Marketing is an essential part of any business that looks forward to survive in the cut-throat competition that is prevalent in all the industries. Thus, in order to evolve your business and take it to the next level, you will need to plan the marketing strategy.
If you are an efficient strategist, your marketing strategy could turn out to be the game changer for you. Let’s admit that online marketing is inevitable in this digital world. These days there are a few things that has to go side-by-side with the marketing strategies for any business. For instant, the content strategy for your business.
Content is simply unavoidable if you are planning online marketing for your business. No matter how much you may hate it, but you can’t ignore content marketing. Thus, if you have been avoiding content marketing and looking up at other options to build your brand, you are just proving to be fatal for your own business.
Content marketing plan is one thing, and the performance is another. Thus, it is quite essential to see that it is working in sync with the goals of the marketing campaign. It’s quite strange to know that only some B2C marketers understand the importance of content marketing and implement it in their online marketing strategy.
Even if they do implement it, there are some quite common mistakes that brands commit generally with their content marketing efforts.
With 2015 just started, it’s time to list out the most common mistakes and make sure that we don’t do the same again.
Avoiding To Be Creative With Titles
You may have written an epic content. It probably has the best data around compared to the other blogs and something that the audience would definitely like when they come across. However, the content hasn’t been performing according to the expectations. Why?
In order to get better click-through-rates, it is equally important to focus on the title to grab the attention of the target audience.
People tend to read your whole content on the basis of how compelling your title is. So, it makes very important to work on the title. It should be convincing enough to make the reader spend their time on your content. Even a simple error while composing the title could cost you hundreds of visitors who may be interested in your topic, but aren’t able to go through because they don’t find the title so compelling.
What are the main elements of a catchy title?
1) Try to use numbers (10 reasons, 11 tips…)
2) Add powerful adjectives
3) Try to ask questions with your title that addresses the pain points of the target segment
Half the job is done once you write a catchy title. It is successful in attracting several readers, which in turn could help you in converting them into customers.
Writing In General
Have you defined your target audience? Or are you just writing in general? If you are writing for the general audience without any idea about the target audience, you are committing one of the major mistakes.
Identify your personas. They may be multiple, however, with each content try to address a single person at one time. This will make sure you write engaging content, focusing on the pain-points of a particular segment. Writing in general, will not seem focused and the audience will tend to move away if there is nothing of value for them in it. Try talking with your ideal person through your content. The tone should be right keeping in mind the targeted segment. Make sure you know what people across along different regions, age, gender would like to know. Don’t exaggerate and avoid the use of jargons as ordinary readers won’t understand them.
Failing to Share The Content On The Right Platform
Are you marketing your content at the right platforms? Do these platforms have your targeted audience? How frequently does your target audience check out that platform for information? If you don’t know where to place your content, all the hardwork that went into the creation of the content will go in vain. Enough customer research is required to know the right kind of platform to market the content. Once you are able to do that, you will be able to see the strategies give exceptional results to you.
Neglecting SEO In Content Marketing Strategy
Search engines are not dead, and so is not SEO. The older forms of SEO are certainly no longer in practice by those who believe in long term results. However, if you have a great piece of content that will provide value to your customers, why not promote it on Google and make it visible to the targeted segment of your audience. Just make sure that you are not over-optimizing the content to rank on Google, or it may end up getting penalized. Avoid keyword-stuffing and keep the content as natural as possible.
Using Promotional Content Only To Promote and Relying Heavily On Social Media
Are your prooting your content on social media? There are undoubtedly the vital platforms to share the content as they amplify the viewership of your content. However, avoid content that is over promotional. Such content will not attract the readers too much. Instead, you should include the ideas of other experts on the topic that you are covering.
Social media is not the only place to promote the content. There are also numerous programs to help distribute good content to get it in front of the target audience. Promotional platforms like Outbrain, Taboola, Quantcast and more help to promote the content in the right way.
Conclusion:
It’s time to revisit the content marketing strategies and check out where you are going wrong. Even if you are getting good response, it could be better if some common mistakes, including those mentioned here are avoided. It is vital for the content marketers to keep an eye on the anticipated mistakes in their field for the coming year. It will also help them in avoiding the errors to get the maximum impact from the content marketing efforts.
