In this day and age, customers care more about indulging and engaging with brands in a meaningful way instead of getting purely bombarded by “Buy this,” “For Sale,” or “Hire Us!” messages. They know you are selling a product or service, but what more can you offer them? If you can excite, entertain, or educate them, then you are on the right track!
This is where content marketing comes in, and we can’t stress how ridiculously important this is for a business. It’s a powerful marketing strategy because you can establish your brand authority, make an impact, educate about a product or service, push an ongoing promotion, and many more. Simply put, it’s more than just sticking to one communication and one visual. It’s putting out a variety of relevant and entertaining stuff that will ultimately make your customers continue supporting you.
As with all other marketing tasks, this isn’t exactly an easy feat. Here are some challenges faced by marketers in creating a strong online presence through content marketing:
1. Being consistent with the content
Perhaps your company is already familiar with the importance of content marketing to the overall success of the business. What’s next? You produce content and post it where your followers are, then you repeat the process. Are you considering the gap between your posts or are you simply putting out materials when you “feel like it?” There needs to be a clear and simple content strategy for your team to follow! Remember, this can make or break the business, so you might as well execute something that is not half-assed.
Checklist:
- Monitor your competitor’s output. How often are they posting online? What themes do their content fall under – promotions, corporate social responsibility, or something entertaining?
- Carefully plot needed details in a content calendar so you have a guide for the whole month.
- Once you have the content calendar, make sure all posts are scheduled on time. You don’t want to waste the effort of the creatives team with the content. Be consistent with posting and don’t make it a one-time thing.
2. Repurpose content
You’ll be present on various platforms, so make sure you don’t come across as confusing to your customers. Do you have the same style and tone of voice on Facebook and Instagram? Don’t worry if there’s a small difference! The thing is – repurposing doesn’t literally mean posting on Instagram what you posted on Facebook. It’s not a copy-paste situation. Each platform also has different customer characteristics and they consume content differently.
Checklist:
- Just make sure that the important elements as specified in your brand bible are present, and that you are taking into consideration producing content based on your target market’s interest, and the platform’s trends.
- Repurpose content especially when you have a flagship campaign. It’s important to utilize different formats such as blogs, podcasts, videos, and photos.
- Even if there are differences in the materials for various platforms, make sure it still looks unified when you put it all together. The goal, aside from increased exposure, is for your customers to easily know that this is the content from your brand.
3. Be present in the right channels
In line with repurposing content, one of the challenges faced by marketers is identifying the proper channels. Just because there are a hundred social platforms doesn’t mean you should be present in all. That is a total waste of time! Focus on where you could best connect with buyers so you can fish in the right pond. Otherwise, your content won’t resonate with anyone and you’d have wasted precious efforts.
Checklist:
- Observe your customers’ online behavior and see where they are spending most of their time on. You can expect their presence on major platforms, but you might also uncover others!
- Make sure the right content is posted on the right platform. Any form of disconnect might make them lose interest.
4. Creating high-quality content
Just because you are consistent with the postings on the right platforms doesn’t automatically mean you are doing a good job. You must have high-quality content if you want to beat your competitors. This digital strategy influences conversions, sure, but if you don’t have the right content to make it possible, then it is but a dream for your company.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution because the right content will also change from time to time. Some factors to consider include what is relevant to your company, what you want to highlight, as well as certain trends.
Checklist:
- Determine the different content themes you plan to use: promotions, corporate social responsibility, engagement, games or contests, educational, etc. From this, you may break down further by adding various ideas under each theme.
- Once you have the initial idea, you may also draft how it looks. What are some of the elements that could make it visually appealing? Refine and brainstorm with the creatives team, then let them do their magic.
- You’ll be left with the posting on the right channel job after you have your content. The next step is to determine if it resonates well with the audience. For this, you want to see engagement from your customers such as likes, comments, or shares on social media. As for content posted on the website, you may take a look at bounce rate, time on page, and depth scrolled among others. These are indicators that what you are giving the audience is something of real value.
Some of these challenges can be solved if you rely on individuals with content expertise. These marketers should have the journalistic, creative, and technical skills to produce top-notch content.
However, if you cannot produce content in-house, and find it more flexible and efficient to outsource a content marketing team, leave us a message! We assure you that not a single second is wasted because we can take care of the recruitment and training just for you!