CONTENT MARKETING MINDSET
Content marketing is not new. The ideas have been around for decades. At this point, no business professional is unfamiliar with a blog, search engine traffic, or social media.
The problem is that too many people have misunderstood the true purpose of content marketing — and have missed the mark in their past efforts.
Go to most companies’ blogs, and you’ll often find fluffy, self-serving content: Pictures from their clean-up day at the local park, press release-style articles about promotions, and employee-of-the-month winners.
Or, it’s filled with content that feels derivative and identical to a thousand other articles on the internet.
It is no surprise to me that this kind of content has failed to bring in customers.
HERE ARE A FEW CONTENT MARKETING MISTAKES:
MAKING IRRELEVANT CONTENT:
If you can’t draw a clear line between the content you create and one of your paid products, then your content marketing efforts will be wasted. Or, at a minimum, they won’t reach their potential.
After analyzing hundreds of blog posts from brands, I’ve observed that many businesses treat their website content like a parking garage for random content ideas:
- Miscellaneous business updates that aren’t important to viewers.
- Bragging about company culture or philanthropic work.
- Random promotional content and sale announcements.
When you’re creating content, every single piece of content needs to lead directly back to:
- Email opt-ins and free products.
- Industry thought leadership.
- Products and services.
- Lead generation.
ALWAYS PLAYING IT SAFE:
Content marketing is about educating your customers, building trust, and being transparent so that your potential buyers can access the information they need to become customers.
You have to offer honesty instead of a sales pitch, which means you need to sometimes address thorny subjects and answer hard questions.
Hiding things like the prices or drawbacks of your product will make it impossible for customers to have total clarity before purchasing. Your target audience is asking these questions, so it’s productive to create content with the answers.
Good content marketing helps viewers decide if your product can help them, which means content that helps people opt in and opt out of your offer.
NO CONTENT FRAMEWORK:
Without a plan, your content strategy probably isn’t going to get very far. A good content marketing framework gives you:
- Goals.
- Structure.
- Benchmarks.
Without it, you’ve got guesswork and inconsistency, which can quickly lead to frustration.
INVEST IN YOUR CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY:
Ready to increase brand awareness, reach more potential customers, and maximize your content marketing efforts? Here’s a blueprint for your content strategy:
- Define your target audience.
- Choose your marketing channels.
- Start posting content.
- Measure progress.
- Review the analytics.
- Double down on what’s getting results.
- Continue creating the most compelling content that you can.
THE PROMISE OF CONTENT MARKETING:
These are just a few of the biggest mistakes that I see brands making with their content marketing. Pay attention the next time you open a promotional email or scroll on social media, and I bet you’ll start to see these mistakes out in the wild, too.
Brands get started in content marketing for a variety of reasons, but in most cases, the goal is to drive revenue. Brand recognition is great, but it needs to translate into sales at the other end of the funnel.
In order to get content marketing right, we need to re-acquaint ourselves with the real objectives that matter, train our employees for excellence, and be ready for a long-term commitment.
If you need help with getting your marketing updated with the latest trends, give us a call. We work with your business to make sure you are utilizing the resources and tools to head into the future of innovation!
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