First things first, what is content marketing? Content Marketing Institute describes it as “a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

In the South African Journal of Information Management, Plessis (2017) conducted a literature review and found that there was plenty of literature revealing content marketing is now necessary for all brands who want to stay relevant. They need a way to tap into the millions of social media conversations occurring in the millions of social media communities, and content marketing is a good way for them to achieve this.

A blog by single grain discusses 25 brands who use content marketing brilliantly and consequently received excellent results. Its highlighted that content marketing is successful when it focuses on engagement and educating their audience rather than pitching their products. A good example of this is Callaway Golf, they have created videos that have become among the most popular golf videos on YouTube. “How to Hit a Bump and Run” generated over 30,000 views in one year. The moral of the story here? Stop trying to sell to your audience through content marketing and you’ll immediately see better results.

Although this may seem simple, there are a few pitfalls that many brands stumble across when trying to execute a successful content marketing plan.

Risk 1: Content Irrelevancy

Trying to constantly come up with fresh, interesting content to put out there is a difficult task, and there are bound to be days where you are struggling to come up with anything decent. It’s these times where brands must try to avoid creating irrelevant content that could do more harm than good.

Many brands try to use humour in their content to make it more engaging, this is often a good idea, but some top brands have managed to get this wrong. For example in 2002 Ikea put out an advert with the slogan ‘Tidy Up’ where a young boy is playing with his toys and without realising starts to play with a sex toy that has been left out. You can watch the video here. Although some may find the ad humorous, many others did not, it got banned in many countries and received a lot of bad press for being inappropriate. Using humour incorrectly could be harmful to your brand.

Risk 2: Brand Inconsistency

As a start-up it is unlikely that you will have a strict brand guideline document as you may still be working out exactly what sort of brand you are. If your company is a little further down the line and you do have this document, there’s still the danger that it’s not consistently followed. Posting a high volume of content without a sign off system in place could eventually damage the brand. This is because without alignment, customers could become confused and possibly feel mislead however by interacting with consumers through a consistent brand voice and aesthetic you are closer to letting consumers get to know you as an organisation, the following blog by Venveo reiterates the importance of this.

A great example of this done well is Nike, ‘Just Do It’ is one of the simplest, most recognisable slogans of all time, they have used it for 18 years. In contrast Reebok has changed its slogan 14 times since 1987, according to Sir John Hegarty, co-founder of agency BBH, and funnily enough I can’t think what their slogan is today…

 

Risk 3: Lack of Resources

As a start-up running low on resources may be an issue that crops up often, well its just as relevant for content marketing. It can be an extremely time consuming task coming up with fresh and original content not to mention promoting it on the right platforms and tracking and measuring the results. There may be weeks where the content quality falls simply due to running out of time.

Although measuring the success is known to be difficult, it is possible to an extent. The following blog post be Marketing Week explains some of the difficulties but importance of measurement. Using google analytics and the individual analytical tools of social media platforms and programmes like Brandwatch you are able to measure traffic to pages, engagement of posts and conversations around your brand. Similar to most marketing initiatives the success will depend upon the effort and planning put into the campaign and the continued effort to keep up the quality of content.

The light at the end of the tunnel

Although its important to highlight the risks, according to demand metrics, content marketing is still an extremely valuable strategy for start-ups. It cost less than 62% of traditional marketing and generates 3 times as many leads. Jefferson & Tanton (2015) explain how the three key reasons for a start-up to use it are increased sales, cost savings, better customers who have more loyalty. When implemented correctly content marketing has the ability to be an efficient method of communication with customers whilst creating more productive leads, more website traffic and meaningful audience engagement which will drives sales.

A personal favourite content marketing example of mine comes from an Australian company, Metro Trains, with the aim to promote rail safety. This shows how a normally quite boring message about safety can be communicated in fun, creative way and have a massive impact. The video was seen by over 83 million people and the campaign was so successful hat it reduced accidents and deaths by 21% and 1 million young people pledged to be safer around trains! All companies can take a leaf out of their book by looking at a situation from a completely different stance to try and create something original. You can watch the video below:

 

References

Albee, A. 2015, Digital relevance: developing marketing content and strategies that drive results, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Baltes, L.P. 2015, “Content marketing – the fundamental tool of digital marketing”, Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov. Economic Sciences. Series V, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 111-118.

Chiang, I. & Hsieh, C. 2011, “Exploring the impacts of blog marketing on consumers”, Social Behavior and Personality, vol. 39, no. 9, pp. 1245-1250.

Jefferson, S. & Tanton, S. 2015, Valuable content marketing: how to make quality content your key to success, Second edn, Kogan Page, London;Philadelphia;.

Plessis, C.d. 2017, “The role of content marketing in social media content communities”, South African Journal of Information Management, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. e1-e7.

Zmuda, N. 2013, “JUST WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING?”, Advertising Age, vol. 84, no. 2, pp. 13.