If you’ve been reading our content for a while, you know I believe in content marketing. No modern professional services marketing program really works without it.

But the marketplace is chock full of content. And an awful lot of it isn’t doing any good for anyone.

Why?

First, a quick refresher on how content marketing works. When you make valuable educational material freely available online, you allow possible future buyers of your services to get access to your expertise. If you publish enough material on topics relevant to your target audience, many of these people who discover one piece will come back again and again for more.

Over time, they begin to trust the author—and by extension, the firm they work for. Eventually, some of these followers will need the services you provide. They will reach out to you. And in many cases, you will be their top choice, which gives you a distinct advantage over any competitors.

I want to point out two key words that I used: valuable and educational. Each blog post, webinar, speech, email newsletter article, or video you produce must be highly relevant to your audience and provide new insights into important business challenges. If your content doesn’t meet these criteria, it is likely to fall flat.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Below are five reasons well-intentioned content flails and fails.

1. Your content is not educational

Many firm blogs, newsletters and social media sites are little more than bulletin boards. They announce new hires. They promote awards won. They describe a new service offering. They post photos from a staff service event. So what’s wrong with these? Let me spell it out: Prospects. Do. Not. Care. And neither do most of your clients. You are filling space that could be attracting prospects with white noise. And a lot of people fall asleep to white noise. Focus instead on teaching your audience about the problems you solve. Strong content is always found at the intersection of your firm’s expertise and the business challenges your clients care about most.

2. Your content is too self-promotional

The whole point of writing* content is to establish trust and build a loyal following. Many experts, however, believe that all marketing is advertising. When they write a blog post, for instance, they fill the piece with multiple examples of work their firm did and actively invite readers to hire them. The problem with this approach is that it immediately puts the reader on guard. “Clearly the author has a self-interested motive here. Can I trust anything they say?” A far better approach is to be evenhanded and unbiased. Describe the solution as if other firms could solve it, too. Don’t worry, your readers will trust you even more for it. That said, it’s often okay at the very end of the piece to add an understated call to action to let your readers know that your firm is available to help.

3. Your content can only be discovered on your website

Publishing content on your website matters. But if that is the only place your content lives, you are asking your audience to do all the work. And people, as a general rule, do not love homework. At a minimum, optimize any blog posts you write for traditional and AI search. Also, share your articles, videos and blog posts on the social media channels where your audiences spend time and build professional relationships (LinkedIn, at the very least). Speaking of LinkedIn, it’s becoming an increasingly important authority signal for AI search. So consider publishing some of your articles natively on the LinkedIn platform.

4. Your content covers too much territory

The problem with a blank page is you can fill it with anything. Many firms publish content on a huge range of topics with no organizing principles to wrangle them. As a result, their “thought leadership” feels leaderless and lost. There is a better way. Narrow your focus to a few key “issues.” These are themes that your firm will become known for. Each issue is broad enough that it could inspire hundreds of blog posts, speeches, and podcast episodes. But they are contained enough that they impose discipline on your team and help you build a reputation for a set of ideas in the marketplace.

5. Your content doesn’t reflect how your clients want to learn

Winning new business is not a single moment. It is a journey. Prospective clients move through different stages as they learn about your firm, understand their own problem, compare options, and decide whom to trust. Not every prospect enters that journey in the same place. Some are just beginning to understand their issue. Some are actively researching possible solutions. Some are ready to buy and are comparing firms. Your content strategy needs to support all of them. That means writing blog posts isn’t enough. You need to consider each stage of the buyer journey and produce content at each inflection point that is designed to move the prospect a little further along the path.

Does your content marketing program suffer from any of these problems? If so, you have plenty of company. The good news is that recognizing the problem is often the biggest hurdle to solving it.

*I’m using the word “writing” here and elsewhere as a shorthand for “writing or speaking,” both of which can appear in various formats or media.