Content marketing is hot. There's a reason for that. With 1.9 billion Web sites, you have to stand out somehow. At the very least, you have to stand out from your competitors. How do you do that in a world that largely revolves around the Internet? With good content. These five mistakes you should at least avoid.

1. Not publishing online content regularly enough

There are more than 1.9 billion websites. Having a website is good, having an active website is better, but active blogging is crucial. It's not for nothing that we partner with Make Marketing Magic to create our content. Companies that maintain a blog generate an average of 68 percent more leads per month than companies that do not blog, according to Hubspot.

2. Putting quantity before quality

Content creators such as bloggers are increasingly creating well thought out, credible and strongly written content. In 2014, the average time spent writing a blog post was two hours and 24 minutes. By 2022, the average time was already four hours and 10 minutes, according to a study by American Orbit. Large amounts of content produced quickly can never be of high quality, when that is precisely what SEO is all about: useful, relevant content that is well-written, organized and easy to read. So always put quality over quantity.

3. Not differentiating your marketing tactics

Have you ever heard the saying, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"? Then don't put all your marketing resources into one tactic either. Marketers today have so many different channels and tactics to choose from and consider. Think about how many different tactics fit into social media alone: images, text, web articles, internal and external hyperlinks, videos, interactive stories, infographics, re-posts and so on. Not every tactic fits every social media channel. A brand's TikTok tactics will be different from Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube tactics. While again, you shouldn't spread your resources too thinly across every single marketing tactic, it does make sense to diversify your approach and focus on at least a handful of different tactics.

4. Not having content goals

Every content marketer will try to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to their site and create specific content for specific audiences. But those goals are rarely achieved by shooting with hail. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 65 percent of the most successful content marketers use a well-documented content marketing strategy. A good half rely on technology to analyze and understand the behavior and preferences of their target audience. Setting goals starts with determining your target audience, developing a keyword list based on their search terms, understanding the content they need and writing in a style that appeals to your readers. Next, you need a plan to figure out how often to publish content and on what channels.

5. Not optimizing for mobile

How many times a day do you think you look at your phone? For the average person, the answer is ... a lot, a lot! How addicted are we really? Here are some recent U.S. statistics that will surprise you (or not):

• Americans look at their phones an average of 344 times a day - once every four minutes!

• A good half have never spent more than 24 hours without their cell phone.

• Nearly three-quarters of Americans feel uncomfortable when they have left their phones at home.

Before you think: oh, but this is about America, in Europe the numbers are not very different. In 2021, 474 million people in Europe - that's 86 percent of the population - subscribed to mobile services. This is expected to grow to 480 million by 2025.

Based on these (US) statistics alone, it is a fatal mistake to choose not to optimize websites and online content for mobile devices. Smartphones, smartwatches and tablets have completely changed the way we connect, converse and interact with our favorite brands. For example, mobile users have a much shorter attention span. They want quick content snippets that get to the point and are well structured with, for example, clear headings and helpful categories for quick navigation.

Inspired?

You are the one who determines your content marketing strategy, but Digital Asset Management can help you fill in your strategy more easily? Curious? Then request a no-obligation demo of our Brand Management solutions. Would you like to talk further about the benefits of marketing automation for your organization? Of course, that's always possible too! Give a call to (0)20 820 83 82 or mail to info@comrads.nl. We would love to get to know you.