If you ever hear anyone say this to you or it occurs to you then just run...from this idea. This is one of the biggest reasons why content marketing isn't working for you. Everyone who has ever tried content marketing for a while and then given up because the "results aren't good enough" has fallen prey to this idea some time or the other.
Content marketing is not some new age fad or trend. It lies at the very core of marketing in today's date. The problem is that entrepreneurs see content marketing as some trend and invest in it for a while, much like a few pennies put into ads and then stopping those ads because they are not yielding the right results.
Why are your ads not yielding results? Why aren't they bringing in leads? Why isn't content marketing working for you?
Because content marketing isn't short term.
Because content marketing isn't short term.
Why short term content marketing does not work?
Content marketing should go hand-in-hand with your overall marketing strategy. The sad news is, most small and medium businesses, startups included, don't have a marketing strategy in place. Marketing is often an afterthought. Just imagine what that means for content marketing.
Marketing should begin right with your financial planning for your business. you should be investing your time and expertise, or if you lack the skills, your money into creating an overall marketing and branding strategy.
Right from name, logo, brand board, vision, mission, overall objective, target audience, competitor research, keyword analysis, content planning, creation, dissemination, targeting, analytics, everything...stage-by-stage, should be planned and executed.
I have seen how averse entrepreneurs are when it comes to investing money into marketing. Since marketing unlike sales, doesn't directly tie to numbers and returns, marketing always stays at the experimental level for most businesses.
This is the reason why the market has only a few winners. Those people, who saw the importance of marketing at the very beginning, had the skills or learnt them, were the ones who are now ranking on Google, who are now at the forefront of social media, and the ones who are the leaders on the social and digital platforms. The platforms that matter.
Short term content marketing occurs when you hire an agency or a freelancer to do your content marketing for a few months. This involves creating social media pages or posting to your already created social media pages, posting blogs, updating your website copy etc. But all this, only for a few months. During these few months you are constantly on the lookout to find how how much web traffic is your social media bringing in. You also try to tie your social media efforts to sales. And then you see that engagement is up, page visits are up, but sales are not and then you go ahead and terminate content marketing altogether.
The beautiful part of this is, if your content was thoughtfully created for your end users and they did like it, they will keep bringing in engagement long after, but not at the scale you would have enjoyed had you continued content marketing.
Content marketing is NOT tied to sales
To understand why this happens, you need to understand what content marketing does in the first place and how to make the most of it.
Content marketing makes you relevant.
Content marketing makes you relevant.
It connects you to your end user not by selling directly to them but by providing value to your users. Content marketing uses tools like keywords, buyer personas, analytics to find out what works for your target market and helps you create an everlasting connection that is built over time.
Would you buy something of value off Craigslist or research on Google first?
That's the time you need to allow people to know your brand, connect with it, and when time comes choose YOU over competitors.
This takes time and effort. And a 3-6-9 month's of content marketing wouldn't cut it.
There are too many people out there, doing exactly what you are doing. How are you going to differentiate yourself from them. Your products from them?
That's where content marketing steps in.
Yes, content marketing can drive sales. It absolutely can. It is a powerful tool after all. But you need to create the foundation for it first. Otherwise, it's like putting an ice cream cone upside down on the table and stacking 20 kilos of books on it. CRUNCH...
It needs to start at the very beginning and go on forever or till you wind up your business. Content marketing can help in brand building, building goodwill (which is actually an asset on the balance sheet), and business continuity. It's way more than a tool for sales.
Even if you own a decade-old company and realise the need to start content marketing and grow your presence and goodwill in the current market, the one thing you need to do is know that content marketing is forever, much like your accounting team, IT team, and HR team.
If you want to create a true, working presence in the market, then marketing and content marketing CANNOT be an afterthought.
Need help with content marketing for your business? Feel free to set up a 30-minute free consultation call to zero down on your exact marketing pain points and how we can get rid of them.
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