Whether you’re struggling with a lack of ideas, a shortage of resources or the inability to measure your content’s ROI, you are not alone! Here’s a look at how to tackle these common content marketing challenges and obstacles.
Recently we worked with a client who had launched a super exciting new purpose-driven product for an existing small company.
Our client was full of passion and ideas about how to use content to support his sales efforts — from an explanatory video, to a newsletter, a thought leadership strategy and an elevator pitch — but he lacked the time or resources to develop any of them because he was too busy with the day-to-day operational tasks. And yet every time he pitched a potential client, he struggled to tell just the right story and to offer just the right resources to overcome objections.
This client exemplified so many of the challenges we see purpose-driven organizations struggling with when it comes to content marketing. They are often full of great ideas about how to provide value to their customers and communities, but at the end of the day, they fall down on execution.
Here are four of the most common content marketing challenges we see purpose-driven organizations coming up against — and how to overcome them.
Content Challenge 1: Managing Content Creation with a (Very) Small Team
The Challenge: Many purpose-driven organizations are lean when it comes to human resources and budgets. And while it’s great to encourage team members to wear many hats, creating content often falls to the bottom of the to-do list.
But failing to prioritize content marketing can prevent business growth and make it more challenging to achieve your mission. Even though content creation may feel like a distraction from your essential tasks, telling effective brand stories is crucial to the long-term success of your organization.
Some Solutions: Consider reallocating team members and giving key people formal responsibilities in content marketing. But keep in mind that content production shouldn’t be haphazard. If you want to do it right, you’ll need to adopt a structured and methodical approach to content creation, ensuring it adheres to a content strategy.
A more suitable alternative for many organizations might be to outsource both content strategy and content creation. This ensures existing team members can continue with their priority workloads without the additional pressure of content creation. Outsourcing content to an agency with a strong reputation can feel like a weight being lifted off your shoulders.
Content Challenge 2: Coming up with New Ideas… Week after Week!
The Challenge: Topic generation is perhaps the most challenging element of content marketing… especially if you’ve been at it awhile and have exhausted all the low hanging fruit.
But it is also the most crucial.
Connecting with your customers often comes down to the right messaging or the right piece of content, or even that perfect headline that entices them to click through and take an action.
Nurturing customers through the buyer’s journey often starts with content that piques their interest, continues with content that answers their questions and ends with content that seals the deal. And then it keeps building with content that encourages loyalty over the long term.
If your content isn’t interesting or relevant or effectively targeted, you might not attract the eyeballs and hearts you need to support your overall mission.
Some Solutions: While random brainstorming is always great, try getting more methodical about your idea generation processes. Here are some ways to do that:
- Review your analytics and identify your best-performing pieces of content. Then literally re-create the wheel. See how many ideas you can generate that are similar to—or spins on—the ones that get the most traffic
- Check out your competitors and see what they’re posting about. Then, use their content as inspiration for your own posts
- Follow the news about your industry and pick up on trending topics of interest to your audience
- Identify topic clusters or categories you want to cover, then break them down into organized groupings of ideas
Content Challenge 3: Targeting Content to the Right Audience
The Challenge: Most companies want to promote their mission, vision and values, of course, but when it comes to content marketing, this translates into content that is all about them. And is that what their customers really want? Generally, no.
Customers and prospects want to be the hero of your stories. What does that mean? It essentially means that you’re there to help and support them in achieving their best selves. You’re the guide, but they’re the hero. And so the story is about them and not you.
There’s nothing worse than producing a large amount of content that simply isn’t relevant, interesting or needed by your audience. And yet, it’s such a common occurrence.
The Solution: In this case, there really is only one solution to this challenge.
Know. Your. Customer.
We always encourage purpose-driven companies and organizations to review their customer data and develop personas around their target customers. That way, you get to know exactly who you’re targeting with your content, what their needs and challenges are, and how best to reach them with content.
Then, when a content creator is producing a piece for your company, you can ensure they are familiar with your key customer personas and produce content that will speak to their needs and interests.
Content Challenge 4: Defining and Measuring Your ROI
The Challenge: To get the green light on producing a content marketing strategy, you will likely need to show its return on investment (ROI).
How you measure that will depend on your organization’s goals. So take some time to figure out your goals and ask yourself:
- How many organic monthly website visitors do you expect to generate this year?
- How many inbound leads do you expect to generate per month?
- How many email newsletter sign-ups do you expect to gain this year?
- And how much traffic from your social channels is your goal?
The Solution: If you want to craft an effective content marketing strategy for your purpose-driven organization, you need to work backward.
Before any content creation takes place, outline your KPIs and objectives. Once you know what you’re aiming for and how to measure success, you’ll be able to make a better business case for your efforts — especially when you can see exactly how they’re paying off.
Ready to overcome your organization’s content challenges? Get in touch. We’d love to chat about how we can help.
