Content marketers often fall into various traps when it comes to reaching their audience. Since content marketing is a vast and varied field of expertise, it is easy to make mistakes and end up with regret. Experts in marketing will tell you how they learned from experience to move past and amend mistakes. Here are 5 mistakes that marketers are most likely to make and how you can avoid them:
- Thinking small
Companies need to understand that content marketing is about reaching as many people as possible. Their c0ntent ideas thus need to be big and be relatable to as many people as possible. Catering content only to existing customers will hinder marketing efforts. Teach your customers instead of selling to them. Thinking outside your company is key to do this. For example, if we have a fashion brand named XYZ and they create content explaining general concepts mixed with industry insights, their potential for new readers will go up exponentially compared to if they created content only about their specific products.
- No SEO
SEO is a crucial part of content marketing. SEO is not just about using keywords – it’s about using the right keywords at a consistent pace including in titles and in paragraph headings. If done right, SEO is great tool for your content acquisition efforts and you can use it to generate more traffic. SEO also involves social media and marketers must know how to optimize the content for different platforms. It increases the chances of your site being discovered.
- Ignoring visual content
Some marketers have the belief that they can express in words what can be shown through visuals. Even if this was true, social media and your audience in general do not have the attention span to read long descriptions and text. Images, infographics and videos are a powerful asset in every content marketing strategy. Infographics especially can sum up an entire article and be shared on social media effortlessly. Videos are another great tool, Facebook has released studies that show over 500 million users view videos on Facebook everyday and marketers that do not utilize this are missing out.
- Not sharing
Many marketers believe the myth that sharing your content on social media only once is good enough as it will be re-shared constantly thanks to it’s high quality. This is not the case for any field, content is created constantly and it is likely that your content will get drowned out a few minutes after it is posted. You have to share content multiple times a day and make sure your sharing schedule is uniform. Remember to keep the sharing at 5-10 pieces of content a day and figure out a good time to share the content. Your audience’s most active time is when you share your best and most intriguing content.
- No proper strategy
Content marketing will never be successful without a complete strategy in place. Marketers fail to set clear cut goals and the processes required to achieve them. It is important to figure out what, how, why and when before you create content. Otherwise, your content is bound to keep changing depending on what you assume will get the most attention. Without any data backing your assumptions, your content’s success will become a matter of luck. A strategy involves figuring out who to target, what they will like and how you can use this to your advantage.
One thing to keep in mind when it comes to any kind of digital marketing is that the content you create is meant for your audience. Don’t just create content like a sales pitch in different forms. Make the effort to cater to your audience’s questions and needs. Use content marketing as a tool to connect to your audience instead of selling to them.
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