Get Back to Reality: 9 Content Marketing Expectations Busted

You can’t expect to create amazing #content every single day; focus on how to provide value says @NeilPatel Click To Tweet What you should be focused on is how to best provide value to your audience. The reality is that you should focus on perfecting the art of producing better quality content that helps your audience. Keep in mind that it takes time to grow trust and get shares to increase. Expectation 5: Our customers are going to love this content With every piece of content, people in your audience likely will respond differently, with phrases (spoken or thought) like: “Meh.” “Read it before.” “That’s interesting.” “Oh wow!” “This makes me want to punch someone. Make posting content to other sites, including guest blogging, part of your content marketing strategy. Expectation 8: Our content marketing is going to drive serious revenue The right kind of marketing can certainly make it rain. Most of the content you create won’t directly increase your revenue, and it certainly will not happen immediately. They don’t push a sale on every blog post, email, and social post. The most successful marketers don’t push a sale on every blog post, email, & social post says @NeilPatel. But it only works if you set realistic expectations based on your own goals rather than using industry or competitor activity as benchmarks.

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As the popularity of content marketing grows, marketers and business owners are churning out ideas about what everyone should be doing.

Despite a wealth of data about B2B and B2C content marketing, some unrealistic expectations are still being set.

And the realities are, unfortunately, quite different.

Expectation 1: We’re going to create amazing content

I don’t intend to knock you for aiming high and wanting to create amazing content. That’s what we should all shoot for: content 10 times better than what your competitors are creating, and 10 times better than what your audience is normally subjected to.

But the reality is that creating amazing content is hard. You can’t expect to create amazing content every single day.

It’s not realistic. It’s not practical. It doesn’t help anyone.

You can’t expect to create amazing #content every single day; focus on how to provide value says @NeilPatel Click To Tweet

What you should be focused on is how to best provide value to your audience.

That can come in the form of a 15-second video tip, a 300-word blog post, or even a simple post on social media.

You don’t need to create amazing content with high production value in order to help your audience.

Expectation 2: We’re going to produce content every day because more content means more reach

A lot of sites – TechCrunch, Mashable, Content Marketing Institute – do well by creating content on a regular (daily) basis. This strategy helps generate hundreds of thousands (and even millions) of visits each month.

That doesn’t mean you should push out a ton of daily content to extend your reach.

The reality is that you should focus on perfecting the art of producing better quality content that helps your audience. If you’re just focusing on quantity then you’re going to miss the mark on quality.

Just look at wiseGEEK. It has tons of content, but its consistent focus on lesser-quality content eventually caused it to be penalized by a Google Panda algorithm penalty.

Expectation 3: Everyone is going to share our content

As Jay Baer has said, the content you create is like fire, and social media is the gasoline. You definitely can expect your content to spread using social channels, and you should be using social to drive awareness of your content.

But that’s not going to happen automatically.

In fact, you’ll create plenty of content that barely makes the social needle twitch, especially if all you’re doing is publishing the content and limiting promotion to your own social circles and brand channels.

Getting virtually no social play out of content can be frustrating, but you can fix that by taking these actions:

  • Push content to your lists.
  • Promote and boost your social posts.
  • Share your content with communities where they hang out (including Q&A sites like Quora).

Keep in mind that it takes time to grow trust and get shares to increase. It doesn’t happen overnight.

Expectation 4: No one is marketing like we are, so we’re going to kill it

You have competition. There’s a good chance someone in your industry is using content to get the attention of your audience. It might be video, podcasts, email, blogs, or some other effort.

Just because they’re doing it differently, doesn’t mean they’re doing it wrong. And just because you’re doing it differently, doesn’t mean you’re doing it right.

Don’t assume that just because you’re taking a different approach to content marketing it’s going to be effective.

Knowing how your audience wants to receive and digest information is just as important as knowing what kind of information they’re looking for.

Expectation 5: Our customers are going to love this content

With every piece of content, people in your audience likely will respond differently, with phrases (spoken or thought) like:

  • “Meh.”
  • “Read it before.”
  • “That’s interesting.”
  • “Oh wow!”
  • “This makes me want to punch someone….

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