Good article on why, often content does not work for people, I would also add:-

1.  Making content too complex.  I think we often think that cramming documents full of facts helps the reader in fact it hinders and causes reader fatigue.  When we read, we probably only remember one fact, so only write one fact.

2. Articles are too long.  We all think that a heavy weight white paper is the thing we need.  People download them but they never read them.  Present them with a 300 - 500 word article and they will read it immediately.

3. It's All About You.  In the article below they talk about being too salesy.  It's true, nobody has got up in the morning and said I need to talk to a salesperson.  While you are very passionate about your product and service, it's understandable as they pay your mortgage.  But to be honest, we don't care.  And all this stuff about you being "number one" "the biggest" is really just a big yawn and everybody says it anyway.

4. You are ticking a box.  We have has a number of people come to us and want cheap content.  The example being that they didn't care about the quality who read it, they just wanted content.  Trust me, spend the money on a party, you really shouldn't bother.

5. 80% of what you do with content is about distribution.  The network, the distribution channels.  If you don't have this in place and think you can buy your way then, again, I wouldn't bother.  Yes there are plenty of agencies that will take your money off you and help you with ads, but nobody looks at ads so what really is the point?

Here at DLA www.social-experts.net we use content marketing, we put out a piece of evergreen content out everyday and get three pieces of inbound, every day.