The 7 Biggest Content Marketing Blunders (and How to Avoid Them)

You know that content marketing is a cheaper, more efficient way to reach your target audience than traditional advertising is these days. You might even already be blogging, posting to social media and producing helpful buying guides for your prospective customers. But if you're making these seven content marketing mistakes, you could be missing a huge chunk of your target audience — or worse, alienating those you do reach.

Avoid these content marketing blunders like the plague…

1. Not Knowing Who Your Customers Are

Most established, successful businesses can tell you who they're selling to. But many can't tell you much more about their customers, and this is where they get in trouble with content marketing.

Knowing your customers goes beyond gathering demographic data. It doesn't matter as much where they live, how much money they make, or if they have one child or three – what matters is what matters to them.

What do your customers believe in?
What gets them out of bed in the morning?
What is their biggest struggle?
What is their dream solution for their biggest struggle?

Paying attention to what your customers have to say in feedback surveys or on social media is a great start. But go farther. Engage with your customers, connect with them. Soon you'll find that you can articulate their needs better than they can – and giving customers what they need is the key to a long-term, loyal customer relationship.

2. Ignoring the Headlines

On average, 80% of people will read the headline of a piece of content, but only 20% will read the article. In other words, the headline matters a lot.

If you're not putting effort into writing great headlines, you're stopping people in their tracks. A persuasive headline will impel a reader to keep reading your post, marketing email, white paper, e-book or whatever other content you have created.

So how do you write a great headline? Here are some resources:

How to Write Headlines that Make People AND Google Read Onward, from Horizon Peak Consulting
How to Write Magnetic Headlines, from Copyblogger
The Formula for a Perfect Headline, from Quick Sprout
How to Write Better Headlines, from HubSpot

3. Not Knowing HOW Your Customers Consume Content

This goes hand-in-hand with knowing your customers. How do they like to consume content?

Are they readers, watchers or listeners?
Do they listen to podcasts on their long commute?
Do they work 80-hour weeks and rely on their subordinates to give them the highlights?
Are they busy moms with no time to watch a 15-minute video?
Are they scholarly types who process written words better than audio?

If you are producing podcasts for visual learners, you're missing the mark. If you're writing 1,000-word blog posts for people who prefer video content, you're not getting through.

Find out how your customers like to consume content, and provide them content in their preferred format(s). Not sure where to start? I recommend asking them.

4. Writing to More Than One Person

In marketing circles, your target customers are often collectively called your “ideal customer avatar” or your “buyer persona.” There's a reason for this. Creating a single person out of the most common traits of your target audience makes your content marketing a thousand times easier.

When you write to a single person instead of a crowd, you're more apt to connect with your target audience.

When you have a single person in mind while you're creating content:

You can convey a stronger message
You can target your messages more effectively
You can use that person's specific language and overcome their specific objections

Not sure where to start? HubSpot offers a free template you can download.

5. Not Proofreading

I harp on proofreading a lot. A LOT.

This isn't just because I'm a perfectionist.

This is because the quality of your writing influences your reader's opinion of you and your business.

If your content is riddled with mistakes, your customers – especially B2B customers – will question your professionalism. They will question the quality of your product or service — because if your content stinks, it's not a far leap to say your offering might stink too.

And then there's the problem of miscommunication.

A mistake in grammar or spelling can drastically alter your message.

Just do it. Proofread your work. In fact, have another person proofread your work, because you're too close to your work and a second set of eyes will catch things you missed.

6. Not Offering a Range of Content

Blog posts are relatively easy to produce. If your employees or team members have the bandwidth and the writing ability, they can contribute to the blog. Or you can hire a ghostwriter to help you out so you can stay in your zone of genius.

But if the only thing you're producing is blog posts, you might be missing a huge swath of your target audience.

Social media can help publicize your blog posts and get them in front of the right audience
E-books or e-guides can increase your credibility and cement your expertise in your audience's mind
Video can reach visual learners and podcasts can reach audio learners

This goes back to knowing your customers and understanding how they like to consume content. Likely they get their content from multiple sources. So why only offer one source of your wisdom to your audience?

This isn't as daunting as it sounds. You can repurpose your content in multiple formats.