Content marketing allows you to convey your skills and expertise in an appealing, informative way, to the right audience. That is, as long as you avoid the content marketing pitfalls that many companies stumble into. Here are some of the most common content marketing mistakes, and the best ways to navigate around them.
Not knowing your audience, or how to talk to it
Your audience wants to know what you can do for them; how your knowledge will be of value to them.
The experience you have, the expertise you bring, and the excellence you provide should all be presented in your content marketing. But these should be conclusions, not starting points.
Trust your audience to reach those conclusions by addressing your customers’ challenges and needs, as well as important developments within your industry. When you do so, consistently and sincerely, your audience will find you, trust you, and want to do business with you.
“Saving time” by skipping strategy
Your content marketing strategy does not have to be complicated, but you do need to have one. Posting random content every once in a while will not make your audience more interested in what you have to say – quite the contrary.
- What do you want to achieve through your content marketing?
- How will your content reflect what your target audience wants – needs – to know?
- What keywords and terminology does your target audience use?
- When and where should you publish your content
- How and where will you present and discuss the content you make?
- How can your content cover all relevant topics without becoming too broad or shallow?
The better the strategy, the better the content. When you set clear goals for your content marketing, and know how to present it properly, it will benefit your entire organization while requiring very little effort from it.
Ignoring the keywords and SEO that make you visible online
We have all read very elegantly phrased articles, full of elaborate terminology. And then re-read parts of them, to try to figure out what they were all about.
Your content marketing should be professional through and through, but if your audience cannot grasp it, or even find it, what good is it?
Knowing what your customers and prospects are looking for online is essential to your visibility and your appeal. What keywords do they use when they are looking for information? What terminology do they use?
Conduct proper keyword research, and let the results influence your search engine optimization in general, and your content marketing in particular.
Lacking tracking and overlooked optimization
Content marketing is a lot about iteration. You repeat what works, try new topics and methods along the way, and optimize your strategy accordingly.
For this to work, you need to track key metrics – page views, average time on page, conversions, engagement – and analyze the results.
Drawing concrete conclusions from actual data will keep your content marketing relevant and interesting, to both current and presumptive customers. This is particularly important for content marketing, where longevity is part of the point. Your content marketing should attract new customers, prospects, and followers over time, well after its initial publishing date.
Look at the data, extract insights from it, and remain an innovative thought leader in the minds of your audience.
Overreliance on AI
While AI can help you suggest content marketing topics, your content marketing should ultimately be made for – and by – people.
You and your fellow humans at work know what you do best, and you should communicate that with sincerity. For all of its undeniable advantages, AI will not be a better author than a skilled human writer. AI texts are often criticized for being generic, superficial, and detached; precisely what you want to avoid in your content marketing.
So, make sure to consider not only the strategy behind your content marketing, and the content itself, but the tone of it as well. How should it reflect you, your coworkers, your expertise and your business offers in a way that is accurate, attractive, and relatable?
Need help with content marketing?
What content marketing mistakes have you made? Do you need help? Whether you are starting from scratch or want to improve your current content marketing, we are happy to assist you. Skapa has a thirty-year history of helping companies reach their target groups with relevant, engaging content – in different industries, markets, and communication channels.
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