Nobody actually wants to sabotage their content marketing efforts. All of the work, the money, and the planning can go down the drain quickly. It doesn’t take much, either. I’ve seen companies destroy their content marketing programs – or at least, a small subset of them – with just a few content marketing mistakes.
Read this in a sarcastic, over-caffeinated Southern California accent. It’ll be like I’m sitting right there with you!
- Don’t plan. This is the first of many content marketing mistakes companies make. Having a plan is crucial for content marketing success. Know what KPIs you’ll need to hit, what your goals are, and how much content you’ll need to produce before you start.
- Don’t set KPIs. Yes, that’s a lovely series of videos and blog posts. But did it do anything? If you’re not measuring success with hard numbers, good luck getting budget allocations for another campaign.
- Don’t think about your audience. Hey, your audience is IT professionals on the verge of retiring, but they need to hold off for a few more years? Then absolutely tell them that your solution will eliminate their jobs instead of free them up for more strategic projects.
- Don’t talk to internal subject matter experts. They don’t know anything about the product, right?
- Don’t talk to your sales team. They have no idea what the customer wants. Even Jim, the guy who routinely lands multi-million dollar contracts, doesn’t know what the customer’s pain points are. He’s just lucky.
- Don’t even think about SEO. I mean, your campaign is going to be so great that you’ll have no use for SEO.
- Use all one medium. Everyone likes content delivered in the same way. Make sure that your entire campaign is all videos/blog posts/white papers/infographics. There’s no need to mix it up.
- Don’t bother to repurpose content. You should definitely reinvent the wheel. Once you write a white paper, there’s no need to try to carve it up. Definitely, don’t try to make a white paper out of a webinar or a written case study from a customer video testimonial.
- Don’t proofread your written content. Typos are super-cool. Cynical Gen X and Baby Boomer decision makers love it when they catch typos because it means you’re not perfect, either.
- Don’t distribute your content. Hey, let’s just slap it up on our website. I mean, that’s the best way. We certainly don’t want to deal with social media or writing press releases.
- Don’t even think about revisiting your campaign. It’s set in stone. So what if it’s sinking like the Titanic? You chiseled this plan in a tablet and buried it in your CEO’s office, and it can never be changed.
Are you making any of these content marketing mistakes? Do you want to stop? You know where to find me for an actual caffeine-fueled consultation, at least on writing your content.