Your team is publishing more content across all marketing channels than ever before, but are you seeing diminishing results from this digital confetti? You may be suffering from content fatigue.
Social media is more difficult than ever before to get attention, engage users, and attribute revenue. It’s not impossible, but it is difficult to achieve these tasks.
This article will cover the reasons why content fatigue is on the rise and how to combat it. It also includes a seven-step method for creating a ROI-driven campaign.
Listen to the webinar hosted Darryl Praill, CMO of Agorapulse. This article summarizes the insights from The Battle for Attention – Engagement in a Content Fatigued World. It includes takeaways by panelists Robert Rose, and Ardath Aldee.
What is content fatigue and why should marketers care?
When your audience feels overwhelmed by the amount of content they see on their favorite channels, it is called “content fatigue”. They become tired and overwhelmed and end up ignoring or blocking out most of the content on social media, emails, videos, blogs, etc. Content fatigue can be seen by marketers as a decrease in engagement or negative feedback. It can cause missed KPIs and metrics that have a significant impact on business.
Content fatigue can be attributed to the audience’s shorter attention spans, and their growing interest in short form formats. The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) B2B Content Marketing report found that more than 50% of B2B marketing professionals said it was harder to grab the audience’s interest. It’s also a problem for marketing.
CMI found that 67% marketing teams were asked to do more work with the same resources. The teams are creating more content but it isn’t hitting the mark.
Robert says that creating content is now “everyone’s job, and nobody’s strategic plan.” Yet, content must still drive revenue and meet key goals.
Darryl believes that this disconnect is causing marketers to be hesitant and fearful. They’ve been forced to become video production companies or media production houses. On the other hand they don’t have the capacity or desire to be in front of the camera. Outsourcing content can result in disorganized results, which can lead to feelings of content fatigue or even cynicism.
Ardath believes that marketing teams are under immense pressure to produce content across all channels. They never spend the time getting to know their customers. Ardath believes that “the problem” is relevancy, as audiences ignore content they don’t care about.
Four ways to address content fatigue
It’s not necessary to live with content fatigue. We’ll look at four solutions to this problem so that your team can maximize their efforts and deliver greater value.
1. Prioritize buyer personas
Buyer personas are likely to be used by your marketing team when creating content for the target audience. Darryl says that many of these documents lack substance and are paper thin. Many of these documents are out-of-date. When was the latest time you updated audience research?
You could be losing out on many opportunities to connect with customers if it has been longer than a week. If you haven’t updated your research, you are likely broadcasting a message that people don’t want to hear. You may be mistaken in thinking that content fatigue is actually irrelevance.
The audience isn’t static. The audience is always changing. Consider them living organisms that change based on many factors, including the economy, current trends, marketing campaigns, and other factors.
Ardath suggests that you do buyer research constantly. She stresses that marketing teams must be up to date with research in order to understand what their target market wants, and how they can deliver materials that will resonate.
Ardath says that a lot of the work we do should be focused on helping more than selling.
How often should you update your buyer personas, then? Ardath suggests updating them at least every quarter or monthly.
It’s not as difficult as you may think to revise personas. Robert views these updates as iterations because they only require minor changes, rather than starting from scratch.
What is the most efficient way to conduct this research? While customer interviews are ideal, they may not be feasible for busy teams. Ardath recommends that you listen to sales calls in order to get a sense of the issues buyers are currently facing.
2. Content fatigue can be overcome by creating content narratives
The biggest problem with forcing marketers to publish and produce more content is that they don’t have the capacity or tools to tell a coherent story. Marketers find it difficult to tell a larger story when they are given direction by siloed stakeholders.
Ardath says that producing more content is not always a positive thing. This is especially true when it’s “random acts” of content. The content that your team creates will not have a significant impact on business if it isn’t cohesive or doesn’t focus too much attention on current topics.
Robert warns CMOs to not focus too much on content quantity. He says that many executives “conflate digital assets with content” when these are two completely different categories. The end result is that we produce more and more digital content without thinking of the story behind it.
Don’t stop here. Distribution is another important consideration. Ardath says that without distribution you will have to wait until your target audience finds key content on your site, which may not happen at scale.
Put your audience’s needs first when planning content, assets and distribution. You should know how to best reach your audience and what content they like.
According to the CMI report, social media was the most popular channel for content promotion and distribution. Video content was the highest-performing type of content.
Be careful when you go all-in. Ardath warns that if you place all your eggs into one basket, you are doing yourself a disservice. So while it might make sense to distribute content via short videos on social media, the majority of campaigns will benefit by using multiple media types and more than one platform.
Sign up for the Agorapulse DEMO and see how to schedule, publish, & analyze content.
3. Build operational processes
It’s difficult to get everyone on the same page when your teams are separated into silos. This can result in a lot wasted time and effort.
Robert explains that teams like demand generation, ABM, and others don’t usually have a strategy for content. Many have a view about how and when content should be produced. A point of view, however, is not a strategy.
Ardath confirms this is a problem that often affects executives. C-suite executives often place pressure on marketing teams and they have to deal with a constant flow of requests.
Robert says that the result is that there are no operational systems. The process is made up by marketers as they go. There are no standards.
Robert suggests that businesses create standard operating procedures that reflect the importance that they attach to the content that they produce. These SOPs must be simple to replicate.
Ardath warns, however, against making these processes too complex. She says that a lot of operationalization involves too many approvals and steps. Businesses move too slowly as a result and miss opportunities to deliver relevant information.
4. Create an attribution model
Achieving a system that produces and distributes content that resonates well with your target audience is a significant achievement. How can you tell if your system is working?
Measurement and attribution are the final pieces to the puzzle of content fatigue.
These are the hardest pieces for many CMOs to put together. Darryl explains that many marketing executives are so busy staffing teams and creating content that they don’t even think about measurement or attribution.
Marketing attribution can be tricky and is becoming even more difficult. Tracking customers can be difficult with marketing channels, as audience behavior is not always linear.
Dark social is difficult to measure, as it relies on private shares. You want private shares to add credibility and social evidence to your content. This can influence buyers.
How can you use dark social to your advantage? Ardath suggests focusing on a compelling story. You want prospects to be intrigued enough by your story to explore your website and social media channels.
Use the available tools to measure your success. According to an Agorapulse report, despite social media being the most popular distribution channel for content, only 1.8% include tracking links.
Link tracking allows you to quantify the results of your social media postings. Link tracking not only counts clicks but also attributes conversions and helps you measure the value of social media posts.
Agorapulse allows you to track links regardless of whether or not you have an existing UTM strategy. We’ll show you how to add UTMs in social media comments, messages, and posts.
Link tracking provides valuable insights for stakeholders because it aligns with the value. This approach helps you to move beyond vanity metrics that have no real impact on your business.
How to build a ROI-driven content campaign: Seven-Step process
It’s important to choose an approach that is right for your company. Darryl’s seven-step framework will help you map the basic steps of the process, so that your team can create campaigns that deliver measurable results.
1. Identify your goals
Begin by deciding what you want to achieve, and when. Consider the who, what and when of your campaign. The SMART goals framework can help you to clarify these objectives.
Here’s a good example:
Why: We must sign up 100 new customers before the end Q4. We need to sign 100 new customers by the end of Q4.
2. Keywords and research on target audiences
Refer to your most recent research on the audience, which should have been completed in the last month. What types of questions does your audience ask? What are the biggest challenges they face? What can you do to help them instead of selling them?
Consider keywords or topics that you could use to build your campaign.
Even if search engine optimization isn’t a top priority, keyword research can be helpful in building campaigns. SEO tools help you identify topics and angles as well as search intent, which will help you to create engaging content.
We can tell from the keyword analysis that the intent of the search is commercial. The keyword variations and the questions can be used to frame the topic, and to answer the questions that the audience may have.
3. Choose the best content for your audience
The next step is to think about what content you will create for your campaign. How can you tell the story best? You might want to consider:
Blog postsWhitepapersWebinarsPodcastsBranded videosGuides or checklists
Remember that the story may need to be told in a variety of ways. Repurposing content in different formats can help you improve accessibility, and make the story more appealing to a larger portion of your audience.
4. Select the right channels to run your campaign
You won’t have to spend much time thinking about the channels of your campaign if you regularly update your audience research and act on these insights. You should consider the channels that you are already using, and those that have been most successful.
Consider frequency and format when planning channels. Here are some examples:
YouTube: Repurpose one webinar into nine shorts and post it to the company channel.
Agorapulse is a great tool for social media distribution. Our social media solution allows you to upload assets into the asset library, write posts using the post composer and receive approval before publishing.
5. Track campaign links
Always add UTM codes to content, unless you plan to post it to a channel that does not support links (i.e. Instagram). These code snippets track the source and behavior of your content, which is essential for measuring and attribution.
You can track links once you have connected your Google Analytics account with Agorapulse. Click the Untracked button after adding a link in a post to track it.
Choose an existing campaign or create one in just a few moments. Enter the name of your campaign, and then configure the settings for the medium and source. Choose whether you want to show the full link or shorten it for a cleaner look.
6. Report, analyse, and revise
Agorapulse allows you to track the ROI and social media engagement directly after a campaign has been launched. Your campaign goals will guide your team’s monitoring of metrics.
If you are running a campaign to generate leads, the audience size might not be important, but clicks, comments and DMs will indicate whether your content resonates with your audience.
You can measure social media engagement by looking at hashtags and mentions.
Agorapulse ROI Report is the best way to measure your clicks’ value. The report shows total visitors, sales, and revenue across all social media.
You can also see the value of tracked posts and discussions (yes, Agorapulse’s inbox allows you to add link tracking) so that you know what campaign elements are driving the most value.
What worked? What worked? You can use the results to improve your next campaign or optimize the current one.
7. Share the results with all stakeholders
Share your insights with important stakeholders. Create a customized social media report in Agorapulse for stakeholders or remove vanity metrics.
Agorapulse Dashboard also allows you to export ROI reports. Don’t forget to include your takeaways, so that stakeholders receive the full story.
The Content Fatigue Experience: What We Have Learned
Your audience may be suffering from content fatigue if you’ve noticed a decrease in engagement and conversions across key marketing channels. You can combat social media fatigue by prioritizing buyers, focusing only on metrics that are important, and creating repeatable procedures.
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