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Top 3 Reasons Your Content Marketing Program Fails

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Why Your Content Failed. Handwritten list of reasonsEveryone in B2B marketing says content marketing is important. Everyone is increasing content marketing’s share of the budget. And yet most B2B marketers don’t feel like their content marketing is effective. (Stats available from CMI’s benchmark report).

The outlook seems grim. Marketers are pouring more and more into something they aren’t confident in. These aren’t just small test budgets, content represents a big portion of overall marketing budgets as well. Yet confidence in the effectiveness of their content programs remains low.

So why do programs fail? Time and time again, B2B marketers keep making the same mistakes. Here are the top three reasons, based on my observations and conversations with other marketers, why content marketing initiatives fail. [Read more…]

The Real Challenge for B2B Content Marketers

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B2B Content Marketing Challenges Chart from CMIB2B content marketers are hiding behind false excuses for their content marketing challenges.

According to Curata’s survey, now nearly a year old, B2B content marketers’ biggest challenges are limited budget (27%), limited staff (25%) and creating enough new content (21%). (source)

In the Content Marketing Institute’s 2013 benchmarks (released in October 2012, in addition to content they mastered time travel), the top challenges are producing enough content (64%), producing the kind of content that engages the audience (52%) and producing a variety of content (45%).

Only 39% report a lack of budget. At the very bottom of the list are lack of buy-in/vision (22%) and finding trained content marketers (14%). (source) Similarly, the Curata survey shows only 7% say senior level buy-in is their biggest challenge.

The content marketing community is misleading itself. The real root problems aren’t producing enough content, limited budgets or staff, particularly as only 14% have problems hiring! [Read more…]

Content Marketing is a Juggling Act

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Is your strategy and organization up to the task?

Content marketers need to deliver results in an environment that is constantly changing.

Faced with these constant changes, content marketing can either devolve into a series of reactionary random acts of marketing or take the changes in stride.

The difference comes down to your content marketing strategy and your marketing organization. A solid content marketing strategy lets you keep your eye on the ball and a solid marketing organization lets you keep all of the balls in the air, smoothly juggling the changes happening around you. [Read more…]