{"id":18598,"date":"2014-05-28T18:46:49","date_gmt":"2014-05-28T22:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.shareaholic.com\/?p=18598"},"modified":"2014-05-28T18:56:10","modified_gmt":"2014-05-28T22:56:10","slug":"frightening-truths-content-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shareaholic.com\/blog\/frightening-truths-content-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Frightening Truths About Content Marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Be smarter about content marketing.\u00a0Our free tools can help<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Everything you think you know about content marketing is wrong.<\/p>\n

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Often hailed as a proven method for generating thought leadership and growing sales, content marketing has become a go-to solution for brands desperate for attention.<\/p>\n

What many business don’t realize going into it (and what some still fail to realize even after months of investment) is that content marketing isn’t foolproof.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong.<\/em> The results can be incredibly rewarding. But there are plenty of things that may easily surprise you.<\/p>\n

Content is outrageously expensive<\/h3>\n

Blogging is hard.<\/p>\n

An article (and its author) is frequently judged by its: accuracy, storytelling ability and utility. Though anyone can put words on paper, you may have a hard time capturing a loyal audience if you can’t produce quality blog posts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For brands, there are two options: hiring a writer in-house OR outsourcing.<\/p>\n

A DIY approach is what many small businesses opt for, yet managers rarely calculate the actual cost per article. Helpdesk provider Groove recently crunched the numbers and came to the conclusion<\/a> that each of their internally produced posts costs the company $1,657.25. Talk about a lot of moolah.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I’ve known plenty of freelancers that charge anywhere between $100 – $800 an article. For more context, Scratch Magazine publishes a blog<\/a> it describes as, “A place to list which publications pay writers, and how much.”<\/p>\n

Even if you find writers who’ll gladly accept $100 a post, you can easily spend $500 a week to make sure you have fresh content available for your readers each work day. Of course, that back-of-the-napkin math doesn’t yet account for the time spent managing your blog, payments for technology fees and costs associated with promoting your content.<\/p>\n

Oh and speaking of promoting your content….<\/p>\n

Few readers will simply come<\/em><\/h3>\n

It is easy to believe that when you hit “publish,” a horde of readers will flock to your blog. That’s wishful thinking, at best.<\/p>\n

The smartest content marketers know that active promotion is key to a successful blogging strategy.<\/p>\n

Drive traffic to your posts through social media, paid promotion<\/a>, SEO, content syndication<\/a>, and more. Don’t let your investments go to waste by passively waiting to develop a readership.<\/p>\n

It is a long, slow process<\/h3>\n

Content marketing is more a branding exercise<\/a> than it is a sales play.<\/p>\n

The customer lifecycle<\/a> is such that readers of your blog are not “guaranteed sales.” Instead, your loyal audience is simply more likely to purchase your product when the need — that your product fulfills — arises.<\/p>\n

See Rank Fishkin’s explanation for why content marketing fails plenty of hopeful business owners.<\/p>\n