The Crave
Weekly tips and stories that will help you do your job and make you smile (or groan).
By Sim Samra November 1, 2022
A Content Marketer’s nightmare: The 7 ghosts that keep haunting you
As we once again welcome the season of ghastly ghouls, ghosts, and all things spooky, now is the perfect time to open the creaking cobwebbed door where your content marketing nightmares await.
Don't be afraid. It's time to tackle each ghost head-on. That can mean anything from addressing your fear of creating content that nobody reads, struggling to calculate your content ROI correctly, or a fear of looking back at last quarter's performance. 😱
Let's go on a content marketing ghost-busting adventure to stop these ghosts from haunting you any further.
Ghost 1: The bots terminating your real content analytics
I'll be the first to admit that in the past, I've tracked many content metrics just because others were doing it too. The term 'vanity metrics' comes to mind. You know what I'm talking about… website views, new sign-ups, shares, page views, etc.
Let's examine page views for a second because it's a metric that almost all content folks look at. And bots are a real threat. Paying attention to your analytics is the best way to defeat this ghost. Ask yourself the following question:
- Has the number of user sessions on your website spiked exponentially?
Usually, an abnormally large number of new sessions, alongside a high bounce rate and low session duration, is an indicator of automated traffic activity.
Ghost 2: The content control zombie
You may find yourself in a position where your company is looking to scale their content efforts, which means you may have to enlist the help of other writers, or you may find yourself in a situation where content is being democratized across a team.
Breathe. It's a lot to take in. Know that your expertize and skills will get you through these challenging situations.
Create an instruction manual, so there's always a mandate to follow when it comes to content creation. Your content marketing can still work, even if you don't write it.
And when you've laid out the ground rules correctly, the result is high-quality content that uses your unique experiences and expertise to provide value to your audience.
Ghost 3: The mummified content left in a forgotten tomb of resources
What’s more horrifying than creating a ton of content that nobody uses because they can't find it?
Marketing teams create resource libraries, but employees still struggle to find exactly what they're looking for. And this only becomes more problematic when companies are in full scale-up mode.
Here's how to de-mummify your content:
- Make sure to have all the resources located somewhere centrally. This could be your company intranet, for instance. Present it to all employees and get them to bookmark it as part of the onboarding process.
- It never hurts to promote your resources library on Slack now and again so that you constantly alert it to people's attention.
Ghost 4: The Frankenstein of your content repurposing project
Frankenstein is a term for all the pieces that don't fit together, and this can be applied to content marketing, especially when it comes to repurposing content.
Frankenstein content offers no cohesive experience for an audience — the goal many content creators strive for. Knowing which content works harmoniously together is important to avoid creating a monster mess.
When repurposing, it's vital to ensure consistency. One way to do this is by making sure you revert to your style or brand booklet. This will ensure that your content and brand are distinguishable from your competitors and create familiarity and reliability.
Ghost 5: A content strategy that's as invisible as a ghost
Some content folks talk about it. Others have heard about it. Some say their company has one, but there's no sign of it. No documented proof. But the content strategy ghost is real.
It is estimated that only 35% of businesses have a visible and documented content strategy available to employees, according to CMI.
There are a number of ways you can share your content strategy with your peers, and that could be in the form of a slide deck, presenting it to the wider company at an quarterly meeting, or you can lay it out in your project management tool which everyone can access and view.
Ghost 6: Too afraid to look back at your content performance
Horror movies have been the source of some truly unforgettable lines, like "don't look back."
But what's truly horrific is reaching the end of a quarter not having done a retrospective or knowing how well your content has been performing.
I know it can be daunting task to undertake, but it's important to take the learnings from the past and apply them moving forward. When you know better, you do better.
So if you're not making it a priority already, get your content and brand team together and give everyone a chance to share their findings and insights in a safe space. Reserve judgment, hold back strong opinions, and listen to one another to see what's working and what can still be improved.
Ghost 7: The content ROI vampire
The last thing anyone wants is for this vampire to suck its victims dry of their ROI. So it's time to face the most haunting question for content all folks, "What's the ROI?"
To get the full picture, you must go beyond the vanity metrics and track performance on many levels and across multiple channels.
In a nutshell, content marketing ROI is a percentage showing how much revenue you gained from content marketing in comparison to what you spent.
In other words: (Return - Investment ÷ Investment) x 100 = ROI.
Let’s talk about it together!
Share your thoughts on LinkedIn using #TheCraveDiscussion This week’s topic: What's haunting your content marketing the most?
Sim Samra
Content Marketer
About the author
I am a Content Marketer and one of the Foleon blog’s main curators. Born and bred in London. Honorary Amsterdammer. Liverpool FC supporter. Lover of carbs and puns. Horror movie fanatic.
