What are the Reasons a Content Marketing Campaign Fails?

Description: Failure isn’t something to lose hope over, but an opportunity to learn and grow. In this article, we discuss why some content marketing campaigns fail to achieve their goals.

Content marketing  

When a digital marketing campaign is deployed, any one of the three scenarios is possible.

1. The campaign is a roaring success as all goals chosen at the beginning are met.

2. The campaign is a failure, as none of the goals chosen at the beginning are met.

3. The campaign has mixed results, as some goals are met and others remain unfulfilled.

The first scenario is, of course, the most favorable as it represents a total victory for a marketing campaign. Each time a marketing team deploys a campaign; their aim is to arrive at the first scenario.

The second and third scenarios are both undesirable, the second more so than the third. In practice, the third scenario is the most common. Depending on the outlook of the brand running the marketing campaign, the third scenario can either be viewed as a partial failure or a partial success.

In any case, both these scenarios represent some level of failure. In a content marketing campaign run within an overarching digital marketing strategy, there is a lot of room for mistakes to creep in.

Making and learning from mistakes is the natural order of things. From an experienced online executive at a top brand to a student learning the trade at a digital marketing course, making and learning from mistakes is common and something to be anticipated.

In this article, we discuss common reasons why a content marketing campaign may fail and how professionals in the field can avoid the aforementioned second and third scenarios.

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Incorrect Channel Identification

In some terms, this mistake happens when digital marketers promote content on platforms where it is less likely to gain traction and engagement.

Any brand or business in the market interested in digital and content marketing has to identify one or two primary digital channels where they can generate maximum engagement. For instance, a photography agency is more likely to find success in content marketing by promoting its work on platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest. At the same time, a news media startup is more likely to get maximum traction on Twitter and Facebook, platforms highly effective for current affairs and political discussions.

To identify the right channel of promotion, brands and businesses should ideally study their audience and understand where they are more likely to engage with them.  Once the right channel is identified, a content marketing campaign automatically becomes more effective.

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Short Campaign

Content marketing is a typically long-term exercise, one that typically takes a long time to bear fruition. Therefore, to run a short content marketing campaign and expect results is naturally counterproductive.

Ideally, a content marketing campaign should be 6-8 months long with enough flexibility to respond to reader and audience feedback. This campaign length allows marketers to make sure content marketing techniques used are allowed to flesh out over a longer period.

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Strategy Rigidity

Being inflexible when it comes to changing approach in a content marketing campaign due to strict adherence to a governing strategy can cause problems.

For one, marketers have to respond to the feedback of the audience in real-time. Given the open nature of most digital platforms, brands and companies get ready feedback from people reading their content. Adapting to this feedback and fine-tuning content accordingly requires some level of flexibility in the overall strategy.

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In Conclusion

In conclusion, this article covered three main reasons why content marketing campaigns fail. By reading this article, marketers can be wary of these scenarios and bring necessary changes in their respective campaigns.