The many Content Marketing challenges that arise when a business ambitiously starts on a campaign to create and publish regular blogs, or do a series of videos, can see these plans all too often lose momentum.
In the beginning there always seems to be a myriad of great ideas floating around, but without a good, solid content marketing strategy and dedicated people to sustain this, it can unravel pretty quickly.
READ: STORYTELLING THAT DOESN’T SUCK: BEYOND CONTENT MARKETING
We’ve created a short list of some of the primary content marketing challenges we often encounter and added some ideas on how to tackle these.
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Lack of resources for content marketing
This one bites quicker than you realise.
It’s not that HARD to produce content – especially a blog. It’s not that EASY to produce quality content, however.
Small business, NGOs and social impact campaigners often tackle their own content creation/marketing – it makes sense: who knows the organisation or understands the campaign better than you, right?
The challenges though are several; 1) most campaigners are not specifically trained as writers or content creators 2) it is time consuming and usually requires a level of research and 3) there’s a format to creating good content to ensure your message is delivered.
READ: THE POWER OF A GOOD STORY
How to overcome this:
Whether you create the content inhouse, do it yourself or outsource it, you are going to pay for it.
Using existing staff or doing it yourself takes resources or is just simply a HUGE time investment, which may be better served elsewhere.
Outsourcing can be affordable should you find the right company (pick us, pick us, pick us 😊), however, there can be a risk here too.
The primary content marketing challenge, when outsourcing, is finding a company with the expertise and industry knowledge to be able to deliver with a genuine understanding of your cause and/or company ethos.
The most important thing to remember is that content is NOT free marketing – there are tangible costs, and this should be factored in before deciding whether to tackle this inhouse or pay someone to do it for you.
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Consistency
We alluded to this earlier.
One piece of content is achievable. Two doable.
Heck, you could probably manage three months of fairly regular content, but can you do a year of consistently finding new and novel ways to sometimes deliver the same core message?
This is one of the most common content marketing challenges NPOs and social impact campaigners face.
Consistency is one of the most important components to a good content strategy.
One piece of content is seldom enough unless you somehow manage to go viral.
How to overcome this:
READ: WHY CONTENT STRATEGY IS CRITICAL TO SOCIAL IMPACT CAMPAIGNS
A solid content strategy with deliverables is crucial to both monitoring and ensuring that this does not fall away when things get busy.
Even when it feels like there’s little traction, do not stop! As we’ll explain a little later, the long tail of online content is invaluable.
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Paid media
Another of the big content marketing challenges is reaching your desired target market.
It is well documented that social media platforms use sophisticated algorithms to decide who to deliver your organic content to. In fact, they even throttle the content forcing brand pages to pay to reach their own page followers.
Google has used complex algorithms for years to determine when and why your page should display in their search strings.
How to overcome this:
Understand that simply creating content is not enough these days.
Along with a content strategy and content marketing budget, a paid media budget should also be factored into the campaign to ensure that you reach your desired target audience.
A good content marketing strategist will be able to advise you on this too.
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Understanding the long tail of content marketing
When you launch your latest piece of content, no matter the format, it is natural to want to see results as soon as possible.
But also understand that the shelf-life of cleverly created content can be way longer than conventional advertising methods if done correctly.
How to overcome this:
READ: Â THE LONG TAIL AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR CONTENT MARKETING
Once you understand the concept of the long tail for content marketing this will help with both your strategy and expectations.
It is also a reason why a paid media budget and strategy is so critical.
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Measuring ROI
How does one quantify the return on investment of content marketing?
Even with today’s sophisticated analytics technology, it is not always easy to be totally convinced that your content is working.
How to overcome this:
The first thing is to have a clear and concise goal for your content.
Are you looking to broaden your social media presence, embellish your brand or cause, generate donations/leads or elevate your profile as a though-leader?
Measuring ROI on content marketing will be very difficult without clearly defined goals.
If you want your content to generate donations/leads, then a properly set up conversion path and tracking is essential.
If your content goals are more socially based then your Social media platform analytics are useful starting points but there are various other tools such as BuzzSumo, for example, to assist with this.
Clear ROIs will also influence the type of content you decide to create, and the message you deliver.