Being in the web design and marketing industry for decades provides you a unique insight into the mistakes that can be made – whether youโve made them yourself or seen others do it. Despite the fact that learning from your own mistakes is often the most effective way to prevent making them in the future, learning from the mistakes of others is far less painful.
Letโs look at some of the common content marketing mistakes that even experts have made.
1. Too Many Marketing Pivots
Marketing is a world that moves quickly – and sometimes, that can get marketers into trouble. Whether itโs a compulsive need to rebrand the product at such a dizzying speed that the logo is hard to recognize without the brand name or constant voice, tone, and brand pivots, doing too much can turn off your already-loyal customers and fail to attract new ones.
An example: the Pepsi logo has changed drastically over the years, while Coca-Cola has mostly remained the same. (Except for its wild teenage years from 1890-1891, but we all have a bit of a rebellious streak sometimes, donโt we?)
2. Overpromising (and Underdelivering)
Giving away products, coaching opportunities, etc. is great. When people swoop it up and show theyโre interested, itโs wonderful. Unless, of course, you run out. You know what they say: hell hath no fury like a customer underdelivered toโฆ or something like that.
From Peloton to Taco Bell, it seems that no brands are immune from overpromising. Many of these companies found that their well-intended promotions led to a decrease in customer satisfaction and necessitated a lot of extra PR for damage control.
3. Being Inconsistent with Content
SEO and posting on social media are two of the most effective ways to increase organic traffic to your website – but knowing that and practicing what you preach are not synonymous. Marketing experts are sometimes the most guilty of creating inconsistent content for themselvesโฆ usually because theyโre so busy doing it for their own boss (and clients) that theyโre too tired to do it for themselves.
SEO takes at least four months to work, but expect it to take six months and youโll be pleasantly surprised if you start seeing results in four. If youโre not posting consistently, itโll probably take even longer. Donโt forget – consistent content keeps you top-of-mind!
4. Losing Sight of Your Brand
Reality check: your brand is more than what you say or think it is. Your brand lives in the minds of your customers. If you lose sight of your brand (or suddenly decide itโs not what itโs always been), be prepared to alienate your loyal customers.
The most prominent (recent) example of losing sight of your brand started with a marketing VP with a misguided plan to appeal to a client base thatโs drastically different from their previous client base.
Sometimes, you wonโt resonate with your client base anymore. You grow and so do they – and you may grow apart. But if thatโs the case, you should rebrand and remarket yourself as an entirely different brand so itโs clear that youโre going a different direction.
5. Not Staying on the Cutting Edge
Similar to content consistency woes, marketers are sometimes guilty of not staying on the cutting edge. Itโs easy to get so bogged down with marketing tasks that you donโt take time to learn the latest marketing news, hone and refine your skills, focus on other ways to generate leads, update your web design, or improve your customer funnel.
Itโs vital to focus on these things, though, because they are a direct reflection of your abilities as a content marketer. Itโs the marketing version of a hair stylist whose hair is always a mess, or a roofer whose own roof is in disrepair. Your own assets are an indication of the effort youโll put into your client work.
6. Content Marketing Gone Wrong
There are horror stories about people who tried to use trending hashtags (either without an awareness of their meaning or an utter insensitivity), only to receive backlash from clients. Of course, there are plenty of email marketing fails as well, and those werenโt received any better!
7. Misunderstanding Cultural Differences
There are some things you donโt do in certain circumstances. You donโt tug on Supermanโs cape, you donโt spit in the wind. You donโt pull the mask off the Lone Ranger, and you donโt mess around with Jim.
Here are a few more culture-oriented things to add to the list:
- You donโt use images of Native Americans with purple body paint because of its association with animals and death.
- You donโt use red as a negative color in Asian cultures – itโs considered lucky in most Eastern countries.
- You donโt show an image (or create a graphic) of vertical chopsticks in a bowl in Asian countries, as that is also associated with death.
- You donโt make a cluttered app in the West, and you donโt make a simple app in the East.
Not only that, but itโs also important to be aware of the language of current affairs and create content in the appropriate language. Here are some examples of current conversations around marketing and branding gone wrong:
- Bud Light received backlash after working with an influencer who is trans, which many previous Bud Light drinkers felt was not in line with the brand. It cost the company millions in sales.
- M&Mโs found themselves in the middle of a cultural conversation about gender after replacing some of their spokescandies shoes. They replaced the green M&Mโs heels with flats and the brown M&Mโs stilettos with a shorter heel, sparking an uproar online about whether they were trying to make these M&Mโs appear androgynous when they previously appeared as feminine.
Outsource Your Marketing to an Expert!
Content marketing isnโt easy – thatโs why most companies have full marketing teams full of specialists to carry the burden of managing the marketing efforts for multiple accounts. Most small-to-medium sized businesses canโt afford to hire a full-time team, so what do you do?
Thankfully, thatโs what weโre here for. At Matcha Design, we have decades of marketing experience and are happy to take care of your content marketing needs. Contact us today to learn more!
