5 Common Content Marketing Mistakes You Might Be Making

Content marketing is one of the hardest and frankly the most effective marketing strategies available today. You may have heard that “Content is King”, and I know that it’s a cliché and overused phrase, but that’s only because it’s true.  Content is so important that everyone is generating it, but not everyone does it right.

There are thousands of blogs available that are targeting the same niche as you, generating the same content every day, and gaining leads. So how will you stand out and make sure your voice is heard?

Before embarking on a marketing strategy, you need to do is understand the 6Ps of Marketing.

Content marketing is highly competitive and to stay on top, you need to avoid common mistakes that can hugely impact your ratings. This article will look at some of the most common mistakes and how to avoid them. But first, let’s discuss its importance.

Why Should You Invest in Content Marketing?

Do you know that content marketing costs 60% less than other types of marketing strategies and generates 3x more leads?

With the times continuously evolving, we are quite unaware which marketing strategy might take the lead, but the content is always consistent because it is adaptable.

Many businesses use it as their traditional marketing strategy because not only it provides the highest R and so improves customer engagement. Through content marketing, you can engage your audience, answer their queries, educate them about your brand/product/industry, and generate leads.

The current era is all about being in trend, being unique, and customer-centric, so the key is staying relevant and focusing on your audience.

Mistakes to Avoid

1. Not Researching a Target Audience

Before we jump into the bandwagon of content marketing, you should do some research. After deciding your niche, you need to devise a strategy for your content. For example, you need to ask yourself questions like:

• Who is your target audience?
• Which type of topics should you cover?
• How is this topic helpful for your audience?
• And how is the audience helpful for your business?

A proper strategy will help you find a focus audience and tidy up the writing process by giving you a direction.

Many new content marketers find the most famous brand topics and start writing the same or similar articles. Although this might get you few leads, it will be more harmful to you in the long term because your audience will realize it’s not relevant to them.

Thus, the more you understand your customers, the more relevant content you create, and the more leads you will be able to generate.

Do’s

• Research customer interests
• Choose an audience to start with
• Optimize SEO
• Look for topics your audience is interested in and write similar topics

2. Not Using Variety of Content

Now that you have researched and written an article based on your customers’ interests, the work doesn’t end here. Your relevant content is now more valuable than ever, so don’t limit it to a single format.

Too much text can be intimidating for your readers. That’s why adding other content types such as images, videos, and slides, could help you increase engagement. More than 50% of marketers have claimed that adding videos to their content increased their ROI.

You can also convert your content to different formats, such as podcasts, infographics, presentations, or vice versa. The more you break down your content into an easy-to-read format, the more leads you will be able to generate.

It has been estimated that if your content is created in the form of visuals, graphics, infographics, or videos, readership rates increase up to 80%. So be as versatile as possible and renew content in different formats.

Do’s

• Even with infographics, there are a few steps that you need to follow to create the perfect one. For example:
• Create an infographic with true statistics. It increases engagement by 12%.
• Don’t crowd your infographics with text, keep it limited, and explain with illustrations.
• Show comparisons.
• Keep clear division between each stat or step so it is easy to comprehend.

3. Not Defining Goals and Relevance

Many content marketers concern themselves with creating the content, rather than the outcome of it. Not having clear goals defined for each of your content types could be the biggest reason why you are not generating leads. It is very important to define goals such as what metrics are you trying to measure and achieve, what type of audience you want to attract, do you want to increase sales or conversions. Once all this is decided, it will help you shape your content and how it should be presented.

Do’s

For example, if you want to increase sales, your content should be created:

• To make the audience aware of a problem.
• Address why the problem is occurring in the first place?
• How to resolve that problem with your service or product.

This type of storytelling can help you achieve your increased sales goal.

4. Not Optimizing your Content for Search Engines

If you want your content to reach your target audience, you need to optimize your content for search engines.

This is a huge blunder that I see new bloggers struggling with and it is also one of the reasons why your content marketing goals are not being met.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization helps you rank higher on search engines and widen your reach to the relevant market. By relevant market, we mean customers who are looking for similar product types or services, which means the chances of conversions increase.

Do’s

To optimize SEO, start by doing:

• Extensive keyword research of topics similar to your niche
• Create valuable content
• Build backlinks by guest blogging
• Optimize on-page and off-page SEO
• Add structure through heading and subheading
• Optimize your content and website for mobile devices.

5. Not Using Promotional Elements

Promote! Promote! Promote!

I have seen so many great bloggers or writers wasting hours of their hard work by just publishing their articles and not promoting them. This is one of the biggest mistakes you could make with your content.

Your audience  may not discover your site if you are just publishing articles there. In this era, people are more active on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

By sharing your content on such platforms, you can reach a wider market and direct customers to your site. There are other ways to enable social proof, such as:

• Showing active customers on-site
• Displaying the number of shares/follows/likes
• Highlighting the best article on-site.

And you can do all this by using the best WooCommerce Social Proof plugins available.

Similarly, calls to action (CTAs) are also beneficial for conversions.

When a customer enters your site, they may be at a loss on how to proceed.  CTAs can eradicate this confusion and provide your customers with a smooth journey finding information about your services, prices, buying, etc. Use multiple CTAs at strategic placing and timings to achieve optimum results.

Do’s

How to create an actionable CTA:

• Decide a goal for your CTA, such as if you want customers to try your trial, or sign-up, or explore.
• Keep the wording short and actionable. Make it authoritative and not suggestive.
• Use red color on your CTA buttons on a plain background to make them pop.

Bonus Tips for Content Optimization

There is a lot more that can go wrong when it comes to content marketing. It’s an ever-evolving field, but some tips and tricks are ever-green, as your content should be.

Use User-Generated Content

Your content needs to be relative and authoritative.

Why? Relevance will increase your customers’ lifetime value because they are getting knowledge about something they can relate to. Whereas, the authority will gain your customers’ trust and confidence, which will also retain them and prevent them from seeking competitors. And both of these things can be achieved by incorporating user-generated content on your site.

• Display content on-site such as review, image, or video, created by users.
• Create an individual section for user-generated content
• Allow customers to share their purchases.

Create Urgency

Through your content, you need to create a sense of urgency in your customers. Like time is running out and if they don’t avail of your service or product, they are making a huge mistake. A combination of captivating words, CTAs, and user content is just what you need for this purpose.

Creating urgency will help in persuading customers to not wait and make the purchase right now. You can do this by providing:

• Special offers to your customers for a limited time.
• A count-down timer display with a “BUY NOW” button at the bottom.
• Show available stock on highlighted products.

Utilize Link Building

Link building helps in ranking higher on search engines, and content plays a major part in it. You can build links with other websites or businesses that cover the same niche as you by writing valuable content for them. Once you have a solid relationship with them, you can ask them to link back to your sites. The more links you have, the higher your website will rank.

There are multiple strategies involved in link building but the most common and effective are:

• Guest blogging on websites relevant to your niche
• Utilizing social media by sharing your posts
• Creating infographics to get organic traffic.

Don’t Oversell Yourself

We know that your content is supposed to educate your audience about your brand and product, but selling yourself at every stage or content piece isn’t going to help. It will just annoy your customers.

There needs to be a balance between both content types. The content that helps you generate leads and conversions guides your customers through a process, helps them solve their problems with a few simple steps, or helps them devise a strategy.

Remember, the more authoritative articles you create, the more your customers will trust you.

Review your Performance

If you are not realizing the importance of reviewing your performance, you are making a huge mistake. Be sure to review your content marketing stats every few months later and compare the results with the previous results to make sure the changes you made are helping you, or to see which content type is generating more leads, conversions, sales, etc so that you can double your efforts in that area.

Final Words

Content marketing is an effort-based job, it’s an ever-evolving process with new trends and content types to keep the game going. To stand out from your competitors, make sure to avoid all of the above-mentioned mistakes and try to be as relevant and creative as you can in your writing.

******

Author’s Bio

Xaviera Khalid is the content writer at WooKeeper.com. She is an avid reader and uses her creativity to write interesting articles about WooCommerce and its related topics. She focuses on SEO-optimized content and provides factual writing.