You’ve heard it a dozen and one times, “Content is King,”—but is it really? While more businesses are leaping onto the content marketing bandwagon, most do not understand why they are religiously publishing web content or how they should optimise content to multiple leads. If you are one of those still seeking the elusive promises of content marketing, we have news for you: you’re not going to find it because content is not king, your customers are.
90% of businesses are on social media, and 90% fail to reap higher profits
Among the many businesses that we have worked with at the Digital Influence Lab, the top issue that our clients face is that they have low ROI despite employing an aggressive content strategy. At least 90% of our clients have a presence on social media and around 75% publish content to engage their customers. Yet, business owners are still frustrated with anaemic sales volume and leads.
Here is why your web strategy is still failing even when you consistently update your social media accounts:
Your content strategy is misguided by intuition
Most businesses do not make use of data to guide their content marketing strategy. In fear of losing out to competitors, many have blindly moved to content marketing, even before they have clarified their marketing position. A successful content marketing strategy is NOT based on a gut feeling. It is based on a clear understanding of who you are marketing to, what you are trying to market and what you want to achieve. Unless these are clarified, your million dollar marketing plan is definitely going down the drain.
You do not understand what is interesting to your customers
You’ve changed your brand logo, and while we understand why you would want to share your milestones with your Facebook fans, it may not resonate with your customers. Good content marketing strategies are customer-centric and focus on the needs of your customers—remember: your customers are kings. Thus, your content strategy should be personalised and relevant to your audience in order to maximise engagement levels.
You’ve got engagement, but no conversion
Now that you have created content that speaks to the souls of your customers, what is next? Most businesses can achieve some levels of engagement with their customers, but their marketing efforts stop there. Content marketing is useless if the traffic generated does not convert to sales.
Having an integrated marketing plan that generates traffic, captures it and then nurtures the leads is a requirement to increase sales revenue. Your customer is king so make it easy for your customer to reach out to you and to make a sales deal.
Content marketing, when done right, is a powerful tool that can be used to shape the way in which the world perceives your brand. What do you think is important for a content strategy to succeed? Let us know in the comments below.