“Rome wasn’t built in a day”
Now, you must be wondering what’s the relation between the above proverb and the title of this blog. Well, perhaps after taking a look at the diagram below from Content Marketing Institute, you might be able to figure out the connection.
As you can see based on the research results presented above, about 30 – 50 Â percentage of marketers are still not convinced about the power of content marketing. Well, I believe that this stems from two possible issues:
1) Unrealistic expectations of obtaining immediate results (Hence, the above proverb stressing the importance of patience :P)
2) Insufficiet Usage of Analytics Metrics
Lets go through these two issues and hopefully by the end of this blog, I would have made a reasonably convincing argument as to why content marketing is a force to be reckoned with!
Patience is a virtue
Somehow, with the immense buzz associated with content marketing, people have started to develop unrealistic expectations about it. Marketers seem to expect content marketing to provide an instant magic solution to their problems. However, it just doesn’t work that way! Content marketing is a powerful vehicle to build a strong and trusting relationship with your audience. And as we all know, relationship building takes time. By consistently providing good and relevant content over a decent span of time, you would be able to present yourself as a Industry Thought Leader to your audience and earn their trust. They will turn to you for the latest industry news because they know that you are a subject expert and can be relied upon. This trust can reap HUGE rewards for you as you would be able to convert your audience to become loyal customers much more easily now. However, this sort of relationship does not just happen overnight. Content marketing is an excellent mechanism to build this relationship but it will certainly take time.
Insufficient Analytics Metrics
Another reason as to why marketers are not able to comprehend the power of content marketing is perhaps they are not analyzing and evaluating the results of their efforts properly.
Analytics plays an increased role in content marketing campaigns as compared to other traditional marketing campaigns. Getting broad and generic statistics such as 1000 Facebook likes, 300 shares etc may not be sufficient to fully understand and utilize the impact of your content marketing campaign. You need to know and analyze much more specific details such as the following:
Who has read your article? Who did he share it with? Which is the most popular content posted by you? Who likes what specific types of content? How do people access your content?
Knowing answers to such questions will greatly enhance the success of your content marketing campaigns as you would be able to more effectively engage your audience, generate leads and close sales. I came across this interesting infograph (shown below) from BrandPoint which explains how you could measure your content marketing campaigns. The measurement metrics have been categorized under Awareness, Consideration & Conversion. It’s a well illustrated thought process of how you can measure and analyze your content marketing campaigns. Do check it out!
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Well, I hope I have made a reasonably convincing argument that will slightly sway those skeptical marketers to begin embracing content marketing. If I haven’t, all I can say is, ‘Just give it a shot! What have you got to lose?’ 🙂
