4 Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Strategy May Fail

My experience trying to launch a content marketing strategy for my agency.

It’s been over two years since said agency launched their re-branded website. I was leading the website redesign and survived to talk about it. During discovery, we had long conversations about focus areas. We had debates on how to categorize our content — by service or by focus area. We had awkward conversations about diversity or the lack there of. And lots and lots of long pauses. I even had to cross into the unknown and tell a Partner, “no we couldn’t do something”. But I lived to tell the story. In the end the launch of the site was a great success.

What didn’t survive?

My plan to re-launch the companies stagnate press-release inspired blog. The idea was to generate real, relevant and shareable content on the blog and social channels. Content that our clients, (non-profit, educators, etc.) would want to read. Content with intent to empower our clients to expand their reach outside of what they retained us to do.

Creating content costs dollars and the agency was not interested in spending any. So they opted to ask staff to “volunteer” their time to write articles on a topic they were passionate about. Which meant I had no control over the type of content that would appear on the site.

Guess how many articles we received?

Two articles in a six month timespan! One of the articles was stuck in a 4-month review cycle! The review process was grueling and soul sucking. Nobody wanted to spend time writing an article when the heart of their story would get lost in editing. The few articles that did get published were void of bold statements or heart.

For a year, juggling between client work and the blog, I attempted to convince staff to write articles. I suggested topics and even started to write a post myself. But in all honesty the editing process terrified me. And apparently, several other people because nobody was writing.

The agencies content marketing plan wasn’t working.

So I crafted a new content marketing strategy, included all digital channels, the blog was the hub. I wanted to have REAL success metrics for the site.

I started by outlining key personas, and setting clear S.M.A.R.T goals for our content. I spent my spare time conducting competitive analysis to find gaps in content so we could capitalize on them.

There was no governance in place so I identified one. I established an editorial workflow with the goal of publishing twice a month. I introduced an editorial brief to give the marketing team time to review before it goes to a writer.

To produce two articles per week we needed writers, I suggested we compile a list of go-to writers that included:

Staff writers would write articles assigned to them or articles based on their own experience.

Freelance writers would draft articles based on ideas approved by the marketing group. This content would evergreen and not tied to a specific issue or event.

It was a solid plan. But it failed. Here’s why:

1. Lack of Stakeholder Buy-In

After the launch of the new site, the agency was hyper focused on building their social channels. As an agency they lost bids for social marketing because our own social channels were stagnant. So the agency launched a social content committee. Leaving out what could be the most valuable, the owned corporate blog. Getting people out of the mindset of social channel content only, was a struggle. I wanted to the group to plan content more holistically.

How can you win over stakeholders? Content Marketing Institute has a great checklist that will prepare you for the buy-in conversation.

Be prepared to explain and talk about the following:

• solid understanding of what content marketing is
• clear understanding of the typical buyers cycle and have content ideas planned that map to the funnel
• understand the company’s key business and marketing goals
• be aware of competitor’s content and spot ways to fill in gaps
• compile a budget and resources
• work on a workflow

“82% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content, and 90% find custom content useful” — Demand Metric 2014

Read more about Mastering the Buy-in Conversation on Content Marketing: The Essential Starter Kit.

2. No Content Editor-in-Chief

When I first started my plan to generate content for the website, there was no single person in-charge. Someone was working on social media content, others were crafting press releases. Very few were writing blog posts. There was no clear direction, in fact the single goal for the team was to “generate content”. No single person knew everything about the content we were producing.

To be successful at content marketing their needs to be a deputy in charge of ALL content. One person or if you are lucky a group of people should know what’s getting produced. This will help the team find ways to share content across all platforms. Even better the deputy should be the person that plans the content that gets produced.

Some people might think the duties of running a content team day-in, day-out can easily be handled part-time or by a single person. In reality if you want to change the game, a dedicated staff person or team is necessary. I tried doing it as part of my job, but with so many other hats to juggle it was impossible to make real progress.

3. Lack of Authority

This is where my content marketing plan fell apart. I was ready to be the content deputy. I had the majority of the stakeholders interested in upping our game. What I didn’t have was the authority to make any changes.

Ideas are mere “suggestions” without authority to make a change.

When you have an employee committed to improving your business, why not give them the authority to make decisions. Not doing so, sets them up for failure.

4. Not Taking a Stand

I can’t say whether taking a stand or not will crush your content marketing strategy. But in the political climate we are in now, it can affect how people see you years down the line.

Joe Lazaukas (The Content Strategist), interviewed CMO of Mozilla Jascha Kaykas-Wolff and asked him how Mozilla is navigating hot topics.

“I think a lot of people operate from a default of — It might piss some people off, so let’s not touch it. — Jascha Kaykas-Wolff (Mozilla)

“Nobody cares two weeks after you put out a blog post or made a public comment about something. Most people aren’t going to remember. But maybe two years from now, whatever you did is going to come back and have a relationship to something you’ve done.” — The Content Strategist

During my competitive analysis, I found other agencies taking a stand. They weren’t afraid to talk about the President, immigration and human rights.

Getting your business voice out there is more than just scribbling out a blog post. If you are looking to help your company launch a content marketing strategy, you need to get stakeholders on board.

Without it your strategy will go into the toilet. Once you have buy-in assign a content deputy and give them the authority to make decisions. And finally, make sure your content is authentic and means something.

Said agency failed at the above. Will they ever prioritize their content marketing effort? Who knows?

If you are tasked with establishing a content strategy team at your company please share your story? How did you get stakeholder buy-in? What is your editing process?

52 Week Writing Challenge
Getting back into a writing grove one post at a time. This is week 9. You can also find me on bizzieliving.com and Adventures in UX. Appreciate the reads. Here’s to getting back into the flow of writing.