5 Content Marketing Mistakes Small Businesses Make (and How to Avoid Them)

So, you've decided to take a look into content marketing to propel your small business forward – that's a fantastic decision! Content marketing is a powerful tool for attracting new customers, building brand awareness, and ultimately driving sales. Content marketing is even better when you can track the performance of each piece of content.

However, navigating the world of content marketing can be tricky, especially for small businesses just starting out. Content marketing is a strategic approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and engage a clearly defined audience. The goal is to drive profitable customer actions, such as conversions, leads, or sales, by providing content that addresses the audience’s needs or pain points at each stage of the customer journey.

With many small businesses or organizations, content is usually a spur of the moment, inspiration tactic. In the heat of excitement you’re creating fliers, social media posts, and launching emails. But, maybe there is a better way. Maybe each piece of content you create can serve a clear purpose in your marketing and sales strategy. Here are 5 common mistakes to avoid and ensure your content marketing efforts yield positive results:

1. Lack of Focus on Target Audience:

The Mistake: Creating content without a clear understanding of your ideal customer.

Why it's Bad: Your ideal customer has a clear purpose for finding a particular product. You need to understand their current challenge and how they are going about finding the solution to their problem. Generic content that appeals to everyone appeals to no one. Without targeting your ideal audience, your content won't resonate and won't achieve your marketing goals.

How to Avoid It: Develop a user (or buyer) persona that details your ideal customer's demographics, interests, and pain points. A buyer persona is crucial because it provides a detailed representation of your ideal customer, helping you understand their needs, behaviors, motivations, and challenges. By having a clear picture of who you're targeting, you can create more effective, personalized marketing strategies and content. Once you have a buyer persona, then you can create content along their customer journey. Here is where the real magic happens.

 2. Inconsistent Content Creation:

The Mistake: Publishing content sporadically or failing to maintain a consistent schedule.

Why it's Bad: Building an audience takes time and consistency. If your content appears randomly, you'll lose momentum and struggle to attract and retain viewers. Think about texting someone you like. The conversation is going and getting good and then all of a sudden- they stop texting you back. And then! A week later they pop back up saying: what’s up?

How to Avoid It: Develop a content calendar that outlines your publishing schedule. Create enough content so that when you post, you have a consistent frequency, whether it's weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Bulk content creation happens behind the scenes. Some of us release content too early- sometimes when we have a spark of inspiration. Consider creating up to 25 content pieces and slow drip content to see what your audience engages with. This will help inform your future content. 

3. Neglecting Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Best Practices:

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of improving your website's visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). When people search for products or services like yours, SEO helps your business show up higher in those search results. Think of it as building a highway for potential customers to find you.   

The Mistake: Creating content without optimizing it for search engines.

Why it's Bad: If your target audience can't find your content, you're missing out on potential customers. SEO helps your content rank higher in search results, bringing in more organic traffic (visitors who found you without paying for ads). SEO essentially answers the question: How is your audience searching for the solution to their problems?

How to Avoid It: Research relevant keywords your target audience uses to search for information online. Incorporate these keywords naturally throughout your content, focusing on providing valuable information and not “keyword stuffing”. Keyword stuffing is looking up all of the key words your audience is searching to solve their problem and then you create content stuffed with all of those terms with no true strategy or cohesive information.

4. Being All About You, Not Your Audience:

The Mistake: Creating content that is overly promotional or focuses solely on your business offerings.

Why it's Bad: People don't want to be constantly bombarded with sales messages. They seek valuable information and solutions to their problems. Besides, there’s enough going on in the world and website and social media algorithms sell to your potential client enough.

How to Avoid It: Focus on creating informative and engaging content that provides value to your audience. Educate, entertain, or inspire your readers, and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. My rule of thumb is 80% value-driven (this type of content builds trust and credibility) and 20% selling. If you create strategic content, the 80% drives to the selling content organically and creates a rational next step to your product or service.

5. Not Measuring & Analyzing Your Results:

The Mistake: Creating content without tracking its performance or making adjustments based on data.

Why it's Bad: If you don't measure your results, you won't know what's working and what's not. This makes it difficult to optimize your content marketing strategy for success. And honestly, it’s a complete waste of your (expletive) time. Time is money. When you or a member of your team is spending their time creating content that you won’t even measure, it can be a confidence de-booster.

How to Avoid It: To track each piece of content you create, you first have to pre-plan the content. Building a content library will help you map and track each piece of content you create. You will then be empowered to use website analytics tools to track key metrics like website traffic, user engagement (likes, comments, shares), and lead generation. Analyze your data regularly and adjust your content strategy based on what resonates with your audience. I teach business owners how to track every piece of content. Thereby, nothing is created in vain.

By avoiding these common mistakes and implementing these actionable tips, you can ensure your small business benefits from a successful and sustainable content marketing strategy. 

Interested in creating your own digital content library? Send me a message and let’s schedule a call.