So, you’ve gotten on the Inbound Marketing train, and you’re slowly but surely getting the giant machine rolling. You bought the HubSpot subscription and you’re getting familiar with the software. You’ve been pouring all of your blood, sweat, and tears into creating what you think is great content — content that you’re sure people can’t wait to engage with you about!

Then you look at your engagement data. *crickets*

What’s this about? Your content is amazing! Why is your HubSpot content failing you?

1. You're Selling, Not Helping

Traditional marketing focused primarily on building brand awareness and selling features, but the modern buying process consists of searching online for solutions to problems. This means that the brands that build the best awareness are often the ones that provide the most help during the research process.

If you’re not seeing the engagement that you thought you would, ask yourself if you’re truly offering value to to your reader. Are you truly helping them find answers to their questions and solutions to their problems? Or are you touting your features and bashing your competitors?

If it’s the latter, consider revamping your messaging to focus on the reader rather than your product. Figure out what their pain points are and genuinely help them find solutions.

2. You’re Expecting Too Much, Too Fast

It’s exciting to start publishing content, and it’s natural to look forward to seeing the results roll in. If you get off to a slow start, you may start researching what you can do to increase your momentum. You may even try some tricks to get your content trending.

Trending content works for some very specific industries. News, gossip, predictions, and viral campaigns are some examples of the type of content that tends to trend.

The problem is that many of us work in industries with long buying processes. Especially in the B2B space, lots of research is done before a vendor is selected.

Marketing effectively in these cases requires content that is evergreen. Evergreen content is information that never gets old. Tips, guides, instructions, reviews, videos and articles you learn from are all evergreen. They don't lose their value with time — they always fit into the buying process of your prospects, and the primary objective is to generate leads, rather than to foster immediate engagement.

If this is the type of content that you’re publishing, then give it time. In your industry, it’s okay that you’re not “trending” or seeing immediate engagement. As your content gets found and provides the answers that your prospects are looking for, you’ll start seeing solid, quality leads roll in, rather than lots of poor quality leads that won’t close.

3. You're Not Saying Anything New

Here’s the hiccup with living in the Information Age: people say all the same things about all the same things. It makes content marketing a constant challenge.

You can’t just put the same content out on the internet that everyone else in your industry is putting out on the internet and think that you’re going to cut through the noise.

If you’re just publishing random blog posts because your competitor is publishing random blog posts, you have to change your perspective.

You’re the subject matter expert! There are good reasons why a prospect should choose you instead of your competitor! Ditch the “me-too” marketing and showcase your differentiators in an authentic, helpful way. Teach your readers about the problem they’re experiencing; talk through available solutions. Educate them on what to look out for, and answer the questions they have.

If All Else Fails, Call In An Expert

If you're convinced that you're publishing a healthy variety of relevant, helpful, evergreen content, but you're still not seeing the leads that you were expecting, maybe you need an objective eye. Give Waypost a call at (864) 288-6162 for a free Marketing Assessment.

For more tips, best practices, and potential pitfalls, help yourself to your free copy of our latest e-book, The Marketer's Guide to Inbound Marketing.