5 content marketing challenges and how to overcome them

Page 1

5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them

Kevin Ocasio


5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them Wouldn’t you agree that content is the soul of every website? Content is what makes your site rank in search engines. It attracts visitors who want to seek industry tips and advice. Content helps you establish online authority, making you the go-to guy. Because of these reasons, content marketers are faced with numerous challenges. And they know they must overcome them if they want their blog to get more traffic and conversions. Today’s blog post is all about those obstacles and solutions to overcome them.

Challenge #1: Producing content on a regular basis. One of the ways you can stand out among your blog competitors is to be consistent in your content creation efforts. Through consistency, you strengthen your credibility as a brand. Although you know that maintaining a publishing frequency is important for SEO and regular visitors, there are times when you won’t be able to deliver for different reasons. You spent more time doing other online marketing tasks. You got sick. You haven’t really formed the habit of writing regularly. You felt less motivated. How to overcome this challenge:

5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them


5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them Outsource your content creation – The ultimate solution to this content marketing challenge is to have someone else who has the skill and time to do it for you. I know some marketers feel uncomfortable with this, but if they want their business to move forward, they have to let go of total control. When you outsource, make sure to sample plenty of writers. Exercise accountability – If you want to make sure to produce content consistently no matter what, let your readers know about your next blog post. Tell them, “Next week, I’ll be talking about this topic so stay tuned.” This allows you to deliver on your promise because you know that if you don’t, you’ll lose your readers. Stick to a schedule that works for you – According to Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net, blogging becomes more effortless if you do it during a time when you feel most comfortable. He sets aside mornings for writing content and evenings for social media tasks. Know when to do what you need to do.

Challenge #2: Getting in front of your target audience. Getting the word out is tougher than you think. Any great piece of content would be useless if there was no way to promote it to the world. And even if you added social sharing buttons to your blog posts so readers who found them helpful would share them to social media channels, a strong content distribution and promotion strategy still matters. Derek Halpern of SocialTriggers.com spends 80% of his time promoting his pieces of content. How to overcome this challenge:

5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them


5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them Start with your email list – Begin with your most valuable asset –

your email list . Promoting your content to your subscribers gets you more engagement. QuickSprout.com suggests giving an introduction to the blog post and linking to it. Answer questions related to your blog posts in forums – A forum that’s highly popular among content marketers is Quora . Start looking for relevant questions by entering your keyword/s in Quora’s search box. You’ll see tons of suggestions. Provide in-depth answers and link back to your blog posts. Run a native advertising campaign – This is a paid means of getting more eyeballs for your content. Native ads are more acceptable to people than regular banner ads because they easily blend with their surroundings, thereby maintaining an aesthetic appeal.

Challenge #3: Burnout. I know that sometimes you want to throw in the towel. As someone who expects himself to produce compelling content daily to stand out from the competition, it’s not impossible to experience burnout.

5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them


5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them You’ll know when you experience burnout if you suddenly feel less interested in your content marketing tasks. As a result, the quality of your content obviously drops. You can work like crazy and try to get everything on your online marketing to-do list done at once, but at the end of the day, you can only do so much. How to overcome this challenge: Try creating other types of content – If you feel exhausted with blogging, you might want to try creating a podcast episode (like what Pat Flynn does) or a video in which you simply have to talk about your ideas. Aside from giving you a blogging break, doing this saves you from disappointing your audience who are expecting from you. Invite guest bloggers – Though guest blogging isn’t new, not all content marketers welcome the idea of having someone else publish content on their blogs. If you ever decide to accept guest bloggers to bring in a unique perspective to your blog, make sure to set high standards. Only accept those who create highquality posts. Use effective tools to manage your workload – The right tools can help you save time and effort. You’ll be able to automate and schedule tasks so you don’t have to work round-the-clock. For example, marketers create autoresponder series using an email marketing service like

5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them


5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them AWeber . This way, they’ll be able to stay connected with their audience even when they’re not around.

Challenge #4: Keeping readers engaged. Getting people to stay at your blog is tough. There are more skimmers today that avid readers. With so many brand messages competing for your audience’s attention, there’s a need for you to put in more effort to maintain that personal connection you have with them. According to current research, the average human attention span has decreased to 8 seconds from 12 seconds in the year 2000. An 8-second attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish!

So how do you ensure that you keep readers interested? How to overcome this challenge: Always write for humans

5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them


5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them – Don’t alienate your readers by using jargon. Get your message across quick by being concise and writing in plain english. Also, trigger your readers’ emotions by letting them be aware of an existing problem and offering solutions they can easily apply. Use good, catchy visuals – Humans love visuals. For images to be really effective, they must be relevant to the text they accompany. It has been shown that using the right images increase a person’s visit to your blog for up to 30 minutes. You can add filters and text to your blog post images by using a simple photo editing tool like PicMonkey . Ask your audience how you can help them – It is important that you know exactly what your readers want to learn more from you. Instead of brainstorming for blog post topics that have no certainty to bring in results, get their actual opinions by running an online survey. (Read: The Surprisingly Simple Secret to Knowing What Your Readers Want )

Challenge #5: Real results that do not have to take years. How long will it take before my website gains a massive audience? This is a common question content marketers ask at the same time of trying to run a profitable business online. 5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them


5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them Aside from using free strategies to get your site some traction (blog commenting, writing quality content, guest posting, etc.), have you tapped into paid methods? According to Jayson DeMers in his article entitled 5 Fast Ways To Get Traffic For A New Website, he mentions that content marketing and SEO take a long time before generating a positive ROI. If you want to see results faster, here are some methods you can follow: How to overcome this challenge: Advertise on Facebook – There’s a reason why some content marketers are now leveraging Facebook Ads to promote their content: Facebook is 89% accurate in running targeted campaigns. Using Facebook Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences, you’ll be able to reach more of your current audiences and potential audiences. Run an online contest – Launching an online contest is a proven method of gaining massive brand exposure and getting more email subscribers. According to Supreme Strategies , the trick in getting people to signup for your contest and share it with their friends is to give away a prize that people find valuable in your niche. Leverage PPC ads

5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them


5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them – When you run pay-per-click ads, you’ll only be charged each time someone clicks on your ads. PPC advertisers often use search engine advertising (displaying ads in search engine results pages).

Final Thoughts Today, online users are setting higher expectations as more and more websites emerge. As content marketers, we are challenged to make every effort count. If you continue to strive to serve your audience the best way, you’ll get better results soon. How about you? What are the challenges you face as a content marketer? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

5 Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.