4 Mistakes in Content Marketing Most People Make

If you’ve been in the digital marketing game for a long time, then you’ve heard the phrase “content is king” thrown around countless times. 

Although it seems to have diminished in luster over the past couple of years with the advent of artificial intelligence and machine learning, content marketing continues to be an effective tool for lead generation.

Just like how all leads aren’t created equal, not all content is the same. You must not create content just for the sake of it. 

Remember that content marketing is all about attracting your target audience by offering something they need or value. Fail to do that and expect all your efforts to go down the drain.

While you can find plenty of information about how to do content marketing, you must also learn the different reasons why you might not be getting the results you expect. 

Content Marketing Mistakes You Might Be Doing

Your efforts so far may raise more questions than answers such as “Is content marketing dead?”, “What am I doing wrong?”, or “What should I do differently?”. 

It pays to go back to the drawing board and pay more attention to the little details you might be missing.

1) You don’t document your content marketing strategy.

With all the different marketing techniques you use in online marketing, failing to document your approaches and results could mean wasting your valuable time and effort. 

The same applies to content marketing. In a recent survey by the Content Marketing Institute, only 32 percent of B2B marketers document their content marketing strategy.

If you already have a strategy in place, your next step should be to identify your content goals. 

“How many leads do I expect to generate?”, “What other types of content should I try?”, or “What platforms yield the most views?”. 

From there, you should keep track of your key performance indicators. 

Take time in assessing your current efforts and monitor different metrics such as website traffic, social shares, click-through rates, and page views.

While these may seem like vanity metrics, they serve as a good starting point for seeing whether your content gets the attention of your target audience. 

And be sure to document everything. This holds the key to optimizing your future campaigns instead of going around in circles.

2) You get links from the wrong websites.

Link building is one of the most controversial topics in all of digital marketing. 

The most reputable industry experts continue to praise the massive impact of backlinks on a website’s long-term success, while others go out of their way to demonize its importance. 

The bottom line is that Google and other search engines still factor backlinks into their algorithms—and that’s all the reason you need to still care about them.

When it comes to content marketing, you’d want relevant websites to link back to you. 

This happens naturally if you have amazing content, much like how you wouldn’t even think about sharing content you come across that you think everyone else should see. 

A quick link audit gives you an idea of whether you’ve achieved this or not.

Take a look at your backlink profile. If the external sites link to your content are populated by places that share your target market, you must be doing something right. Otherwise, it’s time to rethink your strategy. 

After all, why use content marketing if you can’t even convince others to link back to you?

Thankfully, you can use plenty of tools that allow you to take a peek at the sites that link back to your content. 

Google Search Console is a free tool that does the job well enough. If you don’t find websites that are within your demographic, it could be a sign that your content just isn’t worth linking back to.

3) You do not align your content with your target customers.

One thing is to understand your organization and be authentic when sharing content. 

But it’s a completely different story when it comes to understanding your customer. 

As many would say, you have to put yourself in your customer’s shoes—and that takes time, research and empathy. “What problems do they often face?”, “What income group does they belong to?”, or  “How can your organization help make their lives better?”.

For example, if you’re doing marketing in social media, you should know what market you’re targeting. 

A social media marketing strategy should take place while you’re building the type of content that they will read. 

A content marketing strategy can only be effective once you truly understand the unique needs of your customers. 

One common technique you can try is creating a persona to represent your target customers. 

This allows you to view each customer as a real person instead of just another potential revenue source. 

It is only through committing yourself you fully understand your audience and can cater to their needs and offer real solutions.

4) You do not offer what your customers need.

It’s always exciting to see your content receive a ton of traffic. 

But if all of those visitors just hit the return button, you’re still looking at a failed campaign. 

In a perfect world, you’d want your visitors to respond to your call to action, open their wallets, and be happy with your products or services. 

In reality, though, getting quality leads to the top of your sales funnel proves to be an enormous challenge.

You may have experienced potential leads reaching out to you after reading your content, but then they go on to ask for something you don’t offer. 

This usually happens when you produce content that isn’t directly tied to your business.

For instance, creating content about SEO when your business is about analytics would probably yield questions about SEO solutions from your readers. 

And if you tell them that you don’t offer what they’re looking, that doesn’t reflect well on your reputation.

Content marketing is supposed to depict you as an authority in your niche—not a jack of all trades, master of none. 

No matter how tempting it is to craft content about things related to your field, you’re better off focusing on what you do best.

This could also be a sign that you don’t have enough quality content to share, leading you to publish things that deviate from your main products or services. 

It’s high time that you prepare a content calendar and plan out what content to publish for the coming weeks, including some you may not have tried before such as videos, infographics, and ephemeral content.

Tracking Your Content is the Key

Always remember that it’s easy to create content, but what matters most is what you do once it goes live. 

Your content marketing strategy might not lead to expected results because it’s on you to document your efforts, analyze your results, and optimize future campaigns based on your past mistakes.