Any business that doesn't invest in content marketing early on will suffer in acquiring customers and getting leads. The beauty of content marketing is that it is so powerful yet so cheap! As a founder, you can be your own chief of content at the beginning of your startup journey. That being said, many common mistakes between content creators can kill your sales copy or let consumers choose the competitors over you. We will highlight 7 common mistakes that Joe Pulizzi discussed in his book Epic Content Marketing.
Making the content all about you
Remember, customers don't care about you; they care about themselves and their problems. The more you talk about your product or service, the less engaged your customers will be.
Being too afraid to fail
Content marketing is mostly about experimentation to find the tonality and content that engages customers the most, and the only way you can do that is by experimenting.
Setting the bar too low
Your content marketing should be the best in your industry, better than your competitors, and even better than media companies talking about your industry.
Sourcing incorrectly
The majority of brands outsource their content marketing to entities that won't translate the right message and potential content of the brand. Don't be afraid to find internal content champions, journalists, writers, and content agencies to help your story, and monitor them until your brand is translated with the same passion and thought leadership as the founders.
Communicating in different identities
You should not tell different stories in public relations, in corporate communications, in social media, email marketing, and other media. Common mistake brands do; is communicating in the silos with different brand languages; however, good content marketing needs to be consistent across all platforms.
Staying in your comfort zone
If you don't consistently step out of your comfort area, you are doomed to the status quo; you need to do something completely unexpected with your content from time to time.
Being too focused on one particular channel
Different platforms have different customers, and it would be a loss if brands only focus on one platform and neglect all others. To maximize reach, focus on all platforms while giving the extra effort to the winning platform for the brand's current marketing stage.
Don't let these 7 content marketing mistakes affect your marketing ROI and make sure to keep experimenting and never settle with content marketing.