We are knee-deep into January and if you are like any of your friends, family and colleagues your mind is probably swimming in a sea of questions: Will I get that promotion this year?; Will I actually make good on my New Year’s resolutions?; Have my spouse and I saved enough to get that house by end of year? The list goes on…But as a marketer, it’s time to put on that inquisitive hat, shift gears and give your existing content marketing strategy that type of introspection. (Haven’t yet begun to wade in the content marketing pool? Then browse a few of our articles to find out how to get started). After all, it’s that type of gut-check and self assessment that will catapult your content marketing strategy from “just OK” to “bleeding-edge” in 2014. Let’s take a look at three questions that need answers:
1. What Worked, What Didn’t?
By now you have hopefully aggregated both qualitative and quantitative metrics from 2013 and are ready to do a deep dive into each and every content marketing effort. Start with your blog, for instance, and take a look at the average number of hits each entry received, where your visitors went after the blog, how many of them clicked on your internal links and how many left comments. Then take a look at how often you blogged. Was it every other day? Every other week? Just once a month? The figures will give you invaluable insight into the effectiveness of your blogging campaign.
Once you have all the metrics in front of you, really spend some time sifting through the clutter and determine what the numbers are trying to tell you. For example, if your blog is only receiving about 40-50 hits per entry, it may be time to rethink your meta-tagging and categorization strategy. It also may be time to pair your blogging initiative with a more fully-baked social media marketing strategy.
At the end of the day don’t be afraid to pour more investments into what did work (hooray for white papers and lead capture forms!) and rethink your strategy with others. It’s OK to admit that something was amiss. The next step is to figure out how to course correct and still derive ROI from that avenue.
2. How Did Your Competitors Fare?
There is nothing worse than admitting that your competitors completely schooled you in a certain area, but it’s imperative to be honest with yourself. Maybe they blew it out of the water when it came to hosting informational webinars that attracted hundreds of participants (yourself included!). Or maybe your Twitter feed is inundated with tweets from their corporate executives sharing their latest blog post or podcast series. The fact remains that you cannot wholly evaluate your efforts without comparing them to those of your competitors.
To begin, create a list of your top competitors and then evaluate them across their content marketing efforts. Don’t be afraid to laud what they did well. For instance, did you really like their latest Twitter contest? Then figure out how you can replicate something similar while still keeping it one hundred percent original. Also, identify where they fell short. Do they not respond to customer queries in real time across their social platforms? Is their website hard to navigate? These are all potential gaps that you can use to your advantage to pull ahead in the content marketing race.
3. Are You Biting Off More Than You Can Chew?
While you might think you sound incredibly impressive telling your boss you will supervise your company’s blogging editorial calendar, PR distribution schedule, infographic creative design and social media management, really you just come across as overly zealous and unrealistic. With a brand new year before us, ask yourself one simple question: did you (or your company) bite off more than you can chew last year? In other words, did you have too many head chefs and not enough sous-chefs to get the job done?
The fact is that maintaining a well-oiled content marketing machine is an immense challenge. You need enough bodies to keep the wheels turning, ample resources to get you from Point A to Point B and sufficient gas in the tank to never lose your inspiration. As you look ahead to 2014, determine whether you need additional help. Ask yourself if you really have the subject matter expertise to act upon all of your content marketing objectives. And don’t be afraid to question whether your existing team can live up to expectations.
Content marketing is not a “let’s throw everything against the wall and see what sticks” kind of game. Conversely, it requires immense focus, reputable strategy and inexplicable intuition.
We know… you are probably gulping hard and hoping no one notices you in the corner sweating that you don’t have what it takes for content marketing success this year. And that’s OK. Your competitors are in the same boat. So this year, take a stab at being more strategic, aim to be more calculating and abandon the thinking that content marketing success grows overnight. Here’s to an awesome 2014 for you and your content marketing initiatives!
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
