All companies have blogs, all of them want to engage customers in a dialogue… We create more and more content, but does it make sense? What’s the truth behind it?
Herewith we debunk 7 common beliefs about content marketing and reveal which are myths and which are truth.
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1. Content marketing is expensive
MYTH & TRUTH: Creating a good, long post, a valuable ebook, not to mention -a video – can consume lots of time and energy of your team. If you have already forged this Opus Magnum, use it more than once!
One piece can be used in several ways. Take care of multiple sharing for your recipients’ good. It’s called repurposing, which means if you put so much effort into creating something valuable, you should distribute it widely and translate it into other educational forms: transform the ample blog post into an infographic, a slideshow, a webinar, and then combine it with some others and give people the new free ebook.
Mold multiple materials from one piece of content and it pays itself – but only if you can get as much as possible from it.
2. Content must be packed with keywords to be visible among search results
MYTH: Definitely not! Current Google’s algorithms are way too smart for this trick. More important is for a post to be fresh and liked by human readers.
Read more about blog mistakes, blacklisted by Google.
3. It’s hard to measure content marketing efficacy
MYTH: Although revenues from this practice might be rather long-term, you can easily establish KPI’s for your content. They are:
- website (blog) traffic
- returning readers percentage
- Time spent on website
- CTA conversion rate
- number of leads from particular source (e.g. ebook downloads)
As you can see, defining some KPIs isn’t a problem – the essence of what you expect this content will do and setting realistic goals is what’s fussing about. PRO TIP: don’t announce you want to make a viral. And speaking of virals…
4. It’s likes, shares and viral distribution that counts
MYTH & TRUTH: Your post became the hottest ticket in town? Users spread it from wall to wall, from tweet to retweet? Bombastic! Now it’s time to think about true, measurable profits it can bring you. Do new recipients equal new leads? Will they ever come back to your blog?
We don’t want to spoil it for you. It’s rather about making you think of this simple fact: bare likes won’t mean a thing. There must be an idea that includes them into the overall lead and customer acquiring strategy. Does your content do that? Do you combine posts with Lead Generation strategies?
5 Quality is everything
TRUTH: Good, valuable, relevant posts or those that show the issue from a new angle are crucial for your marketing. Nonetheless, research shows an interesting oddity: while 92% of companies claim they produce high-quality content, only 54% of them rated their content strategy as efficient (source).
Where did that come from? It might occur that both: entrepreneurs and marketers are way too optimistic about their content, which isn’t that good as they see it. It’s really hard to say something new today and make it interesting and digestible.
The second option (rather complementary than alternative) is that the content is great but the lead acquisition strategy, tactic of keeping users on the website and contact forms fail. In other words, you may write Pulitzer-winning articles, but they don’t convert into sales. Effect: it is all just a load of hot air.
6. You’re obliged to write about a product or a business
MYTH: Although your content should be educational, don’t restrain your blog to be expanded product catalog or leaflet. Focus on materials useful for your readers. Identify the target group and write something practical for them.
Look at this blog – posts not directly related to marketing automation did their work. Many of our readers are owners and marketers in SMB, so they loved “100 free online tools for business: planning, SEO, content, social media.”
Also, they liked non-Marketing-Automation post about the world’s youngest entrepreneurs – it was original and exciting (a little ego boost for us).
There’s no need to stick to your niche and write only about the product and its entourage. It will drain your ideas within few weeks!
7 Content marketing = blog
MYTH: No! Content marketing has many blog-concentrated forms that reach further than your domain. Video, infographics, ebooks, templates, webinars or podcasts will definitely spice up your content collection and make them more interesting. It also makes using them easier: you can forge a nice webinar from an ebook, and your readers will be given an opportunity to decide which form they prefer.
How’s your content? Do you have it in your company? Do you find it worth trying?
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