5 Reasons why your content creation strategy is not converting into customers (And what to do instead)

Does your content creation strategy work? You are creating the most amazing content. You are following all the latest social media trends. You’ve nailed your SEO and probably you’re ranking on a few keywords too. You are super-duper consistent across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok. And you’ve hopped on to host your own rooms on Clubhouse too. (PS: Join me on Clubhouse @dev.matharia)

Ah, but your content isn’t just converting. All those likes and shares are not translating to cash. Does this sound like you? Guess what, its time to revisit your content creation strategy my friend.

5 reasons why your content creation strategy is not converting

Content marketing is a long-term game. If you want to see your efforts bearing fruits, you gotta be strategic about every piece of content you publish.

Before we dive deep into the five reasons, let me clarify who will benefit the most from this blog.

Are you:

• A small business owner managing your own social media
• A freelancer creating content for your clients but not getting the intended results
• A social media manager managing client accounts but with limited success
• A personal brand selling your products/service online
• A coach offering your coaching services online

If you fit into any of these categories, this post should go in your bookmarks right away.

Most of the content created online never yields intended results. Are you doing these 5 mistakes with your content too?

Dev Matharia

Bravo! I’m so glad you’re ready to act on your content and make it work for you. After all, if the content you produce does not yield results or convert to profits, its as good as filler content. Let’s head straight to mistake number one.

1. Your content creation strategy has no goals

This is one of the biggest reasons why even great content fails to perform. There isn’t a direction or a goal attached to it. Without clearly defined goals that will inch you closer to success with every piece of content you publish, its always gonna be the hamster on the wheel.

Here’s what you should do to hit the bull’s eye with every post you put out:

1. What is your bigger goal? What do you want to achieve with your content marketing efforts?
2. Write down your biggest goals for the year, then break them down in quarterly goals, break down the quarterly goals further into monthly goals, and finally split the monthly goals into weekly targets
3. Plug these goals into your content calendar week by week and see your results improving (yeah, send me a coffee for this 🙂

What should you include in your content creation goals?

Ok, I get it. When you’re just starting out, it can be overwhelming to approach all this. But trust me, it is easy if you put your heart to it and honestly commit to the process. Keep in mind the below points when you are defining your content strategy goals:

• Define specific goals (e.g. Reach 50000 blog views)
• Keep it realistic (e.g. Don’t set a goal of a million visitors a month when you start)
• Keep them measurable (e.g. have a way to track how the content is performing in terms of numbers)
• Keep them linked (e.g. accomplishment of one goal should lead to the other and so on)
• Focus on customers/consumers (e.g. who is going to read my content)
• Focus on medium (e.g. which platform is the most suitable for this goal)

2. You don’t have a content distribution strategy

This is how the content cycle functions: 

Whoa! Looks like a ton of work, right? It is. But if you plan well, it all works on auto-pilot. Merely creating the content will not yield results. In fact, the content distribution strategy should work hand-in-hand with content creation. 

Based on your content distribution strategy, you’ll create the type of content focused on the first landing platform and then the repurposing platforms. Here’s what you need to do to craft a distribution plan for your content creation strategy:

Use this content distribution model

• Zero in on the first landing platform i.e. decide where the content is going to be published first (e.g. blog, social media, video, newsletter, digital product etc)
• Identify all variations of content you need to create for your landing platform (e.g. if you are targeting Instagram, can you create an IGTV video, a reel, a story, a carousel post, do an IG live, guest post on an influencer account to promote your content etc)
• Plan and schedule distribution content in your content calendar

3. You are not leading prospects through a funnel

Ok, let’s imagine this scenario. Mr D is a pro content creator and enjoys quite a following on social media. He uses his illustration skills to create amazing stock vectors that wow his audience. With every post, Mr D gains a lot of followers, content interactions and praise. The growing numbers make him feel happy and he continues to do it day after day. Sounds all fun, right?

One day, Mr D decides to sell his vector illustrations and creates a post to announce his offer. He is assured of massive returns and is anticipating to touch USD 5K mark on day one. Well, what happens next?

Mr D launches the product and, crickets. There aren’t any takers of the product. He continues to get the praise for the offer but when it comes to showing the wallet, nothing. What went wrong here? 

The problem is not the content or the offer, the problem is the process. Mr D has no clearly defined process to sell or in popular online marketing lingo, he doesn’t have a sales funnel. If this is the case with you, yo need to create a funnel to target prospects and turn them into paying customers.

Here’s what you can do:

Use a funnel for your content

1. Have separate platforms for nurturing and sales
2. Identify who is interested in your offers aka warm leads and funnel them to a CRM
3. Nurture the warm leads with consistent communication
4. Build trust so that when it comes to buying, they won’t hesitate to buy from their favorite creator
5. Delight them with value-added solutions time and again
6. Strive to become their go-to source for your niche
7. Deliver consistent value without skipping the schedule
8. Treat them with love, empathize with their needs and offer solutions, not just sales
9. Celebrate small wins, motivate them to be their best
10. Build a thriving community that enjoys growing together

Enjoying so far? Don’t forget to share this with someone who would love this. Let’s continue to the fourth biggest problem in content creation strategy.

4. Your email lists have never heard from you

Ok, you don’t agree with Mr D and you actually have a sales funnel in place, bravo! That’s one step closer to having a content creation strategy that converts. Before we dig in, answer a few questions:

• Is your newsletter or email part of your content calendar?
• If yes, do you stick to the schedule?
• Do you measure your email open rates?
• Do you try A/B testing?
• Do you get feedback from your list?
• Are you always selling in your emails?
• What is your unsubscribe rate?
• When was the last time you nurtured your email list?

Now that you’ve answered the questions, you must have some insight into why your content create by is not converting. See, a big part of any successful strategy is always asking the right questions.

Here’s what you can do to make your content work for you using email lists:

Nurture your email list

1. Plan and schedule daily/weekly/monthly emails in your content calendar
2. Be intentional about your emails i.e. know why you are writing to them
3. Attach a goal to every email you send out
4. Deliver a lot of free value in your emails
5. Don’t always sell, follow the 80:20 rule i.e. 80% nurturing and trust-building and 20% selling
6. Give them an offer they can’t refuse
7. Sell the transformation and then deliver the transformation
8. Share your wins but more importantly share your losses too (make them a part of your journey)
9. Ask for feedback, take their opinion, value their opinion, consider their opinion
10. Do not spam them with offers they did not sign-up for

Do you notice how it is all interconnected?

A content calendar is not merely a schedule of events, it is a business process that will help you convert your prospects into customers.

Dev Matharia

It’s time for the last big reason why your content creation is not converting. Ready? Let’s go!

5. You are not talking enough about your offers

Surprise, surprise! You weren’t expecting this, right? Because across all the four points above I told you to focus on the value and not sales. It is true. Sales happen as a by-product of incredible customer experience. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t supposed to talk about your offers.

Talk more about your offers

Remember, if you don’t talk about your offer, no one else will. How many times do you talk about the offers of other creators? Rarely, if ever, right? Promotions form an important part of your content creation strategy. But it doesn’t have to be a sell-in-the-face kind of promotion. It can be subtle too. 

Here’s what you can do to talk about your offers:

1. Plug your promotions in your content calendar aligned to your weekly goals
2. Use the 80:20 rule i.e. 80% of the time sell indirectly (talk about the benefits or advantages but don’t make it a big ask). 20% of the time, make it all about your offer. Be ridiculously blunt about it. Tell them you are selling this. Show the transformations, benefits, advantages
3. Always plan ahead for your content promotions
4. Tease the offers before you launch them (helps in building curiosity)
5. Test your offers before you launch (there isn’t anything more embarrassing than a buy button that doesn’t work, yeah, it happens)
6. Monitor your sales, track the conversions
7. Refine and repeat
8. Keep launching, again and again

So, there it is, the five big reasons why your content creation strategy is not converting. Fairly straightforward, right? And fairly obvious too. A successful content strategy is built around your goals and seamlessly aligned with the goals of your customers. Once you hit that sweet spot, it becomes easier. But they key is to keep working, keep refining, keep creating.

Conclusion

Here are the five big reasons why your content creation strategy is not converting:

1. Your content creation strategy has no goals
2. You don’t have a content distribution strategy
3. You are not leading prospects through a funnel
4. Your email lists have never heard from you
5. You are not talking enough about your offers

That’s all, folks! And oh yes, if you liked this post, support me by leaving a comment or sharing this with someone who needs to know this. It will mean the world to me.