Here's an example of how powerful content marketingcan be:

• In a single year, Cox Media generated over 2,000 leads.
• Workiva resulted in an increase of 84 percent in average blog visits and a 21% increase in referral traffic.
• Optum's content marketing initiatives resulted in a 20 percent increase in inquiries in just two months

Content marketing is a great marketing tool that has helped many businesses increase their revenue. You don't believe me, do you?

DemandBase, a marketing technology company, created 1,700 new leads and nearly $1 million in additional income by using a variety of content (infographics, white papers, webinars, and so on).

Despite the fact that content marketing appears to have all of the pearls, many B2B brands appear to struggle in making their reality match up with the numbers.

According to a recent HubSpot survey, B2B organizations that churned out 11 times more posts per month than their competitors who just offered zero or one post per month got three times more visits than those who only served one post per month.

Isn't it bizarre? If you're like other content marketers who are having trouble, you've probably "churned" out a lot of posts but can't seem to meet your lead or sales targets.

There's a reason for this. And it's because you're making some basic content marketing mistakes. It's not just about serving material; it's about serving the appropriate stuff.

Let's look at some of the biggest blunders that most content marketers do unintentionally or simply ignore, read ahead to find out more about worst mistakes in B2B content marketing.

How to do B2B CONTENT MARKETING the right way in 2021? Takeaways from Backlinko Report by Brian Dean

Content Marketing's Importance Is Undervalued

Over 63 percent of firms, according to Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs data, do not have a content marketing plan! Given the information we've just seen, that's incredible. This means that such B2B companies are missing out on a lot of traffic that may lead to leads and sales.

To avoid falling behind your competitors who have embraced the benefits of content marketing, you must first comprehend its importance. Offering just one or two pieces of material throughout the course of a month will not do honor to your offerings. Consider the case of Buffer, which began guest blogging on several authority sites, supplying multiple pieces per day while also producing high-quality content on their own blog. This technique/hack drove them to a total of 100k users. That's pretty impressive data, demonstrating the power and importance of content marketing. Buffer also has over 400,000 users and more than three authority blogs. These are the kinds of outcomes you can expect when you place a premium on content marketing.

Failure To Make The Most Of Traffic

We've seen the power of content marketing and the volume of traffic it can generate, but what do you do with all that traffic once it arrives? That's where a lot of B2B companies go wrong when it comes to content marketing.

Although having a large number of visitors to your site is beneficial, it will not result in sales.

Before you even think about sales, you need a way to collect these visits and turn them into leads. In fact, you're missing almost 67 percent of your potential clients if you don't have a way to collect leads with your content.

So, how do you go about doing this? Well, it's a lot easier than you thought. In exchange for your client's information, provide value with a lead magnet.

People nowadays are attempting to avoid spam and unsolicited messages, yet free trials, newsletters, updates, or sneak peeks into your services can acquire you whatever form of lead you want.

So don't just let those visitors enjoy your content before moving on to the next page; grab their attention by including more value in your content that they'll want.

Creating Content Without Enough Information

More than 51% of B2B customers say they rely on content to make purchasing decisions, which implies you won't get any sales if they don't comprehend your offer or don't have enough information about it.

Plus, there's more. Before speaking with a salesperson, 78 percent of B2B clients examine the trustworthiness of material.

That's quite a figure!

It also demonstrates the need of creating in-depth content. You can't come across as a noob when it comes to what you're selling, especially when it comes to your content.

This is bad for both leads and sales. Nobody will pay you for something they don't fully get.

So, before you start churning out material, be sure you know what you're doing. Allow potential customers to travel from your content to your offer knowing everything there is to know about it, leaving no space for uncertainty.

If 51% of customers rely on material before making a purchase, that content must be comprehensive enough to satisfy all of their questions.

Lacking A Goal

RipCurl's "ideal surfing brand" is a great example of the potential of tailoring content to the preferences of your users. The Search, a publication produced by the brand, is essentially a history of surfers for surfers.

It is about surfers sharing their experiences on various beaches, waves, and surfing skills with other surfers. And because of this easy strategy of establishing a center for their target market (surfers), they now have over 100,000 YouTube subscribers and over 2 million Facebook fans. Imagine creating content without a specific target audience in mind.

That would be a disaster, with little to no results because none of your visitors would believe what you have to give is tailored to them, and you won't be able to build loyalty, which is crucial for sales. As a result, make sure your content is tailored to the demographic you want to reach.

Email Marketing Ignorance

If you're familiar with the numbers, this is arguably one of the worst things you could do to your brand. You'd be robbing yourself of a significant number of potential sales. In fact, according to a SmartInsights study, content promotion via email marketinggenerates a 40-dollar return on investment for every $1 invested!

Isn't it incredible? Consider how much you've lost out on by disregarding email promos because they appeared to be old. That is not something you should do. It's one of the most effective strategies to keep your B2B buyers informed about your offers or items, according to research.

To further pique your interest, according to a Statista survey, 90 percent of US males use email on a regular basis, indicating the type of activity your material will see.

To get your material out there, use email marketing.

Being Overly Sales (Promotional)

B2B buyers are engaging content, as we've seen before, not because they've decided to buy, but because they want to make an informed decision and evaluate if your offer is worthwhile.

That is to say, they aren't looking to be overwhelmed with "buy now" buttons throughout your material; instead, they want to learn more about what they're getting into.

In addition, 93% of marketers believe that interactive content is far more effective than static material.

So, in addition to delivering regular material, you must entice the reader and make them feel as if they have a stake in what you have to give.

Simply trying to sell a product with a few words isn't going to cut it with B2B buyers - you have to be able to satiate their ignorance about your offer before even considering pitching your goods.

It's a massive mistake to use the second line of your content as a call to action, asking the buyer to make a decision when he or she has no idea what it is or hasn't been given enough information to make an informed decision.

They've been continuing strong since then, and now have an online publication. They didn't merely aim to persuade people to buy; instead, they sought to provide information that was profitable to the customer first.

Promoting The Wrong Product To The Wrong People

How well do you understand your target market? What is your understanding of what your users like and don't like? Regardless of your business's niche, you must define who your target audience is.

The AARP magazine, which has over 200 million readers and has earned multiple accolades for the quality of its content, is a fantastic example.

But there's a reason for this. They target the correct audience with the right message.

What are their methods for accomplishing this? They solicit feedback from their audience and use it into their content creation.

It's similar to ordering a dinner at a restaurant and having it delivered. If you're the customer, you'll never be disappointed since you're getting exactly what you want.

Consider this scenario: you offer software to B2B clients, and you can see from their comments and emails that they all want an update to a specific piece of software, but you instead publish articles about completely different products. That would be bad for your business. As a result, stick to what your target audience wants.

SEO Is Being Overlooked

What if I told you how important SEOis?

Well, 95% of people only look at the first page of Google, which means that if your material isn't on the first page, you're fighting for the remaining 5% of traffic. Isn't it a blunder? Plus, there's more. According to other surveys, half of these 95% clicks only get to the first page's top three results. So, if you don't include search engine optimizationin your content marketing strategy, you're probably making a mistake that will cost you a lot of money. To increase your visitors, make sure your material is probably optimized for search engines.

Keyword Research Of Poor Quality

Because of Google Rank Brain, merely filling your content with keywords won't help it build any authority on search engineresults pages (SERPs). It goes far further than that, and this is where many content marketers fall short.

You must be able to answer users' questions before they ask them. Google must be satisfied that your material satisfies the user's needs. The search recommendations are a wonderful method to achieve this. They highlight the types of questions customers commonly ask about the keywords you're attempting to rank for, allowing you to provide answers to these questions before they even ask them.

Prioritize Quantity Over Quality

Because they believe that greater is always better, many content marketers make the mistake of sacrificing quality for quantity.

In certain circumstances, more is better, but not in content marketing; you can't expect to get leads simply by writing a lot of content; it doesn't work that way.

When visitors come to your site, they aren't searching for extensive, bulky information; instead, they are seeking for quality content that will provide them with what they want.

As a result, if your material is lengthy but of poor quality, it is effectively useless to visitors, and once your content is deemed useless, your prospects of generating leads are slim to none.

In reality, you only have 10 seconds to get your message across.

Always make sure that the content you publish is of excellent quality and useful to your target audience; make it rich in information that will benefit your potential consumers.

You can incorporate pictures and videos in your content, which will pique their attention and encourage them to convert.

According to a 2017 survey, the three most engaging categories of social mediamaterial are written content, videos, and photos. This data can be used to generate leads for your business.

There Are No Calls To Action

The majority of content marketers make the error of omitting a call to action from their material.

People will visit your site, read your amazing information, and then leave without making any commitments or doing steps that could produce leads for you if you don't include a call to action in your content.

A call to action encourages the reader to take the next step by nudging the potential consumer into making a purchase or converting.

When people read your material and it answers their queries, they are more likely to trust you and buy whatever they want from you. If there isn't a provision for that, they will assume you're only there to feed them useful information and will go somewhere else to make their purchase. WordStream, for example, uses a free report as a call to action, and each opt-in turns into a potential lead.

Inadequate Promotion

One of the most typical content marketing blunders is this.

Content marketing does not end with the creation of high-quality content, the addition of images, and the publication of the content; it must also be promoted in order to obtain visibility and generate leads. You will receive no leads if you publish content without promoting it.

Before you publish your material, make sure you have a strategy in place to attract traffic to it. Partnering with influencersto spread your material and providing it to your subscribers via email are both examples of promotion.

It makes no difference what sort of promotion you choose; what matters is that you make an attempt to promote your material.

Irrelevant Information

The reason you aren't getting the number of leads you want is most likely because you aren't meeting their needs, therefore they don't feel obligated to thank you by converting or purchasing.

If you want your audience to feel obligated to you, you must provide material that is both relevant and offers information that will pique their interest.

Avoid the trap of constantly churning out material without assessing its relevance to your target audience. Don't post articles, videos, or infographics that are completely unrelated to your niches.

Fill Out A Form In Order To Access The Content

What happens when an unstoppable force, such as marketing best practices, collides with an immovable object, such as consumer preferences? First and foremost, that should not occur. Consumer preferences should guide best practices, but contact forms are a bit of a grey area. B2B marketers might use gated contentto collect information from potential clients so that they can contact them later. However, there are situations when corporate customers just want to access a piece of content without having to divulge personal information (and deal with the inevitable follow up emails and sales calls).

I've been on both sides of this debate and have strong opinions on the subject, some of which may not be shared by other marketers. Here are some ideas on how your company should address this conflict of interests:

• If you utilize a form, make sure the material behind it is worth the consumer's time to read. (On that point, no blog post is worth filling out a form, even if it is written by J.K. Rowling.)
• When a customer fills out a form, they are entrusting you with personal information; treat it with care and respect.
• Filling out a basic form and reading a piece of information does not imply that you have permission to call someone again.

You've probably discovered a number of things you're doing properly in your content marketing campaigns as you've read through the list. And you could have found a few nuggets, an aha moment that inspires you to change or add something new to your content marketing strategy. So give yourself a few well-deserved pats on the back before hunkering down to make a few tweaks for even more content marketing success.

What Is Content-Based Marketing?

Content marketing is a marketing approach that uses relevant articles, videos, podcasts, and other media to attract, engage, and keep an audience. This strategy builds expertise, raises brand recognition, and keeps your company at the front of mind when it comes time to buy what you sell.

What Is An Example Of Content Marketing?

Content marketing includes instructional articles, e-books, videos, entertainment, and webinars that address particular issues and give customers something they can't get anywhere else. It's the most effective approach to differentiate your goods, no matter how ordinary, from everyone else's.

What Is The Role Of Content Marketing?

The goal of content marketing is to encourage people to take action. Someone should be enticed by content that is valuable, interesting, and relevant. The content marketer's duty is to figure out not just how toaccomplish it, but also how to measure the effectiveness of the tactics used.