Sept. 9, 2024
18 months of editing podcasts has instilled in me the value of message clarity and brevity.
Editors spend copious amounts of time deleting content that contextually fits, but complicates the message.
Editors understand that for audiences to pay attention, they need to get your key points in seconds. If it feels like work to understand your point, you’ve lost them.
Marketers like to talk about content hooks to capture attention.
But after your hook, you need to get your audience engaged. To do that, your content needs to get right down to it, in easy-to-understand language and cohesive thoughts.
I call this MVC, minimal viable content.
Embrace an editor's mindset to find your MVC the next time you publish something.
Could you say it in fewer words?
Could you more seamlessly connect one thought to another?
Could you make a complex idea simpler?
Could you remove redundancy?
August 28, 2024
I started a new website project a few weeks ago. My new client is an incredible business owner. I could tell in our early-on discovery sessions how much she goes above and beyond for her clients, but it was during the first customer interview that my own gut feeling was validated.
I asked her customer, “Is there anything else that you would like to share we haven’t talked about today?” He said, “I dont know how helpful this will be for the website, but this client consistently puts in a level of detail that makes us feel special. She’ll drop by the office just to say hello. She’ll order bagels for our office and have them delivered in the morning. She’s thinking about you to make sure that we think about her.”
This little comment helps me understand the level of partnership that my client engages in with every customer relationship she has. She could tell me the same thing all day long, but having it validated by the customer, that’s gold.
Brand is, in large part, how a company’s customers perceive them.
So while the specific comment will not make it on the website verbatim the essence of it will.
If you haven’t checked in with your customers lately, here’s your reminder. Is their perception of how you serve them adequately conveyed on your website? Or, instead, are you telling website users what you think they want to know? This nuance makes all the difference.
August 8, 2024
The question isn’t whether you have a content strategy. 90% of marketers do.
It’s not how to build a content strategy. That’s all over the internet.
It’s WHAT is your content strategy.
Today in a world where finding what you need is no problem, the old strategy of:
One-upping your competition's content to realize that you’re all just saying the same thing.
Implementing a keyword-led content strategy to drive traffic, but what you didn't know was that you also need resonance.
Chasing traffic by creating listicles and “how to” content
It’s not good enough anymore.
People see 10,000 ads a day. It has led to a condition known as banner blindness where 86% of consumers ignore ads altogether.
Content that doesn’t resonate is just another ad to your audience. They overlook it.
Unfortunately, you’ve wasted your time with mediocre results to show.
If you tweak your content strategy to focus on becoming a brand worth knowing to customers who can’t get enough, magic happens.
August 6, 2024
If you’re only asking customers for testimonials, you’re leaving tremendous value from those conversations on the table. Let's change that!
Here are 7 additional ways to get more content marketing bang out of your voice of customer feedback:
Integrate their exact language into copy (campaign, web, social, email) to nail audience pain points and desired outcomes
Build FAQs for your website from their feedback
Develop content themes and pillars based on feedback trends
Refine rational and emotional triggers in content
Create articles and other forms of content that address both positive and negative feedback
Leverage existing VoC insights to generate more feedback with polls, quizzes, and surveys
Identify keyword phrases your target audience uses to find and attract more like-minded prospects and buyers
What other ways have you used VoC feedback to create content that resonates with your audience?
August 5, 2024
Content marketers are the most strategic players on your marketing team.
Bold statement, I know. But I can prove it.
The father of modern marketing and Kellogg School of Management marketing professor Philip Kotler asserts that you don’t have a brand unless you deliver a specific benefit that addresses a particular need for your customers.
And a content marketer’s primary role is to be the target audience advocate at your organization, championing the interests and needs of your prospects and buyers and who deeply understands their challenges, preferences, and behaviors.
So when product marketing says, “We need an email marketing campaign to promote our new solution.” A content marketer asks, “What problem does this new solution solve for the intended audience?”
When brand marketing says, “Let’s get our new brand out in the world.” A content marketer responds, “How can the brand message flex to fit the audience’s needs and behaviors across channels?”
When sales says, “We need to run a webinar to fuel pipeline.” A content marketer replies, “What topics and trends are engaging the target audience right now? What misconceptions do they have about [INSERT SOLUTION]? What objections are you receiving in the sales process?”
A content marketer isn’t just an order taker. They help generate ROI for your business by understanding your audience better than anyone else in the organization. They match your solution's benefits to your audience's needs.
Engage them in these strategic discussions and your content will work better, hands down.
I think this is the highest and best use of a content marketer. What about you?
July 29, 2024
Imagine the last group event you attended.
Now, look to your right. Next, look to your left.
Are the two people standing next to you wearing the same outfit?
I can say with 100% confidence that your answer is no. They are not wearing the same outfit as you.
But when you look to your right and then to your left to monitor your competition, is their content similar to yours?
This time, I can’t be 100% confident that your answer is no. It’s more likely that you’re answer is “kind of.”
Copycat content hurts your brand and your audience relationships.
Why?
If your content mirrors your competitors, your content becomes a commodity. And as a commodity, you can’t expect to build trust or loyalty in your brand.
I talk about how content commoditization devalues your brand and your audience relationships in my new content marketing thought paper.
Get the insights + playbook to create bold and noteworthy content that sets you APART from the competition (now imagine that!). You'll be able to throw copycat content out the window for good!
July 25, 2024
“Don’t be a victim of the ‘if you build it, they will come’ mentality. You have to know your customers inside and out – their goals, motivations, and desires – to produce the content they want.”
This excerpt is from my latest thought paper called “Bold & Noteworthy Content is the Next Frontier of Content Marketing.”
Researching your audience is one of three layers of market research that creates a strategic foundation for bold and noteworthy.
Quill and CoHost, led by one of 30 Under 30’s newest names, Allison Osborne, gets it.
“We created blog articles, social media posts, newsletters, etc. around ideas and topics that yes, got a lot of hits but they weren't the right hits. Why? Because we didn’t have the right audience in mind when building our content library.”
Read about the transformation from one tweak to your content strategy can make in Allison’s post.
I’d love to hear other stories about how fine-tuning your audience profile has made all the difference in building a more meaningful and inspired relationship with your audience.
July 23, 2024
Originally, I approached the "Bold Moves: How Did You Know" podcast 🎙️ like a creative scientific experiment.
I wondered if people felt a deeper sense of life and career fulfillment when they made a "bold move” and that curiosity led to the launch of the podcast. 🤔
To test my hypothesis, I’ve interviewed over 30 entrepreneurs, founders, executive leaders, and creatives with bold moves stories.
With every new story I share via the podcast, it sparks conversations on important topics related to being bold and making bold moves.
For example, this month we shared conversation around on whether the midlife crisis was actually a thing anymore. I’ve found that people who make bold moves experience a midlife click more than a crisis.
We also discussed whether introverts are less inclined to make bold moves. Turns out: introverts have tailored skillsets FOR making bold moves!
Bold moves podcast listeners can relate to some stories. They are inspired by some. Overall, the goal is that these stories empower them to take bold action on their dreams.
This is the power of sharing stories versus simply stating facts.
I could do quantitative research 📈 to prove my previously stated hypothesis and then roll out the results, but stories are more powerful.
In a classic study, students gave one-minute pitches to their classmates. While only 5% remembered the stats, 63% recalled the stories.
Other researchers found that people are 22 times more likely to remember facts in a story, and storytelling can boost conversion rates by 30%.
Our brains are wired for stories. 📚 We want to know what happens next. We cheer on the protagonist and care about the story arc where she wins or learns something that changes her trajectory and improves her life.
In my hot-off-the-press content marketing thought paper, I talk about the power of storytelling, why companies and people should make stories part of their content marketing approach, and how to do that.
What's your take? What stories are you sharing to connect and relate deeper to your audience?
July 17, 2024
How do you become a great storytelling brand?
You live by your mission, vision, values every day, no matter how culture changes, how technology changes, how business changes. You know your core values and you don’t waiver.
Instead you take a stand and go all in because it’s the right thing to do.
Dove is one of the greatest storytelling brands of our time.
So when expert predicted that 90% of content will be AI generated by next year, Dove double downed on its value of real beauty and showed us how damaging it could be to use AI generated images. “Let’s keep beauty real,” they say.
What other brands use mission, vision, and value stories to capture the hearts and minds of their audiences?
I’ve got a few more in my content marketing thought paper.
July 16, 2024
Do you remember your early career?
I was a bright-eyed, ambitious newbie with a lot to prove and a determination like no other. Probably had stars in my eyes. I was so excited to enter the professional world.
My first job though had me yearning to make a bigger impact. I was stuck behind a computer creating ad tags for digital ad campaigns. It was interesting work, just not the type of work I was made for.
I took my very first professional leap of faith with that realization and joined No Limit Agency. This turned out to be a great bold move. I used my creativity daily working with clients to find unique stories within their organizations that made compelling news. As a result, I helped our franchise clients grow.
When I was ready for my next challenge, I traded my pitching hat for a publishing one at The Pollack Group and created content that my clients became known for.
I helped an inclusion firm challenge Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” with a concept I helped coin called “Listen In.” It became the source material for multiple articles, the topic for speaking engagements and workshops, and garnered media attention from outlets like Entrepreneur, NBC News, and FOX Business.
These two early career experiences were foundational for me. I collected the skillset for content ingenuity.
At No Limit, I learned how to interview clients and find the most interesting and newsworthy parts of their stories to get them in the news. At Pollack, I honed my advisory skills and consulted with business leaders to turn their business know-how into thought leadership and content IP.
Fast forward to today.
Content ingenuity is missing from a lot of the content strategies I see today.
Instead, ingenuity is replaced with commodity content.
Just Google any number of how-to articles and see how similar the top results are. Go to your competitors’ websites and stack your content up against theirs.
The competitive advantage is what it’s always been: bold and noteworthy content that comes from your unique brain trust.
Ready to get back to that? I authored a thought paper on how to become a brand worth knowing to customers who can't get enough in the age of content commoditization with the goal that'll help spark content ingenuity for your brand.
July 15, 2024
Content ingenuity. That’s my reason for doing what I do as a content marketing consultant.
I love helping companies turn their business innovation into content ingenuity that inspires meaningful brand-audience relationships.
Some significant market drivers, however, are cannibalizing how companies are approaching content ingenuity today:
➤ Gen AI
➤ Channel algorithms
➤ The need to keep up with consistent, frequent content
to name a few.
Unfortunately, they are creating a recipe for boring, bland, uninspired content that fails to excite, engage, and entertain their audience.
I’m on a mission to give you the tools to do better, to produce thought-provoking, bold, and noteworthy content that actually sparks meaningful engagement and builds your brand.
I translated what I know about content ingenuity onto digital paper and authored a content marketing thought paper on how to become a brand worth knowing to customers who can’t get enough in the age of content commoditization. 📑
Artist Seth Ruggles Hiler left a huge imprint on me about the creative process and reminds me of my work on this thought paper.
He said, “Once it’s done, it’s not mine anymore. It just matters what people receive from it – and that’s what I find so interesting is seeing what people receive from it.”
I feel the same way about this content marketing thought paper. I made every mark on this paper like the world depended on it.
Now, my content marketing friends, it’s in your hands. I hope it helps you spur content ingenuity for your brand – but surely there will be other sparks of inspiration you get from it as well and I’m excited to hear about all of it!
June 18, 2024
It’s easy to break your commodity content habit, you just have to know how.
Here’s one HUGE secret seasoned content marketing professionals use to turn their clients content from bland and undifferentiated to bold and original.
Develop your content IP.
This week, I called a friend of mine out of the blue and said:
Me: “I just watched the first 20 minutes of your webinar and I already have 3 new content ideas for you.”
Lisa: “What, really?”
Me: “The ideas you share in the talk are not only interesting, but they also also convey your unique point of value we can develop into ownable content IP for your brand.”
Lisa: “What’s content IP?”
Me: “It’s when a person or company brands an idea or concept that codifies a problem or solution. Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” is a well-known example of content IP. She became known for these two words that underscored her approach to help advance a more equitable workplace.”
Lisa: “Oh, I see how that could help give my audience language to better understand how I uniquely address their problems –– and give me differentiated messaging to cut through the noise.”
Me: “Exactly. Let’s get to work.”
More examples:
@AmandaNatividad’s zero-click marketing
@JayBaer’s pain point SEO
Imposter syndrome
Midlife crisis
What content IP examples can you think of?
Have you identified content IP for your business?
June 6, 2024
Content marketing was once considered an organic marketing approach, but now collectively, we need to get comfortable asking for budgets to amplify our work.
I pulled an excerpt from Joe Pulizzi's newsletter:
"First, I discussed how social media algorithms are not our friends. More and more, it doesn’t matter if we have followers or not. The algo is going to look at the user’s behavior and send them the content that will provide the best user experience. When I say “best user experience” it means keeping on the platform as long as possible, so they see the greatest number of advertisements.
So anymore, your followers may or may not see your stuff, regardless of if they follow you or not. I’m leaning more on the may not part."
There's a lot to unpack here.
My takeaways:
✔️ Organic distribution isn't promised (we have known this for years but it's getting worse).
✔️ Budgets help you compete.
✔️ Zero-click content pleases the social algorithm.
In sum: I see plenty of people with 5k+ followings who post great valuable content and who's reach and engagement doesn't seem to match the size of their audience.
It's not you, it's them.
Content marketing's success now involves budgets.
Pulse check: does your content marketing team manage a budget to amplify your work or are you still competing with the legacy mentality that content marketing is organic?
June 5, 2024
These are the top 5 results from my Google search, “How to get a better night’s sleep.”
Sleep Tips: 6 Steps to Better Sleep - Mayo Clinic
8 Secrets to a Good Night’s Sleep — Harvard Health
17 Proven Tips to Sleep Better at Night — Healthline
The 20 Ultimate Tips for How to Sleep Better — Sleep Foundation
If hadn’t put the organizations that produced each article next to the title, how could you distinguish one from the other?
Here’s how I would rewrite these titles to stand out in this bland content marketplace.
Your Sleep Isn’t Doomed. The Mayo Clinic Reports 6 Simple Adjustments for Better Sleep
Harvard Health Experts Expose the 8 Secrets to a Good Night’s Sleep
Discover the Research Behind 17 Ways to Sleep Better at Night
Our Sleep Medicine Physician Recommends These Hygiene Tips to Sleep Better
Bland to bold with a few tweaks of creativity.
May 28, 2024
A core objective for becoming a content brand is building community.
I don’t mean the enablement of building a community like a facebook group page or opening a slack channel. Sure, that’s how a community can interact and flourish when nurtured and managed properly.
What I mean by building community is sharing a vision for a topic you’re passionate about and facilitating conversations around that shared vision. It’s about adding new insights and ideas into the conversation and engaging with others on your thoughts and theirs.
The value of community for brands is creating a group of people who connect deeply to your mission and message.
These people are your tribe. They’re engaged and they’re loyal.
I’m building a content brand of my own and I pour into building community with every Bold Moves: How Did You Know podcast episode, with every email, and with the conversations I spark on social media.
Some conversations garner lots of feedback from the community and some fall flat.
It’s all part of it, but staying focused on the shared vision is the best advice I can give. Have the critical conversations that support your vision and work and you’ll find your tribe.
How do you build community?
May 20, 2024
If you've been following my POV on content marketing here on LI than you'll know that I hypothesize that platforms like Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc cause marketers to over-index on trying to crack the algorithm rather than prioritizing then needs of their audience.
Why do they do this? Because the platforms drive organic traffic, and the more traffic to your website, the more opportunity to engage them in a branded experience where you have the chance to convert them into a customer.
However, trying to master the algorithms is a shiny object. Remember the platforms aren't there to serve brands, they serve their users, meaning they are trying to get more users to stay on their platforms longer.
I suppose what Amanda is saying, stop trying to get the platforms to send you traffic.
Instead, give it all, your thinking, your approach, whatever it is you do to serve your audience, right there on the platform itself (without making your audience click for more) – and that delivery of value will inherently build your brand and bring you more customers.
I'm game for this approach.
Pouring your best content into every channel is at the heart of becoming a content brand. Content brands aren't in the game to master an algorithm. They're in it to earn long-term audience relationships.
When you're less obsessed with clicks, you become more obsessed with your audiences' needs.
May 13, 2024
📚 Collaborative articles on LinkedIn have great insight all in one place. I contributed to this one about how to turn around your content marketing strategy. I said:
"There could be many ways to interpret 'falling flat.' Is the content not reaching enough of your target audience? Is it not engaging your audience? Are you trying to build an audience on a specific platform or newsletter and you can't manage to move the needle on that initiative?
First, teams should define the specific problem with their content strategy and determine what metric or metrics need improvement. From there, you have data-driven insight to start experimenting with ways to improve your strategy from the place it's falling flat with these approaches: audit the content, refine your understanding of your audience, experiment with formats, optimize distribution, etc. Importantly, consider if your content is bold or boring?"
Doubling down on this: Is your content bold or boring?💡
Hope my response helps you tackle a content marketing challenge this week and read some of the other brillant responses in this article!
May 1, 2024
My title as fractional content marketing leader draws a lot of attention.
"What's fractional?" professionals, friends, and colleagues ask me.
Other people looking to become fractional leaders themselves ask me about the pivot to offering fractional content marketing to clients.
Fractional hiring is becoming the best way to recruit senior-level experts to join companies that need subject matter expertise and strategy, at a fraction of the time and cost of hiring full time.
Learn more about hiring a fractional leader via this excellent article by Taylor Crane of Fractional Jobs.
Fractional Jobs is a great resource for any type of fractional hire (fCTO, fCMO, fCOO, etc) – and for a fractional content leader, look no further than right here 🙋♀️👋
April 29, 2024
Why has content become commoditized? 🤔 I see four drivers responsible for commoditizing content:
1️⃣ Algorithms like Google, Meta, and YouTube have oriented marketers to create content for a formula to rank higher on their platforms. Therefore, content marketers create content to please an algorithm rather than serve their audience, generating not only similar content, but formats as well.
2️⃣ Businesses mistakenly use automation like generative AI to write content, replacing the thoughtfulness, subject matter expertise, and originality only humans can provide.
3️⃣ Content marketers looking for quick wins to prove effectiveness publish a high quantity of content to see what sticks.
4️⃣ Complete audience research falls by the wayside, supplanted by keyword research that Google has successfully branded as “buyer intent data,” leading to thousands of articles all saying the same thing.
Would you double down on any of the above? Debate any of the above? Add any to the mix?
April 23, 2024
Content marketing went south when creativity was taken out of the hands of content creators and put into the hands of Google search engines.
While Google makes strides to reduce “unhelpful, unoriginal” content from search results, the onus is on marketing teams to inject more original thinking into their content.
How?
👉Interview SMEs in your business for they’re insights on the lay of the land in your industry
👉Conduct social listening and review the data on your content to understand what your customers are struggling with or interested in
👉Solve the insight gap to inform your editorial calendar: Marry what your business knows and what your customer needs
👉Conduct keyword research to find the keyword match for your original thinking
👉Write
👉Publish
Results: More inspired, thoughtful content that actually enhances your brand’s credibility.
Read about Google’s latest core update reducing unhelpful, uninspired content:
April 3, 2024
I had been the first content marketer at Global Payments and I was building the content marketing program from the ground up. 🚀
I had set the content strategy and I was experimenting with content to see what the audience responded to, what they wanted and needed from the brand.
I noticed that a trends blog was killing it. It was getting triple the amount of eyeballs than any other piece of content – and not just for one month, for half the year!
I came up with an idea. Let’s turn this concept into a content pillar piece.
It took shape in the form of Global Payments annual payment and commerce trends report, which is leveraged for a marquee marketing campaign each year and generates gangbuster results. 😱
Content gold 🧈 comes from turning data insights into action.
Sometimes that comes from the data you collect from your analytics, and other times it comes from market research. 📊
Carolyn Kopf explains all the juicy benefits you can achieve with market research. Give it a read!
March 18, 2024
SEO is not content strategy.
Content brands know this and it’s why they cultivate an audience better than other brands.
I see companies of all shapes and sizes that design their content calendar by what keyword research says about their audience.
If there’s one thing companies get wrong about content marketing, it’s this. In fact, just today I advised a client away from an SEO-led content planning approach.
Here are a few inherent problems with SEO driving your content strategy:
Only you know the most nuanced insights about your audience’s problems, expectations, and preferences–this is where you should base your content ideas from so you meet them exactly where they are in their journey.
When you prioritize content for SEO sake you drown your brand’s expertise out. How many articles can we read with the same list of 10 tips for getting a better night’s sleep?
Keyword popularity ebbs and flows. You are basing your content strategy on a moving target by relying heavily on SEO for your content strategy.
Google is prioritizing the user experience on Google itself and will provide the answer to a user’s question directly in the search first, meaning your SEO-focused article may not drive as much traffic as you think.
You may be developing a completely new approach or category or solution and the keywords don’t accurately reflect your innovative approach or the market. Therefore you’re fitting a square peg into a round hole and attracting the wrong audience after all.
Content marketing’s goal is to create helpful, relevant, and valuable content that solves the needs of your audience. The measure for creating helpful, relevant, and valuable content is resonance.
Resonance can’t be measured by traffic, which is the performance measure for SEO.
To earn resonance, content brands are leaders of good ideas, new insights, and expert opinions. They produce distinct, differentiated content with ideas so refreshing that your audience naturally pays attention to your thought leadership and engages with you. The ideas you offer them change the way they think. That’s resonance.
Being led by SEO can’t produce these results.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am a proponent of SEO as part of a content strategy, but it’s a tactic not the strategy itself.
Creating a content strategy based on broad audience research, not just SEO research, will help lead you to how your brand uniquely solves the needs of its audience – and get you away from the SEO trap that too many brands fall into.
March 6, 2024
Three days ago Rand Fishkin put out eye-opening research. Yesterday, Facebook and Instagram went down for two hours. What great timing to further emphasis his point.
I encourage an always-on campaign strategy to grow your email list consistently. It can be organic or you can put paid spend behind it. But get your email offer in front of your audience.
Subscribe form conversion strategies:
👉 Make sure the subscribe form is above the fold. (I've seen double-digit conversion rate increases just from moving it to the top of the page.)
👉 A/B test the CTA button
👉 Only require form fields you need (make it easy to fill out)
Read the article: https://sparktoro.com/blog/email-is-the-most-consistent-reliable-marketing-channel-on-the-web-and-i-can-prove-it/
March 4, 2024
Can you believe it? This week a year ago I launched my content marketing consulting business, Bold & Noteworthy Marketing. 🎉
I knew I wanted to try consulting and get in the arena, as Brene Brown says. But there was also so much uncertainty. 🤔
❓Would anyone hire me?
❓How do I prepare for the ebbs and flows of owning a business?
❓What’s my unique value proposition?
I choose to embrace the uncertainty of my next Bold Move. I chose to think that everything would work out and over time, the answers would come.
I put all my focus into consistent actions to build a brand worth knowing.
That became my mantra, so to speak. Build a brand worth knowing.
I could say all the same things that other content marketers say. And all that advice is valuable and helpful. But it also feels commoditized, general, one-size-fits-all.
What am I doing differently? Why am I worth hiring as a fractional head of content. What is my unique value proposition?
It hit me like a ton of bricks. At this one year mark into my content marketing consulting journey, I’m excited to codify what I’ve been doing over 15 years.
I help companies build content brands to become a brand worth knowing to customers who can’t get enough.
A content brand is a company with a unique point of view, set of principles, and beliefs that it shares via thought leadership and content marketing. 💡Because its ideas are so meaningful, its target audience is naturally attracted to the brand. It doesn’t have to fight for attention or engagement. Its audience is so excited by the points of view it shares that they pay attention all the time, waiting to hear what’s next – waiting for another opportunity to expand their views and vision because of what your brand shares.
💪I’m building my own content brand right alongside you – around my belief that being bold is the path to a more fulfilling and satisfying life. From my premise, I launched the Bold Moves: How Did You Know podcast, a monthly podcast club, the Bold Moves Recipe, and now, I’m developing a keynote talk, all to share how to be bold in career and life.
What a difference a year makes. Can’t wait to see what more Bold Moves are in my future during year 2! 🎈
If you’re ready to become a Bold & Noteworthy content brand, we’d make great partners. https://www.kristenrocco.com/work-with-me 🤝
Feb. 27, 2024
I had the incredible honor of helping CENTEGIX, the leader in wearable safety technology, amplify the impact of its life-saving technology with a strategic website refresh.
From ideation to execution, I came in as their strategic content partner to tackle this question: How do we communicate CENTEGIX updated brand and solution story through its website?
CENTEGIX has made bold and noteworthy moves to supercharge its growth quickly and soon found its website outdated. It had:
✔️ Brought new safety solutions to market
✔️ Expanded into new industries
✔️ Acquired a company
✔️ Updated its brand messaging
I welcomed the challenge of incorporating these brand evolutions into a compelling and cohesive audience-focused narrative – while also improving the user experience, customer journey, and SEO to positively impact website KPIs.
The website refresh went live in the fall and the YOY results are impressive:
🚀 Organic search traffic increased by 63%
🚀 Avg. engagement time increased 26%
🚀 Request demo conversion rates per session increased by 79%
Read the case study to discover my approach to making the CENTEGIX website refresh a success.
Jan. 16, 2024
I’m obsessed with the concept of the silent salesperson.
Let me explain.
It used to be that B2B prospects would connect relatively quickly with a salesperson after becoming aware of your product or solution to get more information about how it can specifically solve their needs.
That live salesperson has the upper hand. They can respond directly to the needs and expectations of the buyer in real time, offering benefits of the solution to his/her particular issue.
Today, however…
Prospects don’t connect with a live salesperson until they are almost 100% sure that your product or solution can solve their problem.
Which means…
Content is your silent salesperson.
Some proof:
➡️ 62% of B2B buyers engage with 3-7 pieces of content before connecting with a salesperson
➡️ 55% of B2B buyers rely more on content to research and make purchasing decisions than they did two years ago
Every content touchpoint matters more than it did even last year.
Just by uncovering this disconnect, you can now solve for it!
Ask yourself, "Where do I have content gaps in the customer journey?"
Here’s how to answer that question and create a plan to fill those gaps when you find them:
✅ Understand: Dig into your data and understand your customer’s path to purchase.
✅ Map: Map current content to each part of their journey.
✅ Fill: If content doesn’t exist, make a plan to fill the gap.
✅ Evaluate: Mine the data every month to keep a pulse on patterns and trends of your customer’s buying journey.
✅ Optimize: Create new pieces of create to fill any newly exposed gaps, double down on content that works in advancing the customer journey, and abandon what doesn’t.
What helps you close content gaps in your customer's path to purchase?
Jan. 11, 2024
Content pet peeve: Not paying attention to download file names. Recent faux pas from a digital course I received: “brand_designer_job_application_letter_in_cream”
The digital course has nothing to do with a brand designer job application. This is likely the Canva template they selected and didn’t bother changing the name before uploading it to their program.
This is an example of where content marketing and user experience meet.
Think through every customer touchpoint to deliver content experiences that elevate your brand. Even the smallest details matter, like this one.
I’m taking notes on our biggest content marketing pet peeves and starting a list here. I’d love to add yours. What’s your biggest content marketing pet peeve?
Jan. 8, 2024
No one said it was easy–but it works.
Conducting a content audit each year always gives me the answers I need to dramatically improve my results year over year.
So how do you do it?
Answer these 5 questions and uncover insights about your content and your audience that will dramatically elevate your content strategy this year.
How self-interested is your content?
*51% of survey respondents said content assets were not objective and too much of a sales pitch
43% said to focus less on product specifics and more on business value
38% said to add more insights from industry thought leaders and analysts
Is your content boring?
38% said content was too generic
37% said content was not always informative or entertaining
48% said they want content with interactive elements that make it easy and fun to navigate
Are you delivering content experiences your buyers want?
65% prefer short-form content like infographics and blogs
52% prefer to attend webinars and events
42% want case studies/user-generated content/product reviews
Do you have content for each stage of the funnel?
Top:
57% want webinars
53% want original research
52% read blog posts and news articles
Middle:
62% want to read case studies
49% want to read analyst reports
47% attend webinars
Bottom:
62% hop on a demo
55% read user reviews
48% want to understand the ROI of a solution with an ROI calculator
5) Which distribution channels are helping build an engaged, loyal audience?
What does your data show?!
*Research is from Demand Gen’s 2023 Content Preferences Survey Report
Dec. 18, 2023
Good content: Your audience responds with a like, a mere vanity metric.
Great content: Your audience comments with their take on your POV. Then, they take the next action to discover more about your brand. Loving what they learn, they become a subscriber and consistently engage with your content because what you say transforms their world. Now you’ve got a fan.
Get your audience to experience ‘aha’s’ every time they read, watch, or listen to your content. That’s the difference between good and great content.
“Our job is not to create content. Our job is to change the world of the people who consume it,” by Andrea Fryrear
Nov. 28, 2023
Google rules and we’re the Pavlovian dogs. A metaphor on point or too strong?
Whether you agree or disagree, we can all agree that as marketers we spend a lot of time thinking about Google.
With all the SEO rewards that can come our way, it’s no surprise why.
SEO drives efficiency and results abound when we get it right. But staying up with the trends and algorithm changes can be a full-time job in itself. Add in AI-generated search or Google’s Search Generated Experience (now in beta) and what you’re doing for SEO today will look different from what you will do in the future.
I called my friend, Zachary Chahalis, an SEO and analytics consultant, SEO principal at iPullRank, and partner at Stacked Analytics, to chat with me about the latest trends in SEO and the shifts marketers should understand to help plan a more effective marketing strategy for next year.
We also get into a passionate discussion about the intersection of AI, search, and content.
Nov. 8, 2023
Bold in content marketing this week: Jay Acunzo’s latest podcast episode on AI.
He says what we content creators everywhere want to say about AI. It isn’t a replacement for people who have spent their career dedicated to crafting content that creates connection.
What's bold? His courage in challenging companies that are laying off skilled talent and replacing them with AI. He asks, are your values aligned with your intentions? Or rather are your values misaligned with your intentions and truly supporting your incentives?
Let’s stop talking about AI as a replacement for humans. Let’s talk about it as an assistant instead. How about we empower creators and marketers, rather than replace them. His words.
I couldn't agree more.
My take: I think that AI technology is going to be a resource and a tool for researching content, getting answers to questions, finding thought starters for your content, but what's going to help you break out from the crowd is originality. Read more in my article "In the Age of AI, Infuse Your Content with Originality:"
Oct. 24, 2023
“What the ad person understands that the client does not is that nobody gives a damn about the client or his product. You, the client, may be in love with your support undergarments And your support undergarments may in fact be the best support undergarments in the world. Nobody cares. That’s the reality of the battlefield you’re waging war on.”
This is the perfect excerpt from NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T by Steven Pressfield that highlights what content marketing strategists do for their companies and clients.
As content marketing strategists, we create the bridge that connects your company to your audience by flipping the switch and educating about your products and service from the lens of your audience and the value it delivers to them.
Oct. 12, 2023
Eyes still half closed, I reach my kitchen for my daily morning chores. Mission: Put away dishes from last night. I make said activity more enjoyable by listening to my latest audiobook.
(Back in the old days, didn't we call audiobooks, "books on tape?!" That's what I just wrote and deleted because it felt too old school LOL but I digress..)
This time, it's Donald Miller's, Business Made Simple. Once again, I hear advice that made me push pause. 🤔
"Any professional who knows how to clarify a marketing message is worth thousands more in the marketplace.
Why?
Because a clear message sells products."
Two days in a row (yesterday's post below), different books, but both focused on starting and growing a business. They could have talked about any number of different marketing strategies and tactics to gain traction and sell products, but they didn't. They focused on clear messaging and clear writing. 💡
That's why content marketing IS marketing.
Are you investing in great messaging and great writing to reach your audience and grow your business?
Oct. 10, 2023
“Writing is today's currency for good ideas,” Jason Fried, author of Rework
I’ve been connecting with many business owners since I started my business to hear their stories, listen to their advice, and ask my most pressing questions about starting, running, and growing a business.
During one of those conversations, Naveed Usman recommended the book, Rework, to me. I added it to my Libby queue and started listening to it right away. I least expected to hear advice about writing in a chapter titled, “Hiring,” but that’s exactly what I got.
I rewound the audio after I heard those words, “Writing is today’s currency for good ideas.”
I listened closer to the surrounding context:
“If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position hire the best writer. it doesn't matter if the person is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever, their writing skills will pay off. That's because being a good writer is about more than writing clear writing.
Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else's shoes. They know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate. Writing is making a comeback all over our society. Writing is today's currency for good ideas.”
Clear writing = clear thinking = clear communication = good ideas
Bingo!
You can set up all marketing campaigns and funnels in the world, but they won’t work without clear writing that demonstrates to your audience why they should pay attention, what problem it solves, how it will benefit their lives, what it does, an easy way to say yes!
That’s a skillset. And not everyone has it. When you find someone who does, hold onto them.
Oct. 8, 2023
Noteworthy in content marketing this week…
Contextual CTAs. That's when you connect your CTA copy to the preceding content.
"It draws people in and makes the button seem more personalized," says David Brown of Knotch in the most recent "Pros & Content" podcast episode.
It can double or triple response rates!
Here's an example:
You're reading an article about dining alfresco on OpenTable's blog. At the end of that article, there's CTA copy that connects to what you just read which says: "Now that you know which restaurants have the best outdoor patios this fall, book your alfresco reservations now." 🍴
Have you tried contextual CTAs? What are the results of your tests? Is this sparking a new idea for your to try?
August 3, 2023
Technical SEO.
Content SEO.
Two different aspects of an effective SEO strategy.
Many companies are focused on one over the other, but doing both–that’s what really moves the needle.
Contrary POV: Don’t hire a content strategist to do technical SEO and don’t hire a technical SEO to do content SEO. You need both who can work together and create the biggest impact for your business.
August 1, 2023
Peep Laja wrote a phenomenal article on the why, the what and the how of a differentiation strategy. It’s bookmark-worthy.
If you’re recycling approaches from your competitors–or what I refer to as “me too” strategies –you’re getting it wrong. You’ll always be chasing, rather than leading.
But we see competitors doing the same thing all the time. That’s because, as Peep Jaja writes, “One of the hardest things to do is be original.”
I’d like to take that one step deeper. Most companies don’t want to spend the time doing the research and understanding their customers to figure out what their true differentiation is.
How can you market it if you don’t know what it is? You can’t!
It’s well worth the read. https://cxl.com/blog/differentiation-strategy/
July 18, 2023
Recently announced: the MICHELIN Guide is coming to my city, Atlanta!
As both a foodie and a marketer, this news has me, and the city, buzzing. While I could spend all day touting why this food news is significant to our city. I'll leave that to Eater, The Infatuation, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 🍴
What I want to talk about is the story BEHIND the MICHELIN Guide. It's a content marketing case study for the ages. 📚
Back in 1900, Michelin, the tire company, created the guide as a useful resource for drivers. But can you believe it was once used as a workbench prop? 😱
That didn't sit well with Founder Andre Michelin, who then transformed the guide into something extraordinary
June 26, 2023
Incredible frameworks and formulas exist to supercharge your content marketing success. The best part? You don't have to start from scratch or reinvent the wheel. You just need to know what to leverage and how to leverage it for your success.
What I do well–and why clients choose to work with me–is my ability to apply these frameworks and formulas to develop strategies that move the needle.
Recently, I applied the hero’s journey framework to create audience-focused brand messaging that’s going to completely up-level how my client approaches their market and builds trust and authority with their audience.
Here’s how it works:
The hero = your customer
Who has a problem: both external and internal
They meet a guide (you) who understands their fears
You give them a plan to overcome their problem thereby reducing their fears
And call them to action
You show them the success of going with your plan
Or failure if they don’t
They go with your plan and win!
This is a time-tested storytelling approach. Think of any movie. Deadpool. Star Wars. Harry Potter. The Lion King. Spiderman. At the start, the hero faces an internal and external crisis. They stew about the problem, before coming up with a plan. Then, they go into battle and win.
Your customer is the hero of your story. You’re the guide who has the plan that helps them win.
Do you use the hero journey framework? What other frameworks do you use to create content strategy that separates you from the competition?
June 20, 2023
Fifty-five couples from around the world have worked with me to document the stories surrounding how they met, fell in love, and why they’re pledging a lifetime together. 💕
You see, I'm at the same time a fractional content strategist for businesses and a love storyteller for engaged couples.
I don’t take the task of capturing love stories lightly. On the contrary, in fact. It's deeply personal. I'm conveying the most intimate moments of a couple's life together. They're counting on me to turn their memories into memoirs.
I say to myself, “If I were a fiction author writing the next New York Times best-selling novel, how would I make this story a page-turner?"
In essence, how do I write an engaging story that this couple is going to cherish for a lifetime?
For that, I rely on some time-tested approaches. These techniques work for all types of stories–even and especially business stories. 📚
That's because they evoke emotions that keep readers reading, emotions like suspense, intrigue, surprise, and curiosity.
The key to writing engaging content is to tap into your readers' emotions and their desire to want to know how the story is going to unfold in the next paragraph and on the next page–or scroll. 💥✨
Apply these techniques and you'll see your engagement rates soar. I'm using examples from some of my love stories to bring each technique to life.
Find a central theme and weave it throughout the story.
Your first paragraph captives the reader. Make it count.
Why not start in the middle? Sequential order isn’t always the right order.
Make quotes count–for personality and plot twists.
June 5, 2023
🔍🔮 Want to know the secret behind exceptional content? Something AI can’t do for you?
Imagine answering your audience's burning questions, sharing your deepest beliefs, and embedding powerful customer testimonials into your content. That's the recipe for standing out and making an impact with your content.
In my article, I reveal 5 creative ways to infuse originality into your content. Break free from the sea of sameness and engage your audience like never before. Click the link in our bio to read more. 🚀
Remember, in the age of AI, originality is your superpower. 💥
May 24, 2023
In my opinion, Netline’s 2023 State of B2B Content Consumption and Demand Report is one of the best B2B content marketing reports I’ve come across. It’s not based on a survey, it’s based on data….meaning the actions B2B buyers actually took versus what they said they would do.
It’s an absolute treasure trove of insight that will help you better understand buyer preferences and behaviors to accelerate your growth this year.
My interviewer self wanted to go behind the scenes with the creators of the report to hear their perspective on what B2B companies and B2B marketers can learn from it and guess what?!?
David Fortino, chief strategy officer at NetLine, generously lent his time to speak with me about the findings to share with you all!
Watch our conversation now and you’ll learn:
👉 His top research takeaways
👉 What the content consumption gap indicates and why you need to pay attention
👉 Which content formats indicate buying intent in the next 6 months
👉 The difference in buying intent between live and on-demand webinars
👉 And much more
May 11, 2023
How do you make sure your #content doesn't get lost in the sea of AI-generated content?
With original thinking!
It raises my temperature to know that there's going to be even worse–yes, I said worse–content because of AI.
I wrote a blog so you don't fall into that trap and outlined 5 tips to infuse your content with originality.
May 10, 2023
Buyers (your customers!!) be buying, ya'll!
Over 33% of B2B buyers expect to make an investment in the next 12 months—and they're consuming ~19% more content to help them make the right choice.
Is your content providing the information they need to evaluate your solution at the various stages of their research?
I categorized content in three ways to ensure buyers get what they need to make their decision:
✏️ Informational >> provides insight and knowledge on a topic
✏️ Educational >> teaches or instructs your buyer on a topic
✏️ Commercial >> persuades or influences your buyer to purchase
👉 Informational and educational content work well at the top of the funnel when a buyer is learning or gathering more information about a topic to help in their decision-making process.
👉 Educational and commercial content work well in the middle and bottom of the funnel when the buyer is considering how your solution would work to solve their needs and when they’re evaluating it against other solutions in the market.
Content Marketers: Do you plan content in a similar way? What other approaches do you use?
The NetLine report is full of gems to help inform your content strategy this year. Grab it here: https://netline.com/netline002n/?d=glconsumption23&k=230328nlwccr
May 8, 2023
In the age of AI, there's a whole new meaning to the phrase, "These thoughts and opinions are my own."
May 4, 2023
That I'm-so-excited-to-start-my-day feeling when you're kicking off a new client and doing exactly what you love to do!
The client brought me on to develop the content strategy for a new solution. Why? To:
👉 Research the market to pinpoint competitive messaging
👉 Analyze audience pain points that this solution solves
👉 Design a successful buyer’s journey for the new solution, delivering value-add content the whole way
👉 Innovate original content ideas to demonstrate my client’s expertise and the results they can generate for their clients
👉 Create a distribution strategy that meets their audience exactly where they are in the buying journey
I’ll stand behind it every time. A strong, sound strategy is the best predictor of marketing success.
April 25, 2023
With AI all the rage…
Let’s step back and talk about when and how you should integrate content technology into your business.
Content marketing technology can offer several advantages, but only if it solves a problem for your team and business. Otherwise, you may end up with a solution that nobody uses and can't prove its value.
Before you jump to the latest technology, think about the growth phase of your business and what you hope to achieve with the technology.
🏗️ Build: At this stage, you’re building your business from an idea to generating a few hundred or thousand loyal users or customers. Your focus is probably on content creation and understanding what content resonates with your audience. What are your problems associated with content creation at this phase and can technology help you solve the problem? If so, how?
In the beginning, Google Suite, Google Analytics and SEO tools can be simple solutions for small teams.
🪴Growth: As you grow and add more members to the team, both in marketing and other areas, you’ll encounter new challenges that technology can solve.
Content workflow efficiency becomes increasingly important. With more members on the team, distributed in several time zones, housing your team’s content in one place and moving it efficiently through a predefined workflow becomes critical.
Getting content to the sales team can also be more complex, and technology can help facilitate the handoff and aid in the feedback loop between sales and marketing.
🏙 Scale: At this speedy pace of growth or for large organizations, content governance is a big issue. How do you ensure that the content across the organization is on brand, on message, and on tone everywhere it’s created and distributed? This is another place where tech can help.
💡I’ll leave you with this last bit of advice:
Don’t bring on a content technology solution unless you know exactly the problem it solves for your team and for the business. Maybe you have multiple reasons why you need content technology. Write them all down and make sure your solution can manage everything you need.
Create a business case, socialize, get feedback, refine and ensure everyone is on board before onboarding your technology. This will help you think through all angles and pinpoint exactly why you need it and how you're going to use it.
April 17, 2023
It’s hard to describe what hiking the Grand Canyon is like.
With every next step, another view of its magnificence reveals itself to you. Standing still and taking it all in is meditative. It’s not only looking and seeing its majesty with your own eyes; it’s breathing in the crisp air, hearing the calm, feeling at peace, and knowing that you’re part of a world so beautiful that you can’t wrap words around it.
The Grand Canyon is a beautiful metaphor for what it takes to create exceptional content. The Grand Canyon is distinct. Unique. There’s nothing else like it in the world. That’s why it draws a worldwide audience of 5.9 million visitors every year.
Great content exhibits the same qualities. Attracting an audience because you have something to say that leaves your audience thinking—meditating— on the new story, POV or insight you shared.
Especially critical in the age of AI, the originality of your content is your differentiation.
I love taking inspiration from my travels into my work and this one from the Grand Canyon will always be with me. I hope it helps you create your next piece of great content too!
April 11, 2023
I’m finding four reasons companies are hiring fractional content marketing to support their goals this year. Which one describes your situation best?
Your marketing team on the smaller side and your content marketing team is even smaller. You want to generate better results and experiment with new ideas, but to do that you need to augment your team.
You’re a startup ready to scale to attract new customers and differentiate from the competition, but you're missing the critical content marketing function to power your growth.
Your marketing agency is growing fast and you need to expand your team quickly to support your clients–with strategic expertise and flawless hands-on execution.
You have a new leadership team with a new approach and now your existing content strategy is now outdated. It needs a refresh and a supporting plan to align with the new corporate strategy.
April 5, 2023
How are you baking AI into your content strategy this year?
According to Contently’s State of Content Marketing 2023 Report, 23% of content marketers plan to use generative AI this year to support their content marketing efforts. But is it documented?
If your CMO was to ask for your approach tomorrow, are you ready to answer?
Questions to ask to help you answer this question.
What will AI help your content team accomplish? And why?
What will your content team do that AI can’t or that you dont want it to? And why?
What’s the outcome or result you hope to achieve from leveraging AI?
Who on your team will be accountable for experimenting and reporting the learnings?
What AI platforms will you leverage? Encourage your team to leverage?
What governance will you put in place around leveraging AI content throughout your organization?
Always think strategy before jumping into execution. These questions will help you set the strategic framework for your oganization–and answer your CMO with a thorough and well-thought through approach.
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