Welcome to the Raka Weekly Roundup, where we cover the week’s news and trends and tell you exactly what you need to know. This week, we weigh in on five content marketing mistakes you shouldn’t be making, more proof video ads are the wave of the future, and why top tech companies are trying to make up their own rules about protecting your privacy.
Five content marketing mistakes and how to fix them
Thirty presenters at the upcoming Content Marketing World were asked to give their take on the biggest marketing mistakes being made in relation to content today. The answers were posted on Content Marketing Institute’s website.
Of that list, we picked five that we feel are big-time no-nos and how to avoid them.
Mistake #1: Publish for the sake of publishing
No matter how many times you hear it, read about it, or see it, some companies just aren’t getting the message that they need to create a content calendar before writing one speck of copy. Why? To get results. If you continue to just create content for the sake of creating content, you’re not moving the needle on your bottom line.
Solution: Create a content calendar that reflects your company’s business goals and marketing strategy. Now, you can start writing killer content that converts.
Mistake #2: See social media as an advertising channel
Sure, social media provides an opportunity to advertise, but if that’s all you’re using it for then you’re really missing the point of what it means to be social.
Solution: Engage with your audience, converse with them, share their posts, embrace the culture rather than just co-exist with it. If you don’t get in the game, there’s no chance of winning it.
Mistake #3: Focus on me, me, me and forget to provide value
This is actually two mistakes combined into one because we thought they went together like peanut butter and jelly. If you’re just putting out content that’s all about you then it’s going to end up in the same place printed direct mail does—in the trash! Just, you know, a digital trash.
Solution: Create content that provides value, answers a question or problem the reader is having or educates them about a relevant topic they’re interested in.
Mistake #4: See the audience as one faceless mass
Do you know what a buyer persona is? If you answered “no” to that question, then stop right there and read this. If you don’t take the time to really think about the people who your product or service appeals to then you’re essentially just tossing darts at a dartboard the size of a dime 100 yards away while wearing a blindfold.
Solution: Take the time to create buyer personas so you can more effectively create marketing content to guide them down the buyer’s journey.
Mistake #5: Fail to think about measurement
Just like most things you do in life, if you don’t have a goal and a way to measure it, then you’re spending a lot of time on the proverbial hamster wheel just going ‘round and ‘round with no apparent destination.
Solution: Get SMART! And by that, I mean create S.M.A.R.T. goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely). Think of it this way, if you want to lose 20 pounds how will you measure that? On a scale of course. Marketing goals are no different. They need to be defined, planned, and measured to gauge a successful outcome.
The good news, most mistakes are meant to teach us something and can usually be corrected. Maybe this post provides a good opportunity for you to sit down with your team and identify your company’s content marketing mishaps and get cracking on fixing them.
No surprise. Video ads are on the rise!
According to the Forrester Analytics: Video Advertising Forecast published recently and reported on by Marketing Land, advertisers will spend a staggering $102.8 billion dollars a year on video ads by 2023 up from $90.7 billion this year.
Ryan Durling, Director of Digital Advertising here at Raka, has already told us that video marketing is a channel businesses should focus on and this report confirms that notion.
According to the report, online video’s share of ad spending is expected to grow from 21.2 percent to 34.3 in 2023. Almost 194 million US consumers are watching some form of ad-supported free streaming video right now and apparently, two-thirds of US adults don’t mind seeing these ads in exchange for free content.
For digital advertisers, text and static banner ads aren’t going away anytime soon, but if you really want to appeal to your audience then creating video ads is where you want to spend some serious time and money in the months and years to come.
Top tech companies proposing federal privacy law
According to a New York Times article this week, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft and other mega technology companies are trying to propose a federal privacy law that would overrule the California digital privacy law that was passed in June. The tech giants, unsurprisingly, feel the new law is too strict.
The California law doesn’t go into effect until January 2020, but it will give consumers the right to know what information companies are collecting about them, why they are collecting it, and who they are sharing it with. It also gives more power to the people to sue companies if there is a data breach and allows the state’s attorney to slap hands and issue fines if companies don’t abide by the new regulations.
Tech companies have collectively agreed that protecting consumers privacy is an issue that must be addressed. They just want to essentially propose their own guidelines on how this should happen.
A lack of trust
Consumer groups aren’t feeling too warm and fuzzy about this idea.
Jim Steyer, president of Common Sense Media, a privacy and children’s advocacy group that supported the California law was quoted in the article saying, “The idea that the companies that violated our privacy for more than a decade will suddenly have a self-regulatory blueprint is ridiculous.”
Clearly, privacy (or lack thereof) has been on the forefront of the news for social media companies and businesses alike, but the question remains, what type of regulation will be both effective and fair to all parties involved?
That’s a question we don’t think will have one simple answer or be resolved anytime soon.
If you’d like to talk about these trends, or need help getting any of your marketing initiatives off the ground, reach out to us!
