Eric Murphy says, “According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2015 B2B and B2C benchmark reports, less than a quarter of marketers are able to prove content marketing ROI. Measurement is a key area of difficulty: 49% of B2B and 51% of B2C marketers were challenged with measuring content effectiveness in 2014. While definitions of effectiveness may vary by team, it should at least be simple to figure out if you’re successful once you define what “success” means. Here are two simple steps to establish a baseline for content effectiveness and prove if it’s failing (or not). Step... [...]

Jerod Morris says, “Talk is cheap. So it should come as no surprise that when it comes to content marketing strategy, simply talking about it is not enough. That is the big takeaway from the 2015 benchmarks, budgets, and trends study by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, sponsored by our own Rainmaker Platform. According to the study, only 39 percent of B2B small business marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. The rest either have a strategy that they have only talked about (47 percent), have no strategy at all (12 percent), or are unsure (1 percent)”. Data... [...]

Lindsay Kolowich says, “Creative trends can be fickle. Remember those super glossy CTAs that used to be on every website? Now, flat, minimalistic design is in. Whether you’re a seasoned or amateur designer, no marketer should be in the dark about the latest design trends. So what’s in store for 2015 in the creative world? Using their impressive collection of video clips, music tracks, and over 47 million images, Shutterstock created an infographic that predicts this year’s up-and-coming design trends. Check it out below to learn what trends are on the up-and-up around... [...]

Jason Miller says,I’ve had the invaluable experience of growing up fast as a marketer alongside a marketing industry maturing just as quickly in the digital age. When I first made the move to the B2B marketing space in 2009, there was a shift happening: Social media was starting to take off. Suddenly, marketers were faced with a whole slew of new platforms and technologies we had to master to do our jobs. What I’ve learned over these last six years has served me well as I’ve taken on the role of senior content manager at LinkedIn. The main message I’ve taken away? Being a one-dimensional... [...]

Devesh Khanal says, “How do I get influencers to share my content? Content marketers are forever seeking an answer to this question. You know that successfully partnering with influencers in your field could turn your great content into viral content. But too many of us never connect with influencers because we’re stuck on this nagging question: “How will I ever get this famous/busy person to give me the time of day?” The answer, of course, is: Add value. But we’ve heard that answer too many times. The real question is how do you add value?“. How to Use Seed Content to Build... [...]

Ian Cleary says, “Content marketing can be time-consuming. With a good plan you can become more effective, and using the right tools should be an important part of that. These seven tools will help make a big difference in your content marketing productivity. 1. SEMrush – Identify how your competitor is ranking on Google SEMrush is a great tool to help you assess the traffic a competitor gets on Google and the keywords for which they are ranking”. 7 Content Marketing Tools to Improve Your Productivity Content Marketing Institute  [...]

Jesse Mawhinney says, “Each year in mid-January, when all of last year’s research has been published, we like to read through some of the major reports on inbound marketing, content marketing, social media and online behavior. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, honestly, it’s amazing how fast things can change in twelve short months and 2014 was certainly no exception. While reviewing this year’s research two major trends emerged and both highlight the effectiveness of visual content marketing. As you will learn, this year’s data reveals that marketers who are leveraging... [...]

Rebecca Lieb says, “How many major brands want to create their content marketing in-house? One hundred percent.  That isn’t a made-up statistic. This was an actual finding a couple of years ago when I was conducting content marketing research, interviewing senior executives from over 50 brands such as Nestlé, GE, Adobe, IBM and Coca-Cola. The next finding was even more interesting. We asked these brands what type of agency they were likely to select for content creation: an ad agency, PR agency, social media agency, or one of the much smaller breed of storytelling agency (e.g., Story... [...]

Jeff Rajeck says, “There’s more to B2B content marketing than just publishing a white paper and watching the sales leads roll in.   At Econsultancy’s recent Digital Outlook 2015 event in Singapore two industry experts – Anol Bhattacharya, CEO of GetIT Comms and Vaasu S. Gavarasana, Head of Digital Marketing at AXA – offered some great insight into how B2B companies can improve their content marketing. Content is the linchpin The first key point that both Anol and Vaasu brought up is that content is the linchpin of B2B marketing. That is, if you are going to use marketing... [...]

HubSpot team says, “Content marketing is booming — many businesses are seeing great ROI from capitalizing on content. But like any other marketing trend, what works best is constantly evolving. To find out where you should next put your efforts, we asked 10 successful entrepreneurs what content marketing trends they were most excited about and why. 1) Branded Content Sketch Videos I really admire companies like Funny or Die and JASH who have transitioned into creating comedy sketch videos for branded content. Companies like Captain Morgan are coming up with some truly creative stuff... [...]