Every entrepreneur knows the importance of content marketing in the world of business. Countless articles have been written about it. But even with all this advice out there, content marketing still isn’t easy. While mistakes are inevitable, they can be managed, and one way to do that is learning what mistakes others make and how to avoid them. Let’s take a look at some of the most common mistakes made in content marketing.
Starting without a plan
Content marketing is more than just posting a nice photo of your product on Instagram and calling it a day. It would help if you had a comprehensive content strategy before you even make your first post. According to a 2019 B2B Content Marketing Research report, 97 percent of the most successful B2B content marketers have a content strategy. Only 47 percent of the most unsuccessful marketers have one.
Your content strategy has to align with your business objectives. Whether you are hoping to increase sales or grow a specific audience, not having a content strategy is the biggest mistake you can make.
Not knowing your demo
Another thing you must know before you make your first post is who you’re posting for. Knowing your audience, their demographics, and even their dreams is essential to marketing them effectively. Sometimes posting on social media can feel like you’re trying to speak in a busy restaurant or shouting into a void. Instead, think about your content marketing as speaking directly to your customer. It’s better to be specific and appeal to your niche than trying to appeal to everyone.
Not putting in the effort
As we said previously, content marketing is more than just having a social media accounts. It takes effort to make good content, and putting out poor content is one of the biggest mistakes content marketers make. Some examples of poor content include content that is:
- Too short
- Doesn’t include pictures or video F
- Full of grammatical errors or hard to read
- Inaccurate information
- Plagiarized from another source
It’s better to publish nothing than low-quality content, but neither case leads to conversion rates.
Posting too much content
Going hand-in-hand with posting low-quality content is posting content too often. Quantity naturally lowers the value of what you put out, and quality should always come before quantity. You don’t have to worry about posting something good every day. Once a week or an otherwise regular schedule should be fine, as long as whatever you post has value to your audience.
Content marketing is hard, and making mistakes will be part of the natural learning process, so don’t worry if you mess up here and there. But you can learn from the content marketers and entrepreneurs that came before you and avoid making the biggest mistakes like not having a strategy, not knowing your audience, and posting content too often or of low quality.