23 Reasons Why Content Marketing Fails

I've seen some strange things happen to content. In an effort to help you get the most out of your B2B content marketing efforts, I thought I'd shed some light on the kind of stuff that can derail your attempts to gain the attention of your prospects.

In no particular order of importance, here's the top 23 that come to mind: (plus additions submitted by others)

1. Hiring an expert to develop content and then revising it to insert all those "me, me, me" terms and phrases that are noticeably absent.
2. Only use a content resource once and then archive it somewhere offline.
3. Sending out whatever content is at hand to your entire list every month.
4. Not creating a content strategy BEFORE you develop content.
5. Following up a great early-stage content offer with a pushy sales offer.
6. Creating great content but lousy email messaging that fails to get prospects to click.
7. Sending a great email message linked to lousy content.
8. Deluging your database with too many emails, too often.
9. Not measuring response beyond opens and clicks so you have no clue which content is working, or why.
10. When your website content is NOT in alignment with your nurturing content - hence confusing your prospects when they do click through.
11. Landing pages that bear no resemblance to the message in your email.
12. Promising a deep topic dive and delivering a surface skim.
13. Customer success stories that are all about your company, not your customers.
14. Changing focus with every nurturing touch so your prospects are totally confused about what's in it for them.
15. Covering too much because you aren't sure what's relevant to your audience and want to make sure something sticks.
16. Stopping prospects who want your content with lengthy forms that keep them from getting it - do you really need to know all that stuff right now?
17. Launching a blog to talk about your products.
18. Tweeting only about your content and company.
19. Using pre-sales marketing content for your customer base.
20. Giving salespeople early-stage content for use with sales-ready leads - even worse when it's stuff the leads have seen during nurturing.
21. Sending the same email with alarming frequency and repetition to train your prospects to ignore you because you obviously have nothing new to add to the conversation.
22. Disappointing your prospects with a great white paper offer because it's outdated. Just because it was good 3 years ago doesn't mean it shouldn't be updated before it's reused.
23. Only using 3rd party content so your prospects have no clue whether or not YOU know what you're talking about.
    
    Updates and additions to the list:
24. Burying your content in a complex web navigation scheme where visitors have to WORK to find it. (via Jonathan Kranz)
25. Favoring impressive-sounding, abstract jargon over precise, detail-rich stories. (via Jonathan Kranz)
26. Taking a "goody two-shoes" Pollyanna approach that never acknowledges the problems/challenges customers/prospects really face. (via Jonathan Kranz)
27. Failing to provide an easy way for readers to share your online content. (via Caroline)
28. Forgoing new media content--video, podcasts, webinars, etc. (via Caroline)
29. Thinking compelling content must be long and complex and forgetting that simple, interactive content can provide high value when executed well. (via Susan Fantle)
30. Only publishing content in one format. (via Sarah Mitchell)
31. Employing great content without well-planned follow-up. (via Sima Dahl)
32. Lack of unique content written with a conversational tone. (via Dennis)
33. Assuming you know what buyers want to know better than they do (via Melissa)
34. Following great content with company focused pablum (via Melissa)
35. Calling even when I've checked the box that said, just curious (via Melissa)
36. Thinking your content job is done with 4 or 5 pieces! (via Melissa)
    

Thanks to Jonathan, Caroline and Susan, Sarah, Sima, Dennis and Melissa for your contributions! Love it!

The list is growing...come on, what else?

What have I forgotten? Leave a comment and I'll add yours to the list.

Comments

[Joe Pulizzi]

Love it. Just reading through your list helps us understand why content marketing is so hard to do. It's no wonder many brands revert to display ads - it's a ton easier.

Oh to be a marketer 20 years ago. We didn't know how good we had it.

[Jonathan Kranz]

Excellent. A few others to consider:

* Burying your content in a complex web navigation scheme where visitors have to WORK to find it.
* Favoring impressive-sounding, abstract jargon over precise, detail-rich stories.
* Taking a "goody two-shoes" Pollyanna approach that never acknowledges the problems/challenges customers/prospects really face.

Sigh...

[Caroline]

A few more:
Failing to provide an easy way for readers to share your online content.

Forgoing new media content--video, podcasts, webinars, etc.

[Susan Fantle]

Ardath,
This list is so perfect, I'll be sharing it with my clients. Thank you for creating it.

Many of the "failure" points you list are related to how costly and time-consuming it can be to create good content. But the content doesn't have to be long and complex, it just has to bring value to the prospect/reader.

One easy option that I've used very successfully for a number of clients is a checklist or self-assessment. It's usually only two pages. Page one has the checklist on it. Page two includes a brief company/product story, that ties in with the items on the checklist, plus a secondary offer and call-to-action. Checklists can be created in a few days, they are interactive, and business people love them. The opportunity to quickly see if they are doing everything right is irresistible.
Susan

[twitter.com/Patsiblogsquad]

I know Caroline mentioned this: Failing to provide an easy way for readers to share your online content... and I was just looking for an easy way to share this great post via Twitter...uh, where's the Retweet button?

Okay, gr8 post, I'll go RT it anyway!

[Ardath Albee]

Hi Patsi,

I hear you! I've had comments about the sharing thing and am trying to rectify. I've added the ShareThis widget. It displays in preview, but not live. Darn it. Working on it. Grrrr...

Thanks for persevering :-)

Ardath

[Branded USB Drives]

really good points, sure it will help other people.

[Sarah Mitchell]

What about:

Keeping great content in one medium. If you've got a great case study or white paper, by all means put them on your website. But keep a digital copy handy and print some of them, too. Don't expect all your prospects are willing to visit a website.

[Sima Dahl]

Great content without a well-planned follow-up strategy... brutal.

[marketing mix]

Yet another staggering post, I like all the points, one that comes to my mind time and time again, is the need for unique content, just put it how it is from your own mouth, nothing better than that, and deliver wherever needs delivering, simple? yet effective.

Dennis@4 marketing p's

[Arun]

Hi ArdathAlbee,

It was really interesting reading your article. In my observation there certain things that marketers do not follow while writing content for websites or email.

Marketers concentrate more on writing colorful and attractive content.

Few things to keep in mind while churning out content:
1. Audience- Business, consumer, demography, life style etc
2. Solutions for existing problems
3. Simple 200 worded content would be fine unless it conveys all the information.

The conventional way of writing 2000 or 1000 worded content is more appealing to common man. We need to write short and effective content.

[Melissa Paulik]

Ardath,

After 32 reasons, I'd have thought you covered them all, but here's a few more that I don't think I saw in the list.

1. Assuming you know better than your audience what they need to know. (Closely related to letting the HIPPO decide what they need to know.)

2. Following up a great piece of content with a really poor email that tells me about the latest award your company won. (Related to the pushy sales offer except it's not even another call to action!)

3. Calling me even after I told you on the form that I was not a prospect. Just curious. (Doesn't mean I never will be but I am clearly saying that I am not right now.)

4. Creating 4-5 pieces of content and assuming the job is done. This is somewhat related to #22 where you send out old content as that's what happens if you assume that your "content initiative" is a project with a clear end date.

All the best!

Melissa

[promotional usb drives]

This is a very interesting post, which covers some good points. I've recently created my own website and I'll definitely keep this in mind when writing content for it. Thanks.