Most Common Content Marketing Mistakes That You Should Avoid

Content marketing has become a staple for modern marketers.

But even veterans of content marketing end up making some basic mistakes. Keep reading so you can learn how to avoid these common mistakes.

Here are some of the common content marketing mistakes that you should avoid:

1. Starting without a plan

If you start content marketing without a detailed plan, you might be successful at times, but you won’t be able to replicate success again and again.

Content marketing is a time-consuming task and one that requires a lot of planning if you want to be successful.

Your content marketing plan should have reasonable goals and objectives that you hope to achieve through your content marketing efforts.

The plan should describe exactly how each activity you do will help you achieve your objectives. That way, you avoid any actions that don’t contribute to your end goals.

Another thing that you can do to make your content marketing plan more effective is to conduct reviews and assess your plan periodically. Make adjustments to make your plan dynamic.

2. Creating content that doesn’t provide value

Creating content that doesn’t provide value is a cardinal sin in content marketing.

Modern marketers use content marketing as a strategy to show their audience that their business has a lot to offer. And if we’re comfortable sharing such amazing content for free, you can only imagine the kind of knowledge and expertise we have if you’re willing to pay for it.

But the only way you’re going to get people excited about your business is by offering and providing value.

Content that is produced with the intent of helping people is the foundation of content marketing.

One of the absolute biggest mistakes you can make in content marketing is to frequently publish low-quality content that provides almost zero value to your audience.

Create content to help your audience, and they will be naturally drawn to your business.

3. Focusing on only one type of content

By focusing on creating a single kind of content, you’re not going to be able to appeal to a large number of your target audience.

Several different forms of content vary in their appeal.

If you want people to get interested in your brand, you write a guest post on a popular site that gets a lot of traffic.

But people that are further into their buyers’ journey want something more substantial such as a comprehensive e-book.

Content marketing isn’t only about textual content. Make sure to incorporate visuals, infographics, audio, and video into your content marketing strategy.

If you keep on creating the same kind of content, your content’s effectiveness is going to wear off pretty soon. Mix it up every so often, and you’ll be glad.

4. Not knowing your audience

Much of content marketing depends a lot upon your audience.

Your target audience will determine many things about your overall content marketing strategy, including the type of content you’re producing to the publishing frequency.

Without knowing the content preferences of your audience, you can only hope to strike the right string.

There are several options available that you can use to get to know your audience better.

Create a somewhat detailed survey asking your customers about themselves and their relationship with your business.

Then you can move on to ask your target audience about their preferences.

You’ll be gaining insights about your audience that will help you make better decisions for your business as a whole.

5. Not getting your content checked by others before publishing

Letting other people read your content first will help you eliminate any mistakes present in the content.

Grammatical mistakes and spelling errors can come to haunt you even after a while.

Using a Grammarly tool should be the first thing you do, but these tools can’t catch everything.

By having different people go through and review your content, you’ll be able to correct any mistakes that you might have missed. A review by your team or peers will also help you get some fresh ideas that you can incorporate into your content.

It would be best if you remembered and understood that there is no taking it down once something is published on the internet. It is best to think things through before you act and make your content as good as it can be before publishing.

6. Inconsistent posting frequency

Having an inconsistent content posting frequency can be off-putting for many people.

People want to see consistency in your content, as well as see your content consistently.

If you usually post once a day, but for some reason, stop posting for three months. Your audience is going to be a little concerned.

Your audience needs to be warned if there is going to be a change in your content publishing.

You’ll face several circumstances in business and life where you will have to take some time off. If this happens to be the case, you should inform your audience why you were gone for so long and that now you’re back.

Taking your audience into confidence like this will help build a robust relationship that will be the envy of your competition.

One way to combat inconsistent posting frequency is to establish a schedule and follow it religiously.

While it is essential to have a consistent posting frequency, that doesn’t mean that you should change it up a little.

If something is trending and gaining a lot of traction, break your posting frequency and push out multiple pieces of content catering to that trend.

7. Not marketing your content

Content marketing isn’t only about creating and publishing content. A large part of content marketing is marketing the content to see your content more and more of your target audience.

Your aim through content marketing should be to get in front of more people and show them that you offer real value.

Most marketers use the 80-20 principle. These marketers spend 20% of their time creating content. The remaining 80% is spent on marketing their content.

You can promote your content through multiple channels, including your website, social media profiles, email list, etc.

8. Not focusing on SEO

You want your content to be visible. By focusing on SEO, your content is going to rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP).

People still use and will continue to use search engines like Google to find content that’s relevant to them at the moment. The intent behind these searches is enormous and has a higher chance of making conversions.

SEO for your content is not too hard. If you’re creating good content, you’re probably doing some SEO without even knowing it.

Start with keyword research.

When you’re coming up with content for content marketing, you’re probably going to write something that is trending, high in demand, or relevant to your audience.

By searching for the most popular and relevant keywords for your business, you’ll be able to get much better rankings on the SERP.

The next thing that you should do is focus on links, internal and external.

A piece of your content should be linking to other pieces of content on your website. Interlinking helps your website’s SEO and comes at no additional cost to you.

You can also make your site rank higher to get backlinks from sites that have high authority and are relevant to your business. Backlinks from great websites tell Google that your website is pretty good, too, and should be shown to more people.

9. Bad timing

In business, timing is everything.

If you have a truly brilliant idea for a new product but launch it at the wrong time, it’s not going to bring you the results you want.

Timing is also essential for content marketing.

Not all content is going to be evergreen. If you make the decision only to create and market evergreen content, you would be missing out on the latest trends and happenings.

While it is a great idea to incorporate evergreen content into your content marketing strategy, you should also be pushing out content that is highly relevant at a given time.

Publishing content that is trending will allow you to capture the interest of an already energized audience.

Make sure that you pay special attention to timing. If you don’t, even exceptional content won’t be able to produce significant results.

10. Lack of direction

A lack of direction in your content marketing strategy can cost you your business.

Without knowing where you want to go, you’re going to do multiple things without a clear reason in mind. You will not be able to get consistent and repeatable results if you act in this manner.

If your content marketing team is suffering from a lack of direction, they won’t be able to produce outstanding content. Your team won’t know why they’re creating content in the first place.

Having a sense of direction will allow your content marketing team to be more creative with their approach. They’ll be more engaged in the whole content creation and marketing process, which will help you get better results.

11. Lack of personality

Businesses that don’t have a personal touch fail to relate with their audience at a deeper level.

Having an inviting and unique brand image promotes increased engagement from your audience.

A lack of personality in your content can cause your audience to care less about your business. If your audience doesn’t think of your business as a constant in their lives, you’re quickly going to be removed from their lives by another brand.

You can make your content more engaging by adopting a tone that is unique to your business.

Come up with hashtags and events that show that your business is more than a money-making machine.

12. Being too salesy

The content you use for your content marketing shouldn’t be too salesy.

You want people to be attracted and impressed with your business. That’s the only way they’re going to end up establishing meaningful relationships with your business.

By being too salesy, you may get short term benefits, but in the long term, you’re losing potential customers and their business.

If your content does manage to provide value to your audience but has too many calls to action or offers, people will not be too thrilled after going through your content.

In content marketing, you should try to place the interests of your customers above your own: that way, mistakes like being too salesy.

13. Not partnering with influencers

Influencers have become a cost-effective and extremely targeted way to market to your target audience.

While it may be debatable how well influencers marketing helps with lead conversions and sales, it cannot be doubted that influencer marketing enables you to reach a greater audience.

Even smaller influencers known as micro-influencers have a loyal following that listens to their opinions and suggestions.

Finding the right influencer is going to be a challenge for any business. Heck, even Disney had a tough time with influencers (PewDiePie and Jake Paul).

Form a long-lasting partnership with influencers who have a good vibe around them. While it is essential to look at the present fan following of an influencer, it is also equally important to look at their future standing.

Partner up with relevant influencers and see your true potential.

14. Using incorrect statistics

If you use incorrect facts and figures in your content, your audience is going to mark you for not being a reliable or trustworthy source of information.

Do your research before writing and especially before publishing. As you know, once something gets on the internet, it is almost impossible to remove it.

If you need data or statistics, make sure to get data from the subject authority on the matter, such as a reputable educational institute or government institutions.

If you do end up using incorrect facts in your content, make sure to apologize and use the correct facts instead.

Conclusion:

Content marketing, when done right, can help your business in the short term and long term.

By using your noggin and keeping your wits about yourself, you can quickly identify areas where your content marketing strategy needs adjustments.

Avoid common mistakes to make your business better and more successful.