There are many people out there struggling to win the prize of high SERP rankings. If you ask them why, the most common answer is that they want to generate more business, more traffic to their websites, more potential customers, etc. Few people, however, realize that simply generating traffic may be winning the battle and not the war.
Here are three common failures of content marketing strategy and how you can fix them in your own content marketing initiatives.
- Substitute link building for content marketing. Getting more links or “going viral” is not the goal; it is a means to an end. Without the right content, going viral just brings more disgruntled customers to your site. Focus on content rather than on rushing to the top of the rankings so that you can build a loyal brand following. This means giving some thought to your content strategy and how you are going to generate content for your site that will gain attention but also meet user needs.
- Set the wrong goals or no goals at all. There are different goals and metrics that are appropriate for different areas of a marketing campaign. Without knowing which ones are right for different spots in the sales funnel, you may be setting yourself up to spend a great deal of time and money in the wrong places. Instead, think of the sales funnel as a cycle and measure appropriately at each stage, which feeds into the next stage, and so on.
- Refuse to do research. If you do not have the right strategy to formulate a marketing campaign, you are probably not going to be successful. A good strategy depends on research. No one likes to do it, but it is a necessary part of the work that goes into those campaigns. This research includes benchmark audits, competitor research, online market research and customer research to determine what your client base actually wants. Without hard work in each of these areas before starting out, it is not likely that any marketing campaign is going to magically hit on the right mix to reach customers, gain their trust and turn them into buyers, although successful campaigns seem to do this effortlessly.
Focusing on your content marketing strategy means some long and difficult hours, but you will reap the results of your work in an increased and more stable customer base.
