Joshua Nite

Carlos Abler Details How Content Marketing Can Contribute to the Greater Good #CMWorld

Can content marketing make the world a better place?

Let’s dial that in tighter: Can brands, businesses, make the world a better place?

And can they do it while making money at the same time?

According to content marketing leader Carlos Abler, not only can brands provide social value, they must – and, not for nothing, it’s in their best business interest to do so.

In his session at Content Marketing World 2019, Carlos shared a blueprint brands can follow to find the convergence of business value and social value.

How Can We Make Content More Valuable to Customers?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Content needs to be customer-centric, it needs to have value, and it needs to be relevant to the customer’s needs. Most content marketers could recite a similar mantra in their sleep. So if we all know better, why does content consistently miss the mark?

Carlos Abler Details How Content Marketing Can Contribute to the Greater Good #CMWorld

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16 Can’t-Miss Acts at the Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth: #CMWorld 2019

Joshua Nite on Sep 2nd, 2019 B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Come one! Come all! Come several! Come few!

Step right up! Don’t be shy! You there in the back, with the funny hat, step right up! You over there with the earrings and the weird mustache, come on in! There’s room for everyone under the Big Top, and it’s time for the Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth!

That’s right, Content Marketing World is mere days away. There is no more exciting place for a content marketer to be next week than Cleveland, OH(sure, it would be great if it were in Hawaii next year, but Cleveland is not without its charms). There’s a lot to look forward to: The opening night festivities! The keynotes! The sessions! The potential to see amazing marketing geniuses do bad karaoke!

16 Can’t-Miss Acts at the Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth: #CMWorld 2019

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How to Refocus on Your Audience for Better Content Marketing Results

Joshua Nite B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Is your content audience-centric?

“Of course it is!” Says the hypothetical person I just made up. “We do intensive research for all our content. We look at questions our audience is asking, we hit up SEMrush and BuzzSumo…our content is all about our audience!”

Here’s the big question:

Beyond learning about your brand, which will enrich their lives in many exciting ways, what is your consumer getting out of your content?

Creating or deepening a brand relationship can’t be the only reason your content exists. Raising brand awareness can’t be the only reason your content exists. That’s not audience-centric content. People will quickly realize that and move on.

Most marketers want to offer a genuine value exchange to our consumers. We’re not shriveled-hearted gargoyles trying to trick people into paying attention to us.

How to Refocus on Your Audience for Better Content Marketing Results

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12 Must-Have Marketing Skills for B2B Content Marketers

Joshua Nite B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Scene from a dinner party:

“So, Josh, what do you do?”

“I’m in marketing.”

“Oh, like Mad Men? Ad campaigns and stuff?”

“No, it’s content marketing.”

“Oh, like the Wendy’s Twitter account?”

“…Sure… like that.”

I’ve had variations on the above conversation more times than I can count. I’ll usually leave it at “Wendy’s Twitter account” in the interest of changing the subject. No one has the patience for, “I write business-to-business content designed to help people do their jobs better, which also builds affinity for a client brand, with the end goal of influencing purchase decisions.”

So most people think I just write fun stuff all day, that it’s a purely creative job. But my fellow B2B marketers know better. Content marketing requires an incredibly diverse set of skills, and “innate writing ability” isn’t even the most important one.

12 Must-Have Marketing Skills for B2B Content Marketers

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B2B Demand Gen: The Next Evolution of 5 Tried-And-True Tactics

Joshua Nite B2B Marketing, Digital Marketing

B2B demand gen used to be easier than B2C. Because, let’s face it, so much B2B marketing was deadly boring. A cool concept, a little creative design, or a dash of humor were like water in the desert.

Now, though, it’s the norm for B2B marketing to be every bit as visually and emotionally compelling as B2C. Suddenly we’re selling water by a lake, not a desert. There’s no shortage of cool content. Audiences expect more, and marketers (including your competitors) are keeping up with demand. So it’s time to take B2B demand gen to the next level.

B2B Demand Gen Tactics: The Next Evolution

What follows are some logical upgrades for some of your favorite time-tested tactics. That’s not to say, of course, that you should stop doing things that are already working. But it’s worth testing these evolutions out to see what works for your target audience.

B2B Demand Gen: The Next Evolution of 5 Tried-And-True Tactics

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How to Promote Your B2B Podcast

Joshua Nite B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Over 1/4th of the entire population of the United States listens to podcasts at least monthly. That’s over 81 million people. What’s more, the most avid listeners log six and a half hours a week of listening time. Eighty percent finish every episode in its entirety.

There’s enormous potential here for engaging an audience. Think about how long someone might stick with a 1,000 word blog post (like this one). Five minutes? Ten? But they might listen to a 25-30 minute podcast on the same topic.

Podcasting holds a lot of promise for marketers, especially in the B2B space. Our agency has helped multiple B2B Fortune 500 companies produce and find an audience for their podcasts. It takes strategy and coordination, but the barrier to entry is relatively low. Of course, “making” the podcast is the easy part. As with any content, the challenge is successfully getting it to your target audience.

How to Promote Your B2B Podcast

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B2B Marketing Examples: 7 Bold Examples of Interactive B2B Content

Joshua Nite B2B Marketing, Online Marketing

If you’re not convinced that interactive content in the B2B space can work: Well, first check out these interactive content stats.

If you’re still on the fence, here’s an object lesson from a master of audience engagement:

Freddie plays that 100,000-person crowd like an instrument. You can feel the energy, even through a tiny YouTube window.

When you invite your audience to be part of the show, the results can be magical.

Now, odds are your brand can’t match the raw charisma of Freddie Mercury in tight jeans. But you can still get your audience cheering with interactive B2B content.

Here are a few great examples to light your creative fires and open your B2B minds to the possibilities of interactive.

B2B Marketing Examples: 7 Bold Examples of Interactive B2B Content

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10 Memorable Marketer Moods, Memed

Joshua Nite B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

As a content marketer, I’m always looking for more effective and efficient ways to communicate. I love the way communication is evolving online (with the exception of, say, YouTube comments).

Think about it: A hundred years ago, it was much harder to convey a mood in text.

You could trail off (…)
You could ask questions (?)
You could shout (!!)

And that’s about it.

Emoticons opened up the possibilities a bit, with “slight smile :),” “big smile :D,” and “guy wearing sunglasses sticking his tongue out 8P.” Emojis added even more nuance.

Now, though, we have the ability to embed images and GIFs in our blog posts, emails, and messages. We can convey extremely specific moods, thoughts, and insights with a single image. Like, for example, the feeling when you’re wearing socks and step in something wet:

10 Memorable Marketer Moods, Memed

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How Marketers Can Improve the Customer Experience (And Why They Should Want To)

Joshua Nite Online Marketing

Recent research from Gartner shows that 89% of companies compete primarily on customer experience. The way your brand makes customers feel can mean the difference between advocating for the brand or going with a competitor.

So, who owns customer experience?

It’s not just the customer service team or the Chief Experience Officer or any other dedicated department. Every touch point with a customer or potential customer is an opportunity to enhance the experience. It’s everyone’s responsibility.

As customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author Blake Morgan puts it:

“Today, companies are thinking about customer experience in everything they do, from hiring and leadership development to marketing, supply chain, logistics, IT infrastructure, product design and continuous improvement for the entire business.”

How Marketers Can Improve the Customer Experience (And Why They Should Want To)

The Next Level of Influence: 30 Essential Influencer Marketing Statistics

Joshua Nite Online Marketing

Pop Quiz: When influencer marketing is done right, who wins?

a) Your brand
b) The influencers
c) Your audience
d) All of the above

In case you missed the last few classes, the answer is D. In the ideal influencer marketing engagement, your brand gets a boost in credibility, authority, and exposure to a new audience. The influencer gets a cool content asset to promote, association with other thought leaders, and is able to grow their influence in their niche. And the audience gets awesome content neither the influencer nor the brand could have produced on their own.

Getting to that “everyone wins” stage requires strategic planning and execution, though. You can’t just throw money at someone with a big Instagram following and expect results.

The Next Level of Influence: 30 Essential Influencer Marketing Statistics

Next-Gen Lead Gen: How to Refine Your Marketing to Get More B2B Leads

Joshua Nite Content Marketing, Digital Marketing

A few days ago, I was watching a 2005 episode of Doctor Who with my nine-year-old. He saw a strange artifact in a character’s hand. “What’s that thing?” he asked.

“An iPod,” I responded. “It’s like a smartphone, but it could only play music and had a black-and-white screen. No, no touchscreen. It held a LOT of music, though! Like hundreds of CDs! Okay, so a CD is…”

The point being: You kids need to get off my lawn.

Okay, the actual point being: Technology has changed fast in the past decade, and what used to be mind-blowing is now laughably obsolete. That’s doubly true in B2B marketing. We have the tools and tech to do amazing, iPhone-XS-Max-quality B2B lead generation.

Next-Gen Lead Gen: How to Refine Your Marketing to Get More B2B Leads

5 Content Marketing Shortcuts That Cost You in the Long Run

Joshua Nite B2B Marketing, B2C Marketing, Content Marketing

You know what they call a shortcut that actually saves time?

The route.

That was the wisdom my dad gave me the first time we went hiking together. Sometimes when you look at the map, it looks like there’s a better path. But the route is the route for a reason. Chasing a shortcut feels like making progress — but it might not get you to the trail’s end.

Marketers dig shortcuts. Or, as we call them, “hacks.” It makes sense: We’re usually overworked, understaffed, and expected to work wonders. A content marketing hack promises to cut a straight line through a tedious process, increasing efficiency and boosting results.

5 Content Marketing Shortcuts That Cost You in the Long Run