Mistakes That Content Marketers Should Avoid

Image by BntOman ♥ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ✿ via Flickr

Content marketing can seem to be a very straightforward process. You write content, get interaction, boost brand awareness and build a community you can then influence. There is however a fair few intricacies and nuances that you have to get right to be successful. Some fall into the same traps over and over again, and don’t really see where they are going wrong in their content marketing strategy. In this blog I will try to highlight a few mistakes that all content marketers should look to avoid if at all possible:

Not knowing your niche and being too wide-ranging

Trying to go straight ahead with a content marketing campaign, and trying to boost your profile without researching your niche market can be a massive issue. You may be an expert and highly knowledgeable on a particular subject, but half the battle in content marketing is understanding the audience who will be reading your content. Look at the demographics of the people who are within your niche, what information are they looking for? Always write from the perspective of the user rather than from your own point of view. As I mentioned in a blog post on Friday, for the website visitor it is all about what is in it for them.

In the same measure, you must be careful of not being too wide ranging on what you want to cover. To become an authority, you need to be the first port of call for a particular subject. Remember, you are competing with a wide range of other “authorities” and if you become a jack of all trades, you will not be seen as a master of any of them. Be smart and establish a position, form a certain style and offer a set of opinions. Allow yourself to stand out from the crowd.

Not interacting with your audience and other websites

Some marketers think they can get away with this publishing good content, and this will stand fine on its own. They can’t be more wrong. You have to adapt a multi-faceted approach when marketing content. Whether you are a company or expert within in a niche, the audience will expect a two way conversation. With the use of social networking sites, this has become both an easy and essential tool. It also provides you with a supply of new ideas. The source of many blog posts, articles and videos can come from those in the community.

Also, interacting with other websites in your niche is important. It is a mutually beneficial approach for you to gain good SEO and raise the awareness of your website through guest blogging while they receive good content in return which they can publish to their users. Don’t be shy of asking other site owners to partner with.

Lacking planning and organization

One of the worst things that can happen to a content marketer is if they find themselves lacking ideas. Having nothing to write about can be quite a common problem but there are ways to combat this. Firstly, plan out a month’s schedule for subjects to write upon. You may have a different day each week dedicated to one issue or subject within your niche. Getting your audience involved in developing talking points for blog posts can really assist in this as you are giving the community what they want. If you have writers writing for you, make sure they are excellent at creating innovative posts, articles and videos, rather than just churning out the same old content. Dynamic, thought provoking content is the end goal.

More Reading

• Content Marketing Done Right
• The Word Nerd Content Marketing Checklist | Outspoken Media
• Companies shifting to create content marketing that appeals to …

Watch our New Video

Discover why SEO is Dead and Learn the Smart New Strategy for generating Traffic in our free video.

we respect your privacy

Tagged as: content, marketing, mistakes, strategy, websites