Why your content marketing is a failure

If the Internet has caused many changes in our society, I remember what amazed me the first time I found out about this new platform, what completely captured and thrilled me. Sure, there was the chance to connect with individuals from different parts of the world, there was sharing, discussion boards, etc., but what truly thrilled me was that we had the first media open to all. Anyone could, for a small fee and if they spent some time learning HTML, create their own area to discuss what they loved.

Today all of this has become even easier since it’s not even necessary to know how to write any code, and most of the time a simple profile on a social media site will be enough to showcase you. In the past, media was not available to everyone. Starting a TV or radio station was not something everyone could do. Creating a magazine or newspaper was very costly. In this way, we are living in amazing times (but for how long?)

At a time when brands are creating their own media, their own ways of sharing information and communicating with their clients, many marketers are however getting stuck in a series of concerns about Content marketing. This is shown in a study done by Accenture that reveals 100% of marketing leaders surveyed believe digital content is important for achieving goals in both internal and external communication. However, they face questions about how to use it, how to create it, and the benefits they get from it. Thus, the study points out two main challenges that marketers need to deal with:.

Content Marketing is a victim of infobesity

Infobesity worries marketers. And for good reason! The amount of digital content is estimated to double every two years. It is predicted that by 2020 the entire Internet will weigh something like 44 zettabytes (44 billion gigabytes). Blog articles, publications on social networks, online medical data, videos and much more, all this contributes to the richness of the Internet but also to the difficulty of finding a place in the heart of this mass of information.

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At the same time, while the volume of information grows exponentially, the attention of Internet users continues to decrease. Thus, the average attention span of a user was 5 minutes in 2011, compared to 12 minutes 10 years earlier. The abundance and speed of renewal of content available to the Internet user generates a sort of stress that affects our attention and creates a sort of dependence, the fear of losing vital information.

Despite this, Accenture’s study reveals that 92% of companies surveyed produce more content than two years ago and 83% imagine their rate of content production will increase in the next two years. It’s a kind of frantic race that marketers of all kinds undertake to appear in search engine results.

But we don’t just stand out for the overproduction of content. You also need to stand out through your content strategy. If I was content with writing news on social media, sharing Facebook’s latest features or Instagram’s new interface, it’s a safe bet that I would suffer complete failure. For that? Because others do it much better than me and the competition for this type of information is tough because most digital communication blogs already broadcast it. What I produce isn’t necessarily better but it allows me to stand out by trying to provide original content.

You all know this quote from Jens Mortier, from the Mortierbrigade advertising agency: “ Only good content travels ». Regularity is important, but there is no point in producing quantity of content if there is no quality and originality.

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Content management is essential

Overproduction of content generates considerable management work. Of course, once you’ve written the article or edited the video, the work has just begun. We will have to share it, make it viral, ensure a presence on social networks to respond to comments, etc. Not to mention the earned media generated by your fans or followers. This is the most time-consuming part of content marketing. Over 50% of respondents reveal that they own more digital content than they can handle. Only 1 in 5 marketers believe their organization manages its content well.

Again, it’s often a lack of strategy and investment in the right resources that leads to this overwhelm and ultimately prevents your content from achieving its goals. On the one hand we need to produce quality content, but we also need to make sure we don’t produce more than we can subsequently handle. By content I mean your blog articles, your videos but also your publications on social networks. We could also talk about the number of accounts on social networks. By wanting to occupy the field we end up no longer being able to be effective on all social networks.

So, the steps to start your digital strategy should be as follows:

• Who do we want to communicate and provide content to?
• For what purpose?
• What do they need?
• Where are these people located?
• What resources do we have?
• How much load are we able to absorb?

These simple questions already allow us not to get lost in a digital presence without objective, without target and without strategy. Always remember why you are creating: deliver content that delivers a more engaging customer experience, drives sales, and fuels your organization’s brand.

Why does Content Marketing seem so complicated?

I think we forget that the word “Marketing” exists in Content Marketing. If producing content was enough to make you a leader in your market, it would be enough to hire a journalist and have him write all day. It’s much more complicated than that in reality of course. Furthermore, 1 in 5 marketers complain that they don’t really know why they create content !

Beyond the pure strategy you will have to define, you will have to take into account the internal skills and talents you can count on. Within your organization, not everyone will necessarily know how to write articles or appear in videos. Then you will need a Community managersupported by a team marketing for the direction to take and perhaps a graphic to produce the visual content. Maybe you will need it outsource your Content Marketing strategyin this case, think of the editor of this article who will be happy to support you in your digital communication.

Another aspect that sometimes makes content production more complex is the siled functioning of an organization. 40% of study participants identify the third cause of difficulty in the lack of coordination between company departments. Departments must share with each other, communicate their expectations, customer feedback, goals to achieve, etc.

So, if you don’t build a strategy, if you don’t set clear objectives and measurable (I underline this word), your work is doomed to failure. You will experience success, without really knowing why and without being able to repeat it, and you will feel exhausted due to the lack of encouragement. This is also what often generates the frustration of communicators and the unheard antiphon of managers: » social media doesn’t work!«

What are you missing to be successful?

Again according to this study, marketers identify the crucial points to put them on the path to success. 10% of them focus on technological, platform and process aspects. 8% want better coordination between departments in their organization, others would like a clear strategy, talents identified and integrated into the company. The other numbers are in the image below.

In summary, if you launch yourself into Content Marketing, take care to calculate the cost, estimate what your resources allow you to produce, what results you want to obtain and how to measure their effects. Take stock of internal skills, train your teams and ensure they are supported.

This article might discourage more than one person, that’s not the purpose. Content Marketing, integrated into a real strategy, produces incredible results but can become a failure without preparation and reflection. Be equipped and supported to build sustainable operations that will be a source of visibility, brand image, loyalty and turnover.