If it feel like your content marketing strategy is not yielding results despite all your efforts, you should consider the fact fact that your content strategy is broken.
Below are some signs that your content strategy is broken:
1. Your Traffic Is Stagnant
Content has to drive traffic to your site and not just exist in the social media sphere. If your content is not giving you a steady stream of traffic then something is wrong with your strategy. When you give your clients valuable content they will always explore your site. If they are not exploring your site then you are doing something wrongly. You can use an effective analytics plan to help you figure out where your best sales and leads come from so that you can adapt your strategy accordingly.
2. You Are Not Getting Any Shares
Any kind of share on maybe Facebook, Twitter, links on Instagram, or memos often carry a lot of weight in the marketing world. One of your content goals should be to offer selfless, relevant material that is either informative and helpful or entertaining and smart. If your audience is not sharing your content then it means that they are not engaging with it as you would like them to.
3. Few Or No Comments
Regardless of how many hundreds of likes, thumbs-up, or other clickable accolades you get and no comments then you are in trouble. This is because the best kind of engagement lies in the comments. If your audience is not talking about what you publish then you are missing the mark and it is time to start reevaluating your strategy. You could be speaking to the wrong audience or you need a different approach on your topics.
4. Your Content Is Unfocused
An effective content strategy will bring you sales or at least traffic. If you are getting none of that then you should check if your content is too broad for an audience to latch on to. This is a common mistake that marketers make by trying to appeal to everyone. You need to know your audience first and get to know them over and over as they evolve and focus on content that will meet their needs.
One of the best way to develop your content strategy is to give your audience a steady stream of value. This can be something that will make them laugh or something that they will want to reference over and over. Building such a relationship with your audience will earn you incredible points with your readership and in the long haul it will lead your customer base into loyal fans.
5. You Do Everything By Yourself
There comes a time when you cannot do everything by yourself due to your business’s size. If you over work yourself the following happens:
- You get burnt out
- You are unable to keep up and your business suffer large setbacks
- You limit your growth
Such cases are obviously terrible and if your entire content marketing system relies on you doing everything then it is broken. You should know when it is time to get help. Content marketers require a lot of different skills:
- Research
- Design
- Copywriting
- Editing
- Promotion
- PR
- Link building
Now, unless you are an extremely rare exception you are not amazing at all those things. Therefore, it is advisable to seek for help. You can hire good freelancers who will help you make more money because:
- They are better than you
- It frees up your time
- It minimizes catastrophe
Most business owners think that content marketing is not very effective because they do not know how to turn it into sales. They create high quality content but then expect their readers to spontaneously start purchasing their products. As a content marketer, you need to understand that the whole point of content marketing is to increase profits or sales. Without any return from content marketing you cannot justify the investment in more content. Try creating a different product or pivot your content marketing strategy to target the right audience for your product.
Conclusion
Content marketing can produce great results. However, majority of marketers are not having success with it. This is because their content marketing approach is broken. The list above show the most common symptoms of broken content marketing strategies. Now, it is upon you to evaluate your results and determine if there is a weakness that you need to fix.