Content Marketing Myths Debunked
Developing a killer content marketing plan is completely within your brand’s reach, especially if you understand the latest strategies and how to execute your plan effectively. With so much misinformation circulating about content marketing, however, it isn’t always easy to know what to believe and what to dismiss. Check out eight debunked content marketing myths and find out why this marketing strategy is essential for your brand.
No One Has Time to Read Content Anymore
Image via Flickr by CollegeDegrees360
It’s true that the average person’s attention span has decreased over the years, and it now lasts a mere eight seconds. That doesn’t mean no one has time to read your content anymore, but it does have a few implications.
First, if your content isn’t engaging, then there’s a good chance your readers won’t make it beyond the first few sentences before getting distracted and clicking away. That simply means you’ll need to ensure your content draws in readers from the very beginning.
Second, if your content doesn’t attract the right readers, it might not perform like you expect. You’ll need to take steps to ensure it gets in front of your target market.
Content Marketing Isn’t Right for Your Industry
No brand can claim that content marketing isn’t right for its industry, as this strategy can work for virtually any industry, as long as you do it well. An auto dealership won’t create the same type of content as a skin care company or a credit union, but each business can create an effective content marketing strategy.
After all, content marketing is all about crafting stories, and every type of business has a story to tell. For most brands, it’s a matter of determining what type of content will offer the most value to customers and telling stories in ways that resonate with the target market.
Content Marketing Doesn’t Require a Budget
Like any marketing strategy, content marketing isn’t free. To do it well, you’ll need to budget for great content creation, which may include your own staff members or an experienced agency, along with promotional and monitoring tools.
Most brands also find that they need an advertising budget to help the right audience find their content. If your brand already has a strong following on social media, you may be able to start sharing content successfully with a small promotional budget.
You Don’t Have the Essential Resources for Content Marketing
Whether your brand is a one-person show or you don’t have enough writers on staff, you might be worried you won’t be able to produce enough content or even any at all. Naturally, you want high-quality content, and you need to be able to produce and share it consistently.
For many brands, contracting a professional agency is the key to scaling content production. When you entrust the time-consuming production part of the process to experienced writers, your team can pour energy into the creative, promotional, or analytical components instead.
More and Longer Content Means Better Results
As you start to think seriously about scaling your content, it’s easy to take this aspect too far. After all, more content equals greater reach, right?
While quantity may have served some brands well in the past, today, search engines reward quality content much more than a large amount of content. That means it’s in your best interest to produce a smaller amount of high-quality content that your audience wants to read and share. Research your audience to learn about the types of content they search for and engage with to determine the right length for your content and the ideal publishing schedule.
You Should Only Publish Your Content on Your Own Site
Once you’ve started to produce truly great content, you might begin to see the value of sharing it far and wide. But you can’t publish it anywhere else apart from your website and social platforms, right?
While it’s essential to be selective about your publishing platforms, you have a long list of options for syndicating your content. Depending on your niche, you might even be able to syndicate your content in more than one place, dramatically increasing its potential reach. For example, business-to-business (B2B) companies can self-publish their own content on LinkedIn, and they may also be able to syndicate on Business 2 Community. Business-to-consumer (B2C) companies can self-publish on Medium, and they may be able to syndicate on Huffington Post.
The Results of Content Marketing Are Immediate
If you aren’t sure what to expect from your content marketing plan, you might expect it to produce results immediately. The moment you publish your next great blog post, hundreds of thousands of people will read and share it, and you’ll convert all your readers into customers instantly, right?
When you launch a content marketing strategy, it’s important to understand that results almost never happen immediately. Instead, this is a long-term marketing plan that you’ll be monitoring and revising for months or years. Stick with it for the long run, however, and you’ll find that it’s integral to your marketing strategy. Just don’t give up if your content never goes viral, as this is far from the only measure of success.
You Can’t Determine the ROI of Content Marketing
Like most digital marketing strategies, content marketing provides you with ample data about your results, your audience, and your overall strategy. You just have to know what goals to set and where to look for the results.
For example, if your goal is to increase shares and engagement on social media, you can track your social metrics through each platform. If you want to grow your local audience, you can check Google Analytics to determine your readers’ locations for each blog post or article. You can also use Google Analytics to analyze the conversions that each piece of content has generated, which will help you better understand the value and potential of content marketing.
Whether you’re starting a marketing plan from scratch or it’s time to take your current strategy to new heights, content marketing can help you achieve your objectives. Get the content creation resources and expertise you need, and get ready to take your brand to new heights.
Anna Sonnenberg is a digital marketer who specializes in paid social strategy, social media management, content strategy, and email marketing. For over five years, she has run Sonnenberg Media, a digital micro agency that works with small businesses in the natural food and beverage industry, health and sustainability market, and travel space.
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