When Seth Godin said “content marketing is the only marketing left”, he made an extreme yet viable point. Consumers are using DVR to skip television adverts, ignoring print adverts by taking online subscriptions, and becoming web-savvy enough to turn a blind eye to pop-ups, buttons and banners. A new wave of marketers is learning that by delivering consistent, valuable information to customers, they will be rewarded with business and loyalty. Content marketing is creating a new rulebook, and in order to avoid eternal damnation (and even worse, lost business), aim to avoid the 7 cardinal sins.

The 7 deadly sins of content marketing:

1. Selling

It’s absolutely right to feel a sense of pride in your business and what it provides, but companies embarking on a content marketing strategy tread a fine line between discussing their products and services and blatant selling. Corporate blogs, for example, offer businesses an ideal platform to communicate how they solve a certain problem for their target audience. Remember that content marketing should never be about pitching. Rather, it is a means of delivering information that makes your prospective buyer more intelligent and informed.

2. Unclear strategy

There are no fast tracks or shortcuts to attracting and retaining customers with content. Any business expecting to impact on their bottom line without a well-planned strategy will be sorely disappointed. Invest time in determining your customers’ precise informational needs, then offer them the tools they need to make their decisions. Content marketing is more about give than take.

3. Sloth

Or to put it another way, procrastination. How many times have you sat down to write a blog or upload a video clip and become sidetracked by all-important tasks such as updating your Facebook status, checking you bank balance or perusing the App Store’s latest offerings. By the time you’ve swung by Twitter and Google+, you’re completely out of time to create any useful content, let alone optimise it or push it put into the social space.

4. Unoriginality

It’s one thing to follow the most popular and respected blogs in your sector, but quite another to copy from them. By all means seek inspiration from the cream of online content, but never reproduce it, you will be found out and lose the respect of your peers and readers. Originality also means thinking beyond the traditional article-style blog post to other forms of compelling content like photos, ebooks, white papers and branded video. Some 52% of US marketers reported using branded video as a distribution channel in 2011, according to the Custom Content Council.

5. Rambling

The one thing all online audiences have in common, regardless of industry or interest, is a lack of time. Content, therefore, should be succinct and informative without being threadbare. Get to the point quickly, whether using copy or video, or risk losing prospective customers and clients to snappier content.

6. Sloppiness

While each piece of content needn’t necessarily be Pulitzer Prize-worthy, it does serve the important function of representing your brand in the social space. Select the best writers/editors within your organisation and proofread each piece of content – repeated typos, grammatical errors and spelling mistakes can diminish the impact of content and your online reputation.

7. Greed

Once businesses start experiencing the positive results of content marketing, for example by generating a new batch of leads after releasing a high-quality white paper, it can be tempting to get the next one out pronto. Remember that creating excellent content that will position your company as a thought leader above the competition takes time. It’s more important to get it right than to get it out there. Outsourcing specialist content such as white papers and branded video will help to keep standards consistently high.