Sunday, 1 January 2017

The 7 Best Online Courses You Can Enroll In Today for $10

From public speaking to app development to building a personal brand with Gary Vaynerchuk, these courses are too good to pass by.


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6 Ways to Build Your Email Subscriber List

If you build a list of folks who want to receive your emails, you'll avoid spam filters and stay top-of-mind with your prospects.


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31 Small-Business Wins to Keep You Motivated This January

Let this checklist keep you going and start the year off right.


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My Personal Goal for the Year

One big, simple, specific goal per year is all you need to lead a life of continual learning and new possibilities.


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How Millennials Spend Their Money to Make Statements (Infographic)

From diamond jewelry to charity donations, millennials go above and beyond to express themselves.


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Unsolicited Advice: 6 Letters Every Content Marketer Needs to Read

unsolicited-advice-content-marketers“Who’s perfect?”

“No one!”

This is a common dialogue I have with my daughters when they make mistakes — as we all do. I’m a big fan of not aiming for perfection but rather trying to be the best version of yourself.

Of course, the same is true with marketers. No one is perfect — and considering the speed at which our industry has been changing — we can all learn from each other. It’s in this spirit of making us all better that Andrew Davis shares his suggestions to marketers in each issue of Chief Content Officer magazine in his column, Unsolicited Advice. (Shameless plug: You can get a free subscription to CCO.)

While we don’t run Andrew’s columns as part of our regular blog schedule, we adore them and wanted to share them with you this holiday season. Enjoy these six insightful letters now or bookmark them for when you have some time. Either way, I guarantee you’ll learn a lot.

Do something with all of your survey data

Tim Mapes
Senior Vice President of Marketing
Delta Air Lines

Dear Mr. Mapes,

Do me a favor: Stop it with the surveys. Or at least do something productive with them.

Don’t get me wrong; I like Delta Airlines (as much as any other air carrier.) On the whole, your planes are comfortable, your flights are on time, and your service is amenable.

I fly a lot. In the past year I’ve flown almost 500,000 miles. That’s more travel than most people, but every time I step off one of your planes, you send me a survey. A quick check of my inbox for the year reveals you’ve sent me 83 surveys. Eighty-three.

In the early days of our flying relationship, I took the seven minutes out of my day to fill out your lengthy questionnaire (which included questions like: “Did you notice any particular scent in the jet bridge?”).

Here’s my question: What are you doing with all this data? I can’t remember a single acknowledgment that the insights I provided are enhancing my flying experience.

You’re not the only one inviting me to fill out surveys to help “improve my experience.” I get surveys from hotels, car-rental agencies, shoe stores, and restaurants. I recently received a three-minute survey from my barber.

If you’re going to ask me to take seven minutes out of my day to fill out your lengthy questionnaire, I expect you to take seven minutes to explain how you’re using my data to improve the Delta experience.

So here’s the deal: If you tell me exactly how my survey responses are being used to improve your airline, I’ll take the time to fill out the questionnaires. Otherwise, stop sending them.

If you’re going to send a @delta survey, tell me how you’re using data to improve my experience. @drewdavishere
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What do you say? Do we have a deal?

Whether you wanted it or not,

Andrew Davis (February 2016)

Don’t just talk content marketing, do content marketing

Dear Agency Executive,

I just Googled “content marketing agency” and found a list of the “most amazing” content marketing agencies in the world. It’s an impressive list … and maybe you’re on it.

There is only one problem. Every single agency named has a sexy client portfolio and a bucket full of industry awards to prove it, but none of them – exactly zero – apply content marketing to their own business.

Shame on you.

I know you do great work. I can see it right there on your website. I’m impressed with the content you’ve created for your clients. I’m fascinated by the results you’ve delivered for those you serve. You’re dazzling me. But if you truly believe in the power of content marketing, where is YOUR content?

I get it. You’re busy doing paid client work … but consider this: What if you could reduce the amount of time and money it took to secure the next client by creating valuable content today?

Reduce the time & money it takes to secure next client by creating valuable #content today. @drewdavishere
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You’ve hired smart people. (I can tell. I read your About Us page.) Why not require every single one of your staff members to create one piece of content for the agency every month? Even an organization with a staff of 15 people would have a content platform brimming with surprising insights.

Take the advice you give to your clients: commit to creating valuable, consistently delivered, high-quality, unique content to build a relationship with those you serve and those you want to attract.

Here’s the deal: Start at the top. If you post every week one piece of good content designed to help your next client better market its products and services on its own, I’ll share every post with my audience.

What do you say? Do we have a deal?

Whether you wanted it or not,

Andrew Davis (April 2016)

Use common sense with your nurturing programs

Craig Tinervin
Director of Performance Marketing
Pipedrive

Dear Craig,

I love your 30-day email drip campaign! Unfortunately, I signed up for your competitor’s CRM tool 28 days ago, and you’re still sending me tutorial emails. Why not allow me to tell you I’ve purchased something else?

Pipedrive seems like an excellent tool and the tutorials you send every other day are nicely produced and engaging. As far as I know, there is nothing “wrong” with the content you sent us.

Each one of your drip emails offers me two choices: watch the tutorial video or unsubscribe. Don’t you think you’d learn a lot more about your audience’s buying cycle and your competition if you allowed subscribers to tell you they purchased someone else’s product?

Imagine what you could learn! You’d know exactly how far into your drip campaign the prospect typically buys another tool. You’d know what CRM they most often purchase, and you’d automatically know if you should extend their free trial – maybe they haven’t made a decision yet!

I’m all for automated drip campaigns. I know they’re effective. But in addition to optimizing your campaign to better serve subscribers you win over, don’t forget to learn from the prospects you lose.

Craig, I don’t want to unsubscribe to your drip campaign without telling you what CRM tool we ended up buying. If you give me the option, I’ll be happy to tell you which CRM we went with, why we chose them, and even the date we signed up.

What do you say? Do we have a deal?

Whether you wanted it or not,

Andrew Davis (June 2016)

Stop talking only about yourself

Marc Baumann
Head of SEO and Content
Square

Dear Mr. Baumann,

I just stopped following @Square on Twitter and I wanted to let you know why. It’s not because you don’t share links to valuable content. You do that all the time. It’s not because I didn’t find the content you post insightful or clever. It is. In fact, I think the content you create on your content platform, Town Square, is excellent.

I stopped following @Square because I realized you rarely (if ever) share anyone else’s content. You’ve established yourselves as experts in the market, and I certainly find much of your content to be objective; but you can’t possibly believe there is no other source of insight or information that would benefit your audience.

Maybe it’s just me, but I believe truly engaged social brands are humble enough to share smart, focused insights with their audience from a variety of credible sources.

Here’s the good news … This is an easy issue to fix. Perhaps your team could try the Social Media 4-1-1 Rule: For every one self-serving tweet, you should retweet one relevant tweet, and most importantly share four pieces of relevant content written by others.

For every self-serving tweet, RT 1 relevant tweet & share 4 content pieces by others. @drewdavishere
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Marc, I’d love to refollow @Square. If your team agrees to share even one piece of valuable content every day from a source other than Square, I’ll not only refollow you, I’ll share the best insight with my audience! After all, isn’t that the goal of a truly engaged social brand?

What do you say? Do we have a deal?

Whether you wanted it or not,

Andrew Davis (August 2016)

Add controversy to your panels

Dear Event Organizer,

Your panel discussions suck. They do. They’re terrible.

In principle, a panel discussion should be great. The ingredients all appear to be there: get a few intelligent people on stage, invite them to discuss a given topic, and let the insights, information, and ideas flow.

There’s only one thing missing.

As someone who has attended more than 200 events in the last four years, I have yet to see a panel discussion that captures, maintains, and piques the audience’s interest. The discussions are not enlightening, and the banter is anything but entertaining.

What’s missing? One simple ingredient: conflict. Yep. That’s it. You need some drama.

Eight years ago in a hotel ballroom in Nashville, Tennessee, I saw the greatest panel discussion I’ve ever witnessed. Four of the most innovative publishers in the world sat on stage to discuss the future of print magazines. The four luminaries agreed on nothing. The discussion was civil. The debate was intense. And the room was mesmerized.

The Future of Media panel ran 30 minutes past its allotted time at the insistence of the standing-room-only crowd and at the end of the day, the debate continued at the hotel lobby bar. Why? The debate brought out new ideas and never-before explored concepts. The audience heard why each person chose a viewpoint. And maybe most importantly, we learned about our own perspectives when we saw them debated on stage.

If you want your panel discussions to compete with – and even outperform – your keynote sessions, add some conflict.

Want your panel discussions to compete w/ or outperform keynote sessions? Add some conflict. @drewdavishere
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I stopped participating in panel discussions three years ago. They’re poorly executed, pathetically planned, and sadly boring.

Here’s the deal: If you decide to embrace a debate and add some conflict to your next panel discussion, I’ll pay my way to your event. I’ll even speak for free. Just let me participate in a conflict-laden panel discussion. I guarantee it will be the best panel you’ve ever organized.

What do you say? Do we have a deal?

Whether you wanted it or not,

Andrew Davis (October 2016)

Stop talking about engagement

You
Content Marketer
Every Company in the Universe

Dear Content Marketer,

Stop talking about engagement and awareness. Seriously, stop it.

Don’t feel bad. You’re not the only one. In the latest round of Content Marketing Institute research, almost 80% of B2B marketers and 74% of B2C marketers say they use content marketing to raise brand awareness.

Almost 80% B2B marketers & 74% B2C say they use #contentmarketing to raise brand awareness via @cmicontent.
Click To Tweet

Four out of five of us work toward an outcome that I can only describe as “fuzzy.”

It’s not that we shouldn’t aim to influence brand awareness (and presumably measure its impact). And of course, we should continue to measure how many likes, shares, retweets, and comments our content inspires as a barometer of what attracts an audience to our brand’s content. Yes … we should measure a lot of stuff.

Here’s the thing: let’s not report on it.

There’s a big difference between measuring our tactics and reporting on our success. It’s time we graduate to reporting numbers that won’t cause our CFO and CEO to roll their eyes.

I’d argue this year’s Content Marketer of the Year is unbelievably successful because she reports on her content’s ability to increase margins. That’s right, the Cleveland Clinic’s Amanda Todorovich measures a ton of variables, but at the end of the day, she reports on the revenue she generates. That’s smart marketing.

Reporting on the revenue your #content generates is smart #marketing says @drewdavishere. @amandatodo #ROI
Click To Tweet

Let’s understand the massive difference between measuring success and reporting on it.

Here’s the deal: If you stop using the words “engagement” and “awareness” at every one of your marketing meetings, I’ll buy you and your team a pizza. I guarantee the more you focus on affecting revenue, the more successful you and your content will become.

What do you say? Do we have a deal?

Whether you wanted it or not,

Andrew Davis (December 2016)

Over to you

Do you have any unsolicited advice you want to get off your chest to help us all be better?

For more Unsolicited Advice from Andrew, subscribe to CCO, our free magazine that is mailed six times a year. 

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Unsolicited Advice: 6 Letters Every Content Marketer Needs to Read appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.



source http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/01/advice-content-marketer/
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Saturday, 31 December 2016

This Week in Content Marketing: Google, Facebook to Purchase Content in 2017

facebook-google-purchase-content

PNR: This Old Marketing with Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose can be found on both iTunes and Stitcher.

This week, Robert and I recap the biggest content marketing stories from the past year and predict some trends we expect to see in 2017, including new content purchases Facebook and Google may be looking to make; brands betting big on buying media companies; and greater business model diversity from publishers and marketers alike. Our rants and raves feature the late, great George Michael and a new book from Michael Lewis; then we wrap up our final episode of 2016 by highlighting “house organs” in our Example of the Week.

This week’s show

(Recorded live on December 26, 2016; Length: 0:55:34)

Download this week’s PNR This Old Marketing podcast.

If you enjoy our PNR podcasts, we would love if you would rate it, or post a review, on iTunes. 

1.    Notable news and upcoming trends

As the holiday week slowed news to a crawl, Robert and I thought we would recap some of the biggest stories and significant trends that impacted content marketing over the past year. We also shared some thoughts on what may be in store for our industry in 2017. Our discussion included:

  • Facebook’s total domination of the digital marketing conversation (08:00): Facebook represented the lion’s share of advertising revenue growth over the past year and continued its metamorphosis from social network to full-fledged media company, as recent articles in Forbes and Recode describe in detail. However, Robert believes that the pendulum will soon start to swing in the other direction, and he predicts a backlash as marketers increasingly recognize the dangers of relying on a third-party platform when it comes to building trusted, ongoing relationships with a target audience. My advice here is to expect companies like Facebook and Google to continue to manipulate the system to sustain their growth, but keep your eyes open for the content gaps their efforts will inevitably leave – which knowledgeable subject matter experts may be in a strong position to fill.
  • The rise of the publisher content studios (23:41): Another big story we explored throughout the year is the growing number of media outlets that are building their own content studios as a means of competing with the creative agencies for brands’ content budgets. I view this as an essential diversification of what publishing means in today’s marketplace. Robert sees this as a trend that is poised to really explode in 2017, as it represents an exciting new business model for publishers who have been struggling to overcome deep deficits in online ad revenue.
  • The need to redefine the marketing department and its purpose (27:05): The above story led right into another point Robert and I kept coming back to: the need for marketers to think in broader terms about the value of content throughout the enterprise. Rather than limiting ourselves to viewing content as little more than a demand driver or an advertising alternative, we urge practitioners to expand their horizons and explore its potential to further mid- and lower-funnel goals, like increasing conversions and loyalty.
  • More brands will be vertically integrating media (28:05): One of the biggest stories that wasn’t being talked about (except by us) was the major media acquisitions that were made by electronics manufacturer Arrow Electronics, including its purchase of UBM’s (CMI’s parent company) entire portfolio of electronics industry publications. As Robert says, having a media company vertically integrated into the products and services you offer to the marketplace is a smart thing to do. Years from now, content executives are going to look back and view moves like this as the tipping point of content marketing’s progression toward greater acceptance and success.

Having a media company integrated into the products & services offered is a smart thing to do. @robert_rose
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  • Greater software company consolidation is coming – especially in the martech space (32:02): If you happened to view Scott Brinker’s impressively comprehensive infographic depicting the current marketing technology landscape, you would likely recognize that this field has grown so vast and complex that it will be tough to sustain further growth. Robert predicts that many of these businesses will fall out, merge, or get acquired in the upcoming year, as enterprise customers look to simplify their use of these solutions.

marketing_technology_landscape

Image source

2.    Sponsor (33:30)

  • Content Marketing Institute’s 2017 Events. Whether you are just getting started with content marketing or are looking to take your expertise to the next level, CMI’s portfolio of events has you covered. From our free virtual ContentTECH conference to Content Marketing World – the largest annual gathering of content marketing professionals in the industry – we offer a wide range of unparalleled training, education, and networking experiences. Check out all the events we have in store for 2017, including our strategy-focused Intelligent Content Conference, and use the code PNR100 for a special discount on registration.

icc-fran-lebowitz

3.    Rants and raves (36:16)

  • Robert’s rave: It’s been an unusually rough year for music fans, as we lost some of the most iconic performers of all time in 2016. Sadly, George Michael became the latest addition to the list, as the erstwhile Wham! front man and celebrated singer/songwriter passed away unexpectedly on Christmas day. As a fan, Robert came across a piece of content that The Late Late Show host James Corden filmed with George Michael in 2011 as part of a U.K. charity event – the concept of which eventually evolved into Corden’s current viral phenomenon: Carpool Karaoke.
  • Joe’s rave: I’m in the middle of reading The Undoing Project, by one of my all-time favorite authors, Michael Lewis. The book explores why people perceive and believe things as they do, and why they don’t. In short, it’s gotten me wondering if our narrow view of marketing – i.e., primarily as a means of driving demand – might be limiting its potential to provide more impactful benefits for the broader enterprise. For 2017, I urge content marketers to start pushing away your biases about content’s purpose and expand your view of what can be accomplished by your efforts.

Push away biases about your content's purpose & expand your view of what can be accomplished. @joepulizzi
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4.    This Old Marketing example of the week (44:35)

  • What is, perhaps, Robert’s favorite example of the year comes to us from Google’s archives of publications. Office Appliances was a B2B magazine that was launched by The Office Appliance Company in 1916 to serve office managers, retail dealers, and others who handle purchases of office equipment, furniture, stationery, and supplies. At over 200 pages long, the issue Robert discovered is a comprehensive round-up of that year’s biggest appliance-related stories. It’s a fascinating read – particularly if you are at all interested in history. But beyond its historical relevance, Robert discovered one amazing article on “house organs” – an old term for in-house magazines – which he feels still accurately characterizes the challenges faced by their modern equivalent: content marketing. Tying back to the point I made in my rave above, the article covers the proceedings from that year’s meeting of the Direct Mail Advertising Association and lists 19 ways that becoming “an internal media company” can deliver value to a wide range of businesses. The entire discussion basically predates everything we are always saying at Content Marketing Institute, making Robert wish he could have been in attendance at that DMAA meeting – and making it a fitting way to close out the year of This Old Marketing.

office-appliances-b2b-magazine

Image source

For a full list of PNR archives, go to the main This Old Marketing page.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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The post This Week in Content Marketing: Google, Facebook to Purchase Content in 2017 appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.



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