Does your content marketing strategy have a case of the blahs? If it’s feeling stale and boring to you, then it’s probably the same for your audience, which means you won’t attract the people you want.
Plus, with all the recent Google algorithm changes, you probably need to shake things up to make sure they are even seeing your content. Here’s how to figure out if your content marketing is missing the mark – and how to fix it.
12 Ways Your Content Marketing Is Missing the Mark
1. It’s Too Fluffy
Earlier this year Jay Baer did a webinar on content balance, discussing the components of a successful content marketing campaign. He divided the key content needed into two types: bricks and feathers, stating that a content strategy needed both to be successful.
Feathers are light pieces of content that you can produce quickly such as social media updates. But if your content marketing campaign is driven only by this type of content, then you won’t build your reputation by showing thought leadership. Your customers might enjoy chatting with you on social media, but that won’t cut any ice when customers are making buying decisions.
The solution: Include some long-form and in-depth content that really shows that your company has some substance. It will also help you rank well in the search engine results using Google’s in-depth articles feature.
2. It’s Too Weighty
While long-form content is important, you shouldn’t get carried away with the creation of “bricks.” It’s all about balance. If you produce a mountain of weighty content that no one has the time or inclination to read, then that’s a big fail too.
The solution: Balance light content with depth with content that shows your brand’s personality. Some companies do this really well, producing content of interest to their core customers while staying away from the heavy sales pitches.
3. It Has No Images
If your content consists of huge blocks of text with no images, your readers will get bored.
Images are the new black. Or, to put it another way, visual marketing needs to be a key component of your content marketing strategy.
There are three reasons for this.
1. Pinterest is driving massive sales and Instagram is garnering big audiences and now delivering those audiences to advertisers. These two social networks are all about sharing images.
2. People take in a lot of information through their eyes, so it’s a big opportunity for content marketers to make a huge impact.
3. 43% of people list images as the content they most share on social media. That means if your content marketing is still primarily text based then you will lose a lot of your audience.
The solution: Start illustrating your content with strong images, which will increase the likelihood of reaching more people as users share.
4. You’re Not Using Video
Those same stats also apply to the use of video in content marketing. You need to use it to make your content more interesting.
I get that there’s a learning curve: not everyone is a video whiz. But there’s so much technology around to help you create video quickly that there’s no excuse for entirely avoiding this fast-growing marketing trend.
Whether they’re commuting or sitting in front of the TV, your audience is probably looking at some online video at some point during the day. Online video is an important part of overall media consumption and it’s growing fast (especially among younger audiences).
The solution: Make and share some videos. Don’t make them too serious or salesy, either. Some of the best and most shared videos created by brands in recent times have included humor (like the Old Spice Man) or tapped into a deep emotional issue (like the Dove Real Beauty Sketches).
5. It’s Isolated
You want to know the sign of a poor content marketing campaign? Irrelevance!
There’s stuff happening out there all the time, and if your campaign fails to leverage topical issues, then it will fail. Making sure your content relates to a trending topic is a shortcut to getting more attention for it. Fail to do so and it risks sinking to the bottom of the stream unread.
The solution: Use content curation tools to keep tabs on hot news topics, celebrity mentions and memes so your content is ultra relevant to the audiences you are trying to reach.
6. There’s No WIIFM (What’s in it for me?)
Want people to respond positively to your content marketing campaign? Then they need to know how they benefit from what you are offering. Light pieces of content give them something fun to share with friends; weighty pieces probably meet an informational need for your customers. Either way, they need to know what they gain from your content.
The solution: put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Check out your analytics to see what they are searching for. Then tailor your content to meet those needs and ensure that it is clear how those needs are addressed.
7. You’re Using One Social Channel
If you’re only on Facebook, your content marketing strategy is missing the mark. If you’re only on Twitter, your content marketing strategy is missing the mark. If you’re only on LinkedIn, your content marketing strategy is…you get the idea.
Your audience is varied and hangs out on different social media sites. They may not be reading your blog. That’s why it’s important to try to reach your potential customers on all the channels where they are.
The solution: Gain some insight by using the social reports in Google Analytics to figure out where people are already sharing your content and which social sites are bringing them to your website. It’s also worth doing some research on social media demographics to check that you’re sharing content in the right places to reach your audience.
8. You’re Still Focused on Link Building
If your content marketing campaign is still about building massive amounts of inbound links from any site in the world, then you’re doing it wrong; no question!
From here on in link building is all about authority. It’s about getting links from authority sites and doing it the right way.
The solution: Claim authorship of your work in Google Plus, add your content to the right local search directories, and concentrate on building authority with pillar articles, interviews, webinars and other high-value content.
9. Your Content Sucks
There’s no way to sugarcoat this. Fixing all these things won’t save you if your content is poorly written. For blog posts, you need enticing headlines, appealing subheadings and well formatted body text. Posts should also have a clear call to action at the end. Your entire post needs to tell a clear and compelling story. You need to pay the same kind of attention to these details with all the other kinds of content you are creating.
The solution: Follow the best practices for creating content. Don’t write content that sucks. Start with this article by Bill Hazleton.
10. You’re not Using Structured Data
Structured data will ensure that your content is found. That’s one of the effects of Google’s recent search algorithm updates. Structured data tells the search engines what kind of content you’re producing so that it comes up when people do a relevant search.
The solution: Read this primer on Schema.org markup from Search Engine Journal, then get your content tagged.
11. It’s Not Ready for Mobile
Mobile devices have taken over the world. If your content is not ready for the new wave of mobile users, you will fail. Since mobile users are more likely than any others to take quick action on what they find, your content needs to work on mobile devices.
The solution: Make sure your site and content are mobile friendly to give mobile users a great experience. Make sure it loads quickly, and make it easy for them to take action.
12. It’s Piecemeal
To tie everything together you need some sort of strategic focus, an idea of what you want to achieve and who you are hoping to address. Without this, there’s no point in content marketing at all.
The solution: Start at the beginning by creating buyer personas, then read some of the excellent content marketing guides produced by the Content Marketing Institute and others. Set some specific, measurable goals and track the success of your content marketing efforts so you can amend your strategy when necessary.
Final Thoughts
These 12 areas will help you troubleshoot the possible causes of blahness in your content marketing strategy. Improve any one of them and you should immediately notice a difference. Improve them all and you will be poised to rock the world.
Dave Bascom is the CEO of Fit Marketing. Dave has been doing SEO since the pre-Google days, helping companies large and small get found online. You can request a consultation with Dave and his team at Fit Marketing here.