What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a strategic approach in digital marketing to creating content and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, drive profitable customer action.
Essential elements of a successful content marketing strategy
4 key elements of content marketing are
- Creating or sourcing compelling content
- Publishing that content on the right channels
- Promoting it through the proper channels including social media
- Measuring its effectiveness.
Brands rocking content marketing
One of the best ways to understand content marketing is to see it in action. Here are a few content marketing examples of companies that are doing content marketing well:
1) HubSpot: HubSpot is a great example of a company that uses content marketing to attract and retain customers. Their blog is full of valuable, relevant content, and they use a variety of channels (including social media and blog post) to promote their content. As a result, they’ve built a large audience of loyal readers.
2) Content Marketing Institute: The Content Marketing Institute is a leading authority on content marketing. They publish tons of great content on their blog post, and they also offer paid training courses and products. Their content is always relevant and helpful, making them a go-to source for content marketers.
3) Copyblogger: Copyblogger is another great example of a company that uses content marketing to attract and retain customers. They offer tons of free resources on their blog post, social media platforms, including ebooks, courses, and templates. They also sell paid products and services. Their content is always top-notch, making them a trusted resource for anyone looking to improve their content marketing effort.
However, as with any marketing strategy, there are content marketing mistakes that can trip you up and hurt your business.
20 most common content marketing mistakes
“You can’t expect to just write and have visitors come to you – that’s too passive.” Anita Campbell
- Not knowing your target audience:
The first and most common mistake is not knowing who your target audience is. If you don’t know who you’re marketing to, you can’t create content that appeals to them. Take the time to research and define your target audience before starting any content marketing activities.
- Not having a content strategy:
Another mistake businesses make is not having a content strategy. Without a content strategy, your content marketing tactics will likely be scattered and unorganized. Define your goals and objectives, and create a plan for how you’ll achieve them. Then start to create content that educates your audience on the things they want to know.
- Creating low-quality content:
If you want your content marketing tactics to be successful, you need to create high-quality content. Your audience won’t engage with low-quality content, so it’s important to take the time to produce well-written, informative, and accurate articles, blog posts, infographics, etc.
- Not promoting your content:
Once you’ve created great content, you need to make sure it gets seen by your target audience. If you don’t promote your content, no one will see it and you won’t achieve your content marketing goals.
- Not measuring your results:
Another common mistake is not measuring the results of your content marketing efforts. Without measurement, you won’t be able to tell what’s working and what isn’t. Make sure to set up analytics tracking and periodically review your data to optimize your content marketing strategy. Examples of Key performance indicators (KPIs) to track include website traffic, leads generated, and sales attributed to your content.
- Relying on a single platform:
Don’t make the mistake of relying on a single platform to promote and distribute your content. While it’s important to have a strong presence on one or two platforms, you should also share your content on other platforms or social media to reach a wider audience. strong social media strategy should include a mix of platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and others.
- Not diversifying your content:
If you want your content marketing efforts to be successful, you need to diversify your content. Don’t just focus on one type of content; create different types of content such as articles, blog posts, visual content, infographics, videos, etc. This will help you appeal to a wider range of people and achieve better results.
- Not monitoring your content:
It’s important to monitor your content to make sure it’s effective and achieving the desired results. Review your analytics data for valuable information and make changes to your content marketing strategy as needed.
- Not staying up-to-date:
It’s important to stay up-to-date with the latest content marketing campaigns or trends if you want your content marketing efforts to be successful. If you don’t keep up with the latest trends, your content will quickly become outdated and you’ll miss out on potential opportunities.
- Not being consistent:
The final mistake businesses make is not being consistent with their content marketing campaigns. Content marketing takes time and effort, and you won’t see results overnight. It’s important to be patient and consistent with your content creation and promotion in order to achieve long-term success.11.
- Not knowing your SEO:
If you want your content to be seen by as many internet users as possible, you need to optimize it for search engines. Make sure to do your research and understand the basics of Search Engines Optimization (SEO) before creating any content. SEO efforts is important for the success of your content marketing strategy.
- Not giving away freebies:
People love freebies, so make sure to include some in your content marketing strategy. Freebies such as e-books, white papers, and templates are a great way to attract attention and get people interested in your business.
- Not guest blogging:
Guest blogging is a great way to get your content seen by a new audience. If you’re not guest blogging, you’re missing out on an opportunity to reach potential customers and grow your business. User generated content can be a great way to promote your business too.
- Not using visuals:
People are more likely to engage with content that includes visuals such as images, infographics, and videos. If you’re not using visuals in your content marketing, you’re missing out on a chance to capture people’s attention and interest.
- Not having a call-to-action:
Every piece of content you create should have a call-to-action (CTA) that tells the reader what you want them to do next. Without a CTA, your content will be less effective and you’ll miss out on potential leads.
- Not collecting email addresses:
If you want to be successful with content marketing, you need to start collecting email addresses. This will allow you to stay in touch with your audience and promote your content to them on a regular basis.
- Not having a niche:
If you want to be successful with content marketing, you need to focus on a specific niche. By having a niche, you’ll be able to target your content towards a specific audience and achieve better results.
- Not proofreading your work:
Before you hit publish, make sure to proofread your work. Typos and grammar mistakes can make your content look unprofessional and damage your credibility.
- Not using the right tone:
The tone of your content should match the tone of your brand. If you’re not sure what tone to use, take a look at some of your competitors’ content and see what they’re doing.
- Not relax and taking a break:
Last but not least, don’t forget to relax and take a break. Content marketing can be a lot of work, so make sure to give yourself some time off. By taking breaks, you’ll be able to come back to your content with fresh eyes and new ideas.
By avoiding these 20 content marketing mistakes, you’ll be on your way to achieving success with your content marketing efforts. If you need help getting started, we offer a free audit of your content marketing strategy.
Contact us for a free consultation with us today and let us show you how we can improve your content marketing strategy!
