https://chaosmap.com - content marketing mistakes and things you can do to fix them

1. Chaosmap Presents
Content Marketing
7 Warning Signs Content Marketing Is NOT Working

2. 1. 7 Warning
Signs Your
Content
Marketing Sucks
2. What To Do
Next?
Table of Contents

3. 7 Warning Signs Your
Content Marketing Sucks
I hope you learn a lot today. After reading, take a look at your
organization. How about your own content creation and distribution
frameworks. Are you making any of these mistakes?
by Chaosmap

4. Content marketing has quickly become a buzzword in the world of Internet.
The problem here is; most people are getting it wrong.
First of all, lets make it clear with the definition to the content marketing. Why not
ask somebody who knows it all?

5. Wikipedia says:
Content marketing is any marketing that involves the creation and sharing of
media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers. The type of
content businesses share is closely related to what they sell. However, the
content's main focus is on the needs of the prospect. This information is
consistently delivered and can be presented in a variety of formats, including news,
video, white papers, e-books, infographics, email newsletters, case studies,
podcasts, how-to guides, question and answer articles, photos, blogs etc.
In fact it means that content marketing should be useful, conquer the audience,
and attract potential customers, rather than subtly promote a product or a service.
Everyone's doing content marketing today. But there's a problem. It appears that
"content marketing" is more a buzzword rather than a long-term strategy for the
company.
So before you decide whether this promotional channel works for your business,
ask yourself the following question:
"Is it really content marketing you are doing here?"
Just because everyone is doing content marketing does not mean that they are
winning at content marketing, or even if they are doing the right thing.
So why isn't the strategy and content marketing working for you?
Here are a few of the common signs you may be doing it wrong. See if you can
identify with any of these.
#1: You Have No Idea What Content Marketing
Is About

6. The first sign that you have gone astray is advertising your products or services in a
content marketing strategy directly.
Do not get me wrong, there is some product advertising here.
But if it takes more than 30% of your publications, this is not content marketing.
When you release a selling promo video of your product, or publish an article
which points to why the prospect should buy the product you offer, you shouldn't
expect your readers go nuts and give your publications numerous likes, comments
and re-shares.
The most effective content marketing is built primarily on the needs of your
audience, and not on the need of increasing your sales (at first).
First, build a trust-based customer relationship, and then only you can move on to
the sales stage.
#2: Your Content Isn't Optimized
If you want your target consumer to spend his time and/or money on your
business, you have to make your content simple to find.

7. So here comes SEO.
SEO goes beyond blog posts as it's equally important to optimize your content
marketing efforts, whether it's an article, press release, status update and so on.
Keywords and relevant research are an essential part of of content marketing.
Using industry or niche specific keywords in the content assists the bots in
identifying topics your website covers and index the pages and relevancy, to better
to rank in search results.
These keywords are the words that customers are most likely to enter into a search
engine to find the products or services you offer.
The battle online for your audience's time is vicious, and if you don't implement a
content marketing strategy to fight off your competitors and boost organic traffic
to your site, then you're doing this online marketing thing wrong.
Adding keywords is not going to take longer than 5 minutes, but it will get you
customers. (Note: keywords research for an in-depth content strategy can take
several days with follow-up meetings and final selections, as they are built into a
content calendar and an overall promotional strategy).
Hence, identify and shortlist the keywords you want your business to rank for —
opting for long tail keywords (3+ words) is wise too. Keep all your content creation
and syndication efforts around these keywords to increase the exposure and
relevance of your website in the industry as well as the market.
TIP: Use kwfinder.com to dig deeper, along with ubersuggest.io
#3: Your Content Is Boring as Hell
Instead of creating the kind of content that works for themselves and their niche,

8. some companies are turning their websites into content farms.
They are over-optimizing their keywords, they are making titles that make no
sense, and worst of all; they have forgotten about the user.
That is pretty much the reason why all you see around you is ordinary content that
adds value to no one.
While excessively entertaining content may attract the wrong target audience,
boring your readers to sleep will also do harm to your brand.
Both facts and statistics are important and interesting to readers.
But at the same time, if your content is nothing else, it is going to be too difficult to
perceive.
It is not an easy deal to add humor and personalize content in the initial stage of
the funnel, when the visitor first comes to your site and knows nothing about you.
But neither it is the reason to be discouraged at this stage.
We all love positive human attitudes and a good sense of humor. Use common
words. Add some humor.
Make your content look more like a personal story rather than a review article
containing only the facts.
Content marketing appeared because "the world of technology" gave its grounds
to the world of "Handshake Networking", where you need to be on friendly terms
with customers, and customer service is the number one factor to get people to
buy your stuff.
By engaging in conversations with your prospects and customers, you can better
adapt your marketing and business services to meet their needs.
Basically, you're going to invest in building relationships online. Your network is
perhaps your most valuable professional asset.
#4: You're Writing For Yourself

9. Quite frankly, people do not want to know about you or the product – they want
to learn about something unknown and exciting, and find information, tools and
insider access that solves a particular problem.
It is important to combine all of these elements into something of value, but make
sure you are listening to the needs of your readers, rather than polishing your own
ego or overselling.
"If you want your company get results from content marketing, the first thing you
need to do is to find out what customers want, what they are interested in, and
how you can give that to them. In other words, your content should be a separate
product rather than being a part of your marketing or advertising." - Robert Rose,
CSO Institute Content Marketing
Marketing experts usually start with identifying the needs of their audience, and
then they switch to meeting these needs and delivering the valuable content.
If you think that you do not have any spare time to visit theme-specific forums,
comment on blog posts, read articles dedicated to your subject matter, or
communicate with customers through social networks, then you are going to fail
building the appropriate customer relationship.
Be sure when you sit down to write content (or your hired writer who does it for
you) that you start by putting yourself in your customer's shoes.
The blog posts, landing pages, and web content is NOT for you.
It's for your target market.
Spend a lot of time thinking about what they need and what they want to know.
#5: You Are Being a Lone Hero

10. Content marketing is not something you should be doing it all by yourself.
Creating and promoting content, especially for a new site, is essentially a full-time
job.
And you might want to outsource content marketing is because you have other
things to do.
What else you can do:
1. Engage your staff in content creation. Show them that their participation in a
content marketing strategy would bring them career advancement and
dividends.
2. Use third-party content and case studies. There is nothing wrong in placing the
content created by other companies in your blog. What is more important, is
that you should add your thoughts, statistics or facts to it, and don't forget to
indicate the source.
3. Engage your subscribers on the social media in content creation. This is an
excellent way to attain loyalty, identify the needs and learn how to listen to
your customers.
4. Outsource big projects. Order several major studies, articles or video content
from professional companies. You will not only get a high-quality content from
the market experts, but will also receive a fair outside perspective onto your
niche and business. If you're in a tough niche, there's no magic key that will
produce instant success in your content marketing.You've simply got to
strategize regarding the most effective form of content, and keep at it.
#6: You Lack Focus On Your Business

11. Ask yourself these 2 pivotal questions:
1. What are you trying to make your customer do after having read your articles
or e-books?
2. Does your content lead your customer do this?
If you create content only because it's easy, you aren't likely to enjoy the outcome.
The effective content marketing should consist of these two things:
Storytelling
Focus on making this storytelling coincide with your business goals
None can survive without the other, otherwise you will not get the desired
outcome.
There's one more thing to remember.
"The quickest way to kill your content marketing is to do nothing after you create
your content."
If no one can see your content piece, what was the point of writing it in the first
place?
The important thing to remember about content marketing is that half the work is
creation, the other half is promotion.
Promotion is the heart and soul of content marketing , so if you're not doing it well
and often, then you're going to be dead in the water.
#7: You Are Stuck In a Sales Funnel

12. At the end of the day, it's still marketing, but your task is to make people forget
that it actually is one.
People don't want to be convinced to buy something – they want to think that they
made the decision themselves, and when you're pushing content in their faces
which sounds too salesy, they'll see right through it and leave.
What happens once a potential customer left you his contacts for to obtain
valuable content? Does he receive an email or the call from the manager? Or his
contact info is merely dusting in your client database?
You may not be targeting your visitors at all points of the sales funnel. If you don't
have any clear plan for carrying your customers throughout the sales funnel, then
your content marketing is worthless.
"An integral part of the problem could be that your sales crew know nothing
about your content-marketing strategy."
They do their best to close the deal, while not being aware of what it all is about. If
your crew don't know your business goals and plans, the sales are going to be
affected correspondingly.
To address this problem, it is necessary to put together all of your sales
department, and lead them throughout the funnel, from visiting the the website
and obtaining the client's contacts prior to the first sale.
This will help maximum efficiency to transform website visitors into buying
customers.
SUMMARY
The content popularity promptly grows in an online business, therefore content
marketing is increasing in value.
Becoming successful in this field becomes more and more complex, and your rivals

13. What To Do Next?
Take our quick content assessment. It's a fun quiz that
will get your strategies better aligned with both content
strategies, marketing and conversions.
Click Here For The Fun Assessment (Quiz)