Last updated on August 1st, 2023
Perfectionism is a myth. Even the most successful content marketers make mistakes sometimes.
Some marketers make the mistake of being too focused on SEO, and some don’t focus on it enough. Other marketers fail to include Call-To-Actions in their content, and many aren’t aware of how to use content creation to convert leads into customers.
If you’re new to content marketing or are simply struggling to perform well at it, you will probably find solace in this blog. There’s no judgment here. Making mistakes and learning from them is a part of growing and achieving in this highly competitive field.
16+ Common Content Marketing Mistakes You’re Probably Making
We’re sure some of these points haven’t even crossed your mind. Read along to find 16+ common content marketing mistakes marketers make, and learn how to rectify them to scale your growth.
1. Dependence On Artificial Intelligence
AI writing tools are mainstream for a reason, and honestly not using them in today’s date is a content marketing mistake. They produce good quality, fast, and cost-friendly content. However, they’re not up to the mark for every aspect of content marketing.
AI writing tools are great for performing daily tasks like creating copy and captions for social media or generating blog briefs. Yet, long-form AI written content often comes out as mechanical and is not the most enjoyable content to read. This is where a human mind is necessary.
Humans have the ability to come up with fresh ideas that result in a brand standing out of the crowd. Overly depending on AI writing tools limit your creativity as a marketer, as AI only writes on the information already available on the internet. To be unique in your field, you need to utilize human brain power.
2. Not Writing For Your Target Audience
Not writing content in the language of your target audience is among one of the biggest content marketing mistakes. It is important for your audience to feel understood by your brand. If your content isn’t relatable or helpful enough for them, they will not think twice before bidding adieu to your website.
Writing for the wrong audience sidetracks your brand in two ways:
- Your sales numbers go down.
- Your site’s bounce rate increases and its credibility goes downhill.
The first step towards writing for your target audience is understanding them. If theoretical knowledge isn’t working out for you, reach out to some members of your target audience and ask them to help you understand their pain points. Learn more about how to write for your target audience and how to make buyer personas here.
3. Figuring Out Distribution On D-Day
Thinking that your work is done after publishing your content is a content marketing mistake. Distribution and promotion are the key factors that help your content reach your target audience. Start practicing methods like 80/20: Spend 20% of your time writing your content, and spend the other 80% promoting it.
Other than that, use your social media accounts, tag multiple people and brands, reach out to other marketers, and use guest posting websites to build your outreach program. Promotion of your content is right there at the top with producing good quality content.
4. Failing To Measure Content Marketing ROI
Not measuring your content marketing ROI is a grave content marketing mistake. The value of ROI is simply the percentage of the revenue you gained in comparison to the investment you made toward your content marketing. The formula to calculate it is (return-investment / investment) * 100.
For example, if you invest $10,000 in your content marketing and are getting $12,000 in return, your content marketing ROI is (12,000-10,000 / 10,000) * 100 = 20%. Along with this, there are a few metrics that you shouldn’t fail to consider.
SEO Metrics like Organic Click-Through Rate, Backlinks, Keyword Rankings, and Domain Authority are measured using multiple SEO tools available in the market. PPC Metrics like Conversion Rate and Impression Rate are important to consider as they are direct indicators of how many users are converting to customers and are actually seeing your ads.
5. Not Scaling The Engine At The Right Time
We understand that content marketing is not a cup of tea. With the hassle of looking for expert minds and the cost of retaining them, it’s difficult to hire writers in-house. The moment a team has the basics figured out, find a content partner like Wittypen to scale your content engine.
We help you focus on the larger picture by taking care of your content writing needs. We have achieved this time and again with the likes of Freshworks, MoEngage, InVideo, and Meesho among many others. Because we’re well-equipped with highly-skilled SEO content writers and have over 1000 freelance writers working with us, we can execute at scale.
If content writing is one of your pain points, and you’re looking for an easy solution for your content needs, we’re the choice to go with.
6. Not Refreshing Your Older Content
Old is gold. Don’t make a simple content marketing mistake by consistently pouring all your energy into creating new content. Instead, choose to refresh. Content refresh is simply a method of updating existing content on your website to keep it fresh and relevant with time, while also aiming to drastically improve its quality.
During the content refresh process, add better keywords, and format the article properly to improve its SEO. Also, fill up the article with more information to educate the readers better and make the content more useful for them. Here’s a case study on content refresh you shouldn’t miss out on.
Identifying content refresh opportunities through a thorough content audit is an easy way to find old articles on your website that require just a touch of salt.
7. Limiting Yourself To One Content Type
Researching for a content piece takes up a lot of time, energy, and effort for the content writing team. It would be a big content marketing mistake to let all that hard work get utilized just for a blog post. It’s a smart idea to repurpose the already researched content and organize the data into several content formats like social media posts, podcasts, guides, videos, infographics, webinars, and newsletters.
Repurposing helps you diversify your content types over several platforms and increase your online presence. Due to its timeless nature, creating more evergreen content makes repurposing even easier.
8. Lacking A Foolproof Content Marketing Strategy
A content marketing strategy with plot holes results in multiple content marketing mistakes.
A foolproof strategy that beats the game includes everything from establishing your intent to content auditing and monitoring. All the steps in a strategy are connected with each other through a great amount of well-thought-out planning – which is the most crucial element to get right.
Compromising on research is not an option, and neither is doubt about your marketing goals. If you’re from a B2B domain, learn how to build a foolproof content marketing strategy here. If you’re from other domains, read here.
9. Only Being Friends With Search Engines
It is a content marketing mistake to think SEO is all content marketing is about.
Yes, SEO practices are an extremely important part of content marketing as they help your website rank on SERPs. However, SEO isn’t the only factor to consider anymore. Google has developed its algorithm and introduced E-E-A-T.
Google’s E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Along with paying attention to key SEO practices like strategic use of keywords and internal linking, Google also pays attention to your experience on the subject, expertise on the topic, the authority in your voice, and the trustworthiness of your information.
10. Neglecting The Content Marketing Funnel
The content marketing funnel is a model created by marketers to represent the three stages of a buyer’s journey with your brand. The three stages namely are:
- Top of the Funnel (TOFU), or the awareness stage
- Middle of the Funnel (MOFU), or the consideration stage
- Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU), or the conversion stage
Content types at each stage of the funnel differ and are created while keeping only one goal in mind – converting leads into customers. Neglecting such an important concept is a content marketing mistake.
If you produce too much TOFU content, the leads will remain leads and will not travel down the funnel enough to convert into customers. If you produce too much BOFU content, you might get a few customers but will fail to attract a large audience to your website.
This is why a balance between content distribution according to the stages of the content marketing funnel is necessary.
11. Being Too Salesy
Choosing to hard sell is a content marketing mistake.
Users visit your website and read your blog to educate themselves about a problem they’re facing. If during a time of distress, you lean towards practicing in-the-face self-promotion, readers will not find your article amusing enough and leave your website in a second.
The key is to let them know how you can help them, subtly. Focus on making your content helpful instead of selling your product. Trust the process. If the reader is impressed with your article, they will keep you in mind.
12. Avoiding The Risk-Factor
Playing safe is the ideal choice. However, it’s a content marketing mistake to always play it safe. It doesn’t let you innovate or be unique and keeps you in the pool of mediocrity with the rest of your competitors. Content marketing is a highly competitive field, and it’s important to bring something different to the table in order to get ahead of the competition.
It’s smart to take calculated risks time and again to scale quicker. The methods that work for other companies are not necessarily the best choice for your brand. Some of the best content marketing tactics are discovered after implementing unthinkable strategies. Pave your own way in the industry with a game of trial and error.
And remember, don’t keep asking yourself what if it doesn’t work. Ask yourself, what if it does?
13. Not Taking Any Action On Call-To-Actions (CTAs)
Call-To-Actions are designs created by marketers that urge the target audience to take an action. They’re usually presented as links that directly lead to sales web pages. CTAs are known to improve your conversion rates, and not incorporating them in your strategy is a big content marketing mistake.
Strategically positioning 2-3 CTAs in your blog posts will direct readers to your conversion landing pages and educate them about the products and services of your brand. Using catchy words and bright colors in your design are some of the ways in which you can make your CTA more attractive.
Some examples of CTAs are simply linking sales links to words like “Buy Now”, “Download”, or “Subscribe Today” after a relevant paragraph. Have a look at our own CTA down below, and click on it if you’re looking for impeccable content writing services.
14. Compromising On Content Quality
Choosing quantity over quality is a content marketing mistake. Quality content is what drives sales and scales growth.
Writing helpful content that addresses the target audience’s pain points and educates users about how to solve their problems is the core of content marketing. Make sure to use an authoritative tone, create catchy headlines, and write engagingly. Don’t write solely for SEO. Readers can identify easily when the content is written only for the purpose of ranking.
It’s also important to not create content just for the sake of creating content. Give efforts in selecting your topics and writing quality content. It is okay to produce less than the target content in a month if it ensures that the published content is well-written and educates the users.
15. Scrolling Past Social Media
Social Media is a raging phenomenon in today’s world. Every brand is focused on creating TikTok videos and Instagram Reels as a part of its content strategy. However, what most people don’t understand is, 30 seconds videos are not a part of content marketing.
Actual content marketing on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram is writing long-form content about educating users about their brand’s niche. Text posts, research posts, and carousel posts are some content types that receive high interactions on social media platforms. Plan a different content strategy altogether for your social media.
Staying active on social media is a great way to grow your brand and reach a wider audience. It also allows your brand to directly reach out to customers about any issues or queries they may have.
16. Ignoring Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a major part of content marketing. It’s also a difficult part to get right. The purpose of practicing Technical SEO is to make your website crawlable and indexable by Google bot. Doing it correctly ensures that your website’s credibility remains high.
Here are a few Technical SEO practices you should incorporate into your strategy:
- Make sure your website URL exists in only one format for the users and Google bot to read. Also, use https instead of http.
- Improve your page load speed.
- Prioritize making your website mobile-friendly.
- Use structured data in the form of tables to help the chances of getting featured in a google snippet.
- Conduct frequent SEO audits and fix issues.
17. Ample Words But No Media
Use pictures! Everybody loves a visual component.
While adding pictures, make sure to add an alt text to every picture to stay in accordance with SEO. Also, avoid using high-resolution images as they are known to increase your website’s load time.
However, visual content doesn’t just mean adding pictures to your blog post. Make how-to videos on YouTube, create product demos, and host webinars. Creating visual content also helps in attracting visual learners towards your brand, instead of just in-depth content readers.
18. Not Utilizing The Power Of Storytelling
Ever since we were children, one thing that has connected us to the outside world – whether real or fictional, is storytelling. Incorporating storytelling into your content is a great way to make readers feel at home on your website.
Storytelling in content marketing is useful for building a connection with your audience, breaking down complex topics into simpler fragments for easier understanding, and helping shape thoughts and ideas.
Storytelling is not a natural talent, but a skill you need to master. Well-written content will always sell. Storytelling is a beneficial addition to your content strategy, and not incorporating it is a big content marketing mistake.
FAQs
1. What not to do in content marketing?
Here are some content marketing mistakes you should avoid practicing:
- Not knowing your target audience or writing for them
- Not knowing your long-term goals and intent
- Choosing quantity over quality of content
- Not practicing content distribution
2. What are the common social media content marketing mistakes?
Some common social media content marketing mistakes include
- Not knowing your target audience or creating content specifically for them
- Not tagging enough accounts
- Not taking risks with your content
- Not following trends.
3. What are some common beginner content marketing mistakes?
Some common beginner content marketing mistakes are:
- Not building a foolproof content marketing strategy
- Not defining your target audience or creating content specifically for them
- Not accounting for SEO
- Not performing proper keyword research.
4. What is the biggest challenge in content marketing?
Some biggest challenges in content marketing include:
- Generating good quality content consistently
- Understanding your target audience
- Creating a foolproof content marketing strategy
- Choosing the right channel for the distribution of your content
