Content marketing is here to stay. Seventy-eight percent of chief marketing operators believe content is the future of marketing. While content marketing is a growing marketing avenue, it isn’t without its challenges.
We asked several marketers to share their most prevalent content marketing hurdles as well as the solutions they’ve found. Here are three common challenges that content marketers face, and three solutions:
Hurdle #1: Coming up with good topic ideas
Research shows two million blog posts are written everyday. That’s enough content to fill Time Magazine for 770 years. How can marketers come up with ideas that aren’t already online? And what if you work in an industry that’s a little dull. How do you come up with creative ideas that readers want?
Solution: Use online tools to provide inspiration
There are a number of tools online that can help you brainstorm quality topic ideas. Patrick O’Keefe, content manager at Dragonfly Digital Marketing needs content related to the HVAC industry.
“Even in an industry like HVAC, there are often new technological advances that many people would find interesting,” O’Keefe says.
O’Keefe turns to online tools to help him find topics that cover this drab industry in a fun way.
When he’s low on ideas, he uses EpicBeat and Buzzsumo. Both EpicBeat and Buzzsumo show you a list of top-performing content based on keywords that you enter. In the example below, we ran a search for “best practices for content marketing” and were given a list of content that’s already online along with “sharability statistics” for each piece of content.
EpicBeat is similar, but you can access a little more data for free on this site.
With the lists provided, you can use the titles as inspiration. Consider creating a counter viewpoint, or an article focusing on a different aspect than what’s online.
Hurdle #2: Good content takes time
The content world is the complete opposite of the 140-character social media world. It takes a significant time investment to create good content. The average blog post can take up to six hours, according to Kapost. That time includes a five-step process: brainstorming, copywriting, artwork, SEO and editing.
“To genuinely contribute new, interesting, relevant and impactful content, which is going to engage and resonate with audiences, is hugely time intensive,” says James Armstrong, a digital marketing consultant for Caveman Store in the UK.
If your posts are on the shorter side and you have a team of in-house writers, you might be able to shave an hour or two off of the process, but you’re still looking at half a day minimum per post.
Solution: Turn to professional content creators
Subpar content won’t do in today’s competitive marketplace. If you don’t have the time to devote to high quality content, you might consider using an outside team of content creators. IZEA connects brands with influential content creators and publishers. Check out a service like IZEA to ensure top-notch content without using resources in your marketing department.
Hurdle #3: Getting your content seen
After creating great content, how do you make sure people see it?
“It’s an unfortunate fact of life for many content marketers that some of the content we work so hard to create is never seen by the intended audience,” says Matt Casady, an online marketing strategist at Big Leap.
Solution: Offer variety
Content doesn’t start and stop with blogs. Good brands create a variety of content. To increase the chances of your content being seen, you have to offer creative, diverse content. From videos to infographics, different content resonates with different customers. But it’s tough to find time to create blog content, let alone infographics, right?
There are several tools that provide easy-to-use templates to help marketers create unique content without spending late nights at work.
Infographics
If you want to create infographics, try Canva. You’ll find premade options that you can tweak to fit your needs.
Animations
Give Moovly a try to create an engaging animation or presentation.
Quizzes
To create quizzes, use a tool called Boombox. Casady uses it and has found success.
“I’ve had a lot of success lately with interactive types of content like quizzes,” Casady says. “Quizzes tend to get a few thousand views each, which is better than most blog posts or infographics for us.”
What content hurdles do you face? How do you overcome them? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
