5 Marketing Mistakes For Startups To Avoid


Content marketing is said to be the most effective way to market your company or product and it’s not just for B2B companies.  More than 90% of companies are using content marketing.  It is said to be the future of marketing since it costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates 3 times more leads. (Source)

However, only slightly more than 20% of businesses say they are extremely or very successful with their content marketing. (Source)  So what sets apart those who are extremely successful compared to those who aren’t?  Here are 5 mistakes I’ve seen that I want to share with you so you can become part of that 20 percent of successful businesses:

Mistake #1:  Not having a documented strategy or goal

This sounds like such a dumb mistake, yet only about half of organizations that are doing content marketing say they have a documented strategy.  

This is the reason that so much bad content exists.  People get excited to just start creating content, so they jump on the bandwagon and start copycatting other brands or media publishers.  This is the fastest way to waste time and money.  In order to be successful, you must think about the purpose behind the content you are producing and think about how it will provide value to your customer.  I like to map out what the consumer journey is to purchase and then identify what type of content they might need or require to push them closer to purchase.

Mistake #2:  Acting like a media publisher

You must avoid the itch to create content that mimics media sites or influencers.  I think this is a common mistake because this is the type of content people are seeing in their newsfeed so they assume it must work.  The other thing to be careful of is to feel like you need to create lots of content like a media publisher.  This is not the case.  It is more important to figure out what types of content resonates with your audience and converts before investing in producing content everyday.  It’s also important to differentiate your brand voice from other content sources out there.  You’ll never grow a following if you aren’t posting content with a differentiated point of view that aligns to your customer’s needs.  You should look to identify the intersection between these three things:
  • What content is your consumer looking for?
  • What are you an expert in?
  • What is the mainstream media not talking about on a consistent basis?  

Mistake #3:  Creating content based on what you have to say

It’s human nature to want to talk about what you do, but this is also the fastest way to fail in content marketing.  Just because you think people should know this fact about your product doesn’t mean anyone will care or it will lead to purchase.   It is always best to look at what the target audience is saying for inspiration on the content that will be most interesting.  There are lots of ways you can do this.  You can monitor social media or have informal focus groups to uncover what unbiased people find interesting about your brand.  This kind of content will always outperform a sales-focused message or claim.

Mistake #4:  Letting content die on the vine

So often, content is made with a singular purpose in mind, but taking this approach leads to wasted time and money.  When creating content, you need to think about how you can amplify it and how you can repurpose it into multiple forms.  I particularly have seen clients fail to leverage the PR content they are investing in because they only want to use organic means and don’t want to “pay” for exposure.  It shouldn’t matter whether content was paid or earned.  Only one thing is important:  generating new clients, leads, members, etc.  Content worth creating should be worthy of having paid media put behind it – even if it’s just a little on social media – in order to ensure your message is being seen by enough of the right people who can take an action. 

Mistake #5:  Trying to do content marketing as part of another job.

86% of the most successful companies who use content marketing say they have someone who oversees content marketing.
Content marketing is time consuming and requires someone to constantly focus on ideating, creating and optimizing different kinds of content.  Many times I’ve heard the excuse for not doing content marketing is “I don’t have enough time.”  It’s important to have someone who’s job it is to make the time, who can stay objective about your business and constantly be focused on creating value for your customer.  Sometimes it also requires bringing in multiple people to handle different parts of the process.  You might want to consider having someone lead the strategy, measurement and optimization while someone else is responsible for the content creation.
I hope you found this helpful and would love to hear what your biggest content marketing challenges are in the comments.
Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

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