As the business world continues to grow along with the Internet age, Blog Content has become a powerful tool. However, many small businesses are making a lot of avoidable mistakes, and they are missing out on many opportunities to make the most of the existing content.
Mistake in Content Marketing
If you own a website or blog, you’ll know how expensive and time-consuming quality content is. So, make the most of your content and avoid costly content mistakes below:
- There is no plan
- Don’t know your audience (Buyer Personas)
- Wrong purpose
- Not professional
- Does not provide quality
- Lack of an SEO expert
- Not exploit well available internal resources
- Do not reuse and reuse
- Lack of a call to action
- There is no plan
Now let’s take a look at 9 bad mistakes in Content Marketing:
Lack of planning
The first and most obvious Content Marketing issue is the lack of planning. Most companies have the best short-term plan – they may know what the next few blog posts will be or which pages on their site should be added.
But what about the big picture? How is your content more valuable? Does your content train a prospect in and through sales channels? Are you tracking feedback for your content so you can improve it?
Here are just a few questions to get you started. The problem is to get a plan on paper that exceeds content value in the next few weeks.
- Read this article for more information: Steps to Develop an Effective Content Marketing Strategy
Don’t know your audience (Buyer Personas)
Not understanding your buyer personas is one of the biggest mistakes regarding content marketing. By not taking the time to research and understand your audience, how can you tell which topics catch their attention?
There is no chance if you do not have any ideas.
A great way to learn more about your audience is to not only develop buyer personas, but also personas readers. Not all of your readers will be your buyers.
However, the topics in your blog should depend on the goals you want to achieve. For most companies, they see their blog as an opportunity to educate and nurture potential customers and hopefully push them down the sales funnel.
Ask yourself questions about your readers:
- What is their age?
- What are their job titles?
- What are their financial status?
- Their educational level?
- What are their hobbies?
- What are their pain points?
To really cultivate your buyer, do a buyer interview individually.
Wrong purpose
Content writers may fall into many of the traps that are far from the real goal of the content. Writing content is not about the writer, a random topic or a selling point. All of these types of texts will discourage and alienate your readers.
The goal of content writing is to convey sound professional advice on a topic that is relevant to your business. Think about your audience. Whose content do you want to read? Then ask the audience what topics they want to read about. Your readers can then become customers if you establish yourself as an expert in your field of business.
The goal is not to sell fast. Content comes in many forms, but the goal is to create value. This may look like a Frequently Asked Questions section of your website, troubleshooting tips or general information about the industry. You have to avoid selling content at all costs.
Not professional
Businesses sometimes forget to make sure their content is professional. Writing content needs to be grammatically correct, clear and valid. Your content must be interesting, engaging and meaningful to your readers.
Hiring an advertising agency or PR is not always a good way to solve this problem unless they are specifically trained in content writing. Invest in a service or writer who will be worth your time and money.
Does not provide quality
The main goal of content marketing is to provide your readers and potential customers with useful quality information that helps them solve the problem they are having. To keep your content fresh and maintain a readership, it is important to publish regularly and consistently.
When you do not post a blog post for a significant period of time, readers will stop visiting your site. Post as often as possible, while making sure you’re publishing quality content.
If you can only post once a week, it is ok. Focus on quality over quantity. When you start littering, you start losing readers, leads, and ultimately customers.
In addition, with Google’s search algorithm, constantly developing, creating quality content is the only reliable way to be found and ranked.
Lack of an SEO expert
One of the many reasons to join Content Marketing is to improve your search engine rankings – a process known as search engine optimization (SEO). But a common problem with a Content Marketing campaign is that it does not incorporate the latest SEO techniques.
This is an industry in and of itself. Very few inexperienced employees will be able to take full advantage of updated SEO information. At a minimum, you should have an SEO specialist to give you some policies regarding how to publish content and best practices for any social media content you publish.
Ideally, you can have an SEO expert join from start to finish so they can track the progress and adjust your campaign quickly, otherwise you should hire an SEO consultant.
Not exploit well available internal resources
Another common content marketing mistake is not using your company’s resources (professionals, technical experts, software architects, product managers). Get creative with your content and find ways to incorporate the specific strengths and expertise of your business.
Have your staff come up with ideas and even write articles for you. The more you set your company apart, the more likely it is that your customers and readers will get behind your content and ultimately your company.
Do not reuse
If your company has been creating content for a while, it’s likely that you have published a ton of content covering many different topics. The best part about all that content, is that you can use it many times.
Ideas for Content Reuse and Reuse:
- If you have a report, it can be divided into many blog posts
- Create a video or slide presentation from your tutorial articles
- Have your audio and video documents converted into written format
- Building on existing content by expanding certain points, introducing new ideas, etc.
- Share older, more popular content with new members in your audience
No one wants to reinvent the wheel by creating new content every time. A great way to promote your eBooks is to provide your readers with an excerpt from one of your blog posts. Just don’t forget to add a call to action at the end of the blog post telling your readers to download the full eBook.
Do not let your hard work disappear. Keep your content working for you instead of reusing it.
Lack of a call to action
When it comes to content marketing, many marketers forget to add a call to action (CTA) to various places on their marketing channels. There is no better way to guide people to other parts of your site than through clear, distinct CTAs.
If you did not tell your visitors or potential customers about your service or product, how did they know you provided them? They most likely won’t. That’s why you should add CTAs that send them to those pages or information.
Each piece of content should have a purpose and a CTA. Whether it’s to get a quote for your IT services or the opportunity to get a free checklist, that doesn’t matter.
Consider placing CTA:
- On your blog
- In your email
- On your Facebook page
- On every page of your site
- In your ebooks and webinars
- In the presentation
- In your email signature
Need more insight on how to choose the right CTA for your next post?
Our previous content marketing director, Carly Stec, once shared 4 more content errors that could have lost valuable opportunities for your business.
According to Sirius’ Decision, 60-70% of B2B marketing content is not used.
How can one of your blog posts see hundreds of views, while another just sits on the dust collector?
The truth is, there are many factors that contribute to the success and collapse of the content you serve.
Just because something you write seems to really catch up, it doesn’t guarantee everything you produce from then on will follow in its footsteps. If your content does not support the type of engagement needed to drive the buying process, you are wrong.
To put your content creation strategy in the right direction, we outlined 4 content errors that can cost valuable opportunities in your business.
The title is not attractive
The title of your content often acts as the first line of communication between your customers and your brand.
If you’re looking to format your titles to make sure they get the attention they deserve, consider analyzing your site. By looking back at past titles that have performed well, you will discover information that can be used to form future titles.
In addition, social analytics will help you pick out the titles that are well received by your audience on social media platforms. Social sharing is valuable in terms of content distribution, as it opens a new path for your content to reach untapped audiences.
Do not share Social media
Publishers will have one of two problems with social media. Either they will never use it and lose all the potential marketing benefits or they will depend too much on it to do all marketing activities for them.
Content needs to be consistently transmitted through social media, but it must be valuable to your readers and professionally written.
Encourage readers to share your content with social media buttons on your site using Facebook, Twitter and other social media techniques to share your news. But you have to understand, they will only share high-value content.
Talk to the wrong crowd
When creating content, many marketers are confused by the idea that they have to please everyone. They realize that creating relevant and engaging content has the ability to attract, convert, close and delight customers – which is why they are afraid of alienating potential customers.
The problem with this approach to content creation is that you simply can’t please everyone and do it well. Write about what you know, what you understand and what you feel strong.
If you try to wear too many hats, it will be hard for you to attract a loyal audience, because your content will be everywhere, instead of focusing on the interests and needs of a specific group.
To create truly resourceful content, you must know what motivates your buyers. If you are well versed in their consumer behaviors and business or personal goals, you will find creating and providing internal content. content they will like and share will be much easier.
Selfish just wants to talk about yourself
There is nothing worse than someone who just wants to talk about themselves. They will stuff you in the ear for hours and will not allow you to say a word, while you are still there, glaring, nodding in agreement to everything they say.
Often you leave the conversation with a bad taste in your mouth, because you cannot understand how someone can be very egotistical. Yes, the same thing applies to content creation.
Nobody wants to be stuck reading a blog article written by a self-service writer, so avoid creating content that’s all about you, you, you.
Instead, focus on directing your content around the needs of your audience. Think of your blog posts as an opportunity to give potential customers a valuable resource, rather than a sales purpose.
One of the most important things to keep in mind when creating new content is that it must address the needs of the intended audience, not yours.