SEO, guest blogs, scheduling and many other fundamentals are probably the basics of content marketing you know like the back of your hand. By now, you are probably scheduling your blog posts regularly and have defined a voice for your company. How are you going to improve and take your content to the next level? Let’s take a look at some mistakes you could be making beyond the surface.

1. Do You Really Know Your Audience?

There’s a reason why research is so important in all facets of marketing. Many times people believe they already know their target audience because they’ve been in the industry for a while or they are part of the demographic as well. It’s never good to assume anything! Conducting research will give you a true and clear understanding of your target audience, you may have been right with your guess but you may also discover unexpected facts that can help bring in more views.

Put yourself in your audience's shoes and find out what they may like to do or how their days are usually run. Start there and conduct research. The internet is a great resource. If your target audience turns out to be women from the ages of 24-35, you may want to include topics that can help with with other aspects of their lives such as family or hobbies they can incorporate into their work. The possibilities are endless but you must do the proper research for accurate results.

Related: 4 Content Marketing Mistakes and How to Fix Them

2. Being Too Specific

Find your target audience, catering to that audience, but don’t get too caught up in pleasing the few. A good content marketing strategy touches all bases from providing useful information to current clients and to attracting potential leads. You don’t want to make the mistake of creating content just for your target audience when there is a sea of customers you are able to catch!

Try to make content relatable on all levels. From attraction to problem-solving to promotion. You want a spectrum of content to give yourself the best chance at marketing your company.

For example, if you own a dog walking company you of course want to post articles on “Tips to keep your dog on it’s leash” or “Best raincoats for your dog”. These are very specific and speak to a few very loyal dog owners. You want to branch out but stay relevant like “Local pet adoption locations” or “Potty training your pup”. These are definitely related to your business but also reach out to a wider scope of people.

Related: 3 Ways to Supplement your Content Marketing Strategy

3. Keep Track As You Go

So you’re going to research your audience and broaden the topics of your blog, right? Of course you are! Your job is not done after finishing tasks 1 and 2. In order for you to optimize your content, you have to analyze and keep track. Here at Near Me we use Hubspot that allows us to review our best and worst performing blogs. This gives us insight on what to write more on and what to consider less. You can see the results by looking at the CTR or the interactions/comments your readers leave.

Look at the trends going on, is there a certain topic people open the most? Act on the data you find. This step is definitely the most important and you’ll learn as you go to fine tune your blog.

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