Author: Shreya Srivastava

Consumers today have a strong appetite for good content, and anything that fails to match up to their standards is deemed to be indigestible by them. They want content that empowers them in taking the right decision, content that satiates their curiosity and content that is JUST RIGHT.

Therefore brands worldwide work hard on creating a strategic marketing approach that’s focused on creating and distributing relevant, valuable and consistent content. The motive behind this is pretty simple, to attract and retain their target audience and to prod them into taking an action .

So, a good content strategy not only drives profitable consumer action but it also gives an opportunity to brands to become the best in the eyes of their users.

A recent survey by Zazzle media reported that 79% of marketing professionals that were quizzed felt that marketing is either very or quite effective.

Despite, content marketing’s star quality, there are innumerable content marketing challenges that content marketers face to get their content strategies right.

So let us talk about some of the biggest challenges in content marketing.

1. Content Marketing ROI

Demonstrating the true value of content marketing efforts has been a pain point for many of you marketers. With so many parameters to judge and measure, it becomes increasingly difficult to measure the ROI on content marketing. You might feel elated when some of your content pieces really do well, but that is not the sole criteria for measuring your ROI.

For ROI, you need to steer away from metrics like page-views, blog comments, page-likes or social shares and move on to a bigger picture to measure your efforts correctly.

Because if your content strategy, on the whole, is unable to make your brand meet its marketing objective, then it is a fail.

Don’t worry just as yet. Because we have here certain indicators that will give you a true value of your efforts rather than just a superficial picture.

Here they are:

• Lead Conversion
  
  You should be confident about the leads that you generate via the content that you produce. This is what truly projects the ROI over your content efforts.  In short, this provides a true value to your business
• Lead Retention
  
  Is your content good enough to retain leads? If not, then you need to start working harder on creating content that leaves a long-lasting impact.
• CTA’s
  
  These are visible indicators of how well your content works. Any inactivity here means that there is a change in content strategy that you must bring about.
• Cost per acquisition/lead
  
  If there is an increase in cost-per-lead or acquisition, then your content efforts need to be relooked at. This is the most fundamental and rock-solid parameter that can enable you to make better decisions.
• Duration of the sales cycle
  
  It’s pretty simple. Shorter sales cycle mean better content marketing and vice-versa. If your content marketing efforts take longer to convert the lead into a customer, then it’s time to reinvent them.

2. Monitoring the performance of your content

Measuring the ROI efforts will help you gauge how effective your efforts were with respect to the investment made. But, when we speak of performance, we talk about whole new content marketing challenges.

Therefore, to measure and analyze the performance of your content, you need to make a different set of metrics. Before hopping on to those metrics, here are a few suggestions that we think can help you in deciding the right course of action.

a) It is always advisable to not have too many metrics in place. Focus on less, and prioritize.
b) Build a strong reference point for your brand and set your sight on metrics that align with your marketing objective.
c) Have a clear idea of interpreting and measuring your results.

Some crucial metrics that you can track:

• Engagement time
  
  While most of you would want to keep an eagle eye on page views, it is equally important to focus on the time that your users spend on your content. A tool like chartbeat can be of great help.

Here is a quick demo of the same.

Another tool called hotjar also helps in recording the time that each user has spent on your website. A quick video here would give you a better idea.

• Sources and Devices
  
  Knowing where your customers come from can help you craft a content strategy that gives you better results . For example, your targetted audience uses Twitter and Facebook and you push same content on both. But, while doing that you realize that the content pieces on twitter are doing phenomenal,and the open rates on mobile are higher as compared to desktop. This helps you in maximizing your efforts in the right direction.

Google analytics and Kissmetrics are some of the tools that can greatly assist you in doing this. An image below will give you better clarity.

• Shares and mentions
  
  This is an important metric as it tells you the impact of your content on users. If your content is shared by your users, then you know that your content strategy is quite right. So, by analyzing this you can figure out the frequency and the medium where your content is shared. With that knowledge, you can channelize your efforts in the right direction.
  
  Tools such as Mention & Simply Measured are great for evaluating the social media activity around your brand’s content.
• New Versus Returning Users
  
  You must chalk these metrics out in sheer detail. While, a new customer is a boon to your brand, a returning or a loyal customer is a living testimonial.
  
  So you should give careful attention to indicators such as how many days/months later has a customer visited your site, how often they purchase a product from you, the kind of products that they buy the most etc.
  
  Tracking these parameters will make you deep-dive and create content that is tailored and will definitely sustain that loyalty.

Here is a blog by us that will help you in differentiating between your new users and returning users.

3. Competition with paid promotion

Agreed, that you produce great content, but sometimes it is not enough. The content landscape is shifting gradually towards the realm of paid promotion. The reason is simple, social media giants are leaving no stone unturned in empowering marketers. They are offering increasing ways of segmenting your audiences, thus giving you full power to know your audience.

On the other hand, advertising does not build trust. It creates awareness. It does not form a personal bond, it promotes your brand.

So, what’s the solution?

Content marketing or Content Advertising?
The solution is to be tactful, identify the need of the hour and content marketing challenges and strike a wise balance. If you want to position your brand as the “best in the industry”, then you cannot really afford to just place your bet on one channel. You need to embrace the best of both worlds.

To figure out how to combine an effective content marketing and advertising strategy for your brand, you need to focus on the following

• Your goal/objective
• Your Budget
• Target market
• Content Type
• Your audience’s Social media behaviour/consumption pattern
• Device compatibility of content
• Desired outcomes

So a combination where you can reach out to your audiences faster in shorter time spans(through paid advertising), and at the same time engage customers in the long run(through content marketing) is an ideal.

4. Unrealistic Expectations

Now, these expectations can be from two sources.

From your team
From yourself
So, Let’s talk about them one by one.

• Case 1
  
  Presenting the business case for content marketing in front of your managerial team can be a daunting task as it comes with a set of challenges. Most of the managers and executives expect a “quick” return on their investment from content marketing.
  
  You need to make all the stakeholders understand, that content marketing is unlike traditional marketing strategies that show an immediate result. Content marketing is a gradual process, but it has long-term benefits that sustain. Success through it does not come overnight, and it takes time to build trust and credibility.
  
  A snapshot of Wordstream’s traffic over a period of 6 years shows how long it actually takes for the content marketing efforts to show results.

It took 2.5 years for the traffic to grow considerably and it was 4 years later when they saw a major traffic boom. It takes time, but it is worth it.

• Case 2
  
  You need to set REAL expectations for yourself as well. Focus on achievable traffic and engagement, rather than aiming too high too fast. Don’t deem your content strategy as a failure if you don’t get “your” desired results.
  
  Therefore, through this, we understand that a good content strategy is fruitful but requires patience, constant effort and a strong strategy.

To get steady results you need to do the following:-

• Publish consistently
  
  Have a schedule in place, and editorial calendar that helps you decide and map things correctly. And consistency does not mean bombarding content everywhere, there needs to be a strategic approach to what content goes on which platform. Our blog on how to make your editorial calendar will surely help you create a structured schedule.
• Produce relevant & variety of content
  
  Make sure that the content you produce is worth your users’ read. If it does not match with your users’ frequency then it is a complete waste of time, effort and money. You need to create content that grabs the attention of your audience and leaves them wanting for more. You need to create content that connects with them on an emotional level. It should be informative, unique and downright impactful.
• Writing for a niche industry
  
  Writing for a niche industry with a very small target audience might seem like a nerve-wracking task. Apart from catering to a smaller sector of an audience, other challenges include positioning yourself as a go-to brand for your service/product or you establishing yourself as a leader in that specific field.

So, these challenges might look daunting, but there are ways to combat them.

You can read about them below.

1. Seek and use expert sources

Your audience will already be aware of your arena of service or product. So, producing content that’s basic and entry level will be deemed as invaluable to your audience. it is advisable to base your content on expert sources. You can do this by referring to industry blogs, or by interviewing experts. This would result in high-level, relevant & informative content that will add value to your brand and establish your brand’s authority.

2. Keep an eye on the latest trends

Staying up-to-date with the latest news concerning your industry is a great way to stay on top of your game. Discussing trends through your content on various platforms is a winning strategy for your niche brand.

3. Create content in a format that would be consumed the most

For example, if you are a finance company that gives out small-sized loans to salaried employees, then you can craft content in different formats for users in different stages of their purchase cycle. if your user has just become aware of your business, then you can establish your brand’s identity by giving white papers or e-books that talk about the various facets of your business. Finance is a tricky game, and for users to believe in what you do, you need to give them that assurance.

You can check out one of our articles on content marketing for Fintech.

4. Create content that educates people

It is very important to have content that educates people about the problem that you are solving. By educating them, you are also establishing your identity as a thought leader, thus differentiating yourself from your competitors.

We have here a list of a few experts from our industry with their opinions on the content marketing challenges that they face.

• Creating unique content that offers value to its readers
  
  One approach most content marketers take to create content is spinning the already existing content. This, having been repeated over and again has resulted in throwing out the same information with zero or very little varying value addition to the readers. A simple way to overcome this is to rely on sources other than the internet to create content. A few may include reading books, talking to veterans etc. This gives the content marketer an edge that the others don’t have thus enabling them to roll out content that is both, unique and valuable.
• No direct or immediate impact on sales due to which content marketing is usually undervalued.
  
  This is still a very prominent challenge that prevails in the ecosystem. While it is true that the effects of content marketing are realised over time and cannot be reflected immediately, it is also possible to measure some aspects immediately. This could be the time spent on the article, SERP, Engagement received views etc. Besides, one can also cater to specific business objectives by vigilantly drafting the sales funnel and catering to the need in hand. Setting benchmarks and continually overgrowing these would give any content marketer the power to deduce the importance and impact of content marketing thus providing scope to void the challenge.

• Internal Challenges
  
  Convincing people higher up in the organization to be on the same page as you regarding Content strategy was a struggle. People expect Content Marketing to bring instant revenues for the business and want you to align your outlook similarly. This led to differences in opinion regarding the actual content topics: 1 team wanted more of sales oriented content that extolled the virtues of the brand directly, and the Marketing team wanted to build a knowledge base via thought leadership content. We overcame this by maintaining a balance between the two areas. You can’t solely be focussed only on one area and hope to create an effective content strategy. It is important to be perceived as an industry expert to build trust in the industry, and this can be leveraged by creating content that is linked closely to lead generation.
• External Challenges
  
  How to create content that performs? This is an active problem that every content marketer faces. We were struggling to create highly engaging content that was going to drive traffic to our website. To tackle this, we invested time in understanding our Target Audience. It was important to create a reader profile, and understand their problems so that we could create better quality content that is considered valuable. Keyword Research, Competitor Analysis, and regular Feedback from the blog readers are crucial to understanding what works in the industry, and what it is that you should be writing about.

• There is a lack of research
  
  Most content is generated without proper study and research about the theme and topic and ends up seeming like an attempt to meet the word limits with generic information. The solution is well-researched and in-depth content that actually provides value to the users.
• No clear objectives or metrics are set to measure the impact.
  
  It is important to know how well or badly your content has performed. Without a measurement or an evaluation, your content strategy is a fail.
• Vehement inconsistency amongst cross-channels
  
  Brands present on multiple platforms do not follow consistent tonality. You can easily notice brands having a ludicrous conversation on Twitter, or other social media platforms while their website puts across a stiff demeanour. Therefore it is crucial for a brand to have the same voice, brand language and tonality for the audiences to identify them.
• Overselling
  
  Overselling when companies have a massive reach seems almost irresistible, but they have plenty of other things they could be talking to their audience that is engaging and useful.
• Vague/ terrible headlines
  
  Headlines should avoid being click-baitish, it must stand on its own and make sense when the rest of the content is available only by clicking.

Final Word

Content marketing challenges are growing, perhaps much more than it was earlier. But then, you need to think of ways to overcome the challenges and stick to your strategy  Generate leads using content marketing . Use content strategy convert visitors to customers. The key is patience. Content marketing continues to be one of the most effective methods to expand your business and get you an increased return on investment.

How to build traction and generate leads through Content marketing?

Now, brands out there are continuously striving to fill the aspirations of people like you and I. But brands take a different approach, they don’t just portray themselves as a product or service through a flashy logo or a catchy slogan. Instead, Lifestyle brands keep in mind the needs of their target audience. Their message is in concordance with the aesthetics, ideals and aspirations that their audiences identify with. Their content is meaningful and serves the very purpose of catering to the lifestyle of people.

What Is an Effective Content Strategy for Your Lifestyle Brand?

There is no single element responsible for a successful content strategy. Instead, multiple formulas, trials and errors, permutations and combinations are responsible for delivering an effective content strategy. You might have a blog that’s engaging or perhaps visuals that are interesting and shareable. But there has to be one base strategy that accumulates all the elements together. Individual elements don’t work in the longer run. There has to be substance and permanency. For this, you might have to brainstorm with the team and define your target market. After this, you will have to ask yourself certain questions about your target persona. These questions could be: –

1. Age & Gender
2. Income
3. Interests/Hobbies
4. Sources of influence(blogs, celebrities or other influence)

These questions will help you in crafting content better. When you have answers to these questions then you will speak the language of your customers and create engaging pieces of content; content that your customers can relate to. When you have a content strategy that aligns with the interest of your audiences, then you will not only attract customers but convert them.

How Is It Possible for Lifestyle Companies to Develop Trust in Their Customers?

To create a successful lifestyle brand, it is important that the brand forms a deep connection with its target audience. Most of the brands fail to fill the gap because they do not match their values with the target audiences. Brand’s voice, persona and ideology should resonate with its users and its marketing efforts should remain consistent across the board.

Marketing for your brand should not be done for the sole purpose of creating buzz. Instead, your efforts should be maximized in turning your users into brand advocates and loyalists. Lifestyle brands should focus on user-generated content and their communities to maximize customer acquisition and retention. Their audience should be the heroes and the decision makers.

How to Build Traction for Lifestyle Brands?

One of the biggest challenges for any lifestyle business whether established or a startup is- how to build traction and generate leadds through content marketing for their brand as this is what makes or break a business.

Even while building a strategy for traction there are challenges like lack of time, confusion about what to prioritise etc. So, creating engagement without compromising the brand’s value is a tough nut to crack. But there are ways to solve this problem, and we will talk about some ways that can help build traction and generate leads for a lifestyle brand.

1. Blogging Is an Evergreen Strategy

This is old but gold. Blogging never gets out of fashion, and by writing shareable blog posts you can tell your audiences more about you. You can write impactful blog posts that can include how-to articles, behind-the-scenes info, new product launches, and Q&As with internal experts. And this can be followed by opinions, feedback and suggestions on the topic to propel interaction. However, the takeaway is that a generic blog will not help you win the race. The competition is high and your users have a wide variety to choose from. Therefore, if you really need to see your blogs garnering results, then you have to invest properly in it and create meaningful content.

Example:

Wholesale foods through its blogs and articles have made sure that it does not just appear as a grocery store to its audience. Rather it has positioned itself as a lifestyle choice in the minds of its users. Its articles talk about how one can save money but still stay healthy. Wholesale food believes in healthy living and wants to help people make healthier choices. For this, the brand uses a lot of proactive language such as “I want to learn/do” as a search option in its navigation bar. This makes the audience feel that they are active players in the entire process and their role is the very important. Therefore. through such content in its blogs, Wholesale food is not just attracting new customers, but also establishing long-term associations with users.

2. Get Personal

Personalization has been the in thing for the content marketing arena for brands. A study by Accenture showed that eighty-one percent of consumers wanted brands to get to know them and understand when to approach them, as well as when not to.Companies use AI in content marketing and content marketing resources to understand their audience better. Personalization using AI in content marketing and content marketing resources and social media can work very well together. To know more about your customers, you should visit platforms that are most likely to be visited by your audience. Social media is one of the most significant tools that can promote your lifestyle brand’s name in the right sense. Through social media, you can also collect data and gather insights about your target audience. When you have your buyer persona created, you can easily craft content according to their needs.

Example:

Nike is an apt example that uses social media like Twitter to enhance customer experience.  @NikeSupport on Twitter is super quick to respond to customer queries and complaints. This solidifies the relationship between the brand and its customers.

3. Creating an Effective Video Strategy

Brands are invested in video marketing in 2018. In fact, they are not just creating effective YouTube channels, they’re also embedding YouTube videos on their own websites. According to a research, the top marketers have an average of 181 videos, while the bottom has 29. Also, marketers with a better strategy and results produce videos with varying video lengths, ranging from 30 seconds to 20 minutes.

Example:

Travel portal Ixigo’s  CEO Aloke Bajpai aims to make travel an enjoyable and informed experience for their users with their apps, content and research website. For this rolled out a very interesting and unique marketing campaign “Know and go” on Youtube. The ad film captures the aspirations of a small boy who wants to visit TajMahal after watching it on TV, but he is unable to because he gets a no from his father. What he does about it is something that you can enjoy watching here.

Through this, they were optimistic about reaching out to  many more travellers across geographies and strengthen their positioning of being the most trusted travel website in India.” Another example is MakeMyTrip, they believe that Youtube/Video is a very powerful channel that, if utilised well, can create a deep positive impact on consumers. Their video series ‘Customer First Stories’ captures the happy stories of customers, where they address specific hurdles that MakeMyTrip sorted out enabling a hassle-free journey. These videos, a minute or more in duration have received tremendous appreciation. You can watch them here.

4. Being a Part  of Communities

Quora has a huge base of monthly visitors amounting to 1.5 million.  You can use Quora to build authority on your chosen topic, learn from others, answer questions about your product directly and find out the questions people are asking about your product or industry. By signing up on popular q&a sites like Quora or Reddit or a group on Linkedin you can build authority on your chosen topic, learn from others reach out to audiences that are asking questions that your brand can answer. Here the idea is to spread knowledge and not promotion. Therefore, you can answer questions such as “What are the upcoming lifestyle brands” or maybe “Which recent products have affected the lifestyle of millennials in a profound way”. And you can give your website or product as a reference.

Example:

You can post questions like the one in below and can add relevant answers to form a community and get associated with more people.

5. Pin Pinterest to Your Content Market Strategy

Pinterest is blooming and brands are now using this platform to showcase what they have got. It is gaining popularity amongst the masses across the globe prodding businesses to flock towards it. A research showcased that 93 percent of the pinners use Pinterest to make a purchase. It is also one of the biggest sources of referrals for them. Another research showed that 55% shoppers rely on Pinterest to make their choices. Pinterest differs from other social media because people usually land on this platform to discover something new. And this is exactly what the brands worldwide should tap into.

Example:

The ethnic wear brand BIBA is one of the most loved in the country and has made traditional attire fashionable and trendy.  The brand had introduced a Mother’s Day collection on Pinterest. This was a blend of elegant outfits, comprising salwar kameez, dupatta, ethnic & mix and match.

6. Hashtag Your Way In

Hashtags and twitter marketing can increase your follower base by leaps and bounds. Here are some reasons that consolidate this statement: – Hashtags are searchable, and by using them, you are increasing the chance of being found by members of your target audience.

Hashtags bring conversations on the same topic in a single thread and makes it convenient for users to understand, evaluate and compare ideas. So basically, if there is a trending conversation that your lifestyle brand can contribute to, then you should use that hashtag as a part of your social media posts.

• You can run social media contents and have your participants use a specific hashtag. This will help you organise your contest better and also spread awareness about the brand at the same time.
• You can increase your follows and engagement considerably on Instagram by looking for popular hashtags that adhere to your brand services, offerings and values.
• You can use Twitter’s Trending News for promoting your brands. Use the news hashtag that is trending in your posts for the day.

Another mind-blowing way to combine Twitter & hashtags are the relatively new Twitter chats. Here users answer questions and discuss topics with one another by including a specific hashtag in their tweets.

Example:

Nykaa did wonders with its #BackToBlack contest. The contest was easy to play and the rewards were hard to resist, so there were many who played to win. Read below to understand it.

7. Instagramming the Right Way

Gone is the time when Instagram was just known for cool filters and quirky selfies. Instagram now has a huge base of 700 million active monthly users. Instagram is now a platform that represents many brands and enhances their value.

Example:

Adidas on Instagram has about 15 million followers and has a high influence on the platform. They majorly use Instagram to promote their brand and engage their audience with interesting visual content and videos. Every image contains an Adidas product and most of the images have women. This is a smart move by the brand as Instagram’s sixty-eight percentage of users are women. Adidas is seen to be consistent in its tone and quality, and strategically crafts its content according to its target base.Follow these Instagram content marketing examples for a better idea.

8. Outreach

There is no denying that influencer outreach gives higher ROI’s. People always look up to these influencers and their viewpoints. And if the influencers have something positive or interesting to say about the brand, then their followers will take their word and spread it too. A report by Twitter said that forty-nine percent of consumers trust recommendations and suggestions from influencers while making decisions to buy. We will quickly give you some reasons that will convince you to try out influencer outreach.

• Word of mouth and brand advocacy works wonders if influencers are in the picture. This is because the influencers are more capable of making any lifestyle brand sound more authentic and relatable. They can maybe write about and photograph a brand’s products in a more natural way, such that it does not seem promotional.
• Not only can the influencers talk about their viewpoint on your brand with ease, but they can easily form a connection with the audience by giving away your coupons or freebies. Free coupons or giveaways seem more attractive when given by a celebrity or a person with reach.
• Influencers can be very creative with videos. So, for example, if your product needs to be explained well, you can request your influencer to show your product in a tutorial format.  This creates a lot of interest amongst users and they interact by reviewing, commenting or purchasing. These videos are also good in the longer run, as these videos are not just limited to one campaign. They work wonders even after your campaign is over.

Example:

Philips had introduced its latest kitchen appliance Air Fryer in 2012 and there were very few who knew its application and use. It allowed deep frying of a variety of food items with 80% less oil consumption. Despite such a huge feature, the Air Fryer remained relatively unknown in the market. This is where Philips along with its digital agency Ogilvy One roped in Sanjay Thumma who is known for his cookery channel on YouTube called Vahchef. The campaign started a six-month long show called “Philips Superchef” that managed to create a lot of awareness amongst consumers. You can watch it here

The Takeaway

Lifestyle brands don’t sell products, instead, they sell aspirations. Therefore they capture the long-term vision of their users of who they want to be or what would they like to possess. These brands promise and declare that they can make these visions and aspirations into a reality. But for them to claim something like this and for the users to believe in this, the brands need to speak with utter honesty. This honesty coupled with passion will allow them to form strong & long-lasting bonds with their audience.

Lifestyle brands should make sure that their audiences do not feel susceptible and regretful after the purchase. Their promises should evoke loyalty and belief in the minds of users. This blog guided you on how to build traction and generate leads through content marketing, we hope it was helpful.