Just like all worthwhile endeavours, content marketing comes with its fair share of hurdles. And for some, it only takes one fall to give up altogether, preferring to take the easy route home, thus ensuring safety if not necessarily gratification. But are the obstacles that content marketing asks marketers to overcome as daunting as they first appear? Not with the right know-how.
Sometimes control over the success of a campaign can feel like it´s out of your hands, with lack of resources having caused many a marketer to throw their arms up in despair.
But, as Business 2 Community illustrates, issues arising from simply having a lack of people to carry out what you had envisaged are not as serious as you might have first thought.
Big brands and small enterprises alike have outsourced their content production, profiting by not only being able to focus on the areas they are ready-made for, but by utilising the skills of a professional content marketing agency.
As B2C puts it: “Whether you outsource your content production or keep it in-house, you’re going to pay for it one way or another”. Instead of struggling by with your current resources – which won´t just have a detrimental effect on your content but other areas too -accept that you’re better off getting someone to do it for you.
However, insufficient resources is not the only challenge brands face when it comes to content marketing. Let´s take a look at a handful of other hindrances many face along the way:
Growing competition
Anybody who is anybody is producing content these days, so what´s the point? Just like viewers have identified the good from the bad among the hundreds of TV channels at their exposure, readers are doing the same with online content.
The answer, then, is to not simply match your competitors but better them. Use your rival market players to guide you, if you like. What is impressive about their content? What are their gaps?
The latter is where you should place your focus, which might just present itself as gap in the market that you can position yourself in. Once you’ve duly identified the sort of content your target audience is lacking currently, get publishing- with each post that goes live needing to be of the highest quality.
It´s pretty much impossible to hit the mark every time, of course, but you have to strive for nothing less than the very best.
Immediate results
The board always want to know the ROI of a project before giving it the green light. With content marketing, however, it is less a project and more an ongoing venture. It can take time before it really starts to pay off, too, with brands needing to build an online relationship with their customers, which can only ever happen organically.
Many executives and managers are used to more immediate, quantifiable results on more traditional marketing strategies, but very few blogs achieve overnight success. As such, managing expectations is crucial, and that starts from the initial meeting with the board, who may have misconceptions about the form.
It´s better to agree upon manageable goals and achieve them than dismiss your content marketing efforts as a failure by missing targets that are too ambitious.
Too much, too soon
Writing is a demanding business at the best of times, but when you´re expected to come up with new ideas on a daily basis it can prove particularly taxing – especially if you´re not used to writing regularly.
Here at M2, our writers get through an average of around 2500 words per day. That´s some 12,500 words a week, if your maths is a little shabby. If the thought of writing an essay sent shivers down your spine at school, now might be the time to share the workload.
If not, not only will you be left with little in the way of hair to pull out, but the content in question is likely to suffer, too. Be realistic about how much and how often you publish.
What other content marketing challenges might a brand run into along the way? How easily overcome are they?