5 Reasons Content Marketing is Getting Harder

I hate to be a purveyor of gloom, there's too much of that around these days. But I've been thinking about this and want to share my thoughts with you.

Here are some reasons content marketing is getting more challenging. There exists:

1. A shift away from focusing on your products and services (what you know well)
2. A shift towards the reader/customer and their needs (what you may not know very well)
3. A business environment that is changing rapidly (what is unknown)
4. More people online in your field writing about the same things (some better, some worse)
5. A huge volume of content about everything possible, creating information overload for readers

This makes it harder for you to grab readers’ attention and get through to them. However, readers are still hungry for solutions and are looking for trustworthy professionals to work with.

I know this because I've experienced it personally. In spite of the recession, people are still hiring consultants to help them with their content marketing strategies and with writing quality content for business marketing.

As marketing guru Seth Godin writes: “With 80 million other blogs to choose from, I know you could leave at any moment (see, there goes someone now). So that makes blog writing shorter and faster and more exciting.”

That makes content marketing on a blog more challenging as time goes on. So what to do? How do you improve the quality of your content marketing? Here are a few suggestions to think about:

1. Sit down and try to figure out what you need to do the most to get best results, make a list of your content marketing strategies
2. Pick up the phone and call a friend or colleague and talk about it
3. Surf the web in search of solutions
4. Get totally confused and go eat something or go work out
5. Come back and find an expert to work with, send them an email asking for help at a price you can afford

What else? Add to this list by leaving a comment. How would you help someone who needs to improve their use of content marketing, for example, with a blog?

Comments

[Beth Robinson]

Specialize down to exactly what their best customer persona would need. Start another blog with variations and different specialized knowledge if there are strong second or third personas.

Run polls. Ask your customers for help. See what people are asking about in other venues regarding the areas your business covers.

[PhilipM]

Good insights! As the days go by, individuals and companies who offer professional writing services experience stiffer competition. On the bright side, maybe it will weed out the subpar ones.
Regarding the list, may I add that instead of phoning friends, why not grab a cup of coffee with them? Brainstorming in a different view with friends will yield better ideas.

[Jenny Pilley]

I think definitely consulting with people works. You can hit a wall but by speaking with friends and colleagues they may have ideas that help you to come up with new ideas. Improving your writing starts with reading and I think that is can make a whole difference to how you write and of course, what you write.

[Alex Lim]

Getting involved in a saturated niche such as this will take you a lot of researches to stand out. That's it; research is the key to make your self different among your competitors. There are lots of blogs out there, some are just duplicates some are unique. Perhaps include yourself with the unique ones and create your own identity. Ideas are everywhere, get involved in the community and know your consumers well. Get close with the trends and see what your leaders are doing. Learn and be willing to learn more so you can personally share your applied learning to your audience. ss

[Joe Pulizzi]

As my colleague Jonathan Kranz preaches, the key is to find the intersection of where your expertise lies and the needs of your customers. That's the content sweet spot.

To your point, this is challenging at best...but that's where time needs to be spent first before any tactics are considered.

Keep up the great work Patsi.
Joe

[Anonymous]

Thanks for telling all this. This is very informative.

[Bob Scheier]

To tackle problem #2 (knowing what's important to your customers) I suggest using readership tracking tools to see what they're currently reading. Create content designed from the ground up to attract readers interested in key value propositions, and then offer them logical "follow-up" content much as a beat reporter would.

Thanks for the insights!

Bob Scheier