5 Content Marketing Mistakes You Should Avoid In 2020
2020 is just a few months away and trends show that some of the most successful brands online will be those who invest in strategic content marketing and tell the best stories.
While the term “content marketing” may sound cliché to you, it is actually one of the most underrated marketing “weapons” of today, yet many brands haven’t gotten on the content marketing band wagon yet. If you are one of them, here are a couple of pointers to help you understand why you need to start taking content marketing seriously.
Research has shown that Content Marketing has Great Potential for Significant ROI (Return on Investment):
Returns come in different ways: they can come in the form of customer acquisition, brand visibility, positive brand reputation, and inbound traffic as well as customer loyalty. These returns are all beneficial for your business and the best part is that content published stays there forever and keeps working for you, so there is no end to your ROI. Just remember content marketing is a marathon and not a sprint.
Content Marketing helps position your brand as an Authority:
The quality of your content develops your brand profile. If you implement an effective content marketing strategy, you can easily become your field’s primary source of information and position yourself as an authority.
Here’s an example — Let’s say you run a fashion brand and consistently post fashion trends for the season and give your followers and customers tips on how to combine outfits etc. And then right before summer, people begin scurrying for ways to combine colors and fabrics and general fashion tips. If they find your business first, your tips and suggestions become their immediate solutions to achieve their fashion goals. Ultimately, readers and followers can become actual customers who you would never have reached if it weren’t for the internet and your strategic content marketing.
Thirdly, for this blog post, Content Marketing makes potential Customers Know, Like and Trust your brand:
A brand creates trust with great stories. If readers find your content engaging, entertaining, and helpful, you can build trust with your audience quickly and most likely increase your reach because they will share it too.
When people get used to seeing your content periodically, they begin to think of your business as a trusted resource and when they are in need of services or a product such as yours, they will definitely remember your useful and memorable content and engage you further.
I recently wrote another interesting article on content marketing, which you should definitely check out if you want to learn more — here it goes — GETTING STARTED WITH CONTENT MARKETING
Content Marketing Mistakes To Avoid
Now that you understand why content marketing is important and the great benefits it holds for your business if done right, here are some of the mistakes you should avoid when planning your strategy for 2020.
1. Never publish content without knowing what exactly you intend to achieve:
We often tend to put out content without knowing exactly what we want out of it, this in itself is a very unhealthy practice. It’s like shooting without a target.
So ask yourself —
- Why did you create the content?
- What is your goal? To sell, generate leads, inform, engage?
Be very clear about your intentions. This also helps you measure the impact of your content.
2. Never think that your content will get views or go viral by itself:
Yes, in the early 2000s when we had little or no content flying about and organic reach across all social media platforms was still really high, one could publish without spending on amplification of the content.
Today everyone has something to say and the digital space is saturated with content as brands are competing to get their message in front of potential customers. You cannot afford to be in the background.
Paid amplification of your content — whether in form of Facebook or Instagram sponsored post, YouTube ads, or GDN ads — ensures that your message gets to the right people.
This still matters even if you are an already established brand, brands like Google still run massive amplification campaigns for their content, if they do, why shouldn’t you?
3. Never ignore the power of STORIES when creating content:
In 2020 trends show that story telling will be key to distributing and amplifying your content. Stories are perfect to build those emotional connections — check out my post on the importance of brand story telling here
Think of your favourite brand — why do you love this brand so much?
It’s most likely because the brand has indirectly or directly told you a story and you connected with it.
Brands create emotional connection by talking about their pain points, how they affect you, possible solutions etc. — they push these narratives with compelling stories. This makes their audience feel like they are a part of something bigger.
4. Do not stick to one content form:
My bet is that in 2020 text and image content alone will not set you apart. As more and more channels open and users increasingly shift away from written content and move towards video, audio (podcasts) and visuals (infographics), content and multimedia content becomes searchable on major search engines, you need to make sure that you serve what your customers are looking for.
Now let me let you in on a secret — you don’t have to create new content for these various content forms, you can repurpose content you already have and simply change the medium.
If you wrote a blog post — you can do the following with the content:
- Break it down in bite size captions for your social media posts and share over a period of time.
- Record a podcast on the topic
- Make a video where you talk about the topic of show users how to practically apply what you wrote about
Be flexible, don’t play the stereotypical card in 2020, repurpose content.
5. Don’t ignore DATA:
In 2020, data will play an even more important role in personalising your marketing and targeting in a more skilled manner, so do not ignore data generated from your content.
Data is the new Oil, so pay attention to your analytics.
Your analytics will tell you which of your marketing campaigns didn’t hit the desired target, the ones that did, the content form that is best for your audience and lots more. Then you can make informed decisions and come up with a strategy on what to do better and how to do it better.
If you keep ignoring the data, you will continue to operate from the place of assumption.
Finally, the greatest mistake you can make is not to try at all. Do not be afraid to begin your content marketing journey and if you still think you need help starting, I’ll be happy to help as long as you leave me a message.
