MBA2466 The 3 Big Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Is Not Working

0:09Heyo, welcome to the$100 MBA show, the business podcast that guides you through the intricate dance of growing a business with our practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. And in today's episode, you'll learn the three big reasons why your content marketing is just not working. You're posting on Instagram. You're dancing on TikTok. You're writing blog posts. You're publishing videos. You're commenting on Twitter. You're trying to hang in there with your YouTube channel, but it's just not moving the mark. Does this sound familiar? Today, we're going to peel back the layers of this common puzzle.

0:49Why isn't your content marketing strategy yielding the results you're expecting? I'm going to share with you three critical reasons why. These are three reasons that I actually have seen come up over and over and over in my own business, in my own content marketing, that is stopping me from growing, that stops me from actually getting the results I'm looking for. It's also the same three reasons why anybody else I've helped has struggled with their content marketing. This is why I thought it was so important to share these reasons and how to overcome them in today's episode. And spoiler alert, they're all interconnected.

1:26Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Before we dive into the three reasons your content marketing is struggling, let's take a moment just to understand why getting this right is a non-negotiable. Listen, in today's digital age, your audience is really bombarded with an endless stream of content. Standing out in this crowded space really requires more of you. You can't just show up and just post and hope everything goes well. It requires strategic, consistent, and valuable content that resonates with your audience in a deeper way. In a more deeper way than your competition. If you get this right, you can unlock a world of engagement, a world of loyalty, a world of conversion.

2:10I'm talking sales conversions. Not only will your content attract the right audience and viewers, but it'll turn them into advocates of your brand. People that actually will stand up for you and your brand when you're not around. So what happens if you actually do get this wrong? What are the consequences? What happens when you have a lack of engagement, a lack of following, you have no one to really speak to? Well, the bottom line is, is you can't sell to ghosts, right? You can't sell to nobody. You got to talk to somebody to be able to actually make a potential sale and make revenue. Content marketing is top of the funnel, meaning that it's the widest range of marketing.

2:46This is how people get to know you, build trust with you, understand you and see your value. If they don't even get that chance, if you don't have enough people seeing that of you and really starting to trust what you're all about, there is no chance you're going to sell to them. Simply put, failing to nail this and getting your content marketing strategy right means not only missing out on growth opportunities, but also the decline of your brand's visibility and reputation. Ouch. The good news is, I got your back. In today's episode, I'm going to outline the three big reasons that your content marketing is not working and what to do to remedy them, what to do to turn things around.

3:22So let's dive into the first big reason your content marketing might not be working and the critical role of consistency. consistency. The first thing is you need to be consistent. This is the number one reason why people fail is when they're inconsistent. And when it comes to consistency, there is no gray area. Let me tell you a little story. When I was in teaching, when I used to be a teacher, I used to be a teacher trainer. This is like 15 years ago. But the point here is that my area of expertise was training teachers on classroom management. And one of the questions I'd ask my teachers, the teachers I was training is, are you consistent with your classroom management or are you inconsistent?

4:02And most of the time I would get answers like, sometimes I'm consistent. Most of the time I'm consistent. Very rarely am I inconsistent. Something in the gray. And what I told them was there is no such thing as sometimes. You're either consistent or you're inconsistent. If you're not consistent, if you're not doing it consistently, once you break it, you're inconsistent. Once you don't follow through in the example of classroom management, the students know that, hey, if I just nag them enough, if I just am more persistent than they are, then they're going to break down and they'll be inconsistent and I can do what I want.

4:36So let's bring it back to us and our content. You're either consistent or you're inconsistent. So you have to make sure you're always on the consistent side. You got to imagine that content marketing is the heartbeat of your business and your online presence. To skip a couple beats, you're going to be in trouble. You might be hospitalized if this was your heart, right? And then you would have to recover and it takes a while for you to get back on track and get healthy. This is the thing about inconsistency with marketing. You have to be consistent. Whatever that consistency is, so say for example you publish on Instagram three times a week, then make sure you never miss because that consistency matters.

5:13It's what people are expecting. It's what the machines, it's what the algorithm is expecting. Posting sporadically or changing your messaging or tone or the way you're actually marketing can confuse your audience and really erode trust. It really doesn't allow you to win. You're not giving yourself the chance to win. A lot of people ask me, hey, Omar, I want to start a podcast. What's your advice? My advice is make sure you're consistent. Make sure whatever the frequency of your podcast is once a week, twice a month, you stick to it. Don't choose a consistency that is going to make it hard for you.

5:46You want to make sure you nail the consistency. It's always better to start with less frequency and then ramping up later once you get the hang of it. More about frequency later. So what's the strategy? What do I want to offer you in order to fix this consistency issue? Well, you want to create a content calendar and you want to stick to it. A content calendar is basically like a calendar, any calendar, like a paper calendar or like a Google calendar. And you plot on the calendar when you're going to publish the content and you stick to it. You're consistent. It's a deadline for you. Again, whether it's weekly, biweekly, daily posts, whatever it might be, whatever that rhythm is, stick to it and make it your responsibility, but also make it your team's responsibility to stick to it.

6:28Get some help from your team if you have people working for you, working with you, I should say, because they're going to help you stay consistent. They're going to help and get your back and fill in any gaps. Remember, consistency isn't just about how much you do. Like it's better for you to just publish once a day than five posts one day and then none for a whole week. It's also about the consistency of voice, the style and the quality of your content. The more consistent you are, the steadier your growth will be. This is my experience with every form of content marketing. Second biggest mistake in content marketing is all about volume.

7:05Once you nail the consistency, step one is consistency. Be consistent. Let's say you're consistent for the first two months. Awesome. Next, you got to pump up the volume, how much content you publish. People drastically underestimate how much you should be publishing. The best of the best at content marketing, they publish far more than what most people publish. Most people that think they're hustling are publishing maybe one or two posts on social a day. And the people that are great at it, they're publishing 10 to 15 posts, that kind of volume. You want to go to the line that you think is too much because usually that isn't too much.

7:46Now, obviously you want to work to that because step one is consistency, but next is pumping up the volume. You're doing one post a day on Instagram, doing one post a day on TikTok, you're doing one post a day on Facebook, kick it up to five posts a day. Take your longer form content, chop it up, make it shorter, make it one minute, make it 30 seconds and put it out there. Volume matters in a big way, especially as social media platforms are becoming more and more popular. The same goes with other platforms like podcasting, like blogging, like YouTubing. One of the easiest ways for you to really get ahead quickly when you're getting started is increasing the volume of your work.

8:26I did this with podcasting. This podcast was daily for years. And when I say daily, I'm talking about seven days a week. I had seven episodes published every week. Now we're three days a week because we changed up the format slightly. I wanted to spend more time on each episode. But in the beginning, the volume really mattered because I needed to be reaching more audiences. I really needed to be everywhere and give myself enough chances, enough reps to get better. If you don't believe me that this actually matters, do an experiment for the next month, 5x the amount of content you put out there in whatever platform you like to post consistently.

9:04Choose one platform. You don't have to be all your platforms. Just choose one. Say, for example, you like to post on LinkedIn. Post on LinkedIn instead of once a day, five times a day, every single day and see the difference of your growth. See your engagement. See your stats. Look at your dashboard. Jot down your numbers now and then look at it in 30 days after you've been publishing five posts a day or whatever 5x is for you, I can almost guarantee that you will see a massive leap in growth and audience reach and possibly even have converted sales already. All right, let's get into the third mistake that people make or the third reason why people struggle with content marketing and growing their business, and that is quality.

9:46As you can see, all three of these are building up to each other. First, you got to be consistent. Then you got to pump up the volume. Then you got to refine the quality of your actual content. You see, the internet is a bit of a double-edged sword. It's easier than ever to share your message, but it's harder than ever to cut through the noise. And quality is the sword that cuts. Quality is the sword you want to have in this battle because it makes you stand out. High quality, valuable content produced in a high quality way is rememberable and makes people want to share it. So if your production quality on your videos better than just you, you know, doing some sort of selfie on your phone, nothing wrong with a selfie video, but let's say, for example, you decided to really put a lot of effort having B-roll, having several different types of shots, a medium shot, a long shot, a camera B, animations, text, jazzy music, you really put a lot of effort into the video.

10:42The likelihood of somebody sharing something that quality is much higher and people start valuing you and your content more. Think about the people that you like to follow online. Let's put comedy aside for a second, but think about people that you like to learn from and you need to trust to eventually buy from at some point. The best of the best have high, high quality content, highly produced, well thought out. So when you get to this third level where the quality is something that you want to fine tune, now everything gets better. Everything gets improved. Everything gets influenced by the high quality, meaning that now you're consistent, you have high volume and all that great content is great quality.

11:23Now it's not going to happen overnight, but you're going to improve with every video. You're going to say, how can I make this video, this post, this image, this blog post better than the last? What is one thing I can do to improve? Maybe I can improve the headlines. Maybe I can improve the thumbnail on this video. Maybe for the next video, I'm going to improve the music. Maybe in the next video, I'm going to make better cuts. This is something I learned actually from Mr. Beast, one of the most successful YouTubers of all time. His advice is if you want to become a great content creator, just choose one thing to improve every time you produce another piece of content.

11:58So for example, if I want to continue to improve this podcast, the next time I get on this mic, I got to think of one way that I can improve the show. Maybe I want to add a little humor this time. Maybe the next time I'll work on my timing. I'll work on my breathing. The next time I'm going to try to do better when it comes to the titles or maybe the show notes. You get the point. So consistency, volume, quality. These all work hand in hand. They fit together. And when they're all firing perfectly at a high level, you have a killer content marketing strategy. And the impact that makes on your brand, on your business is enormous.

12:35It's so big, it's even hard to equate. So go out there and start making some progress in fixing these areas in your content marketing. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you love what you hear, if you want to support the show, say thank you in the best way possible, all you got to do is hit that follow button on the podcast app you're listening to right now, whether it's Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Overcast or CastBox or whatever it might be. By clicking that follow button, you tell the algorithm you like the show and for them to to push the show to new audiences. That way we grow and we can reinvest and make this show even better for you and continue to produce incredible business lessons for you so you can build the business of your dreams.

13:18Thank you in advance for just tapping that screen and showing your love with a follow. Before I go, I wanna leave you with this. I love content marketing. I think it's one of the best investments you can make in your business and in yourself because the more you do it, the better you get at it, the better the quality gets, the better it does, the more inspired you become, the more you do it, the better you get at it. The more inspired you become, you get the point. It's a cycle and it's really self-fulfilling and self-motivating. So get hooked and start producing quality content. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in the next episode.

13:51I'll see you then. Take care.

14:05Thank you.