Don’t overthink your content marketing strategy. It’s more important to have a bias for action and get rolling. That said, when getting started with content marketing for your organization or brand, there are a few things to make sure you’ve thought through up front. Here are five mistakes I see organizations making most often.
1. Not having a plan up front
Before you start any marketing activity (no matter how strategic or tactical), you have to know why you’re doing it. What does success look like? How does this activity translate to immediate or eventual sales and revenue?
2. Writing for the company instead of for the customer
Too many content programs focus on new features, chest-beating on company milestones, and otherwise weaving strong product tie-ins into every new piece of content created. That content has its place, but your readers (customers and prospects) will gravitate towards content that independently provides value. What are your customer’s issues? What do they need help with, right now? That’s the content that will spread like wildfire for you.
3. Not encouraging and participating in two-way communication
Creating content isn’t enough. To really accelerate your audience and impact, you must devote time to responding, commenting, engaging questions and so on. If you’re just a one-way communication channel, even with good content, your prospects will go elsewhere for the interaction they crave.
4. Not promoting, aggregating and curating great content from others
It’s not all about you. And frankly, you can drive significant audience volume (and accelerated awareness and positive brand impressions for your business) by simply aggregating and promoting great content from others. By doing this, you’ll create awareness and interest from other content originators as well as demonstrate to your growing audience that you’re filtering great content from numerous sources for them.
5. Only producing written content
Written content may be the core of your content strategy, but don’t forget video. Or podcasts. Or short, embedded slide presentations. Or whatever other formats your audience naturally gravitates towards.
