Content marketing: these are the words on every marketer’s lips. Whether you call it copywriting, corporate communications, brand journalism or just plain writing, content marketing is the creation of relevant and engaging content to communicate directly with a company’s target audiences. Unfortunately, not every marketing initiative is a success. Quite the contrary. Unknowingly, just a few simple blunders may be all that are holding you back from producing a winning content marketing strategy. To increase effectiveness and see your outreach success rate improve, avoid these common content-marketing mistakes:
- Not creating meaningful content. When you write with your own best interest in mind, you neglect to address the issues that are important to your audiences. So how do you find out what really makes your customers and prospects tick? Read relevant blog posts (especially the comments), group discussions, social-media posts and competitor reviews. The better you tailor your content to suit your audiences, the more successful it will be.
- Keeping it to yourself. Don’t just post your content on your website or blog and expect it to work for you. The more you share your content, the more views it will get and the more likely it is to get picked up by a search engine. Share content in relevant communities, such as on LinkedIn. Use social media to extend your content’s reach. Ask industry influencers to share your messages.
- Focusing on quantity, not quality. While it’s important to continually generate fresh content, quality is far more important than quantity when it comes to content marketing. When you create thoughtful, engaging and error-free messages, you build trust, increase engagement and showcase thought leadership. As a bonus, Google favors high-quality content over copy stuffed with keywords.
No one can argue this: content marketing is a rapidly evolving discipline. In that sense, it can make success a moving target. At the same time, it encourages testing and experimentation. To learn more about how to create and execute a winning content marketing strategy, contact Trade Press Services.