Content Marketing Mistakes You Shouldn’t Be Making

Published on: 31 March 2021 Last Updated on: 27 December 2024

By now, most people know the value of a content marketing campaign to your business. Given the reach and convenience of the internet, most brands are bound to hop onto the content marketing bandwagon.

The only problem here is that not everyone who hops onto trends completely understands them. Before you fully commit to a content marketing campaign, it’s important to know what you’re getting yourself into so you can avoid making catastrophic errors.

In this article, we have outlined some horrible content marketing mistakes many marketers are making these days. Read this article if you don’t want to make these mistakes.

Why Should I Consider Investing In Content Marketing?

ROI: The first reason that content marketing is beneficial is that it significantly contributes to your return on investment (ROI).

ROI can come in different forms, such as a customer subscription, better brand visibility, improved brand reputation, increased inbound traffic, and customer loyalty.

Establishing Brand Authority: Content marketing also helps establish your brand as an authority, so long as your content is of good quality. You can even become your niche’s primary source of information. When this happens, customers are more likely to remember your brand whenever they need a product or service that you offer.

Interact with Target Audience: Finally, content marketing is a potent means to interact with your target audience (and your target demographic). Sharing content helps you build trust with your audience, and it also acts as a means to extend your reach even further whenever your audience shares your content.

Lead Generation: Furthermore, frequent followers and readers eventually become actual customers.

Content marketing is a useful method to bolster your business’ performance, but only if you utilize it properly. It’s not a silver bullet that’s going to solve all your marketing problems.

Generally, your best course of action is to hire a content marketing agency to launch and implement your campaign properly, but for those who want to try their hand at doing their own content marketing, there are some mistakes that you need to avoid.

Poor Audience Understanding

At the core level, it boils down to how well you know your audience. Your marketing message will work through the content you publish when you know who you are speaking to. The digital mediums, the analytics, and the other technical aspects come way later.

Publishing content without knowing your audience is simply shooting arrows in the dark. It negatively impacts the different marketing and sales metrics you are trying to achieve.

Here’s how your digital presence might suffer if you make the mistake of not understanding your audience –

Low Engagement

When your content isn’t aligning with your audience, your website will suffer from low engagement.

Low Traffic: Your website can also suffer from low traffic.

Poor Brand Reputation: when your business content is everywhere, your audience doesn’t recognize what you are posting. You also don’t get to build your brand image which can sustain your business for the long term.

Poor SERP Ranking: readers will not stick around to read content that isn’t engaging, giving your website a poor search engine presence.

Publishing Content Without A Goal In Mind:

If you aren’t doing anything for free then you shouldn’t also do anything without a purpose in mind.

Whenever we publish content, it’s important to always have a goal in mind. You have to determine whether the goal of your content is to sell, generate leads, inform, or engage with your audience.

These goals or purposes shape your content strategy, which dominates the core function of your content journey. What’s the content journey, you ask? It’s your process to create, publish, distribute, promote, and measure your content.

Then there are your content channels and promotion tactics based on the type of channel and the type of content you are putting out. Yes, we are talking about everything starting from Social Media and YouTube to Blogs. If you are posting it on Instagram, you’ll use Instagram analytics. But, for blogs, you’ll need to use tools like Google Analytics.

Your goal will determine things about your content, such as your call to action and tone (whether conversational, informative, or imperative). For example, if your content is meant to sell a product, it needs to sound friendly yet informative. A post that’s meant to engage with your audience is best written in a sincere, genuine tone.

Failing To Utilize Paid Content Amplification:

The internet is currently oversaturated and highly competitive. Content brands are constantly vying to get their message on the feeds of prospective customers.

The brand that gets relegated to the background will surely lose customers, even if its product is superior to that of its competitor. Paid amplification helps your content reach your intended audience, and it almost always produces quality leads. Consider the fact that even industry giants make use of paid content amplification.

This means that you should do so as well if you want to stay relevant in your chosen industry.

Forgoing The Use Of Social Media Stories:

Social media stories are mobile-viewed vertical videos and images that appear outside a user’s regular feed and last only 24 hours. Storytelling will be the key to distributing your content successfully. Stories are perfect for building emotional connections with your audience because they are more casual and are mostly used as a medium for real-time engagement.

Stories also have a natural progression. This means that users can arrange their content to be more cohesive to viewers. Stories also allow users to enable their viewers to react to the story while also helping users determine the type of content that viewers want.

Limiting Your Content Form:

In today’s market, text and image content alone will not differentiate you from your competitors, especially when you consider that users are gradually shifting away from written content because of the increasing popularity of video content, podcasts, and infographics. This is especially true considering how these types of content are also searchable on major search engines.

It’s important to invest in other content channels to maximize your reach. This also allows your users to choose how they consume your content. The best part about this is that you don’t necessarily have to generate new content to fill these channels.

In fact, you can repurpose written content and simply change the channel they’re published on. An old blog post can serve as your framework for your video and audio content. Your users will appreciate the variety of your content, and this variation will also help improve your website’s SEO ranking.

Ignoring Data Analysis:

Successful content marketing is not just based on artistic taste and content popularity. It is also heavily influenced by data. Running an analysis of your campaign’s performance grants brands the insight needed to make informed decisions regarding content.

The numbers will help you determine which approach is better for a particular demographic. This also allows users to correct a wrong approach.

For example, if you’ve discovered that most of your users are active at a certain time, then use that data to determine the best time to publish your content. Simply ignoring the data will not only rob you of the traffic you would have gotten otherwise, but it will also convey that you’re indifferent to your audience, which will eventually spell the failure of your campaign.

Conclusion

Content marketing is a boon to business owners because it grants them the ability to grow their businesses quickly. It requires a lot of work and experience to get it right the first time, but since you’re posting your content on the internet, it essentially means that as long as your website is up, your content will continue to do its job. Whether your content becomes effective or not depends on whether you do things correctly.

Read Also:

4 points to consider when creating a Great Content Marketing Strategy
Crucial Role of Content Marketing in Local Business
Required Content Marketing for Your E-Commerce
Know Why Content Marketing Is Important For SEO

Soumava Goswami

A passionate writer and an avid reader, Soumava is academically inclined and loves writing on topics requiring deep research. Having 3+ years of experience, Soumava also loves writing blogs in other domains, including digital marketing, business, technology, travel, and sports.

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Getting The Most Out Of Your Email Campaigns By Getting The Audit Right!

Excerpt: Delivering email campaigns that perform exceedingly well requires effort and email audits help you get closer to better ROIs. Read on! So half of the year has gone by smoothly (well, almost), your brand’s making money, your workflows are automated, and your email marketing campaigns are doing well. Wait, yes, pause at the last part of the sentence. Are they really performing optimally? To get a clear understanding of the efficacy of your email marketing campaigns, no matter how great and well-automated they might be in your perspective, you NEED to run audits twice or thrice every twelve months. If you meet an email marketer over drinks, they will probably have a lot to say about their KPIs and how the click-throughs are not making the cut. So how can one ensure that their email marketing efforts don’t go down the drain? The answer is quite simple indeed: execute email marketing audits to unveil your strengths and weaknesses, areas of improvement, and those that are doing just fine. In the blog that follows, we will delve into the different kinds of email marketing audits that one can conduct and ways to go about executing them. Let’s get cracking! The Kinds of Email Marketing Audits That One Can Conduct In simple terms, an email marketing audit is a deep analysis of the various factors that contribute to the success of an email campaign so that you know what’s working and the areas that need to be tweaked. The following are some kinds of email audits that you can carry out; each of them focuses on different facets of the email. 1. Email Content & Design Marketing Performance Audit One of the most common kinds of audits, here you delve into your various KPIs (CTR, CTOR, etc.) to get a holistic understanding of the email campaign’s performance. The aspects that you need to look out for are: Subject line: Try to keep them personalized, crystal clear, non-sales, and within the range of 40-45 characters, optimized for mobile viewing. Please steer clear of spammy words such as “earn quick money” or basically anything that sounds too good to be true. Preheader text: It should be related to the subject line, albeit not repetitive. Header: First impressions are often long-lasting; cliched though that may sound, it does hold some weight. The header text next to your logo should be noticeable, clear, and in alignment with the brand ethos. Email copy: Grammatical errors and typos are a major turn-off. No wonder brands invest in the best copywriters to churn out good copy, even in the age of AI! Keep it crisp, clean and deliver maximum value in minimum words. CTA: The Call to Action buttons are the ones that can make or break the ROIs. Keep the design and text in tandem with the brand guidelines, easy to spot and click, devoid of broken links that lead nowhere! Graphics: When crafting an HTML or interactive email, ensure that the graphics render well across devices and the visual hierarchy is maintained. Conversions & Engagement rates: This is the litmus test of your email campaign. Are your emails good and engaging enough to keep subscribers interested, or are there more hits than misses? The KPIs should spill the beans on this one. 2. Email accessibility audit When crafting your emails, if one overlooks the critical aspect of disability, you might fail to foster inclusivity with your campaigns, thereby risking losing the patronage of your subscribers. Keeping email accessibility in mind is absolutely essential, and is something that all email marketers should perpetually strive for. Ensure that there is no sensory overload for those with visual disabilities by keeping a simple and clean email layout. For those living with tactile difficulties, make the CTA buttons larger to ensure greater clickability and visibility across a range of devices. Remember to check for alt text in images to simplify things for users deploying the services of a screen reader. 3. Deliverability Audit You might have the best of Salesforce email templates (or Hubspot; whatever rocks your boat) and check all the above aspects, but if your email campaigns fail to reach the intended inboxes, all your efforts will end up in vain. To check for email deliverability issues, one needs to check the following aspects; Clean email list devoid of incorrect email ids Email Authentication HTML code failures Domain reputation Blocklisting Spam traps IP address 4. Compliance Audit This would include checking the level of compliance of your email campaigns with the guidelines and requirements of CCPA, GDPR, PECR, etc. 5. Email Code Audit Here, one would evaluate and carry out a code clean-up, fix bugs (if any), and ensure the incorporation of the best practices in email coding. One would also conduct tests to see how well the email renders across different email clients and devices. 6. Design Audit In this kind of audit, one would review the emails from the design and aesthetics viewpoint and check how consistent the layout is with the branding guidelines. The different elements one would generally bring under the lens in this kind of audit are checking for the right use of white spaces, design patterns in accordance with the heat map, fonts, logo, layout, graphics, etc. 7. Automation Audit Here, one would check automated email campaigns to see if everything is in order, such as API triggers, templates, links, rules, customer journey maps, etc. One can either carry out all these audits or create a bespoke audit plan that includes permutations and combinations of the different kinds of audits mentioned above. Steps For Conducting The Perfect Email Audit Now that we are privy to the kinds of email audits that one can carry out, let’s move over to getting started with the process of what’s going well and what’s lacking in your current email campaigns. Firstly, you need to begin with drafting a clear set of goals. Much like in other areas of life, the lack of well-defined goals in sight can very well be akin to sailing in a rudderless ship, and frankly, no one wants to be aboard such a ship! You could begin by jotting down the kinds of audits you’d want to run on your existing campaigns and, based on the purpose of the audit, figure out your bespoke learnings and takeaways. Then, you’d like to create a list of measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that you will be evaluating to check the health and effectiveness of your current campaign. These may include: Unsubscribe rates Open rates (albeit not a very effective one as per Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection feature unveiled in the WWDC conference held on 7 June 2021) CTR (Click Through Rates) CTOR (Click To Open Rate) Spam complaints Conversions Email client & device assessment You can create a spreadsheet to maintain a record of your audit. Here’s what you can document: Name of the email campaign Date deployed (not applicable in case of automated emails) Name of the audience segment Subject line Soft bounce rate Hard bounce rate CTOR CTR Conversion rate Unsubscribe rate You can modify the contents of the spreadsheet as per your unique requirements. One can also diversify the main spreadsheet by adding tabs for different kinds of emails, such as promotional, transactional emails, etc. Once you have your data in place, you can and should proceed with the data analysis. Begin with scanning all the metrics and specifically scrutinize those that fall on the extremities of the curve. The ones that did really well and the ones that missed the mark. Proceed with asking yourself the following questions, Are the subject lines and preheader texts enticing enough? Will I click on them if I receive them in my inbox? Is the visual hierarchy of the email in place, or does it look too cluttered? Does it offer a personalized experience to the subscriber? Does the email copy offer value to the reader, or does it appear too salesy? Does it cater to specific buyer personas and age demographic, or does it appear mass-produced with no specific target audience in mind? Is the cadence too annoying for the subscribers leading to higher unsubscribe requests? Are the CTAs visible, quirky, and enticing enough to get users to click on them? Are your emails accessible to users across the entire spectrum? Wrapping It Up While there are a number of tools available in the market to help you conduct email audits, and you can always request colleagues for a fresh eye perspective on your campaigns, if you’d rather have experts analyze the game for you, that’s possible too! Email Uplers will not only help you analyze your existing campaigns but also deliver interactive emails from scratch attuned to your specific needs. Do drop by for more information! Read Also: Should You Consider Outsourcing Your Brand’s Marketing Campaign? Your Ultimate Guide To Creating SMS Marketing Campaigns Content Marketing Campaign Strategy For Small Business

4 Lessons Content Marketers Can Learn from E-learning Courses

Content marketing is one of the most dynamic marketing disciplines because it involves engaging consumers through a piece of content you create for boosting website traffic and sales for your business. This isn’t easy to achieve because consumers constantly change, meaning that the parameters for creating good content that will engage them to change accordingly. This is one of the key reasons why content marketers need to keep themselves up-to-date with the latest techniques and learn the right way to approach content creation. In this article, we will talk about what content marketers can learn from online courses. If you are not convinced, stick around for a while and learn about the connection between content marketing and elearning courses. 4 Lessons Content Marketers Can Learn Through E-learning Make sure that your writing is concise and absolutely clear and leave no room for readers to misunderstand it. The content that you put out should be easily understood by everyone reading it, and give readers a sense that they are accomplishing and learning something important. Here is the name of four lessons that content marketers can learn from eLearning courses. 1. Being Topic Relevant And Staying On Topic Learning courses include relevant and meaningful content that engages learners and motivates them. The same logic can be applied when creating content for marketing purposes. You need to include specific information that will engage the audience. Consumers will be deeply engaged in your content if they find valuable information that revolves around the general topic. If you are providing information that is not closely related to the topic or simply talking about unimportant things, they will lose interest in your content. So, make sure that you don’t lose perspective and stick to the main topic. This is not always easy to do because of the fact that you simply won’t know what people would like to learn from your content. Working hard on putting yourself in the shoes of your target audience is essential in order to create engaging and concise content. 2. Segmenting Content And Giving Readers The Freedom Apart from the fact that you need to create content that can be intriguing to your target audience, you also need to give them the option of exploring your content the way they see fit. Elearning is effective because learners create a hypothesis and they try to prove it. You must allow people to navigate through your content, test ideas, and give them the time to make their own conclusions. By segmenting content into clear paragraphs and subheadings, people will also be able to decide on their own which information is new to them, and which isn’t. For example, if we are talking about an instructional blog post, a reader can quickly skip over the steps they know already and find the information they are looking for. Try as best as you can to avoid creating linear content that has no scope for interactive involvement. Let your learners choose what they want to learn. For instance, online management training courses give learners the option to make choices that will affect their training outcome. Although you don’t have the option of allowing too much freedom and action, you should look to simulate similar structures within your content. 3. Building Engagement On An Emotional Level People whom you are targeting with your content need to have those elements that resonate with their personalities. A person won’t be able to learn if that learning content doesn’t engage that person emotionally in a positive way. The same rule applies to content marketing as well. In order to be effective and keep the target audience engaged while being memorable, it needs to invoke positive emotions in those consumers. If a person thinks that some information is unimportant, they will probably not remember it. You need to learn a lot about your target audience and fight some broad characteristics that most of them share. For example, you can use their job or level of education to your advantage and include relatable information within your content that will have them connect with what they are reading or looking at. 4. Make Your Content Digestible Simplicity is the key in content marketing and this doesn’t mean that you shouldn't focus on some more complex topics. Always explain them in the easiest possible manner. Learning courses always try to deliver knowledge in a simple and understandable way, and your content should be similar. First of all, make sure that you split up your long paragraphs for added clarity. Include bullet points, divide information, and highlight information that is essential. This way, you won’t exhaust your readers and allow them to digest your content, piece by piece. It is also important to learn the right type of content for explaining certain topics and not to stick bluntly to one type of content just because it is easier for you. Use charts, infographics, pictures, illustrations to quickly explain something without having to write long paragraphs that have the potential to be misunderstood. Wrapping It Up: The business management training can be very complex and it slowly introduces learners to the terms and techniques until they have all the knowledge they need to participate in advanced training lessons. These are the key features of eLearning courses and the main reasons why they are so effective at teaching people. Engaging people in your content and allowing them to memorize it quickly is vital in content marketing, and these above-mentioned four things will help you achieve that without fail.

Franchise Digital Marketing: 4 Effective Techniques

Marketing is the backbone of every business. Whether you are a small business owner or a franchise owner, marketing is something that you cannot ignore. However, when it comes to franchises, marketing can be a tough nut to crack. As a franchise owner, you have multiple stakeholders to consider, and you need to maintain a consistent brand image across all your locations. However, with the advent of digital marketing, things have become a lot easier. In this article, we are going to discuss 4 franchise digital marketing tactics that can help you grow your business. 4 Franchise Digital Marketing Tools Let’s take a look at 4 common digital marketing tactics you can try out for your franchised business. 1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization or SEO is one of the most effective digital marketing tactics that can help your franchise business. SEO helps your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERP), which drives more traffic to your website. When it comes to franchises, SEO is essential to ensure that all your locations appear in local searches. Local SEO helps businesses appear in Google’s Map Pack, which is an organic search result that displays local businesses in a specific area. By implementing local SEO tactics such as claiming your Google My Business (GMB) listing, optimizing your website for local keywords, and building local citations, you can improve your search engine rankings and attract more customers to your franchise locations. 2. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising Pay-per-click advertising is a digital advertising model that allows businesses to pay for ad placements on search engine results pages (SERP), social media platforms, or other websites. PPC advertising can be a great way to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your franchise website. However, when it comes to franchises, it is essential to ensure that all your ads are consistent with your brand guidelines. By creating a centralized ad campaign that can be modified and localized for each franchise location, you can maintain a consistent brand image across your entire franchise network. 3. Social Media Marketing Social media marketing is a great way to connect with your audience and build brand awareness. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can help you reach potential customers and engage with your existing audience. When it comes to franchises, social media marketing can help you maintain a consistent brand image across all your locations. By creating a centralized social media strategy and providing localized content to each franchise location, you can ensure that all your social media accounts are consistent with your brand guidelines. 4. Email Marketing Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective digital marketing tactics available. By building an email list of your existing customers, you can keep them informed about your latest offers, promotions, and events. When it comes to franchises, email marketing can be a great way to stay in touch with your customers across all your locations. By creating a centralized email marketing campaign and providing localized content for each franchise location, you can ensure that all your email marketing campaigns are consistent with your brand guidelines. Implement Digital Marketing Techniques to Drive Online Traffic to Your Franchise When it comes to franchises, digital marketing can be a powerful tool to drive growth and maintain a consistent brand image across all your locations. By implementing these digital marketing tactics, you can improve your search engine rankings, increase brand awareness, connect with your audience, and stay in touch with your customers. However, digital marketing is an ever-evolving field, and it is essential to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices to ensure the success of your franchise business. Read Also: Stay Competitive Locally: How A Duluth SEO Company Levels The Playing Field How To Get More Traffic For Your Small Business With Affordable SEO Why Is An SEO Services Company Better Than Others?

Content Marketing Mistakes You Shouldn’t Be Making

Why Should I Consider Investing In Content Marketing?

Poor Audience Understanding

Publishing Content Without A Goal In Mind:

Failing To Utilize Paid Content Amplification:

Forgoing The Use Of Social Media Stories:

Limiting Your Content Form:

Ignoring Data Analysis:

Conclusion

5 Ways Marketing Strategies Will Change Post COVID-19

Creating A Successful Call To Action In Your Business Emails: Here Are 5 Tips To Consider

Soumava Goswami

A passionate writer and an avid reader, Soumava is academically inclined and loves writing on topics requiring deep research. Having 3+ years of experience, Soumava also loves writing blogs in other domains, including digital marketing, business, technology, travel, and sports.

Leave a Reply

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Getting The Most Out Of Your Email Campaigns By Getting The Audit Right!

4 Lessons Content Marketers Can Learn from E-learning Courses

Franchise Digital Marketing: 4 Effective Techniques

Content Marketing Mistakes You Shouldn’t Be Making

Why Should I Consider Investing In Content Marketing?

Poor Audience Understanding

Publishing Content Without A Goal In Mind:

Failing To Utilize Paid Content Amplification:

Forgoing The Use Of Social Media Stories:

Limiting Your Content Form:

Ignoring Data Analysis:

Conclusion

Share this Article

5 Ways Marketing Strategies Will Change Post COVID-19

Creating A Successful Call To Action In Your Business Emails: Here Are 5 Tips To Consider

A passionate writer and an avid reader, Soumava is academically inclined and loves writing on topics requiring deep research. Having 3+ years of experience, Soumava also loves writing blogs in other domains, including digital marketing, business, technology, travel, and sports.

Leave a Reply

Popular

Follow Us

Recent

Related