Content marketing is all about creating, distributing and promoting your content, with the goal of inducing your target audience to take your intended action.
According to Content Marketing Institute, 88% of B2B marketers say they use content marketing but only 30% of B2B marketers say it’s effective. This means 70% marketers have not found it as effective as they expected.
This is a big problem. Right?
Content marketing can be very effective if done in the right way. In this article, I will walk you through the ten worst content marketing mistakes that many marketers are making.
Let’s get started!
#1. Not having a documented content marketing strategy
One of the biggest mistakes in content marketing is not to make a well-documented content marketing strategy.
According to a research by Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Proof, only 35% of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy, whereas 48% of them don’t have their strategy documented. No wonder, only 30% B2B marketers found the contents marketing to work for them as mentioned earlier.
Writing down your content marketing plans and goals will provide you a baseline, allow you to evaluate what in your strategy is working and what is not, and enable you to refine your strategy accordingly.
#2. Not spending enough time to craft a magnetic headline
Let me start this point with some interesting statistics.
According to Brian Clark of copyblogger:
“On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest …”
This means 80% of people read the headlines indicating headlines can make or break your content. Even a highly effective and interesting article may not attract people simply because it doesn’t have a compelling headline.
Let me share a case study to make you better understand how people are convinced by a magnetic headline.
Pick the Brain published an article with the headline ‘The Two Types of Cognition’ and they have acquired 100 visitors within a couple of days.
For the same article when they decided to change the headline to ‘Learn to Understand Your Own Intelligence’, it attracted 4,930 unique views.
The following chart shows how people are drawn to compelling headlines. The below image will explain what sort of headlines people prefer more.
#3. Focusing on quantity over quality
There is no doubt that it’s essential to continuously produce and publish new content. However, creating content only to maintain the schedule is a big mistake. This often leads producing poor-quality content.
For example, you publish 3 articles per week on your blog. Just to meet the deadline here you may often need to create an article that has already been covered many times before.
Sometimes, it may take up to a week to create a single insightful article. What I am trying to say is that instead of publishing dozens of questionable-quality content, just publish one good piece of content.
Focusing on quantity over quality might create a bad impression about your business, whereas writing a resourceful quality content might help you earn trust and credibility, and help you reach your potential customer base.
#4. Concentrating on one medium
Everyone has their own preferred method of learning. Some people learn better by reading, some by listening, whereas some are visual learners. If your content marketing strategy involves only one method, for example, publishing a blog post, then you’re missing out on some huge potential.
There are literally dozens of mediums like audio, video, slide decks, infographics, downloadable PDFs, eBooks, which can enable you to reach different types of users and get them to know about your business.
#5. Writing on multiple niches
There is nothing wrong writing on a variety of topics. But, particularly when you are just starting out, it’s is better to write on a particular niche.
However, if you keep writing on a specific niche, particularly when you are just starting out, it’ll help you to be an expert in that area within a short period of time. If you are not an expert in any topic then you won’t be able to add value to your articles.
Yeah, you can expand to different topics later, after gaining some traction and becoming an expert; people tend to remember a specialist rather than a generalist.
#6. Not promoting appropriately through Social Media channels
Promoting content through social media is free and you can promote your content in many ways through different social media channels.
One of the common content marketing mistakes many marketers make is promoting the content only on the day it is published. They promote the articles only on 2-3 big social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. There are lots of other social media channels that will allow you to promote your content. Therefore, make sure you promote your articles in as many social media channels as possible.
Promoting content through social media not only increase your referral traffic but also help you rank higher in search engines. Don’t forget to reach out to any influencers you featured; a single tweet from an influencer can bring thousands of traffic to your website.
#7. Ignoring SEO
Another major content marketing mistake is not optimizing the content for search engines. The consequence of not including the
Therefore, find few keywords you want to rank for and start optimizing your content.
But, don’t make your content over optimized by doing keyword stuffing, which might have an adverse effect. So, optimize your content in a way so that it helps boost your ranking in search engines and draws the visitor’s attention.
#8. Trying to write for all
Another understandable and common mistake is trying to please everyone. Eventually, you will end up without pleasing anyone. Having documented content marketing strategy, creating quality and
The suitability of the content highly depends on its relevance. Creating content by focusing your targeted audience can increase your content’s relevance. So, instead of being mildly attractive to a billion people who will never purchase from you, it’s better to be deeply attractive to a few thousand.
Focusing on a specific demographics will enable you to produce more personalized content and help you will attract more customers.
#9. Overlooking the call to action (CTA)
You need to include a call to action in order to sell a product or service, Right?
For example, if a customer walks into a shop to buy something and if there is no shopkeeper then how he/she will purchase something from there? Eventually, the customer will just leave. Similarly, if you forget to add the call to action then how your audience will take your desired action after reading your content?
Therefore, don’t forget to add the call to action in your article if you want to convert your readers to your customers. The following excerpt shows a perfect example of an enticing call to action.
#10. Not having a content publishing schedule
It’s not essential that you need to publish the content every day. But, it’s a mistake if you publish five articles in one week and then nothing in the next few weeks. You should create a content publishing schedule that defines both when and what you will publish. But, set the schedule in a way so that you can follow that strictly.
If you publish the articles randomly, your readers won’t know that when the next one will be released. Let your readers know that when the next one will be published. For example, you publish two articles in a week. Make sure you post them on the same days in every week.
The biggest advantage of having a content publishing schedule is that it will force you to meet the deadline and the search engines take it positively as you are regularly putting out fresh content.
Final Thoughts,
Good content marketing is not a one-time investment, it’s an ongoing process.
Increase your efforts to be successful in content marketing and avoid making the above-mentioned mistakes, which could adversely affect your business growth.
Images: Author’s Own
