Content Marketing Failures: Why Your Strategy Isn’t Working

The Mystery of Instagram Engagement: Why Some Reels Flop

I cannot figure this out. I mean it is absolutely stumping me.

So I am around 5 days into building an account on Instagram to promote an offer for a course I put together and I am barely breaking double digits views on the reels I’m putting out.

Last week I put together an offer for another course I put together and put the final touches on the sales page and workflow.

I thought why not just build another account and start promoting it as well since I am already utilizing Instagram two to three times a day to build an account.

It would add a few minutes to this activity. The first reel that I posted on this new account already hit triple digits views and the second one did even more. I do not understand this.

Breaking Down the Offers: Solar Savings vs. Creative Freedom

The first offer I put together was a course designed for homeowners who are considering going solar, if the homeowner implements what I am suggesting in the course they will save at least 10% on their solar installation.

Now I know what you’re thinking, big deal, who cares about a 10% savings.

Well solar is a large ticket purchase so 10% of $30,000 is $3,000, which to me seems like a good deal.

And that’s just using numbers as an example, solar can vary in price from 20k to 120k or beyond. In fact, I was talking to my old co-manager a few days ago in Vegas and he was on his way to a 28kw system install, which is probably close to price tag of $150k.

Now this offer based around saving money on solar is presented as the insider secrets that a solar company doesn’t want the homeowner to know.

Looking through the sales copy I feel like I presented a great perspective on the corruption inherent in not only the utility companies but the solar installers and salespeople as well as the banks lending the money for the projects.

But that’s just my opinion. Opinions don’t make money.

The Instagram Algorithm Dilemma: Niche vs. Broad Markets

There has been an increased view of my sales funnel from the addition of the content marketing on Instagram but it isn’t a result of the lackluster reels views, or at least it doesn’t appear to be.

The information presented in the course isn’t available anywhere, I mean you’d have to be involved in the solar industry to know the information, and further you’d have to be higher up than just a sales rep to know some of the specifics I go into in the course.

So I know that I am providing value, and I know that I have a target market who need this information, but the lackluster Instagram engagement is making me second guess this.

The more recent offer I put together is a course on general creativity marketed towards creatives or those wanting to do that would struggle with perfectionism, so it provides a framework for overcoming that.

I got the idea when I found that book by Julia Campbell, The Artist’s Way, on my bookshelf.

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Targeting the Right Audience: When Your Marketing Misses the Mark

I was just trying to brainstorm and test the waters on a course outside of the saving money or making money sphere.

So the content marketing and the reels for that account are short educational messages around getting unstuck in the creative process whereas the solar reels are education for the homeowner in preparing themselves to go solar.

So the resultant hashtags around them will generate different account input from the algorithm.

One of the things I noticed almost immediately was the difference in suggested accounts between the two profiles, the creative one had a plethora of faceless theme accounts as well as individual creators with a large following whereas the solar account is made up of solar installers and solar equipment manufacturers with low followings and low engagement.

Broad vs. Niche Markets: Lessons from Solar Sales Training

I was thinking this might be the reason for the massive difference in views between the two accounts.

One is already positioned in a place where people are going to consume content around that niche, there are already established communities participating in that conversation, whereas the other is a very specific niche which isn’t made up of the target market since that market is just a homeowner trying to go solar.

How can one find that type of person and market towards them if all of the conventional ways of finding that market result in not the target market but the market which supplies the target market?

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Patience or Pivot: Revisiting the Fundamentals of Marketing

It’s a problem I’ve encountered before with the solar industry.

I wrote a book about how to knock doors, just that interaction, not the actual going in and selling the system.

The solar sales industry is typically a two-step sales presentation like an insurance presentation.

Another way to say this would be like pitching saving money on a car to a classic car market.

They aren’t interested in that, even though they both are related to cars. It is two different ways of viewing that product.

This is an experiment born out of necessity with content marketing.

Perhaps I’ve still been too impatient.

I know that running Facebook ads allows the algorithm to shape the buyer whereas with organic content marketing it will take a lot longer of a timeline to connect with that market since there isn’t any fuel, aka money, behind it.

Maybe it is time to revisit my learning around the fundamentals of marketing, namely the offer.

But my feeling is that I have a great offer and I just have failed to get it in front of the right market.

So back to the drawing board and let us begin again.

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