Many B2C marketers make mistakes in content marketing. These issues can make potential customers uninterested. They must find proper ways to avoid those problems.
If you are a marketer, avoiding this will help your content marketing work well. According to the report of Hubspot, 29% of marketers actively use content marketing. However, 50% of marketers plan on increasing their investment in content marketing in 2024.
Alright! Let’s first discuss B2C content marketing and then common mistakes that marketers should avoid in content marketing.
What Is B2C Content Marketing?
B2C content marketing is when companies create stories, videos, or pictures to tell people about their products or services.
According to a survey by Content Marketing Institute, 70% of B2C marketers reported that their organization has a content marketing strategy.
The goal is to help people learn about what the company sells interestingly. It is not done through regular advertising.
Why is B2C content marketing important?
- It helps companies connect with customers and build trust.
- People are more interested in the company’s products when they learn about them through inspirational stories.
- It can bring more people to the company’s website or social media pages.
- Creative content stands out more than boring ads.
- It shows the company cares about helping customers, not just selling things.
In the Content Marketing Institute’s survey report, 70% of B2C marketers said that content marketing has become more important to their organization.
Common Mistakes B2C Marketers Should Avoid
B2C marketers sometimes need help to make their campaigns successful. You can avoid them to get more customers and more sales. Here, I will discuss some of these common mistakes and how you can avoid them as a marketer.
1. Too Much Promotional Content
Sometimes, companies create too much content that is only about selling their products. They talk about how great their products are repeatedly. This is called too much promotional content.
According to Influence & Co.’s latest research report, 71% of publication editors say the content they receive is too promotional.
This can make people get bored and annoyed when everything is just “buy this!” All the time. People stop paying attention.
How can you avoid this?
- You should make content that is helpful, not always try to sell things.
- Write stories, give advice, or just be entertaining.
A little promotion is okay, but most of your content should not be about selling directly. This keeps people interested and happy to hear from your company.
As per experts from a survey of Content Marketing Institute , 65% of B2C marketers always prioritize the audience’s informational needs over their promotional content.
2. Not Using Visuals or Infographics
When a company’s everything is just words, words, words, this is not a good approach because people get bored easily without any visuals. Pictures and infographics help explain things better, too.
In a survey by the Content Marketing Institute, they forecast that 72% of marketers invest in video marketing.
Image source: Freepik
How can you avoid this?
- You can add pictures, short videos, charts, graphics—anything that makes the content more fun and easier to understand.
- Visuals catch people’s attention and help you learn better. A mix of words and visuals is best.
Just words are boring, but too many visuals without words are confusing. Finding the right balance can make your content great.
Its importance can be measured by the findings from DemandSage that infographics are 30 times more likely to be read than a written article, and they can increase website traffic by up to 12%.
Related article: 15 Ways To Use Data Visualization Tools
3. Making Content Without Planning
Marketers sometimes create content without thinking about or planning it. This leads to their content ending up being confusing and not making sense. They create content without proper research, editing, or reviewing.
However, in a survey report by the Content Marketing Institute, I found that just 37% of B2C content marketers have a documented marketing strategy.
How can you avoid this?
- You should decide what topics to talk about, what messages to share, and what you want to achieve.
- Having a clear plan, like proper outlines and keyword research, helps all your content fit together nicely. This can help you achieve your marketing goals.
Your well-planned content engages people and can work really well. You can create content from your well-researched outlines with the help of an AI paragraph generator. It can add more value to your text because it writes optimized content.
However, experts from Hubspot say that 39% of marketers list optimizing on-page content based on keywords as their top SEO strategy.
4. Content With No Brand Voice
Sometimes companies make content that doesn’t sound like them at all. Their videos, posts, and articles could be from any random business.
They have no special voice that fits their brand. This can be problematic because people can’t connect with the company’s personality.
How can you avoid this?
- You need to give your content a unique brand voice because this makes it easy for customers to recognize your company.
- You should decide how you want to sound—fun, expert, friendly, etc.—so all your content can have that same tone.
Having no brand voice makes the content boring and forgettable. But a consistent voice builds connection and loyalty.
As a survey from Marq showed, 68% of companies report that maintaining brand consistency helps contribute 10% to over 20% to revenue growth.
Moreover, I found the Statista report, which showed that 60% of individuals perceive trustworthiness and transparency as the key characteristics of a brand.
5. Using Irrelevant Content
Marketers may create content that has nothing to do with their business or what customers want to know. The videos, posts, and articles are about random topics that don’t matter. This is not a great thing because people get confused and bored.
Image source: Freepik
How can you avoid this?
- You should only make content that is directly related to their products, services, or industry.
- Your topics need to be things your customers actually care about and find useful.
Irrelevant content is a waste of time that turns people away. However relevant, helpful content keeps customers engaged and interested in the company. It’s all about giving people the information they really want.
According to Hubspot, informative content to engage with their audiences is a top strategic goal.
6. Unaware of Your Target Audience
Sometimes content marketers make content without really knowing who they are trying to reach. They don’t understand what kinds of people want to buy their products. This leads to content that doesn’t connect with anyone.
According to a survey report from Content Marketing Institute, 57% of B2C marketers said they were challenged with creating content that appeals to different target audiences.
How can you avoid this?
- You need to clearly define your target audience.
- You should learn about your customers’ ages, interests, problems, and what kind of content they enjoy.
Once you deeply understand your audience, you can create content that those specific people will love. Making content for an unclear audience means no one will be interested. But making it for a defined target makes the content appealing and effective.
From a Hubspot report, a majority of marketers say that the data they have about their target audiences is of high quality (44%).
7. Not using social media platforms
Some companies don’t share their content on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This is a big mistake because that’s the place where many people spend their time these days.
As per SproutSocial report, 77% of consumers prefer shopping with brands they follow on social media.
If the content isn’t on social media, a lot of people will miss it.
Semrush reports that social media and community building are the primary areas of B2C content marketing investment.
Image source: Freepik
How can you avoid this?
- You should carefully pick the right social platforms for your business and target audience.
- You need to post their blogs, videos, and other content regularly on those sites.
Not using social media means the content can’t be easily seen and shared. But being active on the right platforms helps a ton of new people discover great content. Social media is a must nowadays.
Moreover, according to an Edelman Trust report, 82% of individuals are inclined to trust a company more when its senior executives actively engage on social media platforms.
8. Not Updating Your Content
Content marketers make content, but they never update or change it. Their blog posts, videos, and other things become outdated and fade over time. This is bad because people lose interest in old and irrelevant content.
How can you avoid this?
- You need to regularly update your content using an AI paragraph rewriter. It can rewrite your old content to make it fresh and add more quality to it.
- You should add new posts, refresh old ones, and keep everything current and fresh.
Updating shows customers that the company is active and ensures the content stays helpful and engaging.
As per the report of Hubspot, 48% of social media marketers share content across platforms with minor moderations or adaptations. In comparison, 34% make unique content from scratch for each platform, and 17% share the same content across platforms.
Nobody wants to read things from years ago that are no longer accurate or useful. But frequently updated content keeps people coming back for the latest, greatest information.
9. Not Using AI Tools, Especially SEO Tools
Some marketers don’t use tools to help with their content. They miss out on AI and SEO tools that make content better.
This is a mistake because those tools are really helpful. They help to make your content rank higher, create content, or edit existing content.
According to the research of the Content Marketing Institute, the top three ways content marketers use AI include: brainstorm new topics (50%), to research headlines and keywords (49%), and to write content (36%).
How can you avoid this?
- You should start using AI tools to assist with writing, editing, and optimizing content.
- SEO tools ensure content can be easily found by people searching online.
Not using these tools means the content may have mistakes, be hard to find, and not perform at its best. But, using AI and SEO tools results in higher-quality, more visible content that works great. The tools save time and make the content way more effective.
A study by experts of Kibo Commerce showed marketers who use AI see an average 70% increase in ROI.
How Can You Avoid These Common Content Marketing Mistakes?
Now you know about the big mistakes that many B2C marketers make in content marketing. These problems could be better for their business and turn customers away. But you don’t have to make those same mistakes.
Follow the advice given to avoid your campaigns becoming unsuccessful. Your customers will then love your brand’s great content and be more likely to buy your products.
Besides these recommendations, content marketing for B2C is changing. Ensure you stay in line with the latest trends and top tactics others in your industry use. Try to observe and reverse engineer and make your marketing efforts fly high.
