Content marketing requires commitment. It’s not something that transforms your bottom line overnight. Much like any relationship, there are different phases, and each has challenges that must be overcome to reach the next milestone. The first being the honeymoon phase. That leads to the question – what is the honeymoon phase of content marketing?
You’re in Love, Everything’s New (but Not Always Shiny)
Just like when two people fall in love, the beginning can have very high highs and very low lows. Your relationship with content marketing will evolve, requiring different approaches and strategies along the way. You’ll have to stick through the hard times and bumps in the road, all part of the honeymoon phase.
Why? Because you’re just learning and beginning to build your content strategy and developing ways to manage content creation. The honeymoon phase can be exhilarating, if not overwhelming. You’re on the ground floor, building a foundation that will sustain your brand for many years to come.
Let’s dive deeper into the honeymoon phase of content marketing to see what it includes and help you prepare for the biggest challenges you’ll face.
What Does the Content Marketing Honeymoon Phase Look Like?
A lot of excitement and passion is involved in the honeymoon phase. Your team is digging in and blissfully committed day-in/day out. They’ll gladly generate ideas for your content calendar without feeling burnt out or frustrated.
In this phase, your team is also enthusiastic and eager to take on content planning. They haven’t hit too many hurdles yet. They believe in the power of content marketing and its ability to help your business meet its goals – from generating leads to increasing engagement on social media.
While you hope this happy, “we’re going to rock this thing” attitude persists. Often, your team can also be dealing with feeling overwhelmed by the work ahead and the ability to keep things organized and streamlined.
Challenges Ahead: Honeymoon Phases Aren’t Drama Free
While we often assume that a honeymoon phase of a relationship is all sunshine and roses, that’s just not sustainable—not in love or content marketing. Challenges will arise. Those challenges will be the test of your team’s commitment and drive.
However, you don’t have to take all the bumps in the road without finding a smoother path. Challenges are inevitable for any content team. It’s what you do next that matters.
Challenge #1: Lack of Support
Working hard to develop a content strategy, launch a content calendar, and measure your content efforts will seem impossible without sufficient support. That support should come in the form of a content marketing software platform.
By using technology, you alleviate some of the concerns and manual work of your team. If they know they have a central hub to manage their content calendar, effectively collaborate, and take advantage of content automation, the burdens seem slighter. The path to success appears much more attainable.
So, what should you look for in a content marketing solution? There are several critical features your content marketing software should have:
- Shared content calendars: provides transparency and accessibility for all and keeps all projects organized and on track
- Content planning functionality: you need features that span the entire content planning continuum, including strategy, ideation, planning, production, and analysis
- Content collaboration: having a space that makes collaboration easier and more efficient is key to producing great content
- Content automation capabilities: redundant, manual tasks should be handled by technology, leaving your team more time to devote to more valuable efforts
- Content analytics: a central hub that aggregates data from multiple sources, providing you with easy-to-understand dashboards
Challenge #2: Unrealistic Goals and Outcomes
In the euphoria of the honeymoon phase, often you may think you can achieve amazing things quickly. While content marketing can provide you with immediate results like better engagement on social media or more website traffic – content marketing is a long-term strategy.
Having unrealistic expectations in the beginning will cause you to feel defeated & demoralized at the start. Set specific and attainable goals around content marketing for the first few months. Then review your content analytics to discern performance. Take that data and turn it into insights that can help you tweak and shift your strategy and execution as needed. Being agile and flexible is necessary for the honeymoon phase and beyond.
Challenge #3: Thinking There are Shortcuts to Happily Ever After
Occasionally, couples in the honeymoon phase don’t believe that it will end! They think there are shortcuts to a “happily ever after”. Don’t make this mistake with content marketing. Content marketing isn’t a fad; it’s not something you’ll use for a brief time, then move onto something else.
Remember, you’re committed. A commitment means you’ll do the hard work to find success. The hard work of content marketing is typically the planning and management. They’re the less sexy parts of content marketing that focus more on content workflows and mechanics than creativity.
This doesn’t make them any less important. They are the foundation for how you’ll consistently produce content that’s relevant and engaging for your audience. Work hard to build a strong foundation that defines how you’ll plan and manage content marketing today and in the future.
Challenge #4: Silos Can Form Without Constant Communication
Working across silos in content marketing is hard. It could be one of the biggest challenges you face in any phase of content marketing. Even though you have a motivated team, that doesn’t mean silos can’t form.
Silos are probably already preexisting. This gap may be caused by distance, culture, or other factors. As a content team, you need to work hard to break down those silos. Consistent and effective communication is the best way. That means automatic notifications need to occur when changes are made, or new tasks are added.
Beyond just communication around projects, you need to create a safe place for collaboration that considers everyone’s roles and talents. Embracing the fact that you’re all one team will make a huge difference.
The honeymoon phase of content marketing has many sides to it. There’s great enthusiasm but also feelings of disillusionment because the task seems so overwhelming. The best way to ensure a happily ever after is by truly committing. And that commitment begins with the right tools. Find out if DivvyHQ is right for your content marketing relationship today.