6 Content Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Make Your Content From Greasy to Great

Content marketing in B2B is like the first meeting, and if anything goes amiss, you lose out on an opportunity of winning a favorable impression. Content marketing, as we know, is different from traditional marketing like brochures, etc. and instead of trying to make a sale, content marketing is meant to educate, entertain and meet an existing customer’s need. It also has to be done with adequate research and timing. Many businesses are beginning to realize that digital content marketing is an extremely effective way to reach their existing customer base. And for all its tangible advantages, a content marketing program does come with some challenges of its own, and like all humans, B2B marketers do tend to make mistakes. The good news, however, is that with a little planning, you can avoid these 6 common barriers to success. 

First: Not Paying Enough Heed To The Sales Funnel

The most common fallacy is that content marketing is only appropriate for lead generation and sales outreach, but the truth is that content can help brands create touch-points for every part of the sales funnel. From awareness to conversion and then to encouraging and maintaining loyalty, content marketing can be used to keep customers engaged no matter where they are in the buying process. You need to strategize different types of content for different parts and stages of the funnel.

Second: Failing To Identify the Right Audience

Failing to identify the right audience might be a big stumbling block. Also, knowing your audience is a never-ending process, especially when they are B2B buyers. Their needs and demands keep on changing with time and the requirements of their businesses. And to offer them content that fails to address their pain points is of no use. It is highly imperative to know your audience well and work more on getting to understand them on a timely basis. You can also go through the social media platforms to see where they ask questions. You must make efforts to comprehend the solutions they’re looking for and then convey those through your content. 

Third: Inconsistency

The process of building a brand for yourself and engaging both prospects and existing customers with content is a continuous process. If you only put a blog post or update your social media platforms once every 3 months, you can’t expect to get any traction. Also, you can’t just post or publish around product launches or events. Instead, by posting regularly, your audience is more likely to rely on you as a credible source of information and insight. You should aim at mapping your content’s cadence to larger marketing goals. Although there’s no one-size-fits-all guide to publishing the number or the volume, a strategic approach can keep the interest high and help maintain the focus on quality. Also having an editorial calendar in place can you maximize your content marketing efforts by allowing you to track your posts, published work, categories, etc. After all, you have to be consistent to keep stoking the fire. 

Fourth: Using Limited Formats Of Content

It’s a widely known fact that text-only pages can get super tedious. The workaround to this would be to include at least one relevant image on each page. It is an SEO best practice to have one or two images on each page. However, an image alone is not enough to make your content shine and stand out. It is the mistake to think images and text alone can get you the requisite engagement you need. Also, people love audio-visual content more than just plain text or images. The views on videos are skyrocketing, and businesses have started to invest resources to produce in-house videos to get more visibility. People also love infographics, and high-quality infographics are more likely to be seen and read than text-only articles. They are more engaging on social media than any other form of content.

Fifth: Not Squeezing Enough Juice Out Of SEOs

Are SEOs and content marketing at loggerheads with each other? Well! The truth is that both SEO and content marketing go hand in hand, they cohere,and they blend. The fact of the matter is that successful content marketing is to have SEO and its time to bring the two back together. It is the only way you’ll be read, viewed, and be successful in both your SEOs and your content marketing. However, the mistake lies when you treat them as separate entities. SEO and content marketing overlap and, they co-exist. Yes, SEO is narrower and more technical as compared to content marketing, which is broader and more holistic. The two converge, when the way to apply SEO more broadly, is to channel its specific technical efforts into content marketing. And, conversely, the only way to ensure the success of content marketing is to apply SEO techniques in its implementation. 

When you write a blog post or an article, it is extremely important to optimize it with keywords, titles, and tags. Not optimizing the headlines, tags, titles, and keywords is a grave content marketing error that must be avoided. Start with keyword research, write a great title, and place the focus keywords in it, add meta description, add headings, optimize images by adding alt tags, and make your content reader-friendly for search engines. Other technical SEO issues can include:

• Broken or bad links
• Non-optimized meta-data 
• No URL canonicalization which might create issues with duplicate content and many more

Sixth: Not Creating, Building and Owning Your Online Content Distribution 

Unlike how it used to work in the past when you bought access to your customers and clients by placing adverts in newspapers, magazines, in the digital age, and on social sites, you need to invest in augmenting your tribe and network. In today’s times, businesses largely depend on the trinity of digital marketing:

• Search Engines
• Email List Repository
• Social networks on Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook 

All these three take persistent efforts and even years of work, especially when it comes to building the email inventory. There are 3 well-known ways to create web traffic. You can either pay for it, earn it, or own it. 

1.  Paid Traffic 

If you have the funds then paying for traffic is fine.

• Pay Per Click (PPC) like Google Adwords
• Facebook Ads
• Banner Adverts
• Retargeting

2. Earned Traffic Or Influenced Traffic

Earned Traffic takes perseverance and journey of months and years. Earned traffic also includes organic traffic from different search engines. But like other influenced traffic, you can impact and influence this by following SEO best practices. 

• The traffic that comes from your social media followers and networks
• It is also usually seen in the form of mentions, shares, reposts, etc.

3. Owned Traffic

Owned traffic is the traffic from the media properties that you own. Since you make the decisions around your content and its creativity, you have more chances to drive the traffic to your website. It is also a great way to have a good long-standing relationship with your customers. Owned media sites are like an extension of your brand. Examples of owned properties are:

• Websites, blogs, and forums
• Social media properties like Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter are also considered as owned sites
• Your email list is one of the most overlooked owned property. You have the sole control over the timing of the messages you send to your subscribers. 

Conclusion

Content mistakes are many, and they can turn terrible for your business if not addressed on time. But the silver lining is that you can eliminate the above mistakes and your content will prove as one of the most effective ways to connect with your existing customers and prospects.