5 Mistakes That Can Destroy Your Content Marketing Services’ Potential
The value of content is undeniable. It can single-handedly bring your brand to new heights in the right hands, but with some bad decisions, it can also be the direct cause of your downfall.
It’s far from uncommon for brands to keep content as just a secondary part of their overall strategy. Giving more weight to their visuals sounds like an intuitive idea, but the power of content is such that you can get or turn off real potential customers with just a few major errors.
Mistake 1: Gating Content
It can sound very enticing to simply write good engaging content, and then hide it behind a gate where the customer needs to engage with your site to proceed. Surely they’ll login or pay to see the rest, right
No, they won’t.
Most likely you’ll have effectively increased your bounce-rate dramatically over actually achieving anything meaningful.
The last thing people want when they’ve finally made their way onto your site is one more hassle to deal with just to get to the real content. Pull off the walls unless they’re absolutely needed, and you’ll get your engagement naturally.
Mistake 2: Muddled Brand Recognition
If you aren’t making the connection between your brand and your content crystal clear, you’re making a serious mistake. Consistent connections are the name of the game, and if your message is the least bit inconsistent, you’re not working with your audience.
The single best way to avoid any kind of brand confusion is developing a content and visual guide that has solid structuring for exactly what your brand is about. Keep that as the basis, and the content will naturally match.
Mistake 3: Only Focusing On Blogs
If your main and only real goal with content is making the most you can in any given period of time, you’re not doing it right. Blogs are perfectly fine for some website building purposes and more, but a lot of the core of content lies elsewhere, and professional writers know this.
Content encompasses a huge cross-sections of different types, any of which can be utilized to a high level of effectiveness, and this can include:
- How-To Guides
- Infographics
- Case Studies
- Social Media
And many more beyond these. Point being, variety in content is important. There’s nothing that’ll lose your customers faster than doing the same thing over and over.
Mistake 4: Outdated Research
One of the easiest mistakes you can make in your content marketing services is simply doing short research on a few surface-level sites, and then wondering why your inaccurate information isn’t yielding trusted customers.
False stats aren’t the way to go, the solution is always to dig deeper and find the real statistics that support your goal. If they don’t exist, shift the goal. Always aim for research that gets to the source of the matter, which you can verify with certainty is reliable.
Keep your research thorough and your content accurate, and customer trust will be on the way.
Mistake 5: Content That Tries Too Hard To Sell
Ever heard “If we just sell this a little harder, we’ll get through”?
Yeah, that’s a mistake.
Made through the simple need for higher ROI, hard-selling content is a common error that frequently manages to lose more customers in the process of trying to gain any.
The customer isn’t inherently reading your content to buy your service. Rather, they’re only looking for something engaging and informative first and foremost.
Only once you’ve built a rapport and gained the trust of your customer can the selling truly begin. And once it does, you’ll be surprised just how effective it truly can be.
