Let’s talk about the content strategy mistakes killing your momentum before you even start
Making a content plan is hard. It’s not as simple as listing a bunch of content ideas and running with them. If you don’t consider your core message, who you’re speaking to, or what the content should do, you’ll make the same content strategy mistakes as your competitors.
Oh, past Dave. You made so many of these mistakes.
Thankfully, I know better now. It’s time you did, too.
Four content marketing pitfalls that are holding you back
To avoid adding to the pile of garbage content out there, you need a plan. Good content is more than identifying keywords and search phrases, but understanding the who, what, where, and how.
These are four mistakes even seasoned pros can make if they’re not careful.
Speaking to no one by reaching for everyone
It’s far too common for content to lose its effectiveness by trying to speak to everyone at once. You think it’s efficient, that you’ll save yourself time.
You won’t.
By speaking to everyone at once, you’re diluting your message and saying nothing of substance, which makes your blog or campaign bland and dull.
Content should be targeted. You should know exactly who your content is for before you start creating it. Visualise them. If you can’t see your ideal or target reader clearly in your mind, as well as what they get from your content, it’s not going to land well.
Refer back to your ideal customer profile (ICP) to make sure your content is targeting the right people.
Losing your core message by saying different things
Diluting your messaging is one of the more common content marketing pitfalls and most people don’t even realise it.
I’ve seen it plenty of times. A content strategy so stacked that it looks good until you realise every piece of content says something different. There’s no unifying message underlying it all, or no theme to connect to. The new product news is lost, the seasonal campaign is forgotten, or the expert analysis is buried under fluff.
Every piece of content saying the same thing is bad practise, but your content strategy should run on a theme or message underpinning everything you say to make your messaging consistent and coherent.
Relying on a single platform or channel
I love blogging, it’s one of my favourite forms of content writing and still plays an important part of content strategies. Yes, content is changing and how people interact with brands is evolving, but there’s plenty of value to be found with good, engaging blogs.
The content strategy mistake here is relying only on blogs. Or only on social media posts. Content is needed across all channels and in a variety of formats to really maximise reach, and if your strategy is reliant on a single channel, you’ll find it much harder to achieve your goals.
Think about how you can repurpose your content on other platforms to get the most out of it for a quick win.
Letting your content stew in hope
You’ve published your content and you sit back and take breath. Maybe you make a brew or scroll social media for a few minutes to get ready for the next task.
Except you’ve just thrown all your effort down the drain.
Even if you’re getting organic traffic or being cited in AI search, there are other ways to distribute your content to make sure more people see it. The moment you don’t do anything with the content, you might as well have deleted the entire thing.
Hoping for the best doesn’t work. It’s like leaving a brew on the side to stew so long it goes cold and sour. Grim.
Even if your campaign is nothing more than a few social media posts directing people back to your content, that works just fine.
Know exactly what you’re doing with your content beyond publishing it to maximise your results.
Nipping content strategy mistakes in the bud before they take root
Identifying some common content strategy mistakes is one thing. How to keep them out of your plan and create a strategy that delivers engaging content for your audience and results for the business is another.
Answer these questions to create an engaging content strategy
When I’m creating a content strategy, I ask myself questions such as:
- What are my goals? What do I want people to take away from my content?
- What metrics should I track? How do I measure success?
- What types of content will achieve my goals? How do I reach more people, or get them to hit that CTA?
- Who am I speaking to? What do they want from me and my content?
- Who else can I work with? How can I add value to my content and improve brand loyalty?
I’m giving myself a brief for the content strategy almost like I would with any other piece of content I create. Having that brief guides the decisions I’ll make and ensures the strategy I create and implement are aligned with the business.
Create content plans for the right amount of time
B2B content planning isn’t a science, as much as some people wish it to be. Industries, trends, and markets change frequently and your content strategy needs to reflect that.
Create a year-long content strategy, but write in pencil rather than ink. Treat it as a guide that you can finalise every three or six-months. You’ll know what’s coming up in the short term while keeping your message and themes consistent over the whole year.
Content reflects the brand, so work with other teams to add authenticity and authority
I know firsthand that content teams can feel isolated from the rest of the business. We do a lot of public-facing work that’s easily undone by errant messaging from other teams and departments who are concerned with their own goals.
Include others in your B2B content planning and eliminate the risk of your message being diluted.
Include your sales or business development team to:
- Understand the objections they come across every day
- Tap them up to help find great case studies
Work with the social media team to:
- Align on messaging
- Make sure they’re amplifying the content you produce
- Ask them to run polls to find out what content your audience wants
Speak to the customer service team to:
- Identify pain points your customers report
- Have them direct enquiries to content designed to answer their questions
By incorporating others, you get free ideas and reduce the work needed to create a great strategy while broadening the type of content you create, such as case studies with emotional weight that you add to your publishing schedule and the sales team can use in their negotiations.
Schedule performance reporting rather than treating it as an afterthought
No matter how good you think your content is, you are not the best judge. You’re too close.
Data is the key, and depending where you publish content the data you gather should be different. Your goals will also help you determine what success looks like.
For example, you want:
- More traffic – look at sessions in your analytics tools
- More leads, sign-ups, sales – look at conversions in your analytics tools
- More awareness – look at impressions in your analytics tools
- More engagement – look at page engagement in your analytics tools, and reactions on social media posts
Look at the data every month to see your progress. Don’t check it every second or you’ll have no time for anything else, and don’t wait six-months only to find out something isn’t working. Adjust your plans as needed depending on what you find.
Be proactive and make changes when needed
A 12-month overarching plan gives you structure, while three or six-month strategies give you the flexibility to change and adapt.
Whether the data shows your content is delivering the results you expect or there’s a sudden change in your market or audience, you want to feel able to adapt as needed. You might not have to ditch all of your plan or ideas, either. In some cases, you can move things around to account for new priorities.
In the end, you make the decisions but having something to work from is always going to be helpful when you have a lot to do and don’t want to spend time coming up with ideas every time.
Fixing content strategy isn’t hard, but you need to be objective
Fixing your content strategy is definitely possible, whether you’re about to make one or updating an existing plan. The most important thing is stepping back and looking at your current strategy as clearly as possible.
If you’re like me, it’s easy to get protective of our ideas and content but that’s not what ultimately matters. We’re here to deliver results.
I’ll protect the craft as long as I can, and my love for it, but I’m judged on results and performance, not love. I’m sure it’s the same for you, too, so let’s get our content strategies right and make life a little easier.
If your content strategy makes any of the mistakes mentioned, get in touch and we’ll have a chat about how we can fix things and get you back on track.