In an era in which the majority of companies are reliant on content marketing, the wheat will inevitably emerge from the chaff: good content marketing here, bad content marketing there. Bad content marketing is often marked by the same recurring errors – three of which are particularly severe.

1. MISSING THE TARGET AUDIENCE

Groundhog Day! No matter the type of marketing flow, the potential customer must always remain your central focus. While most marketers are aware of this maxim, many do not follow it through to its natural conclusion: potential customers are distinguished by their individual interests, unique everyday lives, differing needs and specific challenges.

It's worth thinking about these characteristics in terms of a persona. Only when the marketer is certain of who this persona is can they determine the content, tone of voice and format in a content strategy. While those who skip this step might end up striking the right tone by chance, it's much more common that potential customers have no interest in the topics offered, do not "get on" with the chosen format or are simply addressed in an entirely unsuitable way.

2. INTERSPERSING THE CONTENT WITH SELF-PROMOTION

Some marketers interpret the "marketing" in "content marketing" as a green light to promote their own products or services within the content. At this point, the content ceases to be content at all.

The basic idea behind content marketing is to supply the target group with content in which they have a natural interest or for which there is a genuine demand. Advertising and marketing messages do not fall into this category.

What's more, by deploying such a content marketing strategy, marketers risk permanently alientating their target group. Many readers are media-savvy enough to distinguish between balanced journalistic content and advertising spiel. If your potential customers realise they are being "groomed" to make a purchase – despite the fact that they simply want to be entertained or informed – they will leave your website.

3. APPLYING DIFFERENT CRITERIA THAN FOR "REGULAR" QUALITY JOURNALISM

Content marketing involves using relevant content to help make your target audience aware of your brand. There is a long list of criteria that content must fulfil to achieve this goal. One point, however, is of greater significance than the rest.

Think about yourself. What kind of content gets your time and attention during a Sunday afternoon on the sofa? When we're scrolling down our feed readers or leafing through online magazines, we tend to skip anything that appears to be of mediocre or inferior quality.

By and large, your target group will be no different – which means that marketing content should be judged by the same criteria as quality journalism or entertainment writing.

THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD NEWS...

These three major content marketing pitfalls come with some good and some bad news.

• First, the bad: good content marketing is expensive. You need professional writers, time and an adequate budget.
• But there's a flip side: if you have the right people or the right content marketing agency at your disposal, you'll be well placed to position yourself ahead of the competition – many of whom are still making one or more of the mistakes described above.