In this episode of Actionable Marketing In Minutes we talk about your content marketing campaign and hurdles you may be facing.
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Problem:
You might have caught our podcast entitled What is Google’s Rankbrain last October. If you missed it, please check it out. You’ll find it very interesting.
Briefly, we discussed Google’s new algorithm signal – Rankbrain – which is a form of artificial intelligence that provides more relevant user search results. It works by telling Google how to interpret content and links – in much the same way our human brains interpret incoming data.
With Rankbrain, search engines actually analyze your content in order to rank it.
Besides the fact that Google – and therefore all the other search engines – pretty much now demand quality content, there are a good number of other reasons business owners and managers must develop good content.
* It attracts new traffic as well as encourages increased site interactions via links within your site.
* It builds your reputation because people see you when you’re out there.
* When a prospect investigates your site, their respect for you – and subsequently their trust in you – will be secured when they see you truly are an authority in your field.
* Of course, your revenue can easily increase when you include a well-placed call-to-action within your well-written content.
The problem is, though 94% of small businesses, 93% of B2Bs and 77% of B2Cs get it – they understand content is crucial – and, they are getting on board to provide good content, they aren’t experiencing the success they were promised.
The question is ‘why’?
Solution:
Of course, there could be a couple of reasons that are somewhat beyond your control as to why you’re not seeing the conversions you’d hoped for, such as: you’re in a tough niche or you’re up against a big competitor with lots more resources than you have.
Let’s say that’s not the case. I’d like to ask you a few questions that may help you get on track:
* Are you spending enough on your content marketing ventures? And, just as importantly, are you spending your money wisely? If budget is an issue, consider focusing more on the less expensive methods. And, always spend more for a good content marketer than on tactics.
* Is your content of high quality? A good number of businesses go on the cheap when hiring writers. And, it shows. If you don’t have staff that can help write good stuff, definitely don’t skimp when outsourcing.
* Are you promoting your content? Promotion is equally as important as creation.
* How’s your SEO? If it’s bad, you may as well not be writing good content at all.
* Now, here’s the most important question: do you have a documented content strategy? If so, are you implementing it? A 2014 marketing survey done by Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs1 found that 66% of the successful B2B respondents did have a documented content strategy. Only 11% of the unsuccessful respondents had such a plan.
What does that tell you? It tells me that if you have no strategy, chances are you will keep throwing your valuable resources down a black hole and will probably experience horrible results.
Benefits:
I am confident that if you ponder the questions posed and embrace solid solutions, you will absolutely experience the results you’d hoped for when you hopped on the quality content bandwagon.
If you feel a little stuck, give us a call. We know how to write good content and we know how to promote it. We’d be happy to work with your marketing department to get them going in the right direction.
We hope you’ve found this information helpful. Please connect with us on Twitter @DirectiveGroup or on LinkedIn. Let us know what you think and what you’d like to hear about next. And if you like our podcasts please share with your networks using hashtag #actionablemarketing.
Join us next time as we discuss tools you can use.
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