Content marketing can help you reach new audiences, engage your current audience, and generate leads or conversions. However, breaking through the digital noise is getting increasingly harder as more and more content is being produced. By avoiding these six common mistakes, your content marketing strategy will perform better thereby increasing your return on investment (ROI).
1. Too focused on quantity.
Instead of churning out content non-stop, take the time to develop thoughtful, well-rounded content that’ll be useful and engaging to your target audience. Although focusing on quality means you’ll probably produce less content, you’re more likely to see overall engagement go up.
2. Not researching what your audience wants.
Just because you find a topic interesting doesn’t mean that your target audience will. Always create content that will appeal to them. You can find this information out by simply asking your audience what they like. Also, leverage your website analytics and conduct research, which can include tracking the types of content topics, formats, and distribution channels that perform best.
3. Your content marketing is too broad.
When you try to target everyone, you end up targeting no one. By segmenting your audience, you can develop and share content that’s crafted to their specific interests which will generate more clicks. Another consideration is to create separately branded websites or blogs and social media accounts that focus on the verticals you target.
4. Not using multiple types of content.
Content is more than
blog posts, it includes: videos, infographics,
podcasts, e-books,
case studies, white papers, and more. If you’re only producing one type of content, then you’re going to bore your audience. Also, you’ll be missing out on opportunities to attract your target audience through all stages of the buyer’s journey - awareness, consideration, and decision.
5. Not including CTAs.
When creating any piece of content, always include a ‘call to action’ (CTA). After all, there isn’t much point of driving inbound traffic if they’ll end up leaving your website without performing a desired action like a purchase or newsletter signup. Make sure to use a CTA on every content marketing piece to drive more leads or conversions. Not only is it essential to include CTAs in your content marketing, you should optimize them by conducting A/B testing (aka ‘split testing’) with color, copy, design, etc. to see what performs best with your audience.
6. Not creating “evergreen” content.
“Evergreen” content simply refers to content that is always relevant and gets its name from evergreen trees which retain their leaves all year round. Evergreen content can drive traffic to your website and hold top positions in search engine results pages (SERPs) for months or even years from when it was originally published. Since evergreen content doesn’t have an expiration date and uses keywords that can be searched repeatedly, SERPs are more likely to consistently show a particular piece of evergreen content.
Grow Your Business with Content Marketing
While there are many content marketing mistakes out there, these six are among the most common. Avoiding them could be the difference between a successful content marketing strategy versus one that falls flat. By creating high-quality, relevant content for your target audience, you’ll be better able to drive inbound traffic and leads to your website.
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contact us online to see how content marketing can help your business thrive online.