Content Marketing Myth 8
No, content does not get you overnight results. It’s not a campaign, it’s a commitment!
Probably one of the silliest things I have heard all these years is starting to expect content to product overnight results.
Have you heard about all those entrepreneurial stories that talk about how there is no such thing as overnight success? Either you’re missing out on the hard work of the success you’re referring to, or that ‘sensation’ you’re wanting to become is a temporary trend that is soon going to die.
But the one entrepreneur that you have been hearing success stories of for months isn’t someone who picked up a fad. It’s someone who has been continually working on adding value to his audience. It’s someone who has been silently building something that is becoming a part of his audience’s day-to-day lives.
It’s someone who has been committed to offering value to his audience. It is someone who has been consistent.
The same holds true about content.
Just because you published 4 content pieces in a month, does not mean you’re going to get 1000 visitors to your site. The fluke cases of a viral story, not accounted for.
Innumerable case studies across different industries have shown that it takes six to nine months to see results from content marketing. No kidding!
Go search ‘when can you expect to see results from content marketing’ and you’ll see even your top ten marketing gurus say the same thing.
If that’s a little too hard to digest, let me tell you why.
Let’s assume you started content marketing last week and you’ve published two pieces of content around topics you ‘thought’ would be interesting for your audience.
You did your keyword research to validate this thought and found that people were still searching for this topic pretty actively.
Now when you published these content pieces, you saw a fair amount of traffic too on your site (yay). But you did not see that traffic convert into subscribers or request for demos of your products or subscribe to your services. So you go nay-nay-ing on all the efforts you put in!
You immediately bring down the frequency of your content publishing to one piece a month because you feel activating another marketing channel will be far more valuable.
But if that’s your level of commitment my dear, you’re only destined to fail on the next channel too!
Your traffic did not convert because they’re still new to your brand. They loved your content but they need to be sure your site’s going to offer them value before they subscribe to that newsletter of yours.
Let’s go back to the healthcare business example we took. You see an amazing piece of content on how to remain fit and subscribe to their blog. But in the coming months, you’re bombarded with those BuzzFeed like quizzes and suddenly, you’re left questioning your choices. Now the next time you come across a good piece of content, you’re going to be thinking about subscribing or not a little more carefully.
Content marketing is not a one-night stand. Those things never end well as it is!
Content marketing is not a one-time campaign. You’re not creating a TikTok challenge!
Content marketing is all about commitment. You’re building a relationship that you want for months and years and maybe, forever!
So instead of nay-nay-ing content marketing as a strategy, here’s what you should have done when you did not see your traffic convert:
- Create more content pieces around the topics you saw them interest in – every time adding further value to it and not beating about the bush, saying the same thing
- Ask the visitors what would they like to read more about without nudging them to subscribe to your newsletter in the first go
- Take part in online conversations in groups and communities to understand what your audience is looking for and what kind of content they prefer engaging with
- Optimize your content marketing strategy to suit your audience’s interests, preferences and behaviour
- Continue publishing content that adds value to your audience and focus on building trust with the stranger before asking them to commit to you
Sounds pretty logical now. Doesn’t it?
If you’re selling a software that costs your audience $99 per month, you’re going to have to explain the value behind it.
You need to show and tell how this $99 investment in you is going to consistently bring them value month-on-month.
The new-age consumer is no longer an impulse buyer. They like to do their research and focus on making the ‘right purchase’. Your last impulse purchase of a book does not count – you know why!
So treat content marketing as a consistent campaign. Stop expecting it to get you instant results or overnight success.
You’re addressing humans. It takes time to learn about them. It takes time to understand what they want to hear or read about. It takes time to show them you have value to offer.
Most importantly, it takes time to build trust.
But once you do, you know you’re in it for a long run!
Think about how you do keep going back to BuzzFeed now whenever you need a break from work. That’s because the site has built ‘trust’ and has consistently shown the ‘value’ they offer by giving you something that puts a smile on your face.
You need to have the same commitment.