Three Content Marketing Mistakes You Might Be Making (and How to Stop)

Content marketing can be valuable for your organization. But there are right ways and wrong ways to use it.

Here are three common mistakes that content marketers make—and how to make them right.

1. Lacking specific goals

Plenty of companies start producing content without a real plan. They might use content just because they think they’re “supposed to” or because their competitors are doing it. Unfortunately, without at least one specific goal to remind you why you’re doing this in the first place, you’re likely to burn out and abandon your content plan.

Before you start producing content, you need to figure out why. (Or, if you already started, pause your content plan to determine your intentions and goals.) Do you want to grow your email list? Drive traffic to your website or particular page?

Make sure you know what you want from your content marketing strategy, and subsequent decisions will get easier.

2. Using data badly (or not at all)

Let’s say you have a goal for your content marketing strategy, and you know what kind of content you’ll create. How do you know you’ve reached your goal?

In most cases, you need to use some kind of data. Collecting and analyzing marketing data can help you stay on track, figure out what works, know where you can improve, and know when you’ve succeeded.

The type of data you use will depend on your goals and the content you produce. A few examples include:

• Website traffic
• Youtube views
• Search keywords
• Downloads
• Web page bounce rates
• Email click-through rates
• Mailing list growth

Data sources like these can help you tweak your strategy and determine ROI.

3. Failing to Promote Content

You’ve published your latest blog post, case study, how-to video, or podcast episode. What comes next?

For too many companies, “what comes next” is just throwing it up on your website and sitting back to wait for the views to roll in, or just moving on to create the next piece of content.

Wrong move. In most cases, promoting and sharing your existing content takes priority over creating new content. (Unless that existing content is out of date, in which case you should consider a content audit.)

• Share that content on your company’s social media platforms at strategic times
• Link to your content in email signatures
• Announce new content to your email list
• Encourage others to share content via social sharing buttons, or ask employees to share on their social media platforms
• Create paid ads to promote content

Don’t use these methods just once, either. You can share content on your social media account multiple times—just don’t get too repetitive or obnoxious with it!

There you have it—three big mistakes that could be sabotaging your content marketing dreams. Fortunately, they’re easily fixable, so you can get back on track and know success when you see it.

Need help with your content marketing?

That’s what I’m here for! I help established organizations and marketing professionals strategize and write great content, from case studies to email campaigns, that sets the stage for increased traffic, leads, and sales conversions.

Got a project in mind? Tell me about it and get a free quote by filling out this brief Google Form.