When it comes to marketing content creation, are you your own worst enemy? Sometimes, even the smallest content marketing mistakes can snowball, tanking your credibility and undermining your efforts entirely.
From strong headlines to specific calls-to-action to a consistent brand voice, there are crucial elements of great content for attracting and retaining customers. To be successful, here’s what NOT to do as part of your content strategy:
Use AI verbatim. While AI can be a valuable tool for generating ideas and rough outlines, you can’t just copy and paste — for a bunch of reasons. AI-generated content may be inaccurate or misleading, or it might not align with your unique brand values and messaging. And for customers who want to connect with your brand on a personal level, robotic content won’t cut it.
Savvy audiences can spot generic, AI-generated content, and they’re more likely to tune out or even unfollow your brand if the content isn’t genuine. To stand out in a crowded digital landscape, ensure your content is personal, original and authentic.
Ignore your audience. Remember, content creation isn’t just about producing information — it’s about creating value for your audience. Who are they? What are their needs and goals? What are their preferred channels for consuming content? How can you apply their feedback to improve your content?
If you don’t know who you’re creating content for, you’ll miss the mark and waste your time.
Go it alone. If you have resources, use them. Your team can be a valuable source of ideas and expertise that can enrich your content and make it more engaging. For example, a customer service representative who frequently engages with your audience may have insights into the questions they’re asking and what solutions they’re looking for. And collaborating with your sales team can help inform what content types and messaging points are most powerful.
By involving multiple perspectives in the process, you can create more effective content that reflects your collective expertise.
Ignore SEO completely. Don’t underestimate the power of SEO in creating great content. Because no matter how amazing your content is, it’s not worth much if no one sees it. SEO plays a crucial role in making sure your content is easily discoverable by your target audience, whether that’s new prospects, potential strategic partners, the media or even job seekers.
You don’t have to be an SEO expert to make an impact. By incorporating common-sense tactics like relevant keywords, meta tags and alt text, you can improve your content’s visibility on search engines, drive more organic traffic to your website and get more eyeballs on your hard work.
Neglect visual content. Let’s face it. We live in a world of content skimmers. Visual content is key to capturing and retaining your audience’s attention. When possible, consider ways you can make complex content more visual and digestible.
For example, create an immersive experience with interactive content like quizzes or polls. Break up a white paper into an infographic to convey the data through images, charts and text. Or record a video to highlight your thought leadership and strengthen your brand identity. By investing in visual content creation, you can make your content more shareable, engaging and memorable.
Turn errors into action
If you’re going to invest time and resources into marketing content, make sure that content is actually doing its intended job.
Don’t have the time or knowledge to create and execute on a content marketing strategy? We’re here to help make it happen for you.