Making an investment in content marketing can be a scary prospect, especially since results don’t happen overnight. This makes it difficult for marketing managers or other executives to understand how it fits into your customers’ buying cycles, and they might hesitate to support your content budget. If you’re using content to market your products or services, but aren’t getting the ROI that you expect, there are probably a few reasons why this problem is occurring.

Content marketing is a great way to generate the high-quality leads you need to grow your business, but only if it’s done the right way. It all starts with metrics. You need to make sure that you collect the right data at each touch point — how many people access the content, how many people convert on your content’s landing pages, how many sales qualified leads you generate, etc. If you aren’t getting many views and prospects aren’t converting, you could be publishing the wrong content for your market. For example, it might be outdated so your potential leads could be going to a competitor. Or, perhaps you’re targeting the wrong audience altogether. Whatever the case, if you track and analyze your metrics consistently, you can narrow down where things are going wrong and figure out how to optimize your strategy. Here are five key reasons that might explain why you aren’t getting the ROI you expect.

1. You’re reaching the wrong audience.

If your content is generating leads that aren’t sales qualified, then you’re not reaching your ideal target market. You need to take a look at the keywords and phrases that you’re using in the content, and change them to ones that your customers and prospects actually are using to search for your products or services. You can use a keyword research tool to help you boost your SEO efforts and engage with your intended audience.

2. You don’t have enough content.

Blogs are a great way to distribute content, and sometimes they’re enough to convert leads. However, most companies find that they need to distribute their content in several different ways to initiate enough traffic and improve ROI. Since people learn differently, a best practice is to turn your written content into videos, slide shows, podcasts and images that you can distribute on a variety of sites, such as social media. Also, to enhance your inbound efforts, you should include advanced content pieces like white papers to give your leads additional materials to meet their needs and move them through the buying cycle.

3. You’re trying too hard to make a sale.

Yes, branded content will help you build credibility and get noticed by consumers. However, non-branded content is a pillar of inbound marketing and can be a way to reach prospects by simply giving them answers to their problems. Constantly bombarding prospects with sell, sell, sell is a surefire way to turn them off. By offering non-branded content that’s educational in nature and meets their pain points, you can draw in customers that aren’t ready to buy immediately, but want to learn more. Then, your content becomes a resource and your leads become interested.

4. You don’t provide a clear call-to-action.

Including a clear call-to-action (CTA) is a must in each piece of content. Your goal is to drive that customer to your website or landing page so that they fill out a form and give you information in exchange for your content. If they don’t know that is the next logical step, then you need to create a CTA that speaks to them. How are your leads going to convert without being given an action to take?

5. You aren’t meeting their needs.

This is one of the number one rules of inbound marketing: give your prospects content that is relevant to their needs. It’s a great way to show them that your brand has value and can be a valuable resource. It helps build trust so that they feel comfortable making purchases from you. For instance, don't publish a beginner’s guide to crocheting if your customers are expert crocheters — they already know that information and will get bored, causing them not to convert. Instead, publish about new techniques they can add to their repertoire.

You have to be strategic to get ROI.

Great content is all about giving leads the information they need to move to the next stage in the buying cycle. If any of the above reasons seem to explain why you aren’t getting the content ROI you want, it’s definitely time to reevaluate what you’re publishing. Being a marketer requires you to constantly tweak your strategy to keep up with consumers, and your content deserves that attention, too. So, don’t be afraid to give yourself a reality check — you won’t be displeased with the results.