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Content marketing is hard. You’ve probably poured time, energy, and resources into creating blog posts, social media updates, or even videos, only to see lacklustre results. You’re not alone—many businesses face similar frustrations, wondering why their content isn’t driving the leads or engagement they expected.
Maybe you’ve even wondered, “What am I doing wrong?”
The good news? There are common challenges that may be doing your Content Marketing harm and each of these are fixable. In fact, the solutions are often more straightforward than you think.
In this article, you’ll learn how to overcome four of the most common content marketing challenges and, more importantly, how to start getting the results your business deserves.
Challenge #1: Inconsistent Content
Inconsistency is a common pitfall for many businesses in content marketing. You might start with good intentions, posting regularly for a few weeks or months, but then things slow down. Whether it’s due to a busy schedule, resource constraints, or a lack of ideas, skipping a post here and there quickly leads to a content drought.
Read: Why Your Business Needs to Write Three Articles Per Week
The problem? Inconsistent content erodes trust. When your audience expects regular updates, whether it’s blog posts, newsletters, or social media updates, and you fail to deliver, they lose interest. Worse, you drop off their radar altogether, losing the momentum you worked hard to build.
On top of this, inconsistent posting on your website gives Google the signal that you may not be very active, which will decrease the perceived value of your content and potentially impact your rankings. Google’s new helpful content update is one reason why this may be the case now.
Read: Google’s New Helpful Content Update
Solution: Stick to a Consistent Schedule
To avoid this, consistency should be prioritised over frequency. Rather than publishing more content than you can handle, aim for a realistic schedule you can maintain long-term.
Here are some tips:
- Develop a content calendar: Plan your content ahead of time, assigning clear deadlines for creation and publication. This ensures you don’t fall behind and gives you an overview of what’s coming next
- Batch your content creation: Instead of writing one piece at a time, dedicate a few hours to produce multiple pieces of content at once. This helps you stay ahead and reduces the pressure to create content on the spot
- Outsource or delegate: If you’re struggling to keep up, don’t be afraid to bring in additional resources. You can outsource writing, design, or other content tasks, or delegate internally to team members
- Use AI: Artificial Intelligence can help you write content faster and create videos faster than a human would ever be able to do, so don’t be afraid to utilise this
Read: How to Use AI to Generate 5x More Content in Your Business
When your content is regular and dependable, you’ll build a stronger connection with your audience—and stay top of mind when they’re ready to engage.
Challenge #2: Low-Quality Content
To churn out content quickly or frequently, many businesses fall into the trap of sacrificing quality.
Whether it’s poorly researched articles, generic topics, or content that feels rushed, low-quality content won’t resonate with your audience. Worse, it can damage your brand’s credibility, making your business seem amateurish or out of touch with your audience’s needs.
And this ultimately has a negative impact on your site’s ranking, leading to poor visibility and low traffic levels.
The internet is full of content, but not all of it is valuable. Readers are quick to dismiss articles that feel shallow or irrelevant, and once they lose interest, it’s hard to regain their attention.
Solution: Focus on Value and Relevance
Instead of producing content for the sake of it, every piece should add value to your audience. Here’s how to ensure your content is high quality:
- Do your research: Take the time to deeply understand your audience’s pain points and needs. Use tools like SEMrush, website chat bots, and feedback from your audience (like comments on your previous content) to create content that addresses their most pressing questions
- Prioritise evergreen content: Content that stays relevant over time, like “how-to” guides, industry insights, or solutions to common problems, holds more value. Focus on producing pieces that can remain useful and continue to drive traffic long after they’ve been published. There are five content topics that work better than anything else, which you can read about here
- Repurpose successful content: Take content that has performed well in the past and repurpose it in new formats—turning a blog post into a video, for example. This maximises value without starting from scratch. Here’s a guide on exactly how to repurpose content and generate 65+ pieces of content every week
High-quality content not only engages your audience but positions your brand as a trusted authority in your industry.
Challenge #3: Marketing and Sales Are Not Aligned
One of the less obvious but significant barriers to content marketing success is the misalignment between marketing and sales teams.
When these two departments operate in silos, content often falls flat because it doesn’t address the real questions prospects have during their buying journey.
In the “They Ask, You Answer” framework, the most effective content addresses the direct questions your prospects are asking. This builds trust and ultimately drives sales.
If your marketing team isn’t in sync with your sales team, they miss out on vital insights into what customers care about. The result is content that feels disconnected from the real needs of your audience and doesn’t support the sales process effectively.
Solution: Bring Marketing and Sales Together
When marketing and sales work hand in hand, your content strategy becomes laser-focused on answering the key questions that drive sales.
Here’s how to foster that alignment:
- Incorporate sales team insights: Your sales team is on the front lines, talking directly to potential customers and hearing their concerns and objections. Make it a habit for marketing to meet with sales regularly to gather these insights and use them to inform your content strategy. Ask your sales team what questions prospects commonly ask and build content that directly answers those questions
- Use the “They Ask, You Answer” approach: Structure your content around the principle that buyers are looking for straightforward answers to their problems. Content should directly address topics like pricing, comparisons, problems with your product or service, and other common concerns that come up in sales conversations. When your marketing reflects the same language and priorities as your sales team, it has a far greater chance of moving prospects through the buying funnel
- Create sales-enablement content: Develop content specifically designed to help sales teams close deals. This could include case studies, product comparison guides, or FAQ-style content that equips sales reps with the information they need to answer prospects’ questions more effectively
By aligning your marketing and sales teams, you ensure that your content directly addresses the concerns of your audience, improving engagement and helping move prospects closer to making a purchase.
Challenge #4: Not Diversifying Content
Different people consume content in different ways, and by sticking to a single format, you miss out on the chance to connect with a wider audience.
Relying on just one type of content—whether it’s blog posts, social media updates, or videos—limits your reach and engagement.
Diversification is key to keeping your audience engaged. It also helps you adapt to the changing algorithms of platforms, which often favour certain content types over others (like video or interactive content).
Solution: Embrace a Multichannel, Multiformat Approach
By diversifying your content, you can engage more of your audience, meet them where they are, and keep your brand fresh in their minds. Here’s how to do it:
- Mix content types: Consider creating a range of content, from long-form blog posts and whitepapers to shorter videos, podcasts, and infographics. This gives your audience options to consume information in the way that suits them best
- For example, a blog post can be turned into a video, an infographic, or even a podcast episode. The core content remains the same, but it’s presented in different formats to reach different segments of your audience
- Use various distribution channels: Different types of content perform better on different platforms. Videos and infographics tend to do well on social media, while in-depth articles or whitepapers might be more suitable for email newsletters or your website. By distributing content across multiple platforms, you increase your chances of reaching a broader audience
- Interactive content: Consider adding interactive elements like quizzes, polls, or interactive guides to your content strategy. These engage users more directly and provide them with a personalised experience, making your content more memorable
- Experiment with new formats: Stay open to exploring emerging formats. For instance, live streaming, webinars, and virtual events have all grown in popularity, allowing you to create more engaging, real-time experiences for your audience
By diversifying your content formats and channels, you can connect with a wider audience, keep your content fresh, and adapt to the ever-changing landscape of content marketing.
So, What’s Next?
Content marketing comes with its fair share of challenges, but the good news is that these hurdles can be overcome with a few smart adjustments. By addressing these issues, the results you generate from content will likely significantly improve.
Content marketing doesn’t have to be overwhelming—you just need to approach it with a plan that evolves with your business and your audience’s needs.
Next, learn more about the best Content Marketing Strategy you can use today.
Read: Best Content Marketing Strategy
