n recent years, content marketing has emerged as one of the most effective marketing strategies. At least when it is done right. Content improves SEO, generates more website traffic and leads, earns your company brand awareness and reputation, engages your audience, and best of all, it is relatively cheap in comparison to other marketing strategies. Yet, many startups still struggle with it. Here are three if the most common reasons why, and what you can do to fix them.

1. You don’t have a consistent strategy. Because content marketing is such a hot buzz topic, many startups decide, almost on a whim, to create a blog for the sake of creating a blog. Without a strategy, this is completely ineffective. It leads to inconsistent messaging and articles that are published only sporadically. To develop a content strategy, you need to think through the following:

• What do you hope to achieve with your content?
• What are your KPIs? Typically, you are looking for the following: 1. to drive more traffic back to your website, 2. to convert that traffic to leads, 3. to create better brand awareness.
• What message are you trying to push? Stick to a couple of key ideas that revolve around the benefits that your product offers. Drive those points home in every article that you publish.
• Who is your target audience? What are their major pain points? How would they speak about them?

Once you have your strategy, implement it and (VERY important) measure its effectiveness. Revise only if something isn’t working. Do not pivot constantly or try to play catch-up to competitors. Too many changes, and you will be back to square 1 with inconsistent or confusing messaging.

2. Your content is bad. I can’t stress enough how important quality is to ensure that your content marketing is a success. So many articles end up with one or more of these mistakes:

• Not written for the right audience
• Poorly written (boring)/grammatical mistakes
• Not providing value/actionable insights
• Too sales-y

If you aren’t sure if your content falls into one of these categories, then it probably does. Go back and rework your content. If you aren’t a marketer and don’t have a marketing team, hire an experienced writer to write for you. It will be well worth the investment.

3. You aren’t promoting your content. While content marketing can do wonders for your website’s SEO, relying solely on organic traffic will not work. You need to pitch your content to press and influential bloggers. Send it to leads and clients in a newsletter. Put it on social. Have your company share it. Bottom line: get the word out!

Any company can master content marketing, and by fixing these three key mistakes, you will be well on your way to becoming a pro. By investing in a well thought out content strategy, you’ll reap the benefits and see positive ROI on your marketing efforts.

tl;dr: create a strategy, focus on great content, promote it.