Ryan Skinner says, “Publishers Are Engaged In Self-Harm With Marketers As An AccessoryYou remember when the email spam problem maxed out almost a decade ago? Or when content farms threatened to turn Google search results into useless piles of keyword-slurry? Or peak belly fat?There should be a word for the moments when the mechanisms that aim to keep our electronic information corridors running well, fail.It’s shaping up to be one of those moments for the content distribution space (and particularly its sub-discipline native advertising or sponsored content).You can pity the reader... [...]

This is a reminder for the eMarketer’s B2B Content Marketing Ad webinar on September 4.eMarketer team says, “We’ll address these key questions:Are B2B marketers too focused on leads?How can marketers achieve soft goals like branding—and measure success?Are intangibles as much a part of sales conversions as lead generation?Will budgets be cut if satisfaction doesn’t improve?“.Webinar DetailsOrganizer:  eMarketerKey Speaker: Mike HudsonTopic: B2B Content Marketing—It’s Not Just Lead GenDay/Date: Thursday, September 4Time: 1.00 pm ET – Time Zone... [...]

Ginny Soskey says, “When most of us think about creating content for a businesses, we tend to think about the content that helps generate awareness or new leads.This type of content isn’t self-promotional — you typically use it to answer industry-related questions and address topics that’ll attract people to your website, entice people to follow you on social media, and spur visitors to give over their information to receive a free offer.But we all know that the buying journey doesn’t end once someone’s received a free ebook — and your content shouldn’t,... [...]

The ‘Business 2 Community’ team says, “To turn business buyers into long-term loyal customers, marketers must mature their content marketing practices to produce relationship-building, useful information. Forrester teamed up with the Business Marketing Association (BMA) and the Online Marketing Institute (OMI) to benchmark the maturity of business-to-business (B2B) content marketing efforts of 113 marketing professionals. We found the vast majority are in the early stages of assembling a content strategy and executing against it. Only 4% are true masters of content marketing. From examples... [...]

Rand Fishkin says, “We hear frequently from marketers who are frustrated that their audiences aren’t sharing their content, making them think the only way to promote their brands is to pay for exposure. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand shows you a new way to think about your marketing that may be just the solution”.But I Have to Buy Links, Ads, and Exposure, Because My Customers Won’t Amplify My ContentMOZ Blog [...]

Courtney Eckerle says, “Writing for your audience, and not your product, is easier said than done in the marketing world. As tempting as it is, Post Planner decided not to laud its product and instead chose to focus on content that would teach customers marketing principles. See how this startup developed a how-to and tutorial-focused content strategy that increased unique website visitors by 1,365% and page views 931%“.Content Marketing: Startup’s focus on how-to content results in a 1,365% increase in unique website visitorsMarketingSherpa [...]

Ben Davis says, “The Festival of Marketing (London’s answer to Cannes Lions) will be upon us in November.I’ve been rounding up some content to whet your appetite, including this collection of content and strategy slideshows relating to some of our speakers.Check out the Festival website for more information, including a full lineup of speakers”.Seven enlightening content and strategy slideshows‘Econsultancy’ Blog [...]

Allison Banko says, ““Content marketing is like wrapping your sales pitch in bacon,” said Lauren Patrick, Marketing Content Manager, Urjanet. “It’s not an advertisement. It’s not, ‘Buy me now! Here’s why.’ It’s, ‘Here’s a really interesting problem, and here’s a way to solve it. Here’s our solution.'” Discover how Urjanet’s new marketing team developed a sizzling content marketing strategy for this energy data company“.Content Marketing: How an energy data company’s content strategy increased... [...]

Chris Lake says, “A few months ago I created the Periodic Table of Content Marketing, to provide a handy – and hopefully helpful – cut-out-and-keep guide for content professionals.The table was both practical and tactical, which resulted in more than tens of thousands of shares, and hundreds of thousands of views. I remain humbled by its popularity, and the feedback I’ve had since I published it.Since then I’ve been asked many questions, of which two stand out:Why does ‘content strategy’ only have one element dedicated to it?What kind of skills does a content team need?”.Introducing... [...]

Matthew Peneycad says, “It may seem counterintuitive, but there is actually good reason for why the content your business’ social media audience wants, is not the content your organization should be creating and publishing.Increasingly, consumer-centric businesses and social media marketers are using a variety of social listening tools, data and analytics, and various types of research to determine themes and formats for content that will resonate most strongly with their audience.The trouble with this approach is that if there isn’t a strong correlation between the content your social... [...]