Do you know some stories of brands that failed their content marketing? Chances are, you don’t, but that doesn’t mean that every brand creates perfect content.
In fact, when something grows in popularity as much as content marketing has in the recent years, wrong choices and fails are bound to occur.
Do think that a brand like Levi’s could make a horrible mistake without even realizing it?
Of course, no brand is insured against this.
So, take a look at the following piece of content that once was a part of Levi’s content marketing strategy. What do you think?
This ad was a part of Hotness Comes in All Shapes and Sizes” and published in Cleo Magazine. It received a lot of negative responses from the public because it failed to live up to the campaign’s slogan. For example, an average American woman is between a size 14 and 16, but the ad clearly shows much skinnier models.
That’s not a good way to connect with customers. While Levi’s may recover from this mistake – after all, they are a well-known company with a sizable marketing budget – chances are, your business doesn’t have as much money yet.
So, avoiding such fails is a much better idea than recovering from them.
If you agree, let’s find out what content marketing mistakes you need to stay away from and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Mistake #1: Not Using Research on Ideal Content Length
Since written content is the most widely used content type these days, chances are that you’re producing a lot of articles. Did you do your homework on content length? Yes, yes, there’s no universal formula on the best content length, but recent studies have made it clear that certain lengths perform better than others.
For example, you may think that with the rise of mobile Internet browsing, people would be comfortable reading short, easily digestible articles.
Well, while this sounds plausible, you’re wrong, according to this study by BuzzSumo and OkDork.
The researchers found that long form content received more social media shares than short form content. They analyzed the top 20 percent most shared content and discovered that the longer content was, the more shares it received.
Since writing 3,000+ word articles could be challenging for you, aim for at 2,000 words if you can. This technique will also ensure that your articles will be more detailed, therefore more helpful to readers.
Mistake #2: Not Making Your Written Content Media-Rich
Do you insert images, infographics, and other media in your content? If you don’t, you’re making a big mistake that hurts your SEO effort in a big way. Most of us humans are visual creatures so failing to include some media in your content doesn’t exactly contribute to the best reading experience.
The findings from the aforementioned study by BuzzSumo and OkDork support this. The research analyzed 100 million articles with and without images and found the former performed much better in terms of social media popularity and readership.
For example, here’s the comparison of the average number of Facebook shares of content with and without visuals:
As you can see, having even one image can improve the performance of your content. So, try to make your articles rich in media and back up your text with images, infographics, GIFs, and other visuals.
Since using stock images doesn’t work because there are too many other online businesses using them, creating your own visuals is highly recommended. For example, you can take images yourself or hire a professional photographer and create graphics using tools such as Canva and Snappa.
Mistake #3: Obvious Sales Pitches
After years of being exposed to in-your-face advertising, Internet audiences are so fed up with it, they will leave a site right away if they see another hard sell piece. From a standpoint of a business, it’s certainly understandable why you would want to include the name of your company everywhere you can, but doing so distracts people from your content’s usefulness.
Simply explained, it makes you sound like a pushy salesman. That’s not a good way to grow your online business.
To avoid making this mistake, keep in mind the following:
- No hard sell
- Readers want content that they can use to solve their problems, increase their knowledge, or just entertain themselves
- Showing your expertise in your industry/niche works much better in attracting new customers than highly promotional content
If you feel like you need some assistance with creating reader-centered content, you can always use online tools such as RewardedEssays, Google Consumer Surveys, and SupremeDissertations. In case you need to translate your content for international audiences, choose a reliable service with a tool like IsAccurate.
Mistake #4: Not Supporting Your Claims
Content marketing is the most popular strategy! It increases your readership and web traffic!
Does this sound good?
Of course not.
Content marketing is popular and we know that, but how do you back this up? How many marketers actually use it? Your readers might not be experts in content marketing, so they might not know that. If they were, they would immediately close your site because want actionable content and not assumptions.
And the second part also requires some support because businesses looking to engage in content marketing want cold hard facts and evidence. If they’re going to invest in this strategy, they want to know that they’re doing it for the right reasons.
Coming up with information to support these claims actually is not that difficult. For example, with a bit of Google’s magic you can find that 91 percent of B2B marketers and 86 percent of B2C marketers use content marketing to back up the first claim.
To make a long story short, the answer to this issue is simple: research. Don’t be lazy to do it! Your readers rely on you to supply them with relevant and verified information.
If you’re producing a lot of content, researching everything requires some time and skill. So if you feel like you need some help, check out online resources such as GrabMyEssay and HotEssayService for assistance with professional research for web and Content Marketing Institute, Digital Marketing Institute, and Hubspot Research for help with locating statistics and data.
Over to You
Now that you know these content marketing mistakes, you’ll be able to avoid them and increase the effectiveness of your effort. As you can see, even well-established brands make mistakes but with some knowledge and effort your content marketing can be better than your competitors’. Good luck!