Pitfalls To Avoid When Deciding On A Content Strategy

You wish to foray into digital marketing but you are overwhelmed by the amount of information and sources available for content marketing. With the boom of technology, we have numerous channels and more strategies to promote our brand than ever. It is easy to be daunted but there is a semblance of structure and tools available to get you in order. It is obvious that you are to create useful content (after all it promotes your brand and ultimately drives up profits) – but why is it important to have a content strategy in place?

Content Strategy — The Growth Engine For Your Businesses

In-depth content has emerged as a global trend, generating traffic, consequently driving sales upwards.

Findings from a research show, businesses that have a documented content strategy in place, find themselves considerably less troubled with content marketing. They proceed forward at a healthier pace than their contemporaries who do not have a strategy or only talk about it. This adds stress and cannot be monitored or analyzed for results.

A content strategy has three main elements: what the brand’s content looks like in the present, where it should take them tomorrow, should they use the proper channels and resources, and the medium whereby content creation takes place.

Content strategy, unlike any other, is a compound return — the more interesting content you put out, the more visitors are likely to visit your web page.

Pitfalls To Avoid When Contemplating Content Strategy

A process that takes an investment of time, energy and resources, a content strategy can easily go haywire if you are not wary of the following pitfalls.

#1 Blogging Without Search Engine Optimization

SEO techniques do not merely improve your rankings on a search engine result page, but they are more about being discovered by a prospective client. About 40% of businesses which were producing content with no strategy in 2018, had stagnant growth. If you do not wish to be among those, make efforts to create meaningful content that generates results.

Your content is meant to be useful to people who land on your webpage, and generate enough interest for them to linger for more than eight seconds, rather than bouncing off to another website.

There are SEO experts who can help you with your blog by researching keywords and develop strategies for your website’s content. This will ensure that you reach out to potential customers who can then be prompted into converting on your website and generate leads.

Research also shows that exhaustive, in-depth content is better at attracting more traffic because websites that have more than 311 index pages generate about 70% more leads than websites with less than 60 index pages!

#2 Ignoring Buyer Personas

A buyer persona refers to your typical consumer’s profile; their basic details and demographics gathered from your analytics software and customer care team. Such a personalized image of your client would help you to identify their requirements from your website. So your team can tailor content to fit their needs, and the brand image would have the human touch (perhaps even helping to initiate dialogue) which is missing from a sales pitch.

Ignoring a buyer persona can lead to a failed marketing attempt. This is because you might be wasting money on people who aren’t interested, as your content doesn’t address their needs.

#3 Failing To Nurture Potential Customers

When a user first lands on your webpage, they may still be in the ignorant stage. It is said that only about 4% of your website visitors are willing to make a purchase right then. What does that mean for your content?

This clearly proves that you need to have some strategy in place for the remaining 96%. These people are still in the phase of familiarizing themselves with your business and are more likely to remember you if they were to leave with a value-added item, such as an eBook. But how to create an eBook, you ask? One should do the research because wrong marketing initiatives can affect overall revenue in the long-term.

#4 Avoiding Video Generation

There are more people who watch video tutorials today than those who prefer to read the details. In fact, 53% of businesses claim that customer care reported a reduced number of calls after using videos as part of their content strategy, and 81% of businesses reported an increase in sales.

If you believe your business does not have the resources for video creation then you can turn to online video creation tools like Biteable, or maybe invest in some tools for creating, candid behind-the-scenes teaser videos, assembly tutorials, etc.

#5 Falling Behind SEO Changes

If 61% of business owners are known to keep up with search algorithm changes for the major search engines, why shouldn’t you? Why do SEO strategies and search algorithms change anyway? Because they are aligned with the best interests of users and aim to bring refined results, perfectly aligned to their query.

Search engines constantly collect data about their users’ experiences and use it to evaluate their ranking strategy for webpages. If you lag behind updating SEO, your web page rankings will go down, resulting in lower leads and sales.

#6 Putting Social Media On The Back Burner

This may be one of the gravest errors on your part for the world is largely driven through social media today. After you have identified your target audience, which may be multifaceted, depending upon the range of services/products that you provide, you need to actively engage your audience on the platforms most suitable to your users.

For example, while LinkedIn may be the best for two businesses to connect, many female business owners or hobbyists take to Pinterest, while 76% of adults use Facebook to browse for everything, from news to product reviews and trends. Social media can make or break your brand, so active engagement on your part is necessary to respond to people and connect with them on a personal level — be it to complaints, or positive feedback. Building a follower profile, similar to a buyer persona, will aid your strategy here.

#7 Expecting A Quick ROI

Content strategy gives no overnight results, and neither are there any foolproof predictors available for this one. Since it generates three times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing, it also requires the most patience and perseverance to follow through.

Calculating return on investment for content strategy requires a studied, predictive approach that consists of: defining the specific purpose for a content type, measuring the results and their efficacy to the business (by running analytics, feedback from users and sales department, etc).

It also takes into account, the costs incurred at each stage against the monetary benefits of the results (product reach, lead generation, etc.) being produced. Even after you find out that your content strategy is bearing fruit, you have to continue to evaluate your practice for better results.

#8 Skipping On Emails

The advent of quick messaging and social networking may have pushed electronic mail behind, yet it still maintains a hefty presence on the content strategy front.

Email is a cost-effective way to make use of your existing content. Sift through the old content (while you create a new one), and choose a series of valuable pieces to be shared to your subscribers in weekly or fortnightly doses.

Emails can also be used for back-end sales in a subtle manner, and for developing a personal relationship with your subscribers. You should also be available for a prompt response on queries and feedback via email.

Constantly producing new, quality content is no easy feat, and requires all hands on deck. Creating content requires relevant employee/department to be called upon to pitch in with their data, feedback, expertise or ideas. This does not mean everybody becomes an expert at content overnight, but a mutual exchange of ideas and feedback is necessary for employees at a company. So that there is a concord in what a company actually offers and the content it produces. It is imperative for you to remain authentic, and your content should reflect the ideology of the company.

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