Content Marketing

Content marketing is the planning, creation, promotion and measurement of content for a specific audience and intended to inspire a business outcome. With over 90% of B2B and B2C marketers engaging in content marketing, it’s more important than ever to make sure your content stands out from the crowd.

As the only blog to be named #1 content marketing blog three times by Content Marketing Institute, TopRank is dedicated to helping marketers understand the opportunities, best practices and current trends in the world of content marketing.

Browse our content marketing articles to find tips, guides, expert interviews, conference liveblogging and best practices.

Planning, Creation & Promotion: 5 Top Tactics For Creating Inspired B2B Content

5 top tactics to create inspired B2B content group of marketers at table image

How can marketers create the kind of inspired B2B content and customer experiences that will overcome today’s challenges and surpass tomorrow’s higher expectations?

With the right planning, careful creation, and strategic promotion, there isn’t any need for a secret formula for successful B2B content, as our chief executive and co-founder Lee Odden recently shared with top B2B marketers at the 2022 Content Marketing Conference.

2023 is set to see more content than ever come into existence, as the 4.6 billion pieces of content that are produced every day in 2022 expands, through ever-increasing output from human hands as well as artificial intelligence-augmented or generated content.

With so much competition for limited attention, how can B2B marketers build content that stands out?

Planning, Creation & Promotion: 5 Top Tactics For Creating Inspired B2B Content

How to Create More Authentic Influencer-Driven Content to Attract Qualified Prospects

Joshua Nite on Nov 14th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

When you think about who is influential in your industry, you likely think about professional influencers first. These are the consultants, public speakers and authors, the ones who give keynote speeches and have huge followings on social media.

These folks are absolutely essential as part of your influencer mix. Their reach, knowledge and professionalism are incredibly valuable.

However, you need more than just these folks for authentic and useful content. To create the kind of experience that earns the attention of qualified prospects, you need to expand your definition of what an influencer is — and what influencer content should look like.

Here’s how to optimize your influencer marketing to create authentic experiences that attract your most valuable audience.

How to Create More Authentic Influencer-Driven Content to Attract Qualified Prospects

Why Relationship Marketing Is Essential To B2B Lead Generation

Nick Nelson on Nov 7th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Conversion Optimization

One of the oldest, and creepiest, adages about the value of content marketing is that you can’t ask someone to marry you on the first date.

Weird as it might feel, there’s a good reason this metaphor has held sway. A marriage is a serious and high-stakes commitment, and nobody wants to enter one without truly feeling like they know and trust their future partner.

In the business realm, purchase influencers and decision makers are under huge pressure to get it right. It’s not enough to understand the product, its price, or its features. Buyers want to believe in the brand and the people behind it.

Increasingly, significant business purchases need to be buoyed by a strong relationship. (The non-romantic type, to be clear.) Smart and strategic content marketing is how those relationships are built.

Why Relationship Marketing Is Essential To B2B Lead Generation

10 Creative Horror Movies to Inspire Your B2B Marketing

Joshua Nite on Oct 31st, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

We’ve been saying for years that B2B marketing should be emotional, exciting, entertaining and engaging — in short, creative. Great marketing not only wins those industry awards, it gets better results.

We’ve proven as much with the work our agency puts out. But it’s nice to get some third-party vindication. LinkedIn’s B2B Institute just published a report called “Cashing in on Creativity.” They analyzed over 1500 B2B ads and found two huge takeaways:

Only 5% of ads have highly creative messaging
This top 5% can drive a 10-20x bigger market share growth

In other words, we don’t have to measure creativity in moonbeams and rainbows. We can measure in dollars and cents.

10 Creative Horror Movies to Inspire Your B2B Marketing

B2B Content Marketing: Making Small Budgets Do Big Things

Nick Nelson on Oct 24th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

The latest B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends Report found that 67% respondents are being asked to do more with the same resources compared to a year ago.

Many teams will keep being pressed to work under constraints in the coming year as economic uncertainty affects planning and budgets. In the latest CMO Survey, released in September, results showed that marketers “generally expect the growth of their marketing spending to slow or be flat in the coming year,” with waning optimism around the economic outlook likely a central factor.

(Image source)

The most reliable way to drive marketing results is to (smartly) invest more. This can lead to more ambitious campaigns and more robust promotion, among other things. But when a big budget isn’t available, B2B marketers can still do big things.

B2B Content Marketing: Making Small Budgets Do Big Things

20 Terrifying Marketing Jokes to Celebrate Spooky Season

Joshua Nite on Oct 17th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

I’ll admit it: I’m one of those fall-loving, Halloween-obsessed people who just can’t wait to feel that crispness in the air and break out the spooky decorations. It’s the one time of year where everyone briefly shares my interest in horror movies and scary stories.

So when asked to write another in my series of marketing jokes posts, I had to seize the opportunity to make it scary. Granted, my jokes usually provoke more groans and moans than a cemetery full of ghouls, but at least these are painful on purpose.

Read on and laugh… if you dare!

20 Terrifying Marketing Jokes for Halloween

Jokes about sea monsters don’t have super high search volume, but they do have a long tail.

20 Terrifying Marketing Jokes to Celebrate Spooky Season

5 Podcasting Trends Every B2B Marketer Should Know

Joshua Nite on Oct 3rd, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

We may have mentioned a time or two that podcasts are a great way for B2B marketers to release content. But since my first B2B podcasting post (way back in the before times of 2018, how naive we were), the landscape has changed significantly.

Part of the shift is due to the pandemic and the remote/hybrid work boom that followed. People who used to spend hours listening to podcasts on their commute suddenly found that the bedroom to home office commute required less entertainment.

But the other part is simply natural maturation and evolution over time. Podcasts are becoming even more plentiful, their creators more diverse, and the advertising more relevant.

Here are the major trends that B2B podcasters should be aware of for 2022 and beyond.

5 Podcasting Trends Every B2B Marketer Should Know

How LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Uses Blogging to Power Its Growth Engine

Lee Odden on Sep 27th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Blogging Strategy, Content Marketing

It was with great pleasure that I was able to wrap up my 2022 Content Marketing World experience with a session featuring two exceptional marketers that I’ve known for many years*: Steve Kearns (LinkedIn Senior Manager, Content Marketing and Social Media) and Tequia Burt (Editor in Chief LinkedIn Ads Blog) with a topic that is near and dear: How LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is Using the Blog to Power its Growth Engine

In an age of social media with Instagram, TikTok and even LinkedIn, does blogging still matter? For LinkedIn, the answer is absolutely yes.

How LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Uses Blogging to Power Its Growth Engine

Crunch Time: Maximize Your Content Marketing Impact When It Matters Most

Nick Nelson on Sep 26th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

In baseball, it’s technically true that games in April matter just as much as those in September. Each win and loss ultimately carries the same weight, no matter when it’s recorded.

Still: every player, coach, and person involved will tell you they feel the added pressure of late-season games in a close pennant race. More than ever, decisions are scrutinized and moments are magnified. It’s where the stars take center stage.

The approaching end of the year invokes similar vibes for marketing leaders – especially here in the year 2022, as we gaze ahead into an uncertain future, burdened with the likelihood of a looming recession.

Crunch Time: Maximize Your Content Marketing Impact When It Matters Most

Beyond B2Sea: 5 Top Lessons B2B Marketers Can Learn from Pirate Movies

Joshua Nite on Sep 19th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Avast, ye scurvy swabs! Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day, a holiday for landlubbers and seadogs alike. Ye don’t have to send cards or give gifts — just use your best nautical lingo and don’t forget the ARRRRs!

Talk Like a Pirate Day was first celebrated in 1995, but gained popularity online in the 2010s. It’s a good opportunity to be a little silly, watch some great movies, and maybe even learn a few pointers to guide your B2B marketing.

So batten the hatches, hoist up the mizzenmast, and shiver your timbers: Here are five lessons you can learn from pirate movies.

Beyond B2Sea: 5 Top Lessons B2B Marketers Can Learn from Pirate Movies

The Secrets of Creating Inspired B2B Content Experiences, Revealed

Nick Nelson on Sep 16th, 2022
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Picture this:

It’s mid-December and you’re on a road trip through Florida. A man stands on the side of the highway, holding a sign and pointing his thumb skyward. “To Jacksonville,” it reads, plainly indicating his intentions. Without a second thought, you keep driving and think of the hitch-hiker not once again.

What if the scenario instead played out like this?

It’s mid-December and you’re on a road trip through Florida. A man stands on the side of the highway, holding a sign and pointing his thumb skyward. “To Mom’s for Christmas,” it reads. Suddenly your heart swells, filled with memories of your own cherished holidays past, and somber thoughts of families around the world kept apart.

The Secrets of Creating Inspired B2B Content Experiences, Revealed