Content marketing is a very important strategy that is now adopted by each and every business to reach out to their customers.
The striking difference, though, between a marketing strategy and content strategy is that marketing is targeted towards selling the product but content is targeted towards providing relevant and helpful information to the customers.
Once they are attracted towards the content and their attention has been captured it becomes easier to turn them and convince them into taking a desired action.
But you should be aware of the common content marketing mistakes to get a better hold of the customers.
The following are 8 distinct mistakes that should definitely be avoided in 2014:
1) Lack of Sufficient Background Research
Like any marketing activity it is important that you device and lay a foundation for the content that is to be provided to the customers. For this a sound background research about the target market has to be thoroughly made.
You have to understand the people you are targeting, what information they generally are looking for and what are the values and interest that they share with your brand. Without such proper research any amount of time you invest in developing content is irrelevant as there are no returns to such input in form of revenues or sales.
In fact chances are that your content may be tagged as a spam and ignored by the audiences completely if it is not up to their preferences. This can setback your credibility and will have a negative impact on your brand value.
2) Mentioning Too Much About Your Product or Company
Many business owners do not fully understand business blogging to the core and think that it consists of writing exclusively about their products and services. This can be a part of the content marketing strategy but it is not the only thing in it and result in loss of trust from the audience.
Instead, the strategy should be to provide useful information that will help the customers solve problems and address the key issues that exist in the industry.
Such content should be particularly related to your business and products with qualities that would engage the readers with interesting content and should also meet their needs.
3) Not Sharing the content on Social Media Websites
Social media networking has changed a lot over the years and it has significantly shaped the content industry too. More and more people access social media websites for various purposes like news, current events or even recommendations for particular restaurant instead of using the search engine.
Your content (if shared on your social media accounts) can generate a lot of exposure through visiting customers. Also if your content is really good the people on the network will make it go viral without your efforts and will get you a host of new visitors.
4) Generating Too Much or Too Little Content
Generating content for your website is a never ending tactic and that is why you should continuously create content. But it is important that you decide how much content is enough for you and if you go all out and generate loads of content it may start affecting the quality of the content, which will be totally ignored by your target audience.
In simpler terms "overkill" should not happen when it comes to producing and sharing content. But care should also be taken that you do not create lesser content since there should be a balance of content to be shared on your website that will make your site noticeable by search engines.
The right balance will lift your brand and definitely bring in more customers to your site.
5) Not Following Up On Posts
Posting content is not the only thing involved in content marketing strategy because you need to engage your customers. This needs proper follow up if people comment on the posts and talk to them on their level.
Unanswered comments are a dangerous thing and will lead to customers staying away from your content henceforth. Comment systems also get spam and it can be eradicated with an approval system so that the right comments can be monitored and even replied back promptly to engage the customers to altogether new level.
6) Poor Engagement with Audiences
It is not a hidden fact that effective content marketing requires not just creation of good content but also interaction with the audiences. Responding to the users and encouraging to share what they think about the content will increase the number of audiences and will have a hold on them.
Even the best content is never able to engage the users on its own and will eventually lose steam without any interaction by users. Recognized content is also shared on social media by customers to increase the number of visitors.
7) No Consistency
Every brand and business indulges into starting a website and create a content marketing plan. It happens so that you may start a blog on the website with enthusiasm that starts fizzling out slowly and the amount of updates your content page starts getting lesser.
If there is no proper understanding of the working of blog you may fail to succeed. Most companies send out newsletters, press releases and other form of promotional content to the customers as first stage of marketing but slowly such timely content starts fading out.
It's better to break down all your goals in different sections and handle them one by one to help reach the final goal set by your content marketing strategy.
8) Don’t Miss on Your Call to Action Plan
This can look like a conflicting statement to the previous point where you are asked not to sell your product. But careful planning can help you place links in the content that can induce further reading in readers through innocuous chain of stories till you get them to the place where you sell.
"In the end the ultimate goal of your content marketing is to generate interest in the content and sell to your target consumers."
If you avoid such mistakes you may be able to successfully generate a content strategy that will help your brand and business to grow furthermore.
