
- “This product has nothing to do with me.”
- “Even if it has to do with me, how do I know that you will actually deliver what you promised me?”
- “Businesses that sell are not reliable.”
And a long list of misconceptions
When considered in this context, potential buyers are, at best, indifferent and, at worst, hostile.
It is up to a smart marketing professional to develop a strategy that take this context and this reality into account, to provide the best persuasion strategies to help reach your target audience.
· Changes to the algorithm
We can define an algorithm as a detailed series of instructions or rules for carrying out an operation or solving a problem.
The truth is that for your Content Marketing strategy to work, you should consider that Google and social media sites have algorithms that will determine how and when your content will be presented to users. Understanding how these algorithms work will be vital for creating a strategy that will allow you to reach your potential customers.
So it is not that you should consider it as an enemy that you will have to defeat, but rather something you have to conquer, because these changes are constant and the best way to get out in front of your competitors is to learn to adapt to them.
The social media news feed is no longer displayed in chronological order; posts from friends or family are shown first. Other aspects will also influence the information that each user will view in his/her timeline.
In the case of Google, things are even more complicated because if you violate one or more rules, your SEO strategy could be severely affected.
If you think about it, this enemy could become your ally, but you would have to understand it.
· Unwanted content
Nothing can hinder you from reaching your goals than low-quality posts. If you publish content that is not relevant to anyone, it doesn’t matter that you are always posting new articles, that you write long texts every day. If users are not interested in your content, you’re just wasting your time.
Many brands fall into the trap of publishing content without thinking for a moment about their Buyer Persona; that is, about their interests and needs.
We can find lots of information about any topic online, so if you don’t offer precisely what your readers are looking for, you’re just wasting your time. Also, if your visitors can find similar content on any other page, why would they revisit your site?
The main characteristics of this type of content are:
- The text is written for selling and not for helping or offering relevant information about a topic.
- Very generic and unnatural text.
- The text doesn’t address the main theme with information that will be relevant for readers.
- It’s full of CTA buttons and suggestions that the company that paid for content is the best choice for readers, but no real facts to support these claims.
- It is easy to see that the text was not written with the readers in mind, but the goal is to convince them to go to another site or pay for a product.
- There is no added value on any of the lines.
It doesn’t matter if you are posting content on a blog or in your social profiles, if you are just posting content to sell, your followers will ignore you, because you are not offering what they want to receive.
Don’t think that Google is called a giant for nothing; their algorithms can detect which pages have been published only to sell. That kind of content isn’t relevant to users because the information is considered suspicious.
Fortunately, we can also defeat this enemy if we are willing to study our target audience and create content tailored to their needs.
· Don’t believe that to work with Content Marketing; we just need to write.
When we talk about content marketing, what comes to your head? Is it a series of blog posts? Maybe an e-book for download? Or an infographic?
Content marketing is so much more than writing posts on a blog. If you want to work with this strategy, you need to understand that you will have to create different types of content to get positive results.
If you are looking for a way to mix things up, video content can be the best alternative.
Video content is not the trend of the future; it is the current trend. It is transforming the way people connect with their favorite brands. Although creating content in various formats is a much more complex task, the results can be surprising.
Videos give your content a “wow” factor that is often not present in other formats. It is a fast and attractive way to send your message and create engagement with your audience And best of all, videos are easy to share and can quickly spread your message to a larger number of people.
So the next time you plan your editorial calendar, don’t be afraid to add one or two videos in the content mix that you will publish. Create tutorials, show your success stories, invite your audience to meet your staff, keep in direct contact with your customers. The options are endless, and the results speak for themselves, so don’t waste any more time and start creating content in different formats.
· Time
It is the biggest enemy of your content marketing strategy. Creating quality content takes time, but what if you didn’t have to do the job on your own?
User-generated content may be the answer to your prayers. Ask for the help of your biggest fans through campaigns to invite users to send you their content. This kind of material is very valued by webmasters because they will usually receive the content for free, but also because third-party content is generally considered more authentic than commercially created content.
Audiences have changed. Today, they crave stories, connection, and interaction more than ever.
User-generated content helps create connections between users and the company. This will be vital to fighting against the idea of “us against them” because your users are the ones who will be talking honestly about the advantages of your products or services without any external interference.
Sharing third-party content will make your users feel privileged, increasing their confidence in the relevance of other content, which will create a more open and friendly environment among users.
Whether it is a social promotion based on a hashtag, based on incentives or through a program of brand ambassadors, publishing content generated by your users can ease the stress of a content marketing strategy, helping you to connect innovatively with your target audience.
Finally, as in any war, there are enemies, but in the case of your Content Marketing strategy, you can fight with the best weapons, which are your knowledge and your time. You will need to be always looking for opportunities to learn new things, to keep your communication channels up to date and publish content that your audience will want to receive from you.
