Content marketing is one of the best and most cost-effective ways to connect with your audience, build brand awareness and grow sales. In fact, content marketing generates about three times as many leads as traditional marketing. Better still, it costs 62 per cent less, according to Demand Metrics.
While including content marketing in your overall marketing strategy is crucial for the growth of your business, there are several content marketing pitfalls to avoid. To help ensure that your content marketing efforts aren’t a waste of time and money, we have outlined some of the most common ones below.
1. Jumping in without doing your research
We know content marketing it a powerful tool, but that doesn’t mean all content is powerful. Successful content is driven by consumer interests. Focus on what your audience wants to hear and how they want to hear it. By taking the time to research and understand your audience, you will be able to create content that connects, engages and inspires.
The platforms you use will offer insights and analytics to help you paint a picture of your average audience member – what they like, what they want, how they engage and who (else) they engage with.
2. Failing to set goals for each piece of content
You want more followers, more engagement, more sales. Of course you do. But what is the specific goal for each individual piece of content? Content that has a purpose is going to be far more effective. Avoid creating content just for the sake of it. There’s no point in publishing a 2000-word blog because it might help you rank better in Google.
In fact, creating and publishing content that doesn’t have a clear goal is likely hindering, rather than helping your brand or business. All of your content should be connected to your wider marketing strategy and business goals.
3. Inconsistent engagement
You have just written a fantastic blog. It had a strong reach, rich engagement, plenty of leads, and your audience can’t wait for more. Unfortunately, though, they will have to… and by time you hit ‘publish’ on the next upload, your once-enthusiastic audience has dissipated.
There are almost two billion websites on the internet and, according to Hosting Tribunal, more than one third of all websites are blogs. Competition is fierce so if you’re posting sporadically, you’re barely even in the game. HubSpot research has found that companies that maintain a blog produce an average of 68 per cent more leads than companies that don’t.
Consistency leads to increased traffic, increased exposure on search engine results pages (SERPs), and brand loyalty. And it’s not just blogs that require regular attention. Any platform on which you are sharing content – LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, e-Newsletters for example – will benefit from consistent (but still relevant!) updates.
Unsure how often to post on Instagram? Here’s a detailed analysis by Later.
4. Publishing content on only one (or two!) platforms
You’ve spent time, energy and money creating brilliant content so it makes sense to amplify it across various platforms. Sure, it will likely need some tweaking for each one, but multi-platform publishing helps grow your audience and that means you will reach both existing and potential customers or clients.
A little research will help you identify which platforms are the best fit for your target audience, and therefore your business. And each platform can be used to fulfill a different need for the end-user, whether that be to provide news, information or entertainment. When your channels interconnect, your audience is receiving a streamlined brand story, helping improve engagement, loyalty, leads and sales.
5. Not analysing content performance
Failing to evaluate the performance of content is one of the most common mistakes – you have no way of knowing how to improve. By taking the time to regularly review the performance of your content marketing efforts, making sure to take note of key metrics (website views, engagement, shares, calls and leads), you can establish the type of content that works and the type of content that doesn’t and adjust your strategy accordingly.
6. Forgetting a call to action
Call to actions (also known as CTAs) are an important piece of the marketing puzzle. CTAs give the audience a direct instruction. They’re solely designed to provoke an immediate response and could be as simple as ‘call now’, ‘sign up’, learn more’ or ‘visit us today’. And on that note…
At Reeton Media, we specialise in content marketing that connects, engages and inspires. Contact us to organise a personalised content marketing brainstorming session for your brand or business.