Content Marketing and Wasted Resources: 8 Ways It Takes Place

The majority of B2B marketers will, within a one-year period, increase the amount of money they spend on content marketing. This is an indication of the fact that those marketers view content as being an above-board strategy to increase their rankings. Sadly though, due to the proliferation of ideas as to the proper and improper ways of going about content marketing, many marketers will find themselves wasting valuable financial resources on non-essential practices. But you do not have to fall into that rut. Pay close attention to the following 8 things that you need to avoid whether or not you plan on increasing the budget for your content marketing:

1. Wrong Concepts Being Pitched to Management

Quite a number of businesses are steadily streamlining content marketing into their business plans. The top brass of some of these businesses, however, are still misinformed about the true value of content marketing, many of them seeing it as only relevant to brand names found in homes. This can make the marketer’s job of pitching content and social marketing to them a lot harder. Even though managers may find it difficult to understand what their marketers are trying to do, they inevitably want to help their consumers and even more so when consumers are inclined to spend their money with the related brand.

A better way to use your resources: Instead of making content marketing being the focal point of your pitch, it would be better to vigorously highlight the 3 concepts that content marketing is built on – teaching, entertaining, and helping customers. By leveraging your marketing pitch in this way, you are more likely to get the financial backing you need to put your content marketing plan into action.

1. A Frontal Marketing Strategy That is “Do or Die”

Developing a strategy is the number one step in the process of content marketing. This includes outlining the ways in which the business will achieve its objectives and goals,defining implementation timelines, deciding which metrics will be used for measurement, defining the various responsibilities and roles, and so on. Bear in mind, however, that if you never get to use your strategy, it will never be of use to anyone.

A better way to use your resources: Money is wasted many times by businesses that have a powerful and workable strategy developed and documented only to never use it. Research has shown that it is more effective to use the documented strategy instead of leaving it lying around to gather dust. You can, nonetheless, achieve effective content marketing without a lengthy strategy. For instance, when embarking on a brand new marketing venture, a single-page strategy may suffice. Other things that can also be just as effective include templates, checklists, and content calendars.

1. Falling Prey to Content Shock

In relatively simple terms, content shock refers to the exponential growth of content supplied online when demand for said content is stagnant. Despite that, the volume of content being produced keeps rising due to the fact that content marketing is becoming the acceptable norm.This is compounded by the fact that many businesses cry down content marketing’s true value and thus lose focus. This leads to the production and publication of invaluable content on the Internet.

A better way to use your resources: Content has a rich, long history. In all cases, over time, content that has the most value comes out on top. So you need to move past the content shock stage. Place all your energies into the creation of high-caliber content that your audience will find useful.

1. Storytelling That Overwhelms

While telling a good story is advantageous for some created content, it does not have to be employed for all the content that is created. When people become engrossed in the storytelling stage of content marketing, they, unfortunately, end up creating content that is not valuable to their audience.

A better way to use your resources: When creating content, take time to do so, ensuring that it is educational, addresses your audience’s needs, and fills them in on information that is valuable.

1. Department and Team Exclusion

The most important aspect of a successful marketing strategy is producing content that is personalized towards the needs of your audience. But, in order to accomplish that, you must have some knowledge of what the needs of your audience are. The best way to gather that information would be to speak to your employees who are in contact with your customers on a daily basis.

A better way to use your resources: Many marketers do not generally see the need to include other teams and departments in the whole process of content marketing. This, however, is an unwise view because customer service and sales representatives can prove to be sources of rich and valuable information. Due to the fact that they are the ones who interact most of the time with potential customers and clients, they are aware of the issues that are affecting them. By using the information garnered from these individuals, you will now be able to come up with ideas for content, plan on how to use that content, and then actually create the content.

1. The Publication of Content That is “Flawless”

To their own detriment, many marketers spend unnecessary time mulling over created content, looking for typographical and other errors that are not significant before actually publishing the content. What they need to realize is that the created content does not have to be “flawless” even though they desire it be of top notch quality.

A better way to use your resources: You can have a greater impact on your audience if you share a brief video or social network post that is beneficial to them vs. trying to produce “flawless” content that is too long and not as beneficial to them. What you should be doing is taking the time to produce relevant, helpful, and good quality content that will benefit your target audience instead of trying to be “flawless” all the time. Keep in mind that produced content is of no benefit to you or your audience if it has not been published.

1. Measuring All the Metrics

Trying to measure all the metrics from the get-go can end up costing you dearly. What happens to a lot of businesses is that they spend countless hours performing analyses of various metrics of social media, like brand awareness and re-tweets, without having a full comprehension of the data, let alone its usefulness.

A better way to use your resources: The most important metrics that businesses should focus on so as to make a proper determination of their Return On Investment (ROI) are leads, sales, and traffic. After they see how these metrics affect their ROI, they can begin analyzing other metrics to see how they impact on their ROI.

1. Conversions Are Your Only Concern

After receiving analytical results, a large number of businesses tend to focus mainly on how the metrics of leads, sales, and conversions affect their ROI. Other metrics, collectively referred to as “engagement metrics,” that are equally important include brand lift (a brand’s increase in customer perception), engaged time (how well individual pieces of content are performing), average finish (percentage of people who actually finish reading your page), return readers (number of readers that come back to check out your content), visitor loyalty (how often people revisit your site within any specific period), longevity (how long your content keeps reaping rewards), and email engagement (effectiveness of email campaigns). Just as how social networking can send traffic to your sites thereby increasing the reach of your content and build relationships, engagement metrics will give you an idea of the content that is more favored by readers and the areas that they actually visit.

A better way to use your resources: Referral traffic is a good traffic source that many businesses have been using more and more. Your task now would be to identify the sites that drive lots of traffic to your site and promote your content in that direction. Identify the most popular content that your audience reads and examine the time on page of those pages. While doing this, keep in mind that the role of engagement metrics is to help you measure how successful your content is in a qualitative manner and does not necessarily have a direct relationship to your net earnings.

Summary

Content marketing can prove to be an affordable venture if you do not waste resources and take note of the 8 points mentioned in this article. Some businesses have been able to launch successful content marketing campaigns despite having to stretch their budgets. The advice for you is to concentrate on giving your customers the help that that they need instead of trying to create “flawless” content and measuring all conceivable metrics. You are guaranteed to see results if you take these points to heart and apply them.
Are you aware of any other things that can end up costing businesses valuable time and money as it relates to content marketing? Please share your views below.