Online Marketing Blog

According to a CMI and MarketingProfs study, 91% of B2B Marketers are using content marketing and that means a few things:

First, it means content marketing has gained critical mass within the popular marketing mix and any company in a competitive industry would be hard pressed to attract business without it.

Second, it means competition to stand out with your brand’s content is only going to get harder as more companies adopt content marketing best practices and mature in their skills.

As companies evolve from simply recognizing the important role of content and experimenting with it, to achieving content creation competency and quality, the need to optimize content marketing skills becomes increasingly important. But where can B2B marketers find new ideas and expand their opportunities to grow content marketing capabilities?

Today I’m giving a keynote at the sold-out Communicator’s Conference in Portland, Oregon to 270 or so PR and Communications professionals.

The colliding or collaborating (depending on your situation) worlds of digital marketing and PR have left a lot of ambiguity about roles, goals and responsibilities between these 2 very important groups.

In this presentation I outline why PR should care about marketing, 3 big trends to watch for and 3 of the most common questions brand PR and corporate communicators have (I polled my LinkedIn network) about integrating PR and marketing. I finish things off with a plan for how PR and communications can tap into digital marketing expertise and contribute messaging and storytelling for more meaningful and impactful marketing / PR performance.

With 9 out of 10 B2B marketers using content marketing, competition for attention is more fierce  than ever. The constant battle with Google algorithm and indexing updates and the masking of useful data against which to optimize has caused many ambiguities when it comes to implementing traditional SEO advice.

That doesn’t mean search doesn’t warrant top priority. Search is core to finding answers in daily business life: Google handles 100 billion queries monthly and 16% of those queries have never been seen before. According to a recent DemandGen report, 81% of B2B buyers start their journey to finding solutions through search.

That means there are huge opportunities for continuous optimization of content performance in search to attract, engage and convert. Great SEO strategy also contributes to great user experience, so it should play an essential role in every digital marketing mix.

On Wednesday evening in downtown Minneapolis, marketers gathered to hear the answer to a burning question: #whatthefoc? (AKA what is the future of content?)

The Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) hosted the sold-out Future of Content event, with speaker Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing CEO and the author of Optimize, aiming to point attendees in the right direction.

Marketers know content is important; in fact, 78% of CMOs think custom media represents the future of marketing. How has content changed how we view marketing today and more importantly, how can we prepare for the future? These highlights from The Future of Content with Lee Odden should shed some light on the issue:

Ask yourself 3 questions about your existing content strategy.

Odden instructed the audience to ask themselves three questions about their business:

Danger! Don’t Optimize Presentations to Suck. Image via Shutterstock

Over the past 5 years I’ve given a few hundred presentations in front of crowds from 10 to 1,000.

I also make sure to attend other speakers’ presentations, sometimes to delight and sometimes to horror.

Despite that experience, I’m far from a perfect speaker. But I am passionate, knowledgeable and continuously trying to optimize my speaking skills. Part of this comes from feedback but also from watching people give presentations.

There are many mistakes I’ve made that all could have been avoided. I have a feeling this is the case for many. Whether you give presentations at conferences or internally, here are a few tips on what to avoid.

Future of Content – Retro image from Shutterstock

It’s a pretty compelling question: What is the Future of Content? What’s in store for content marketing?

With the growing adoption of brand publishing and convergence of paid, owned, earned and shared media, many companies are looking forward to what’s next. In retail, Multi Channel is now Omni-Channel and single format storytelling has evolved into Transmedia Storytelling. Computers are becoming the fax machines of internet connected devices as smart phones, tablets and laptops become the norm.

To answer the question about the future of content, I think it’s important to think about the relationship of information, technology and the human experience with content.

Audience for “Integrating Blogging with Content Marketing to Inspire Action”

This week was the start of a 6 speaking event extravaganza over the next 30 days or so and what a kickoff. The inaugural Social Media Marketing World in San Diego put on by Mike Stelzner and the team at Social Media Examiner was nothing less than impressive.

When Mike told me about the event last year, I had no hesitation about saying yes. What I didn’t know was what kind of experience it would be.

With a very California warm and fuzzy feel, the practical SMMW13 conference sessions were sandwiched with inspirational and engaging keynotes from:

• Larry Benet “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”
• Sally Hogshead “How to Fascinate With Your Social Media Messages”

When there’s a good story to tell, it doesn’t matter what else is going on. You have to tell it. That’s where I’m at with the intersection of search, social and content marketing.

For the past few years I’ve been giving presentations all over the world to educate marketers on the importance of an attract, engage and convert approach to content marketing. During an upcoming stretch of 30 days or so, it turns out that I’ll be giving 6 different presentations on the topic from 6 different angles.

This content marketing and optimization “6 Ways” tour starts out in San Diego next week with a presentation on how to use blogging to inspire action at the inaugural Social Media Marketing World conference.

Content marketing is all the rage, though brands still struggle to attract the right audience, engage readers and convert them to buyers. Simply publishing content is no guarantee anyone is going to see it – or that they’d even want to, if quantity is currently trumping quality.

Great content isn’t great until it’s discovered, consumed and shared, says Lee Odden, our CEO at TopRank Online Marketing and SES New York speaker. Lee gave his Creative Content Marketing: Winning Hearts, Minds & Wallets presentation this morning to a room packed with marketers striving to improve their content strategy.

In advance of their SES New York session on social commerce, I wanted to see what tips and tricks moderator Mel Carson and speaker Deitra Mara could share with our readers. At 9:30 am March 28th, the two will join Tami Dalley from Salesforce to present Social Media Meet ROI: The Secrets to Driving Social Commerce.

Carson and Mara graciously participated in interviews prior to their session, to share their experience and advice with marketers looking to improve their social media channel awareness, content creation and social ROI.

Carson, formerly of Microsoft, is the founder of social, PR and personal branding consultancy Delightful Communications. As moderator, he’ll have his hands full with the two powerhouse speakers.  Carson told us, “I’d encourage anyone to come to see two very powerful women in the industry speak. Deitra and Tami bring a lot of insight into different tools and products, best practices and disciplines on how to prove the ROI in social media commerce exists and how to get more of it.”

“We’re moving from a world where we plan campaigns for the future, to one where we adapt campaigns to the moment.” – Joel Lunenfeld, Twitter’s VP of Global Brand Strategy and the keynote speaker this morning at SES New York.

Lunenfeld shared his vast experience and insight in real-time marketing in Optimizing Second Screen Engagement: Trends, Data & Insights. Mobile has certainly changed the way people find, consume and engage with information. Twitter came of age with the right tools, at just the right time, to answer the need for a real-time communication platform.

Now, said Lunenfeld, 85 percent of users say the phone is their primary way to access Twitter and the average mobile user follows 11 brands. Every 2.5 days, there are a billion tweets sent and over the past year, the amount of Twitter users has doubled.

In Driving ROI Across B2B Marketing Strategies at SES New York yesterday, Maura Ginty from Autodesk aimed to teach marketers the context of B2B digital, alongside the principles of B2B marketing. In sharing her A to Z tips on B2B ROI improvements, Ginty gave marketers 26 great takeaways to help prove and build the value of their digital marketing strategy.

With host Laura Roth, Senior Conference Manager, SES Conference & Expo on hand to guide the conversation and Lauren Vaccarello, Senior Director of Online Marketing, Salesforce.com at our digital disposal (she was tweeting in to the session), there was a lot to be learned from these experienced marketers.

A- Audience. You have to be able to reach the right audience members with the right message, at the right time.