7 ways to mess up a content marketing plan

Content marketing is all the rage right now – and for good reason! Not only can content marketing help you expand your brand recognition and increase your overall website traffic, but it can also provide powerful SEO benefits to businesses that leverage this highly effective strategy.

Of course, it goes without saying that there is a right way and a wrong way to do content marketing. But while there are plenty of different tutorials out there that will show you how to effectively plan and launch a content marketing campaign, there aren’t many articles telling you what not to do.

So, without further ado, here are seven specific pitfalls that will doom your content marketing plan to failure from the start. I hope you find them useful for setting up your own content promotion strategy!

Idea #1 – Not Providing High Quality Content

The underlying assumption of content marketing is that if you publish good quality content, your website readers and brand followers will feel compelled to pass your marketing materials on to their friends and family members. . The resulting viral-style sharing is what drives content marketing success, but it’s the sentiment behind this person-to-person sharing that makes the strategy so powerful.

Obviously, then, if you fail to deliver high-quality content, the chances of people going out of their way to forward your articles to others are pretty slim!

To prevent this from happening, you simply need to make content quality a primary consideration when working on your campaigns. Take the time to implement a thorough editorial review process that ensures that every piece of content that leaves your digital doors is error-free and accurately reflects your business to prevent poor quality articles from tarnishing the reputation of your mark.

Idea #2 – Share content items that are not interesting

In reality, a content marketing article should not only be error-free – it should also be interesting to read!

Think about it… How often do you come across content that really grabs your attention? Chances are, in today’s digital culture of disposable information, it’s not very often that you come across interesting, innovative and exciting content to read. And since it’s rare that you come across these articles, it’s equally rare that you take the time to pass on any of the pieces of content you read online.

Therefore, if you want to give your content marketing campaign the best chance of success, strive to identify topics that you can cover in new and interesting ways. Don’t just regurgitate the same old topics that have been discussed in your industry hundreds of times before. Bring something exciting to the table and you’ll dramatically increase your chances of encouraging viral sharing.

Idea #3 – Deploying Content Assets to the Wrong Media

In addition to creating high-quality content marketing pieces around interesting topics, it’s also extremely important that you consider the type of material you deploy. There are many different formats that content items can take, including:

• List of messages
• Case studies
• “How To” Articles
• Image posts
• Link Gatherings
• Infographics
• Instructography
• Video files

And while this gives you many different opportunities to reach your target audience, be aware that individual content styles are not interchangeable. For example, if your customers and brand followers don’t spend a lot of time watching videos on the internet, you’d be better off posting the types of textual content they prefer to digest.

Really, the only way to know which types of content your audience prefers is to observe their online behaviors and test the results of different types of content within your campaign. Pay close attention to the types of links that are shared most frequently on the Twitter and Facebook profiles of authority figures in your industry, as these will give you insight into the types of content supported by your niche.

Idea #4 – Not Adequately Publicizing Content Items

Unfortunately, publishing great content in the right types isn’t enough to guarantee content marketing success. While I recommend posting most campaign materials to your own website first, simply adding them to your site and crossing your fingers won’t drive traffic!

Instead, you need to take the time to publicize the line items you create. The best way to do this is to link to your content from your social media profiles – although even then you shouldn’t make a “once and done” mention. Since people are active online at very different times of the day, you’re better off using a service like the Buffer app that will allow you to pre-load links to your new pieces of content that will go live anytime. throughout the day.

Also, once you’ve published your content marketing materials on your own website, look for opportunities to share your materials on other web properties. An obvious example is sharing your video files on Youtube to increase your audience’s exposure, although there are plenty of other content sharing alternatives you’ll want to consider as well.

Idea #5 – Building content based on false assumptions

A final concern with the quality of your content is to ensure that you base the material you create on measurable and confirmed data about your audience’s online interests and preferences. Don’t just make assumptions based on what you like best – take the time to conduct the necessary market research to inform the content creation process.

As an example, let’s say you run an industry website that covers three main topics. Topic #1 interests you the most on a personal level, so you decide to base your content marketing campaign around this topic. But what if your followers are more interested in topic #2? In the end, you will have invested a lot of time and money in pieces of content that are not as appealing to viewers as they could be.

Instead, use all data sources available to you (including Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Youtube Analytics, and any paid research tools you use) to learn as much as possible about interests, demographics, your audience’s ages, geographic locations, and more in order to create content they’ll find truly compelling.

Idea #6 – Not Committing to Regular Content Posts

Now, unfortunately, not every piece of content you post will go viral and bring thousands and thousands of new visitors to your website. While content marketing certainly has the potential to bring this result, it is not guaranteed and there is no way to predict with 100% accuracy which of your materials will lead to this type of success.

Therefore, if you only publish a handful of content marketing articles, you are severely limiting your campaign’s chances of success. Often, it takes time to figure out what works — and what doesn’t — with your particular audience, which makes giving up too quickly a surefire way to screw up your content marketing plan.

Idea #7 – Not measuring the ROI of your content marketing campaign

A final caveat for you is to make a habit of measuring the ROI of your content marketing campaigns. Too many people think of content marketing in terms of “contributing to the conversation” or “sharing value,” but in reality, this kind of wishy-washy attitude can doom your campaign from the start.

Given the time and resources required to run an effective content marketing campaign, it’s reasonable to want to know whether or not your investments are paying off in terms of measurable improvements in your business’s target metrics. If you engage in content marketing to grow your social network, for example, meticulously tracking your number of followers, social shares, and likes on Facebook is a critical part of determining whether your efforts are working. their fruit.

Alternatively, if you are using content marketing as a technique to increase sales on your website, set up the necessary tracking systems to determine if the visitors who come to your website and convert into buyers are coming from your content marketing efforts. or another traffic source. . Depending on the complexity of your website, this can be difficult to set up, although most online businesses can use the event tracking and advanced traffic segment features as part of the free Google Analytics program.

Yes, it all sounds like a lot of work. Content marketing isn’t as easy as tossing out a few infographics and calling it a day — but really, no website traffic strategy is that easy to implement. By putting in the effort to avoid these seven potential mistakes, you’ll dramatically increase the likelihood that you’ll see positive results from your content marketing campaigns.

Photo credit: Opp! Content Marketing – courtesy © Glenda Powers – Fotolia.com