Is Content Marketing Failing Your Organization?
Many companies have tried content marketing and failed. Having spoken to so many companies on this subject, I have heard just about all the reasons why such failures occur. And not only that, but Flawless Inbound has worked with dozens and dozens of businesses and brands to help them achieve greatness within their space.
Some have reached incredible heights of success. Others have struggled. So I have asked my Strategists to review all the engagement and find out what was the secret.
We have taken the time to separate the success stories from the busts, we have discovered there are four essential keys to making this work within any organization: ultimately building the business, brand, and bottom line while becoming an authentic culture in the process.
My hope in this blog is to break down these four keys, which are as follows:
A) Buy-in from top to bottom: This is achieved through truly educating subject matter experts and key departments on the what, how, and why of content marketing.
B) Insourcing: The process of utilizing company employees to decide on the content as part of their job descriptions.
C) The Content Manager: Someone in the organization must own the effort and be entirely dedicated to it (without distractions) to make it work.
D) Using the Right Tools: Unless the right tools are used, it is extremely hard to calculate actual ROI (return on investment) of the company’s content marketing efforts.
However, be careful with two repeatable excuses that will happen when you embark on a new program, and It does not work out:
- We do not have the time
- It is not our job
Let’s look at both of these excuses for a second. In life, when someone tells you they “don’t have time,” what they are really trying to tell you, without actually telling you is, “That thing you just explained to me is not as important to me as it is to you.” In other words, they do not see its value.
The funny thing is, whenever we as humans or businesses see the value of something, we quickly start to make the time. In fact, “time” becomes a non-issue when profit and worth are identified.
The excuse of: “That is not my job” is essentially the same. In 2017, if someone within an organization tells their marketing department, “It is not my job,” they apparently don’t understand what has happened with the shifts in sales and marketing in the digital age.
I always tell my clients, especially B2B organizations who are Microsoft or Cisco Partners or Managed Service providers, that content marketing is a two-way marathon and there needs to be a discipline to be able to get the ROI you were planning for to achieve the best outcome.