Experts Recommend Avoiding These 17 Content Marketing Mistakes

I first dipped my toe into content marketing in 2010. These days, I’m swimming along in the content marketing pool. Following three in-house stints overseeing content marketing initiatives, I now produce content for brands like Capital One, Experian and Forbes Advisor, and I help brands launch or flesh out content marketing programs.

Every one of us in content marketing crashes into the waves from time to time. That’s because, as humans, we’re prone to slipping up. Mistakes happen, but fortunately we can learn and grow after committing them.

Not long ago, I became curious about what folks in content marketing believe are the biggest mistakes among practitioners in our business. So I put out a request on HARO, asking people to offer their thoughts regarding common mistakes in content marketing.

I was pleasantly and somewhat surprisingly flooded with responses. Dozens of emails on the subject appeared in my inbox. I combed through those emails and fished out some of the very best responses to share in this article. While this is not an exhaustive list of common mistakes in content marketing, it encompasses 17 mistakes that repeatedly rise to the surface.

Mistake No. 1: Proceeding Without a Plan

Cari Casas, social media coordinator at Corpus Christi, Texas-baesd law firm?Herrman & Herrman, says it’s crucial to lay out a robust content marketing plan before producing, posting and sharing content.

“Creating content without a clear plan is the most common reason people fail at content marketing. Creating a clear plan with measurable goals is the best way to stay consistent and confirm the content you are creating is working,” Casas says.

Mistake No. 2: Aimlessly Producing Content

This mistake — aimlessly producing content — dovetails with Mistake No. 1.

Naomi Dong, organic marketing consultant at New York City digital marketing agency?DAVID.MARKET, cautions that it’s ill-advised to crank out content simply to satisfy your own whims or to meet internal quotas.

“You need to take the time to conceptualize and understand your brand or your clients’ brands, who the audience is and where your expertise lies. In particular, zeroing in on your niche to determine how you fit into the market,” Dong advises.

“Most of the time, others are creating similar content, and you want to understand how you can best fit the needs of your audience,” she adds. “In order to do that, you must be open and willing to research and test out new ideas and forms of content. Most importantly, measure the number of impressions and engagement your content is generating, analyze your findings and repeat the process.”

Mistake No. 3: Not Knowing Your Audience

If you lack a solid understanding of who your audience is, then you won’t understand the kind of content they’re seeking and which content platforms they typically turn to.

“Knowing your target audience means determining who wants to find you and then creating content to help them find you. Determine your target demographic, conduct research to determine what questions those people are asking and become the best, most visible answer to those questions,” says?Amanda McCrea, content coordinator at New Orleans-based digital marketing agency?Online Optimism. “This content creation process will help you avoid major content pitfalls.”

Mistake No. 4: Not Producing Content for Humans

It’s easy to get caught up in packing SEO keywords into content in order to please the Google gods. But keywords alone should not drive your content creation.

“If your article is just a great selection of keywords, this piece of content has no value to anyone,” says Jessie Taylor

“SEO-friendly content is important, but behind every screen and every search query, there is a real person who wants to find something useful to them,” says?Jessie Taylor, U.S.-based content marketing manager at Finnish startup?Leadfeeder, which operates a B2B data platform. “If your article is just a great selection of keywords, this piece of content has no value to anyone.”

Mistake No. 5: Neglecting Link Building

Tom Mumford, co-founder of New York City-based?Undergrads, a gig-economy platform that connects college students with customers who needs moving services, says content marketing newbies often overlook link building.

Why is?link building?so important? Google, the king of search engines, notes that a brand can improve the ranking of their sites by boosting the number of high-quality sites (like nytimes.com and cnn.com) that link to the brand’s webpages.

“Creating a diverse backlink profile from websites with high domain authority will create higher-quality content that is more optimized for SEO,” Mumford says.

“Link building with a healthy backlink profile, not spammy sites, will raise your domain authority and keyword ranking. Search engines drive more traffic to your content than any other marketing tactic, so doing quality link-building outreach is something that you should definitely keep in mind in the beginning of your content marketing strategy.”

Mistake No. 6: Trying Too Hard to Go Viral

The best viral content happens naturally. It’s not created and shared with the sole intent of going viral.

“You cannot predict what will go viral. The whole point of content virality is unexpected engagement. How can you expect the unexpected? You can’t,” says?Bailey Hemphill,?content director at Omaha, Nebraska-based?Hurrdat Marketing.

“What you’ll end up doing with that content is the exact opposite of what you’re hoping for — you’ll drive away your audience,” Hemphill adds. “Consumers can sense when something is inauthentic or trying too hard to capitalize on engagement. Focus instead on creating quality content your audience wants or needs. You’ll get better, consistent results.”?

Mistake No. 7: Neglecting to Post Content at the Right Times

James Shalhoub, co-founder of dog wellness company?Finn, says content marketers must be strategic about?when they post content. Otherwise, all the work to create the content could go for naught.

“Especially with social media, you can expect and research what times your target audience generally checks their apps and know to post when they will see your content,” Shalhoub says.

“People who work 9-to-5 jobs are probably more active on their phones during the weekend, for example. For our audience, we key into common pet schedules that tell us around what time users wake up to walk their dogs and check their feeds.”

Mistake No. 8: Not Refreshing Your Content

Tristan Harris, senior digital marketing manager at Arlington, Texas-based?Thrive Digital Marketing Agency, says content you’ve posted (especially evergreen content) should consistently be updated or improved. For instance, if a blog post covers “Best Digital Marketing Strategies for 2021,” it should be revised for 2022 and subsequent years.

“Your content must be appealing, with a heavy focus on quality, since any type of content that appears outdated, repetitive or unoriginal will be immediately rejected and ignored,” Harris explains. “By contrast, people appreciate unique, fresh and valuable content. For audiences to remain engaged, content needs to be updated frequently. A good practice is to put yourself in your audience’s shoes and create content that appeals to them.”

Mistake No. 9: Not Posting Often Enough

Oliver Zak, co-founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based?Mad Rabbit, whose products help preserve tattoos, says it’s OK to skip several days of content posting. But going weeks without doing so can be risky. Therefore, it’s vital to bank pieces of content that can be rolled out over a period of several weeks.

“Not posting frequently enough can impede a brand’s growth and engagement. Building a following is all about momentum, which is best achieved by posting consistently and often,” Zak says. “The goal is to attract as many eyeballs as possible, and since not every post will reach everyone, spreading out the wealth will increase the brand’s chances of gaining a following.”

Mistake No. 10: Failing to Ensure Keywords Are Relevant

SEO keywords for content must be tied to your business, your business niche and your industry, says?Zach Goldstein, founder and CEO of Chicago-based?Public Rec, which sells a line of athleisure apparel. If the keywords don’t fit that mold, you’ll attract the wrong traffic.

“While it is crucially important for your content to have measurable value for your target audience, you should optimize your writing and image content for SEO to get the most value from your work,” Goldstein says. “Relevant keywords in your content make it easier for Google to crawl your website and understand what your business is about. The better the SEO value that you derive from your content, the more traffic it will drive to your website.”

Mistake No. 11: Believing That More Content Is Better

More content is not better. Rather, better content is better.

John Nesler, an account manager at?Three29, a Sacramento, California-based digital marketing agency, says the notion that you must pump out multiple blog posts, email messages, social media posts and so forth every day is wrongheaded.

That approach “inevitably results in creating content for content’s sake. Content without purpose,” Nesler says. “We are inundated with content which we do not have the time or interest to engage with. This is a big reason why my main personal email account currently has 3,700 or so unread emails. I don’t have the bandwidth to delete them or mark them as read, let alone read them.”

Rather than focusing on quantity, focus on quality, Nesler recommends. For example, a well-crafted blog post that addresses an ongoing concern of your brand’s audience will deliver value for years to come.

“You can get more engagement from six high-quality blog posts per year than you can from 360 social media posts if you approach content from the mindset of addressing your customer’s needs, rather than your own,” Nesler adds.

Mistake No. 12: Being Impatient

Seeing results from content marketing efforts can take weeks or months. But too many new-to-the-sector content marketers expect instant results, says?Chelsea Roller, account manager for SEO and content marketing at Overland Park, Kansas-based?Rank Fuse Digital Marketing.

“Patience is the name of the game when it comes to content marketing — and SEO in general,” says Chelsea Roller

“Often, starting from the ground up means that it will take time, especially if you have to undo any pre-existing problems. Patience is the name of the game when it comes to content marketing — and SEO in general,” Roller says.

Mistake No. 13: Losing Track of Content Ideas

Jen Kee, director of content at?Abingdon, Maryland-based?Kiddie Academy Educational Child Care, says content marketers must strive to capture content ideas so that they don’t vanish. Great ideas “come out of nowhere at weird times,” she says.

“They are inspired by a seemingly unrelated conversation or observation out in the real world. But if you don’t write them down or record them in the moment, they’ll float away.”

Kee frequently records ideas in a notebook, in her company’s Asana project management tool or in the notes function of her phone.

Mistake No. 15: Being Too Sales-y

Beth Cooper, vice president of marketing and sales at Stamford, Connecticut-based healthcare marketing and PR agency?KNB Communications, says a “cardinal mistake” made by a lot of new content marketers is cramming a sales pitch into a piece of content. While it’s fine to include calls to action in your content, the sales mode should be dialed back considerably.

“People are savvy and can spot a sales pitch a mile away. Instead of appreciating your content, they will walk away with a negative impression of your brand,” Cooper cautions.

Mistake No. 16: Publishing Content Without Gatekeeping

Brandon Adcock, co-founder of Charlotte, North Carolina-based?Adaptive Health, whose wellness supplement brands include Nugenix, Instaflex and Peptiva, says setting up a content marketing system without incorporating checks and balances can be a potentially “costly and damaging” misstep.

“Always allocate time and resources to review and approve content marketing pieces before they go live,” Adcock says.

Mistake No. 17: Not Repurposing Content

Ankur Goyal, head of growth at New York City-based baby care brand?Coterie, emphasizes the importance of repurposing content. For instance, you might be able to compile several blog posts into an e-book or use a podcast transcript as the foundation for a blog post.

Although you should avoid too closely duplicating content across platforms, “it’s cost-effective and engaging to pull from past material,” Goyal says, as long as the material remains accurate.

By repurposing content, “you save on your marketing budget and increase customer engagement,” Goyal points out.