7 Common Myths About Content Marketing

It goes without saying that content marketing is not an exact science. This strategy has unclear boundaries and is applied in several different ways, thus raising many myths about it. To avoid having to deal with these inaccurate ideas, we've set the record straight about content marketing.

1. One only needs to know how to write to do content marketing

This is one of the most tenacious myths about content marketing... Some people mistakenly believe that writing error-free is enough to do content marketing. Unfortunately, this strategy is much more complex than appearances may suggest.

In fact, marketing requires writing content while taking into account a large number of variables related to the target audience. Therefore, it's not enough to have a promotional speech but to know how to meet the needs of your readers while putting forward your expertise. 

In addition, you must have the required knowledge to make this same content visible on the internet. It's not enough to write the content and place it on your website. To ensure long-term results, your content must be seen by as many people as possible. Therefore, it is essential to know how to manage and use social media accounts. After all, what can we expect from content that no one reads?

2. Content marketing is not necessary in my field of work

This is probably an argument that you might be tempted to use if your company has been around for several years. There was a time when having your name in a directory was enough. Nowadays, it is impossible to deny the importance of being up-to-date and of marking your presence on the internet. Keep in mind that you must absolutely do better than your competitors in terms of strategies, otherwise, you will quickly be forgotten.

No matter what your field is, you can reap the positive benefits of content marketing, such as the ability to generate traffic towards your website, as well as increasing your conversion rate and differentiating yourself from the competition. To ensure optimal visibility in your area of expertise, this is a must. 

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3. Content marketing is purely a sales pitch

If this is the impression that you got while browsing the web, know that this should not be seen as a statement of fact. First and foremost, content marketing must be informative and showcase your expertise, as well as the knowledge of the services or products you are promoting. 

Therefore, making a promotional offer from the outset should in no case be used as a strategy, since it has no place to be. You should know that when consulting your articles, your reader is not necessarily ready to buy. 

In terms of the sales process, they are only looking for information to better identify the product or service that will meet their needs. So, content marketing is not about pushing a sale, but rather about demonstrating that you have what it takes to meet the needs of a potential customer.

4. Content marketing provides too much information and renders useless direct contacts with the company

This concern may seem legitimate at first sight. It can be quite logical to make a causal connection and believe that a potential customer will not need you once they have the information they need.

Going beyond this reflection, we must go back to the very purpose of content marketing, which was briefly discussed in the previous point: it aims to highlight your potential to meet the specific needs of your customer through a service or product.

Thus, the simple fact of gathering information on a subject does not solve the situation: it only gives your customer the means to help them find answers to their questions.

5. To do content marketing on multiple platforms, all you need to do is to re-broadcast the same content 

Content should never be displayed in the same way on all social networks. For example, on Twitter, posts should be more frequent than on Facebook or LinkedIn, and tweets cannot exceed 140 characters. On LinkedIn, you must make sure to highlight the commercial interest of your publications in order to meet the parameters of this social network. With regards to Facebook, specific care should be taken with calls-to-action and the way that publications are shared on this social network.

In order for users to see an interest in following you on different platforms, you should not rebroadcast exactly the same content at the same time. Although much of the information may remain similar, certain tweaks should be made to the various publications.

Lastly, it should be noted that you can always use social media management tools if you are concerned about the need to save time.

6. The return on investment (ROI) of content marketing is not measurable

You may think that the client will read your articles and then, nothing ... Since marketing is a strategy in itself, there are tools that can measure the concrete impacts. On Facebook, for example, analytical tools provide a record of shares, likes, and clicks on a publication for each week. So you can determine the popularity of your publications relative to each other and know the conversion rate of each one.

When looking to identify which articles spark the most interest on your website, Google Analytics is an extremely useful tool. As mentioned in our article "How Google Analytics Works" this tool collects qualitative and quantitative data about the visitors who viewed your articles. Besides, by incorporating calls-to-action at the very end of your articles, you will be able to quickly and effectively know which visitors have actually been convinced by reading your publication.

As a result, it is wrong to believe that having access to data measuring the impact of the efforts you've invested in your content marketing strategy is impossible.

7. If content marketing is effective, it should quickly give results

Even if your articles are well referenced and great attention has been given to the quality of the information and the selection of keywords, the positive impacts of your content marketing strategy will take a lot of time to manifest themselves. Moreover, as with any marketing strategy, readjustments will be necessary to perfect your content and allow it to better meet the needs of readers.

In this same perspective, let's say that building a relationship of trust can never be done quickly, this rule also applies to marketing.

For more information about content marketing, check out: "6 content marketing tools you should know about".