Between ideation, creation, and distribution, it’s easy to drop a ball or two with your content marketing program. Are these common mistakes getting in the way of hitting your targets?
Not repurposing your content
Despite the abundance of advice out there about repurposing content, too few marketers are taking advantage of the hard work they put into content creation.
While the focus should always be on quality over quantity, you also want to make sure you’re making the most of your time and resources.
After you work on a long piece of content, ask yourself:
Would this be summarized well in a video?
Could this be a slide deck?
Can we take this content and target it to specific audiences?
Conversely, a snackable piece of content can be the inspiration for a longer piece. Your audience wants to consume content in different formats. Give it to them!
Gating all the good stuff
Yes, content is a valuable form of currency to exchange for email addresses and audience intel. But audiences have grown weary of overt attempts at capturing their information.
My thoughts? Give away some really good information to build goodwill. Your audience will appreciate you for it.
And when you do gate content, make sure it’s really good so your audience will feel like it was worth their time.
Not using content in sales tactics
Really good content isn’t just useful for marketing initiatives. Selling has become more consultative, and thought leadership content is more important than ever.
Make sure that at least some of your content helps push leads down the sales funnel. And train your sales team to be able to use it.
If your content is on target, it shouldn’t be much of a stretch for your sales teams to integrate it into their regular activities.
Creating content just for the sake of it
If you’re just creating content for the sake of it, you’re probably creating a lot of filler. Filler content is actually worse than no content at all.
Look at your strategy. Are your KPIs driven by your marketing goals or by arbitrary milestones? Content creation is too time-consuming to let your resources go to waste.
Chasing trends
Just because a topic is hot right now, doesn’t mean you should seize on it and force it into your content. It will be obvious to your audience if it’s irrelevant to your core business.
Create content that actually aligns with your brand. It’s better to have a small, engaged audience than a large audience that has no hope of turning into customers or brand advocates.