Content marketing is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes, while there are tons of prophets out there describing what to do, it is not one size fits all. Its already 2023 and yet many marketers are still just spraying and praying for the best, so in this blog, it's important to note and avoid these common sins (aka mistakes). Also, in order to avoid content marketing failure, do check out the penance (aka solutions) so that you may receive absolution from the digital marketing gods.

It goes without saying, content marketing is sacred because it helps businesses and brands to:

• Increase brand awareness
• Generate leads
• Drive sales

Here are some statistics to show you how divine content marketing is:

• Content marketing generates three times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing but costs 62% less. (Demand Metric)
• 73% of B2B marketers and 70% of B2C marketers use content marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy. (Content Marketing Institute)
• 91% of marketing pros surveyed by Semrush achieved success with their content marketing in 2021. (Semrush, aka the bible for SEO)
• B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those that don't. (HubSpot)
• Businesses that publish high-quality blog content consistently are more likely to see an increase in organic search traffic. (Backlinko)

With that in mind, here is the list: 

1st sin: Not having a clear plan or goal. What do you want to achieve with your content marketing efforts? Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales? Once you know your goals, you can develop a plan to create and distribute content that will help you achieve them.

Penance: Take some time to develop a content marketing strategy that outlines your goals and how you plan to achieve them.

2nd sin: Not defining your target audience. Who are you creating content for? Once you know who your target audience is, you can tailor your content to their interests and needs.

Penance: Conduct audience research to learn more about your target audience's interests, needs, and pain points.

3rd sin: Creating content that is low-quality. High-quality content is informative, engaging, and well-written. It should also be relevant to your target audience and aligned with your content marketing goals.

Penance: Make sure to proofread your content carefully before publishing it. You can also ask colleagues or friends to review your content for you.

4th sin: Not promoting your content. Once you've created high-quality content, you need to promote it so that people can find and consume it. You can promote your content through social media, email marketing, and other channels.

Penance: Share your content on social media, email it to your subscribers, and submit it to relevant directories and websites.

5th sin: Not measuring your results. It's important to track the results of your content marketing efforts so that you can see what's working and what's not. This will help you to refine your strategy over time.

Penance: Use analytics tools to track website traffic, social media engagement, and other metrics to measure the performance of your content.

6th sin: Not accounting for SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your content so that it ranks higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This can help you to reach a wider audience and drive more traffic to your website.

Penance: Optimize your content for relevant keywords and phrases. You can use a keyword research tool to find relevant keywords.

7th sin: Failing to account for link building. Link building is the process of acquiring links to your website from other high-quality websites. Links are a signal to search engines that your website is authoritative and trustworthy, and they can help you to rank higher in SERPs.

For inspiration, here are some examples of how digital content marketing is done well. By following these tips, you can stay clear from sin and set your content marketing efforts up for redemption.