Many of the problems content marketers like us face on a day-to-day basis are with the actual content we produce. The competition for content creation has never been higher: two million pieces of content are published daily, 60% of marketers create something daily and trillions of emails are being sent annually. So here are some of the biggest content marketing challenges and solutions to help you get your content the reach it deserves.
Problem: You’re not writing for your buyer persona
A buyer persona is a semi fictional persona of your ideal customer, based on market research and real data about your existing customer. The purpose of having a buyer persona is to help you aim your content towards your audience’s needs to engage their interest. Your potential customers may be facing an issue but if your content has a solution to that issue, then you will be gaining higher reach and attracting loyal customers who rely on your blogs to help with their problems.
Having a buyer persona will also be really useful when brainstorming ideas for your next blog, as you can base your blogs on the answers to their questions.
You will also gain your buyer persona’s interest in the language you use in your content, if you speak their language and use their terms, they will feel on more common ground with you.
Buyer persona’s can help your sales support team build a good rapport with potential customers as they will be able to understand what problems the audience is dealing with and be prepared with solutions to help.
But be careful, as your company will probably have more than one buyer persona and you won’t be able to write blogs aimed at every possible persona. Address your message to a specific target niche.
Problem: Your audience is too small
Do you feel like you’re creating content for a few friends and family members? Having a small audience can feel disheartening and make you lack confidence in your content, but it’s not the content that is lacking but you may be marketing your content wrong.
Make sure you are taking advantage of each piece of content that you produce, ensuring it is published on as many social media platforms as possible to give you the most reach, and more possibility of it being shared. Make sure you are publishing to the most used platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google My Business, Pinterest and Linkedin.
Reach out to other content creators and bloggers in your niche, following them on social media and engaging with them directly in your content. You could even mention them in your content and ask them in private if they could give you a mention back. The bigger your network the more chance you will have of being mentioned and gaining popularity for your company.
Before you try to gain interest to what you are publishing, make sure that it is actually interesting and relevant content. You may get many people visiting your page by doing what I mentioned in the previous paragraph but you want your audience to engage with your content. You can do this by researching relevant Twitter topics that your niche content creators are posting about and look for the ones with the highest engagement – then create content of a similar topic.
Problem: Fear of publishing
Let’s face it…. Writing content can be intimidating. Every time you publish content, there is the possibility that you will get negative feedback and that someone will disagree with what you have posted, and the chances of this happening will only be greater with popularity. The best way to deal with this is taking their criticism on board and learning from it but not taking it to heart. Just because someone doesn’t agree with you or your writing style, it doesn’t mean that your content is bad – it’s just not to their taste. Some people just like to give constructive criticism. Learn from your mistakes and move on and always have confidence in your own writing – it is unique to you and that’s what is so great about it. The best way to avoid as much criticism as you can is to make a genuine effort with your content making sure everything is spelt correctly, and educate yourself well on the topic you are writing about.
Problem: You are writing too many different content types
You’ve written a blog, 10 social media posts, an e shot, a newsletter, a webinar and even print – you’re constantly changing your content type for multiple different companies and it’s overwhelming keeping up with the amount ensuring it’s written to the best quality possible.
Stick to a few content types that you are best at and excel in those – it is better to have a few different types of content that are great than lots of content that is really bad. For example if you’re great at blogging and not so much the other content types, spend your time writing great blogs and posting them over all of your social media platforms with another content type to boost your visibility such as social media posts.
For further insights and guidance, we invite you to explore our blog at 07hm.co.uk/blog. Here, you’ll find a wealth of information tailored to the needs and challenges of SMEs navigating the digital landscape. Additionally, if you have specific questions or need personalised advice, don’t hesitate to reach out to us via email at info@07hm.co.uk or telephone on 01702 410663.
