Content Marketing Failure Points

Companies seeking to engage their markets need to create content to convey their key messages. In the long term, low quality content that doesn't add value is not part of a viable content marketing strategy. Too many companies fail at content marketing due to short term thinking. Here are some of the ways they fail, and how to avoid those pitfalls.

Targeting From the Gut vs. to Personas
As with regular marketing efforts, too much content marketing budget is allocated based on intuition, popularity or guesswork. Content marketers need to research before making decisions about content and publishing platforms. The most effective way to do this is by developing personas that exemplify desirable customer groups.

Building the Army on Day 1 of the War
Promotion is an essential component of content marketing. But first, communities and distribution channels are needed to expand reach and engagement. First, identify relevant communities and platforms. Then participate and consistently create signals of value and credibility through interaction. Once the network is in place, then execute a particular promotion.

Campaign vs. Ongoing
Content marketing is an ongoing commitment. There is no starting and stopping point.

Not Repurposing Content
Creating original content over a long period is difficult. It's essential to repurpose some of the content you create. There are a number of ways to do this. Repurposed content must remain relevant to a target audience. Don't just republish the same thing on multiple platforms.

No Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Bad keyword optimization implementation does degrade content quality, but great SEO is transparent and actually improves readability and user experience. Keywords, while important, are only a part of SEO. Content marketing needs to leverage the full impact of SEO.

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