You’ve heard it before: Content is king. But what does that truly mean to small businesses and entrepreneurs trying to make waves in a big pond? Millions of blog posts go up every day, but only the best content finds relevance. Most content is simply reprocessed, recycled, reposted copy that’s been out there a million times before. Content may be king, but only the influential kings make the history books. If you’re noticing that your content marketing strategy is falling flat, you’re more than likely making these common mistakes.
- Trying to be a one-man show.
As a business owner, you can’t do it all. It’s difficult to be the creative mind, the writer, the editor, the social media manager, and run your business. Focus on what you’re good at and get help with creating quality content.
- Using only pictures to break up text.
It used to be enough to slap an image on a blog and call it a day. Unfortunately, an image doesn’t always tell the whole story. Do you know what readers love? Videos. That’s why your Facebook feed is full of them, all day, every day. Infographics are also attractive, because the brain can process them much more quickly than even the shortest blog post. Don’t ditch images entirely but consider diversifying the media that you use.
- Tapping only into viral topics.
There are going to be viral topics within your industry that you should discuss, but there should be much more focus on content that will still be relevant a year from today. You want your content to be evergreen. Content that expires is a waste of your time and energy, with no opportunities to generate leads in the future. Create content that will remain relevant over time and you’ll see better results.
- Omitting a call to action.
The whole point of a content marketing strategy is to generate leads, but that is unlikely to happen without a call to action (CTA). Every blog post should contain some sort of prompt, whether it’s asking the reader to subscribe to an email list or to share the article on Facebook. If you have a free eBook or webinar available, the link should be clearly visible. Encourage the reader to do more than simply view the blog post and move on.
- Neglecting to offer solutions.
Why are you writing? Does your content exist for something other than a self-serving purpose? If you aren’t offering your target audience valuable, relevant content and solutions, they aren’t going to care. You will be wasting your digital breath and adding to the white noise of the internet. If you truly want to be heard, write in a way that attracts and inspires your target audience. Write for them, not for yourself.
If content marketing was as easy as sitting down and writing a few blogs each day, we would all be experts. If your content marketing strategy needs a boost, look and see if you are falling victim to these classic mistakes. You may be an expert in your field, but you can’t be good at everything. If you’re looking to outsource a few details, contact us and we can talk about how to improve your content marketing strategy.