8 Big Mistakes to Avoid in Content Marketing for Better ROI

A doer always tends to make mistakes, but you must learn from mistakes to do things in a better way. When it comes to digital marketing, you need to be a very active leaner to avoid mistakes and keep on upgrading your knowledge to stay on top.

The first learning out of the experience is to avoid the potential mistakes more than learning to do new things. Here, we have some such errors shared by the renowned experts in digital marketing about content marketing and methods on how to avoid it. The real ‘doers’ will get some actionable insights from what listed below to avoid unnecessary slipups, and perform better.

Mistake #1: Covering everything under sun

It will not be worth if you are not focused on a niche area. It may create only a lesser impact if you post content about almost everything as gardening, cooking, floral design, farming, travel, healthcare, winemaking, fitness, construction, firefighting, and news. This will not allow you to keep a specific loyal subscriber base.

The fix: It is okay even if you discuss about multiple topics, but divide the content into various specialized blogs, which will help build a loyal follower base for each.

Expert: Lisa Ferguson, content strategist for a leading MNC

Mistake #2: Stepping on the wrong foot

That is the most prominent mistake content engineers may make as not listening to the customer’s voice. The approach of content development should be customers first. You need to track the customer suggestions carefully and other clues left by the search engines stats. All these will tell you what your target group people need.

The fix: Do not beat around the bush in terms of content development, but write promotional content with a purpose in mind as to helping users solve a problem or gather much-needed information about a product or service in your industry.

Expert: Will Hanson, Chief Content Officer at Web Marketing

Mistake #3: Failing to think of quality over quantity

Most of the content marketers live by the quantity of content on social media. You can see some brands posting ten or fifteen times a day on social media, which mostly end up in frustrating the followers and ultimately losing them.

The fix: Stop and think of it if your campaigns are already on as to what is the user perception of your content is. When it comes to content marketing, the primary focus should be on quality than quantity.

Expert: Tom Willis, Marketing Specialist

Mistake #4: Self-satisfaction over customer satisfaction

Content marketing is, of course, an art, but not done for self-satisfaction. Maybe an artist does a painting to exhibit his or her creativity, but while drawing a portrait of someone, one should do justice to the actual purpose. Similarly, content creation is also an art, but many of the so-called content developers make the specific mistake of creating it for self-satisfaction.

The fix: You need to be very specific on user satisfaction by keeping the particular target population in mind while creating content. As discussed above, quality content is harder to come, but it can surely run that extra mile over quantity, click here to learn more.

Expert: Stoney Grever, VP of DM King

Mistake #5: Focusing overtly on virality

It is a fact that nobody can make something viral on his or her own. There is a high possibility that it will not happen. However, some are so keen on creating viral content only, but not just fail many a time, but sustain some adverse impacts too on it.

The fix: Create your content just with the user in mind and focus on making it optimally helpful to them. Virality is something which comes all by its own. We can put in some elements to make the content go viral, but the only focus should not be on it.

Expert: Chad McCarthy, CEO of Native Advertising Center

Mistake #6: Taking up all projects in random

Brands do content marketing on a specific budget, and with it, the approach should not be trying out everything coming in your way at random. With a lot of inputs and insights available from the experts, it will be a complete mishap if you shell out the entire budget on content marketing, but still, fail to generate a single lead of conversion.

The fix: To an extensive trial and error and also keep a close track of the ROI from each project to know which go well and which will not.

Expert: Gordon Lock, CMO at PACE

Mistake #7: Not having optimum test and learn strategies

Often, there may be multiple people in the team with separate performance indicators (KPIs) in mind, which may further end up in what each may call as a great campaign, but actually with the wrong objectives.

The fix: Before starting any campaign, it is essential to have an open discussion to set a clear-cut objective and decide whether the content is focused on what you want to accomplish.

Expert: Melanie Derrick, Native Ad Consultant

Mistake #8: Taking writers for granted

It is true that writers are experts with excellent grip over language and styles, but you cannot take them as granted for knowledge and expertise in every domain. Writers who do not have much exposure or have a better understanding of your niche may only low content, which will adversely affect your performance online.

The fix: Only those who are asking the right questions may be able to develop the right content. Making the writers aware of your objectives and goals is essential.

Expert: Rebecca Melanie, Author, and Advisor in Digital Marketing

Before winding up, here are some other mistakes too pointed out by the experts mentioned above as:

• Assuming that the audience will naturally find your content
• Addressing everything at once
• Underestimating the importance of status quo
• Listening only to the analytics experts
• Failing to set realistic boundaries
• Posting content without proofing
• Communicating in varied tongues, and ultimately,
• Forgetting real audience

What we discussed above in terms of the potential mistakes you also may tend to make is just a starting point. Every step of content marketing needs to be thoroughly planned and scrutinized for possible errors and executed perfectly to generate sustainable results.