By month three, content marketing can seem like a complete failure. It was never going to be a quick win, you knew that. You knew you wouldn’t be getting Buzzfeed-esque shares overnight.
But you still feel a bit down.
Why aren’t people Liking your posts? Why hasn’t your traffic graph made your CEO smile yet?
Content marketing is a long old game. Mainly because it’s not really a game: it’s a way of life. Like going to the gym or learning carpentry, you have to expect to put in a lot of work before you start getting results you’d willingly show people. When you feel like giving up, remind yourself why you’re doing this.
What you get out of content marketing
1. Brand awareness
Once your content has been seen by a few people and judged valuable, you’re on your way to being recognised as an authority. That gives your business credence – you look dependable and knowledgeable. That’s ace for your brand.
2. Honing skills
Even if you never make a dime out of content marketing, the skills you develop from doing it are valuable in themselves. You may know your subject inside out, but there’s always research and fact-checking involved, defining of processes and examination of past material.
You get better at your job when you publish content because you only want to put out the best. You’re forced to shape up, and that’s good for your own development.
3. Better relationships
Good content isn’t inside-facing. You might talk about yourself a lot as a brand but you’ll also be discussing news, industry events and other leaders in your business. Talking to others in your network lets you develop better content and also form valuable relationships that can pay off later.
4. Strong teams
Content is hard to build by yourself. To publish the good stuff, you need to be talking to people all over your company. How they do their job, how they deal with customers, what they think is the next step in your market. People in your company are fascinating creatures and talking to them will make your content fascinating too.
And eventually…
5. More site traffic
Search engines need content to crawl, it’s how they work. Giving them a whole load of lovely words that seem to be in a good order and say some good stuff will (after a while) start to bring in more visits than if you’d just stuck to homepage, products, contact.
6. Conversions
People get lured in by the excellent content that search engines have prioritised, then they maybe take a look around at what else you’re doing. They maybe don’t buy, but they remember you. A few months on, perhaps they return and convert into cash.
It IS tough
Overnight success in content marketing is not something to hope for. Focus on the positives you get from working on your content, and the rest will come in time.
[bctt tweet=”Content marketing was never going to be an overnight wonder. Love the work – the rest will come.”]
