How much time does your organization devote to content marketing?
Do you have a dedicated content professional on your staff, or is writing and publishing content something you try to get around to in your spare time?
Do you remember the last time you sent out an email to your subscribers?
What about the last time you posted on your blog?
Growing up, I had every intent on a career in science. I didn’t consider marketing or sales as a profession of choice and knew nothing about business. I admit, I am probably one of many who believed that marketing was only responsible for print material, the “pretty” brochures. Now, when I hear others define it as such, my heart slightly cringes. Fortunately, I learned early on in my career how marketing is defined across various channels and its role as part of a business strategy. As a digital marketer, it’s always fun for me to help explain to my peers what exactly is digital marketing and why it’s important.
Digital marketing is a way for companies to advertise their products and services through online channels, and it is only one of several channels that a marketing department is responsible for. Others include events, demand generation, social, distribution, partner, etc. Some of these channels could branch out to their own specific sub-channels and tactics, and digital marketing is a great example of this.
“Thought leadership” is one of those buzzwords that gets tossed around all the time. But unlike other buzzwords that are trendy one day and groan-worthy the next (I’m looking at you, “guru”, “blogosphere”, and “low-hanging fruit”), this one is actually vital to your marketing efforts.
As a thought leader, you’re a go-to authority in your industry. You’re the first person (or company) that everyone thinks of. You’re the one that everyone looks to when there’s a new industry development. In other words, you’re the top dog.
So, how do you actually establish thought leadership?
Whether they’re product demo videos, videos that welcome people to your website, or video newsletters that nurture leads, video marketing is one of the best tools in a marketer’s arsenal.
However, with so much competition in today’s landscape, you can’t post a video or two and call it a day. One-offs will not lead to success. Instead, you need a bonafide video marketing strategy.
Here’s a three-step plan for creating one:
Planning a webinar? Got the topic and speaker already figured out?
Great!
Now what?
The prep work you do now will determine how successful your webinar actually is. And you have to start early. Check out this superhero-approved 7-week prep plan:
If you don’t have the internal resources to create your own content, you may be tempted to hire a freelance copywriter, send him some instructions, and wait for the magical prose to arrive. However, that’s the worst decision you can make. Here’s what to do instead.
The end of football season is officially upon us. If you’re a New England Patriots fan, you’re probably exhausted from celebrating, while all other fans are busy saying “wait til next year.”
In between all of the action on the field, did you notice that there were some big content marketing lessons during Super Bowl LIII?
Here’s how you can use America’s most-watched sporting event to your content marketing advantage.
According to a 2018 study, there are nearly 1.7 billion sites living on the world wide web. Add that to the 124.5 business emails that are sent out every day and the 5,000 ads the average person is exposed to every day, and you’ve got an awful lot of content floating around!
In order to stand out from the crowd, your content needs to be absolutely irresistible. But how do you tell if it is?
“What is content?”
It sounds like a really easy question, right? All of the stuff you see published on the web (including this blog post!) is content.
At the end of 2018, 50% of organizations surveyed said they planned on increasing their content marketing budget over the next year. If you want to increase your brand awareness, thought leadership, and ROI, you have to dig deeper into the definition of “content.”
So, what makes for great content?
With the end of 2018 just two weeks away, it’s time to start thinking about all of those New Year’s Resolutions you’re going to make. Forget the old standbys that no one ever seems to stick to—like quitting smoking cold turkey, arriving at the gym at 5:00 AM, and getting a full 8 hours of sleep every night.
Instead, focus on New Year’s Resolutions that are more realistic and more beneficial for your business. If you haven’t done so already, our superheroes suggest making content marketing a big focus for your organization in 2019.
