For several reasons, content marketing can be a very powerful tool in increasing a brand’s online visibility. The assumption that customers don’t care about content is wrong. Outsourcing service provider Open Access BPO understands that with strategic content production, one can establish a personal connection with the prospective customers since materials are tailored to their fields of interest.
Succeeding in content marketing, however, takes more than just producing articles, blog entries, infographics, or videos. It also requires proper evaluation and analysis to make sure that content strategies are indeed working.
Here are some signs that could indicate your content marketing strategy is not working:
1. Poor website traffic
The ultimate goal of any content marketing campaign is to lead more people to the company website or blog and make sure the visit ends with a sale or at least an enhanced brand and product awareness among the targeted demographic. To make this happen, your blog must not only attract visitors randomly or by chance. There must be a consistent following that will provide steady traffic to the website.
In other words, your blog must have a compelling content that will drive a lot of viewers to visit it. True, you can always have your loyal followers, but with other brands becoming wiser in attracting readers via social media, people have started to become more spontaneous in clicking links to content that interests them.
2. Inactive social media following
Social media is integral to the success of your content marketing strategies. It’s like the portal where you can make a press release about a new interesting blog entry or a really helpful DIY article. But if your social media posts are getting fewer shares, likes, or retweets, that means you need to do something about managing your social media accounts.
Remember, succeeding in social media marketing requires a different set of strategies from the ones you use in content marketing. Headlines must be engaging, accompanying images must be striking, and call-to-action prompts must be on point. It takes a dedicated social media expert to monitor the activities of your online community for effective social media interaction to take place.
3. Lack of interaction from readers
What’s the next awful thing your website can experience aside from having no followers? It’s having visitors who don’t even read your content. The absence of comments is a good hint that people don’t feel motivated enough to engage with you.
When readers leave comments, it means that you managed to spark their interest— they see something worth reacting to, or they agree with your ideas, or they like the personality you use in writing articles. Even if your blog gets high traffic, if no interaction is visible in the comment sections, new guests may think of your articles as uninteresting and choose to skip reading them.
4. Negative comments
With great content comes good reputation as evidenced by positive feedback or comments. Good articles are also more likely to be retweeted and shared in social media circles. But if a simple scanning of blog leads you to discovering several negative comments directed towards the quality of your content, then it’s about time to do some changes.
The only reason the existence of negative feedback ranks lower in this list than the lack of interaction among readers is because negative comments can, at least, provide the opportunity for you to respond to readers. It’s better to have something to respond to, even if it’s a rant, than to have nothing to engage with at all. This gives you a chance to explain yourself, identify common complaints, clear misconceptions, and prevent visitors from being discouraged to follow your blog.
Content marketing success requires careful evaluation of strategies and knowledge of which ones should be replaced or reinforced. Watching out for these signs can give you a heads up about the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts. Only then can you have a solid foundation for your action plan, whether it involves hiring new people or redirecting your strategies completely.