Not every company is great at content marketing, and even the best ones can make mistakes while running campaigns.
Small mistakes can have a big impact on your brand.Even if they seem like they wouldn’t be a big deal, they can still damage your brand’s reputation or make it less effective.
While creating content, brands need to be careful to avoid making any avoidable mistakes.
And so….we collected the common mistakes in content marketing that you MUST take care of:
1. Not Knowing Your Audience
The biggest mistake you can make is not knowing your audience profile, their demographics, and aspirations. This can cost you dearly in the long run.
It allows you to get the most out of your content and get better results.
Polly Kay, Marketing Manager, English Blinds
“I essentially damaged our brand image during a marketing campaign.” This is according to Polly Kay, Marketing Manager, at English Blinds. Kay was attempting to appeal to a younger, more aspirational demographic by emphasizing the company’s unique selling proposition of “affordable luxury.”
However, this strategy backfired because English Blinds’ typical buyers are older and wealthier, and they are primarily interested in luxury goods, not bargains. As a result of Kay’s misstep, a significant portion of the company’s customer base was alienated.
I realized something was wrong when the campaign didn’t result in any new revenue. In addition, we started losing subscribers and customers at a regular rate.
If you don’t have a good understanding of who your potential customers are and what they want, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to reach more people. You might even end up losing the people you have.
2. Not Knowing Your Goals
This one is for you if you’re just starting your content marketing journey. Knowing your goals and objectives before you start creating content is important.
Your blogs may be great, but they might not stand out against the competition.
Roman-Zhyvitski, SEO Expert
Deleting old content can hurt your website’s ranking. Roman Zhyvitski, a SEO expert, says that when he first started his website, he attracted a lot of traffic but people were only visiting to gather information and not to plan a trip.
To fix his mistake, he wrote new blogs, but didn’t delete the old ones. The existing popularity of his website helped him rank well for more competitive keywords faster. Therefore, deleting old content can actually hurt your website’s ranking.
Profit is the main goal, but how is it generated? Is it through the product or service, affiliate links, ads, sponsored posts, or something else? Keep in mind that traffic is not the only metric to consider for a successful website.
3. Not Writing for Your Audience
You should always create content that is tailored to your audience. If you don’t, your audience will eventually abandon you.
It is important to understand what your audience wants, what their pain points are, and what they need to solve their biggest problems. The best way to learn this information is to talk to them directly or to use surveys.
If you don’t have the right information, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
This means that you need to find a balance between what you want to create and what your audience is looking for. For example, if you are a Michelin-star chef, you may want to create videos for your favorite recipes. However, your audience may be looking for more basic information.
co. “The most important thing is to create content that your readers will want to consume,” says Lauren Mcmanus, co-founder of CreateandGo.co.
Tonya Davis, Marketing Manager, ThoughtLab
Tonya Davis from ThoughtLab goes further into this topic. She states, “It’s probable that if someone has a blocked drain, they would prefer to try and unclog it on their own before having to resort to calling a plumber.
They may also just be seeking out ways to prevent clogs in the future or suggestions on the best drain clog remover on the market. Therefore, if your target audience is in search of DIY posts about how to fix a clogged drain, you need to offer that content to them.
It wasn’t until much later that we realized our target audience isn’t interested in every topic we write about. Brett Downes from HQSEO explains that when they first started out with content marketing, they made the mistake of not writing for their target audience.
They would publish good content on a weekly basis, but it wasn’t until later that they realized that their target audience wasn’t interested in every topic they wrote about.
Although this text is comprehensive and technical, including a lot of specialized vocabulary pertaining to SEO, it is not appropriate for our target market of business owners, who would likely find it difficult to follow.
Since we were receiving the incorrect type of web traffic and very few conversions or sales leads, our sales decreased significantly.
After analyzing our traffic, we realized that it was coming from other SEO companies and digital freelancers. Our visitors were mostly men under 30, but our target audience was business owners, i.e., men and women over 35.
We simplified our content to be more understandable for our target market. We learned that explaining our business in clear terms would help attract and convert our preferred audience.
“Content is king, but it’s nothing if it’s not the content your readers want to consume!”
4. Know What Your Business is Known for
It is important to know how your visitors are landing on your web page. This means focusing on the niche markets that you want your business to be known for.
If you are trying to rank for too many keywords, or if you are trying to rank for keywords that are too similar to each other, you may not be recognized as an expert in your field.
Mike Z, Chief Growth Officer, Zima Media
Mike Z. from Zima Media explains that it’s easy to get distracted by clicks coming from Google. He says that it’s more effective to have a narrow content strategy. They eliminated content that was off-brand for their goals.
Adam Hempenstall from Better Proposals emphasizes the importance of searcher’s intent, rather than the number of searches per month, when choosing keywords.
He argues that a keyword with 100 searches per month could convert better than one with 10,000 queries if the searcher’s intent matches the marketing collateral on your website.
Furthermore, the keyword with 100 searches will be significantly easier to rank for.
“A keyword with 100 searches per month could convert better than that with 10,000 queries.”
5. Tapping The Wrong Distribution Channel
You should be aware of how your target audience is finding your business and visiting your website. Use tools such as Google Analytics to see the traffic source and medium for your online marketing collateral.
Jimmy M, Manager, Heart Life Insurance
But unless you’re a big company, it’s probably not worth the time or money. Jimmy McMillan from Heart Life Insurance says that investing in the Reddit platform is a big mistake.
He states that Reddit may look like a great opportunity for small businesses due to the high traffic volume, recent changes to their ad platform, and loyal reader base. However, McMillan believes that unless you are a large company, it is not worth investing time or money into Reddit.
However, we were not prepared for the negative reaction we received because people thought of us as a ‘corporate.’ We are a small company, but we were treated with disdain, as if we were a large bank or something similar.
The experiment was not successful because very few people responded to the ads and the responses that were received were angry or not genuine.
This “learning opportunity” showed that we need to investigate the target audience more before we put money into a new marketing avenue. For example, Reddit might be a great resource for a startup company, but if you are in a more traditional industry such as insurance, it is currently best to steer clear of this channel.
6. Not Creating and Publishing Good-Quality Content Consistently
The biggest mistakes brands make in their content marketing is:
- Not creating good content
- Not publishing content consistently
If you have read a blog post that seems unhelpful, it may have been poorly written, full of errors, and included too many keywords.
Excellent content is:
- Easy to read and understand: Keep your post jargon-free. Technical terms are great only for academic publications and whitepapers, where your audience already has specialized knowledge of the field. So either completely replace the jargon with common vocabulary or avoid specificity altogether
- Not too short, not too long: In 2022, the ideal blog post length is between 1,760 and 2,400 words
- Optimized for featured snippets if possible: Snippets are one of the most important ways to improve website first impressions. In addition, they affect site CTR and traffic
To optimize your post for snippets, you should:
- Write inverted pyramid style – start by giving the crux of the information, followed by not-so-important supporting details and ending with background data or promotional content
- Use the right words that usually generate featured snippets
- Make sure your content is free from spelling and grammar errors and factual mistakes
- Limit yourself to 3-8 keywords total in the entire article. Implement common keywords reflected in the “People also ask” section at the bottom of the search results
- Have a good mix of wordy and visual content: Ideally, there should be at least 1 image per 200-300 words. Having at least 1 video (under two minutes) in an article can also help you improve your SEO. Explainer videos are one of the best options since they’re both entertaining and educational.
If you aren’t able to create a high-quality blog post on your own, look for experts who can assist you.
There are platforms that can help with this, for example Narrato and Evanto Studio.
At Narrato, you can order custom content from experienced writers. The content is well-researched and written in a creative way.
A price structure that has four tiers and is perfect for companies of all sizes. This is perfect for companies who want to save money.
The time it takes to complete a job once it has been started is 24 to 48 hours. You can ask for as many revisions as you want.
Envato Studio connects you with visual experts who can help create unique content for your brand identity. Whether you need a new logo, web design, or video production, Envato Studio has the talent you need to get the job done.
After logging in, you can sort through thousands of profiles to find designers that fit your needs in terms of skills and previous work.
A study by HubSpot showed that posting content 3-5 times a week increases site traffic by 3.5 times for B2B companies and 4.5 times for B2C companies.
If you produce high-quality content, people will be more likely to share it with others, which will help your brand grow through word-of-mouth marketing.
7. Not Investing in Content SEO
SEO is extremely important for the success of your content, but many brands make common mistakes that hurt their ranking and engagement.
You can reinvent your SEO practices. Here are a few steps you can take:
- Use search engine-friendly URLs to increase the user experience
- Create content that addresses the search intent of specific users – separate landing pages for each target market will help
- Conduct a detailed on-site search to understand site usage behaviors
- Use the Google Search Console to get topics and keyword ideas
- Make sure you are present on a knowledge base or Google My Business. They’ll help strengthen your digital presence
- Bring down page load time to 2 seconds, or risk losing visitors
- Keep a minimum of 5 links to high DA sites. But avoid overseas links where possible. Search engines often don’t trust cross-country links, unless the link comes from a reputable source
- Follow the social media pages of marketing agencies and learn tips and tricks on how to optimize your websites
8. Not Promoting Published Content Enough
If you want customers to notice your business, you need to do more than just produce great-quality, SEO-optimized content. You might need to try other techniques as well.
An influencer can help to make your campaign more impactful and reach a wider audience.
Here’s what you can do when you’re planning to implement an influencer campaign:
- Partner with influencers in the 10k-100k follower range. They’re neither too big nor too small and can benefit a large enough audience and focused marketing
- Don’t limit yourself to local influencers. For example, an overseas influencer might have a large follower base in your country of residence
- Make sure the influencer is culturally aligned with you and matches your brand values. Then, read through their older posts and collaborations and see if they can help you promote your existing or upcoming content
- Create reusable and share-worthy content and simple tools like these website templates for service/product proposals and share with influencers to leverage their reach effectively
- Use an influencer marketing automation tool like Hypr or Juvlon to conduct deep-dive performance analytics of the influencers you’re considering working with. You can use these tools to set up contracts, share project specifications, track audience engagement, and make payments to your influencer-partner
Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks
- Develop your marketing strategy for social media by studying trending topics to get ideas for post topics and keywords
- Be on all the social media channels that your audiences are on
- Post the right number of times and at the right time. A social media scheduling tool can make your work easier
- Implement social media advertisements to increase traffic to your site. Make sure there is synergy across channels.
- Use an omnichannel marketing tool like eSputnik, Madgicx, or Moengage to help you create, run and manage multiple social media ad campaigns effectively. They help you intelligently test bids, run campaigns, track organic traffic across channels and scale your ad optimization needs as your business grows
- For small businesses, 3 ad sets are enough to promote your content. Test each social media ad for at least 3-4 days, before tweaking or deleting them
- Use dynamic QR codes on your website and blog posts to prompt and increase social sharing
PPC Tips and Tricks
- Don’t increase your bids beyond 10% of your daily budget
- Schedule your PPC ads between 5:00 & 8:00 in the morning (PST). This is when the traffic’s at its highest
- Device-target and geo-target your ads for the most effective hits
- Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion in your headlines, meta description, display URL, and content body. This can make your ads more personalized to the searcher
- Investing in custom web design of landing pages of ads might be a good idea, too, to maximize conversions from your ad spend
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