The 5 Most Common Content Marketing Blunders That Are Scaring Away Readers

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Most Common Content Marketing mistakes
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How have your content marketing efforts been?

Are they paying off?

Are you getting your expected return on investment (ROI) or are you unconsciously driving your readers away as a result of your poor content marketing tactics?

Sprout Worth recently stated that:

  • “More than 50% of the most effective content marketers on the internet put out new content types for their readers at least many times a week, if not every day.”

What do you say to that?

Content marketing is considered to be one of the best marketing techniques for generating targeted leads. It is a cheap and efficient means of getting to your audience without much hassle.

However, for you to break even with content marketing, you’re required to write kick-ass, result oriented, and compelling articles that your readers will always find useful and relevant.

Sadly, many content marketers are committing some blunders that are massively sabotaging their efforts, thereby scaring their readers away.

If you’re not yet getting results from your content marketing, I advise you pay attention to this article.

5 Hidden Content Marketing Blunders That Are Scaring Your Readers Away

1. You Don’t Know Who Your Customers Are

Who Your Customers Are?
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Your customers are the primary reason why you’re in business. Without them, you’re wouldn’t be in business… Period.

I see people that are always churning out article after article without even knowing who they’re writing for. That’s a terrible way to run a marketing strategy.

In his recent article on Entrepreneur, Michael Kaleikini stated that:

  • “In marketing, if you have no target it’s just like the motivational speech of ‘Shoot for the moon if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.’ It just doesn’t work that way in business. You’ll be shooting into the black expanses of space–where no one exists.”

Typically, identifying your target audience is a big step toward creating a great content marketing strategy that will address your reader’s problems.

This goes beyond knowing who your customers are; it involves getting to know what they want, how they want it, and what can trigger their interest.

You need to know what they believe in, their biggest struggles, and their willingness to find a solution to those struggles.

You can do this by taking full advantage of every opportunity to know them better.

Through social media, you can get feedback from those who already patronize you. You can also conduct a survey to get more useful information about them.

This is just the beginning, though. You need to take it all a step further by engaging and connecting with them.

This knowledge will be instrumental in helping you provide them with the best solutions that will meet their needs. This way, your content will be of great value to them (and will become very successful).

However, not doing a thorough check on your customers and not having a proper understanding of what they want is a great marketing blunder that could lead to significant losses in the long run.

This graphic from Unbounce summarizes the three primary reasons why you must identify your target audience in content marketing:

Find Your Target Audience
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Keep your messages targeted and you’ll have more success.

2. Your Contents Sucks

Your target audience is sick and fed up with mediocre content.

Regardless of the effort, you put into writing your content, content that isn’t great will not give off a good result.

It will not be well received by your readers, and Google will definitely rank you accordingly. If you are lucky, Google will put you on page 50…

Is that the worst case scenario? Not at all.

Not only will you put your reputation at stake, you will also lose your readers.

Quality content is informative, actionable, evergreen, and ensures your readers are coming back for more.

Most of all, good content should be designed to entertain and educate at the same time. This is the exact type of article savvy marketers always strive to publish, and what both Google and readers are constantly looking for.

Similarly, great content should contain a great call to action. This will motivate your reader to take the necessary steps toward finding a solution to their problems after reading your post.

The importance of this is highlighted by this assertion by Small Business Trends that:

When you’re in the habit of dishing out crappy content, the possibility of increasing your email list will also be crappy. People who don’t like your content aren’t going to want to sign up to your email list to get more of the same bad content.

One of the critical qualities of good content is that it must solve a problem.

An excellent article that doesn’t address a problem will not get a better reception than a poorly written article that solves a problem.

For example, assuming you’re writing an article on ‘content marketing blunders’, readers won’t find an article on ‘how to monetize content’ useful.

This reader, feeling unfulfilled, may decide to look for another provider and immediately log out of your website without bothering to check other articles.

This increases the bounce rate of your blog, an important factor for search engines when ranking websites.

If a visitor cannot find what he/she wants, you have already lost a reader. This underscores the importance of understanding the needs of your readers and addressing those needs in your content.

You need to always be publishing great content.

3. Thinking That More Content Means More Traffic

Thinking That More Content Means More Traffic
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Come on… who taught you this?

OK, I guess you’ve heard a lot on the internet that one of the ways to gain the trust of Google is to be updating your blog consistently. But you shouldn’t fill up your blog with garbage just to satisfy this “requirement”.

Let me tell you: You need to change your thinking.

Do you want to know the truth?

  • It is way better to publish one quality and informative article per week than it is to be dishing out seven mediocre articles per week.

The best practice is always to take your time and ensure each article you publish on your blog will be well-received.

That said, if you have a lot of time and think you can be publishing multiple quality articles/week, you definitely should.

But never sacrifice quality for quantity.

Read:

4. You’re All For The Money

You're All For The Money
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A lot of content marketers are always putting money first before their audience, and this attitude will almost always backfire.

Educating the reader should be the first objective of content marketing.

You teach readers how to solve personal problems and how to get the needed assistance. This is followed by marketing a product.

You shouldn’t mix things up when devising your content marketing strategy. Giving people the impression that you are selling a product without taking the first step of teaching them anything will be counterproductive.

For instance, if your content is about how to change a car battery, your content should first address the challenging nature of changing car batteries. THEN you can highlight how your product will assist them to change their car battery.

That way, they will see why they should buy your product.

Always focus on your readers first. Solve their problems as you would your own.

If your goal is to help your customer, the money will always come.

5. Not Properly Proofreading Your Contents

Committing this writing sin is a surefire recipe for disaster.

Now, you are not expected to become a perfectionist, but the quality of your writing is one of the major factors that determines how likely people are to read your stuff.

This, to a great extent, will influence their opinions about you and your business.

If your content has tons of spelling and/or grammatical errors, your customers will put a question mark on your professionalism.

The quality and effectiveness of your products and services will also be questioned.

Why?

Because your content is the mirror of your products. If your content stinks, the general belief is that your products and services won’t fare any better.

A mistake in basic spelling or grammar will undermine the effectiveness of your content as it can completely transform the meaning of your message, even leading to miscommunication.

Therefore, not proofreading your content is an invitation for disaster; your content will never achieve the desired goal.

Don’t Make Silly Content Marketing Mistakes

Perhaps you have been wondering why you are not getting the desired results from your content marketing campaigns.

Can you go through your articles again and compare them with the list here? Perhaps you have committed some of the highlighted mistakes.

If so, this is the right time to make the necessary adjustments and save your business from crumbling under the weight of poorly written and managed content.

Of course, the positive impact of making these corrections will far outweigh the time and other resources you spend in making the adjustment. You will see more readers getting hooked to your blog.

Which one of these mistakes have you been doing? What are you going to change to supercharge your content marketing efforts? What else can you recommend to newbie marketers? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Here are some more content marketing articles to check out:

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Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

22 thoughts on “The 5 Most Common Content Marketing Blunders That Are Scaring Away Readers”

  1. Alice

    Writing compelling content to engage the reader is the right thing to do and is essential for content marketing.
    Capturing trends and updating content is the best way to get quality articles.

  2. Faraz Mumtaz

    Hey Harsh
    Thanks for sharing this great piece of advice.

  3. Haneet Singh

    Hey Harsh Sir,

    I need to ask a question that I have a domain and I want to provide updated apk files on the domain. Is there will be any copyright infringement please reply.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Haneet
      I think there will be. If you have the distribution right, it shouldn’t be an issue. Usually, Google flag such sites as people have seen spreading malware included with such APK. However, you can start a legitimate site talking about apps & link them to official download store. Over time once your website starts becoming popular, you can have developer directly register at your site & can publish this APK directly. Something like Google play store or similar.

  4. Reji

    Hi Harsh,

    Glad to be here once again. The five points that you mentioned is a timely reminder for me to become more alert while creating and publishing contents. Hoping to read more posts from you again.

    Once again thanks for the share.

    Cheers

    Reji Stephenson

  5. Jayant Gosain

    Hey Harsh
    Thanks for sharing this great piece of advice. I have seen many blogs having thin content and the bad thing is they expect some revenue out of those ill written blog posts. The Internet already has everything and we required to make that everything, a something,
    SML always add up some core value. Always enjoy the read on SML.

  6. Sahil sharma

    Hi harsh
    Thanx for advicing……..
    Keep doing…great job……bro…….
    One….day …….i want to be like u…best blogger..😍

  7. Shiv Baba

    Hii. Really good article.. gud luck for the next!

  8. Sanjay Chaudhary

    Hi Harsh,

    I really did enjoy reading your post on how to comment on blogs, and I was happy to see that I already did a lot of what you said.

  9. Albert Adam

    Hi Harsh,

    Thanks for the great article. I want to know more about content strategies. Can you help me out of this?

    Regards,
    Albert

  10. Alok Rana

    Hi Harsh,

    Another pure article on content marketing mistakes. I have one more point to add to this article. We could also add “Poor Site Navigation”, it also responsible for scaring away our valuable blog readers.

    As quality content can’t do any good if the site navigation is so complex for customers.

    I totally agree with your these two points “never sacrifice quality for quantity” and “You’re All For The Money”. I believe this is one of the most on going mistake many bloggers do and it badly effects their readers and site quality. I used to be one of them but now I am more focused on content quality than quantity.

    Thanks for sharing such interesting post regarding content marketing.

    Alok

  11. viki debbarma

    Hi Harsh,
    Thanx for sharing an informative advice.
    I have been writing a blog for last one year, still facing an issue with the readers.
    Let me try one of your advice for my next blog, thanks.

  12. Prinkal Middha

    Hi Harsh,

    I am somewhat of a newbie to internet marketing and blogging. So with that being said, I am very glad that I found this blog post. I’ve heard talk of this but never really knew what it was all about; however, I can say that I understand a lot better now. I plan to stay connected to your blog. Can’t wait to see what you’re going to write next. Thanks

  13. Hiren Patel

    Hey Harsh i use free version of grammerly even though I am just a student its is very useful for projects.

  14. Yaseen

    Great piece of advice !
    All those necessary points have been covered which every blogger should keep in mind

  15. James Perry

    Good advice Harsh, thank you. I use the free version of Grammarly it’s great for correcting spelling, alternative word suggestions, and punctuation misuse.

  16. Mintu

    Hey Harsh,

    Many many thanks to you for sharing another article.
    Yes, definitely in content marketing one should have a proper plan and idea like.

    * write in depth article.
    * proper tone of writing.
    * a good call to action.
    * good product recommendation.
    * and most write for your audience to educate them about that product
    and there are much more

    Hoping for the best!

  17. Ryan Biddulph

    Hi Harsh,

    The sucky point is one I see a bit too much 😉

    I think many content marketers mean well but create stuff with no soul. No voice. Parroting information learned from content marketing or blogging heavies. This never works. Because readers will simply go to the source of the content – the heavies – versus listening to someone mimicking those niche pros.

    I write with my voice. Even if it is weird LOL. Really though I tend toward humorous, funny and entertaining lessons to teach my audience because if you want to learn blogging you want it to be fun, not a boring, dull experience.

    I advise my readers and clients to write 1000 words daily just for practice. Open Word doc. Write. Trash the doc after completing the word count. This is the quickest and clearest way to get really really skilled at writing which ensures you won’t churn out sucky content. This is the way to let your writing voice out. Once you find that, you are golden. All will fall together nicely with your blogging campaign because folks will see you standing out from the crowd.

    All other tips on this list conform nicely when you find your writing voice. This happens through practice.

    I wrote 10,000 words daily or more when on an eBook writing tear a few years back. Sure hasn’t hurt my content or brand 😉 Practice, practice and practice writing some more. Your content will shine so brightly folks will have to consume it and share it, leading to all types of sweet opportunities for you.

    Thanks for sharing the smart tips!

    Ryan

  18. Abdulrazaq Olatunji

    Nice post again Mr, please i need your thoughts here, as we all know that comment is one of the best rewards bloggers mostly expects from readers, in fact, sometimes, having ear-friendly comments satisfies more than money. Now the question remains, how can one get people comment on a blog?

  19. Joby John

    Pretty good article! word reading your articles .. Harsh !! quite happy to be subscribed to your blog updates, I am getting a lot of knowledge from these posts! thanks a ton !!

  20. shahnawaz

    Hi Harsh,
    I agree that content is one of the most important factor and needs to be presented as per your target. you have presented the facts, which most bloggers are not aware of.
    Keep it up. Thank you.

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