The Five Biggest Content Marketing Pitfalls

Content marketing, today, is one of the best strategies for garnering digital marketing leads, gaining new followers and growing your business. It’s even considered to be one of the most effective marketing strategies by experts.

According to a 2017 survey, about 89 percent of content marketers stated that content marketing delivered positive results. In the same survey, as many as 30 percents considered their results to be incredibly strong.

Content Marketing Isn’t Easy

It’s possible to kick off your content marketing journey with only a few blog posts. Over time, these posts accrue reads, shares, and reviews. As your content base grows in size, it can be incorporated into other digital marketing strategies—supplementing a powerful, cross-channel marketing platform.

Still, content marketing isn’t easy. The digital marketing world is crowded—very crowded. Almost four million blog posts are written per day, contributing to the Internet’s flooded content scene. If your strategy isn’t strong enough, it could cost you time, content or even money.

To stay visible as a content marketer—and to enhance your bottom line while crafting an ongoing digital marketing strategy, you’ll need to avoid a few pitfalls. These pitfalls can happen to any content marketer, regardless of how established they are. Below, we’re covering the five biggest mistakes content marketers make. We’ll also offer the insight needed to avoid them.

Pitfall One: Your Content is Accessible, But Not Relevant

Sure: Content marketing is fun. If you’re enjoying the creative process, surely your audience will enjoy your creative content—right?

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. In fact, 55 percent of consumers feel that branded content isn’t relevant—or even interesting—to them. Many content marketers focus too much on their brand’s approachable subjects. After all, approachable subjects are more relatable.

Sadly, digital marketers have figured out that relevance isn’t always synonymous with accessibility. Your brand’s audience may be more intrigued by niche articles, ‘in the know’ YouTube videos and product-or-service-specific insight. Do some research, and find the perfect balance between accessibility and value.

Pitfall Two: You Don’t Have a Publishing Strategy

While content marketing can be flexible, successful content marketing is active on a day-to-day basis. Too many content marketers post content when they feel content is needed. Unfortunately, content is needed constantly.

Constant content makes a branded website relevant in the eyes of Google and other search engines. To sidestep the pitfall of ‘going dark’ in the eyes of a search engine’s eye for relevancy, stick to strict publishing calendar. If you can’t meet the deadlines yourself, consider outsourcing your content needs to freelancers or a professional content marketing agency.

Pitfall Three: You Appeal to SEO Too Much

In 2018, anyone who’s anyone in the digital marketing will tell you the same thing: SEO, meta descriptions and powerful H1 tags drive traffic. This is true, but it’s also resulted in an overabundance of poor content—and search engine providers are catching on.

As a result: Organic, high-quality content is being preferred. It’s a good idea to have a strong SEO strategy—but don’t bloat your content with keywords to the point it’s either meaningless or robotic. Google, Bing, and Safari will know, and your content’s visibility might plummet into oblivion—weighed down by its overexertion of keywords.

Pitfall Four: Only Using Blog Posts

While blog posts offer special insight into a brand’s identity, too many blog posts can hinder its uniqueness. Many content marketers utilize blog posts due to their relatively quick creation time, directness and easy-to-read format.

At the same time, many content marketers fall into the same trap: Their content strategy just isn’t interesting. Try to avoid relying on blog posts alone. Instead, invoke the spirit of your brand’s love of engagement by mixing things up with the following content options:

• Webinars
• Memes
• Instructional YouTube videos
• Instagram photos
• Case studies
• Podcasts

Pitfall Five: Stalling After Publication

Sometimes, content marketers become too satisfied with content publication alone. Rather than diving into the depths of ongoing content marketing, they stall. Rather than reaching their audience via forums, guest blogs, Facebook and Snapchat—they stagnate.

The most effective content marketers follow a basic principle: Spend 20 percent of your time creating and publishing content, and spend 80 percent of your time promoting it. While good content certainly captures readers, it’ll ultimately fail if it isn’t presented correctly—and often.

While content marketing might seem like a tough journey, it doesn’t have to be. Reach out to us at PBJ Marketing. We’ve collected today’s best content marketing tips and tricks—and each is driven by years of personal content marketing experience. Give us a call at 646-770-3271. Or, shoot us a message at makeithappen@pbjmarketing.com. If you’d like to learn more about how consumers read, digest and share online content, check out our take on consumer memory and digital marketing.

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