5 common mistakes business owners make in marketing
Let’s talk about some of the mistakes we oftehn see people make with content marketing. While the team at Kafen8 likes to focus on the positive, and this subject is inherently a negative one, we feel it’s still important to cover. Why?
It’s important to talk about the mistakes - we’ve been there, and made plenty of them, so why not attempt to help others avoid making them too?
It’s kind of like a pothole in the road. I’d sure as heck rather see a sign that tells me one’s coming and avoid it than find myself apologizing to my car as I’m hitting my head on the roof because I’ve hit a pothole while going 30 miles an hour.
Here are five of the most common mistakes we see in the world of content marketing:
Mistake #1: No content marketing strategy
It’s great to be prolific and to create a ton of content. But if you’re doing it without a content marketing strategy, then you have no way to measure how you’re doing. You don't know if you're landing with the audience that you need to land with.
I always say that creating marketing without strategy feels like riding a bicycle with a blindfold on. In that scenario, you’re definitely going somewhere, but you have no idea where. You might be advancing your position, or you might just be going in circles.
If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to creating a strategy, study up on content planning or hire a professional to help you.
Once you get the hang of it of creating content with purpose and that sticks to your strategy, and you start to see engagement and traffic because of the keywords you’re using and the types of content you’re creating, you will know that you're doing a better job of hitting your target audience and creating content that converts.
Mistake #2: Keyword Stuffing
If there were an opposite side of the spectrum from mistake #1, keyword stuffing would be it. Sometimes folks who are trying to game the system or might be misguided will go overboard by using the same keywords over, and over, and…..over.
While it used be be more prevalent before Google’s various algorithm updates, it still happens today. Using a keyword more than 2, max 3 times in a blog can get you into hot water with Google.
Same with using a keyword out of context. If you think of keywords as a “promise” to someone looking for more information on a given topic, and that the content is the fulfillment of that promise, search engines can tell whether or not your content is really fulfilling that promise. They will downgrade the visibility of any content that is using keywords that don’t really make sense for the content.
So what to do when you find keywords that really work for you? Instead of keyword stuffing, create more and different content about that topic. Interview someone about that topic, go deeper on a specific aspect of it, or share success stories on that specific topic.
Mistake #3: Be boring because you’re trying to sound professional
The very best “professional tone” is the one you use conversationally. If you use emojis in your everyday communication and emails, use them in your content. If you curse, don’t be afraid to curse in your content. (Note: Gary Vee, who curses in his content, recommends that you create bleeped versions for use on specific platforms or with specific audiences).
Don’t be afraid to add your own flavor of personality to your content. People want to see the human behind the business. They want to hear your stories about growing up and the things that you learned and why it's applicable to your business. People want to buy from people they like, and it helps them understand you better when they understand more about your perspective as a person.
When you cut all of the edges off of a story in order to “sound more professional”, you cut the heart and soul out of your content. Don’t do it.
Mistake #4: Use jargon
SO many marketers do this. It’s almost as if the idea of “using a professional tone” gets somehow confused with “use jargon and really long words”. They are not the same.
“Just.👏 Say.👏 No.👏
To.👏 Jargon.👏”
Please. Don’t use jargon.
Long words and acronyms don’t make you look any smarter. Explain things in everyday terms and you’ll find your authenticity. Just look at my friend, Nels. He’s an Evolutionary Geneticist, and one of the recipients of the 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, also known as a “Genius Grant”. Watch his video about the work he does. He explains his studies of evolution in a way my 10 year old son would understand.
If a cellular biologist can explain his studies of evolution in a way my 10-year-old son would understand, we as marketers can talk about our businesses without using jargon.
Unfamiliar words, really difficult words or words that are very specific to an industry are all examples of jargon. If you use words your audience doesn’t understand, you will seem like you are talking down to your audience.
I try to avoid this by asking myself the question - would someone who is not a marketer by trade understand what this word means? If not, you can use it, but you must educate your audience as to what that word means.
Mistake #5: Fear and failure to launch
“What if my content fails?”
I hear this from clients all the time.
“It might.” I tell them.
This is not a popular answer, but I follow it up with a pep talk.
90% of the time, when a subject matter expert puts out content that avoids the above mistakes and talks from a place of truly trying to share value, that content doesn’t fail. Each time you try something new when it comes to content creation, you learn something. Even when you hear crickets and it feels like no one’s listening. That’s feedback too.
The most popular, sharable, viral content creators all started with zero followers, too. The difference? They put themselves out there. They learned by doing and by seeing what works, and what doesn’t.
That’s the very biggest mistake I see clients make - they let fear get in the way of creating content.
I’m not going to lie. It's not easy to put yourself out there. I always say that i’m better behind the camera. I don’t really love the attention, to be quite frank.
But. I get in front of that camera anyway. Sometimes, on camera, I really mess up. I drop things, I curse, I stumble, or my wifi goes out in the middle of a live video. But, I learn from each experience and find ways to do it better the next time. And, guess what? It makes me more human and shows a bit more of my personality.
Don’t let analysis paralysis or failure to launch get in the way of your content marketing goals.
TLDR (which means, Too Long, Didn’t Read):
Five mistakes to avoid when creating content:
Don’t create content without strategy
Don’t stuff keywords into your content.
Don’t be boring
Don’t use jargon
Don’t let fear get in the way of putting out your content.
Avoid making these mistakes so you can create better content. Better content marketing will help you grow your traffic and visibility online. Better traffic and visibility online means more eyeballs on your business and your product or service.
Thanks for reading. Did this blog post resonate with you? Please click on the share buttons below and add your thoughts.
