Avoid these content marketing mistakes
Content is everywhere and includes videos, images, infographics and simple text. How do you work out what you should be doing for your business and for your clients?
By producing content within our small businesses we are trying to…
- Educate with how to’s
- Inform with news
- Entertain with humour
- Inspire with motivation
The challenge is to ensure that this content is what people actually want to see and that they find value in our content. However, if you truly understand your ideal clients you will have an insight into what they are looking for and it will be easier to fulfil their needs.
Tips to create content
- List – Create a list of your favourite content that others have produced
- Ideas – Ask your clients, staff and friends for ideas
- Interview – Interviews are increasing in popularity as they can inspire or give a behind the scenes look
- Guests – Have someone provide you with content as a guest
- Case study – This can help inform people about what you can do for them
- How NOT to – People love a bad news story of what not to do
- Review a product – This is great when you offer products as people gain knowledge from a review
- Share success – Success stories can be motivating and inspiring
- Revitalise – Don’t let your old articles go to waste, rewrite them
- Statistics – Business people love statistics, use them wisely
- Video – Could this be a new way you share your content
Avoid these content marketing mistakes
#1 Action without a plan
Are you producing content with no real plan for that content? Create a plan that covers the topics you want to share and the mediums you are going to use to create the content. Lastly, work out what you are going to do with the content and how you are going to track its results. Try to work on creating a 12-month plan.
#2 You don’t know your audience
If you are still unsure who your ideal clients are and what they are looking for, there is no better time than right now. Sit down and figure it out! What are their motivations to purchase, what are their challenges? Create a survey for the customers you have to get to know them better. Do your research!
#3 Published = Content marketing
Just hitting the publish button on your latest blog and nothing else is a complete waste of all your efforts creating it. 20% of your time to create it and 80% of your time to market it. You should be creating and sharing content via:
- Social Media
- Forums
- Communities
Remember that it is content marketing, not just creating content – you need to market with it
#4 No SEO
It is all well and good to create content but it also needs to be found online. Great titles and subtitles are essential. Work on your grammar, and make it interesting and meaningful. If you don’t want to learn about SEO, engage the services of an SEO professional who can optimise your content for you.
#5 You don’t know your purpose
Remember that your goal should be as above; Educate, Inform, Entertain and Inspire. Remain professional and know the topics your clients/customers are interested in. This will help to establish yourself as an expert in your field. It is not about a quick sale it is about adding value through your content.
#6 Boring
Your followers are smart and they want content that is going to be valuable to them. Don’t just create content for content’s sake alone. Be unique and use your brands’ voice and in common language that everyone who is your ideal client will understand. No one’s going to bother with content that they cannot comprehend easily.
#7 It is not just blogs
There are so many ways of delivering content beyond just blogs for your business. Here are a few:
- How to guides
- Whitepapers
- Checklists
- Webinars
- Videos – long or short
- Memes
- Infographics
- Case studies
- Social Media posts
- Podcasts
- Animations
- Photos
#8 Expectations
Manage your marketing expectations. Don’t expect that you will have a viral piece of content and make millions of sales. Take the time as in #1 above to create a plan and measure it over 12months or more.
If you need help with anything mentioned above – contact Kelly at My Sassy Business
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