5 Common Content Marketing Challenges -- And Simple Solutions

Unless you live with your head in the sand, you probably understand the value of a well-executed content marketing strategy.

Consider some of the evidence we've reported on this blog over the past few months:

• Businesses that blog get 55% more website visitors. 
• Companies with more indexed pages generate more leads.
• Businesses that blog get 126% higher lead growth than those that don't. 

Marketers aren't stupid. They understand this data, and they understand the power of content marketing.

Trouble is, they tend to get handcuffed by a few basic challenges. Here are the most common we hear about at HubSpot, and the simple solutions we suggest:

(1) No Time to Create Content.  You run a business. You have a hungry sales team to feed with leads. You have revenue goals to meet. Where are you going to find time to shoot video, let alone blog?

Solution: Get into the content mindset. Don't look at content as something new -- look at is as a way of sharing discussions you're already having. Involved in a long email back-and-forth? Turn it into a blog post. Speaking with interesting colleagues at an industry event? Pull out a video camera and record the conversation. Content creation doesn't have to be hard.

(2) You don't have content experience. You're a business owner or marketer -- you're not a professional content creator, and there's no way you're going to be able to keep up with folks who do this stuff for a living.

Solution: Don't worry about it! Most successful content marketers have no professional writing or video-production skills. Here's what they do have: Deep industry passion and knowledge. When people see that, they look past windy prose and scratchy video.

(3) You're producing content, but nobody's seeing it. So you have challenge #1 and #2 nailed. You're producing tons of great content, but nobody's seeing. What can you do?

Solution: Your content marketing strategy needs to be a part of a larger inbound marketing strategy. In addition to publishing content, you need to engage with your community on social media platforms and optimize your content for search engines.

(4) You're not getting business results from content marketing. So you're getting a lot of traffic on your site, but it's not helping you achieve your business goals. It's not generating leads or sales.

Solution: Analyze the middle of your funnel. Do you have good calls to action in your content? Are people clicking through to become leads or sales? Does your call to action lead to a landing page? Can you improve the conversion rate on that landing page? Content marketing will only have an impact on your business when it's combined with a well-optimized inbound marketing and sales funnel.

(5) Your organization doesn't support content marketing. You get it. You understand how to make content marketing and inbound marketing work -- but you can't get any support from your company.

Solution: This one is tough. One approach is to begin inbound marketing on your own, then to use the success from that work to justify selling an expanded program. If your organization won't give you the freedom to try a small experimental program, or they won't embrace the program after seeing its success, you only have one option: Leave the organization.

What type of content marketing challenges are you running into? What types of solutions are you developing? 

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