Nathan Safran says, “Most brands got on board with content marketing by creating general, untargeted content. Now, those brands are evolving past that; they’re creating content that maps to the position of the buyer in his or her journey. (The buyer’s journey refers to the buyer’s progression through a research and consideration phase, culminating in a purchase.) Brands’ new content paradigm recognizes that a “one-size-fits-all” approach may be insufficient. After all, a buyer’s content needs differ based on where in the buyer’s journey they are”. How Content Is Changing... [...]

Lee Odden says, “As companies mature in their use of content marketing from simply creating “more” content for SEO purposes to creating really useful content designed to reach specific customer segments to influence business outcomes, the importance of content differentiation becomes paramount. According to the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs’ annual studies, over 90% of B2B and B2C marketers are using content marketing. That’s a tremendous amount of competition and to stand out, successful marketers are elevating their content quality and use of visual elements. In my... [...]

Paddy Morgan says, “As much as content and advertising agencies would like you to believe it, content produced by a business doesn’t just go viral on it’s own. There is often something that pushes it really, really hard when it first goes live which gains momentum, and eventually the content is spread far and wide enough that it doesn’t need you to push it anymore. Those of you who have read Good to Great may be making associations with the flywheel principle, but that’s a post for another day! In this post I want to talk about one of the ways you can give your content... [...]

Corey Eridon says, “I’ve been not writing this post for a long time. What I mean by that is — I’ve had this post in my head for a long time, but I couldn’t think of a way to write it without alienating a lot of people. I might still alienate a few here, but I think I found a productive way to say what I’ve been thinking about for a while now — that there are some problems with the “content strategist” title, and it can lead to problems for companies and content marketers alike”. A Short Rant About Content Strategists HubSpot  [...]

Robbert van den Heuvel says, “Content creation and marketing will only be successful if you have an organized content marketing plan as a roadmap for every task. Business owners and marketing departments often get discouraged with the ever-changing best practices for blog writing, SEO, and the social web. Businesses also tend to laser focus on blog writing and forget to produce weightier content like ebooks and guides. This type of content is crucial for the success of the inbound marketing portion of your content marketing plan”. 8 Steps for Lasting Content Marketing Plan Success HubSpot... [...]

Summer Luu says, “These days, creating online content and gaining results can get pretty overwhelming. There are countless vehicles to use, plenty of social media sites to distribute on, and more than enough platforms to create it on. It’s easy to get lost in the whirlwind of tactics, strategy and tools. So I thought it would be a good idea to compile some of the best infographics out there to help us through our content creation efforts and maximize results. Check them out below! Ideas on how to create compelling content First, you’ll need an idea on what to write and how you’ll write... [...]

Tal Siach says, “If a tree falls in the forest… For decades, marketers have relied on their ability to tell a good story – and relied on mass media to do the rest. Twenty years ago, putting an ad on heavy national TV rotation would ensure it would be seen by 80% – 90% of your target audience. Today, media – and consumer attention – are more fragmented than ever. The average user has access to 168 television channels, visits dozens of websites monthly, remains on a web page for less than 10 seconds, and switches screens 27X an hour. For marketers across the board, this... [...]

Isla McKetta says, “What if I told you I could teach you to write the perfect headline? One that is so irresistible every person who sees it will click on it. But what if I then told you not one single person out of all the millions who will click on that headline will convert? And that you might lose all your credibility in the process”. Is that Mind-Blowing Title Blowing Your Credibility? You Decide MOZ Blog  [...]

Everett Sizemore says, “This is Inflow’s process for doing content audits. It may not be the “best” way to do them every time, but we’ve managed to keep it fairly agile in terms of how you choose to analyze, interpret and make recommendations on the data. The fundamental parts of the process remain about the same across numerous types of websites no matter what their business goals are: Collect all of the content URLs on the site and fetch the data you need about each URL. Then analyze the data and provide recommendations for each content URL. Theoretically it’s... [...]

Chad Pollitt says, “Some people think content promotion isn’t complicated. It’s just making sure content is optimized for the search engines, sent to an appropriate email list, and then broadcast it socially, right? If only it were that simple. Search algorithms aren’t as reliant on on-page factors for determining relevance anymore, organic social reach is declining, and not every brand has a huge opt-in email database at their disposal. As a result, brands that wish to rely on these tactics must have patience — or double down on promotional efforts. The amount of patience... [...]