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.

10 Expert Pointers To Create Better B2B Content With Authentic Influence

Lane Ellis on Nov 18th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

How does authentic content help drive better customer experience?

And how does influence help optimize B2B content marketing performance?

Both of these are important questions for today’s B2B marketers heading into the uncertainty of 2021, where we face falling organic social reach and declining brand trust. To help guide the way we have gathered together the answers to these key questions and eight others.

Our CEO and co-founder Lee Odden explored the topics of authentic content and how influence can optimize content marketing performance during virtual presentations for the ContentTECH Summit and the IABC MN Convergence Summit, and we’ll share some of the top take-aways from his insight-filled sessions.

Let’s dig right in and look at Lee’s 10 pointers to create better B2B content with authentic influence in our age of the new normal.

10 Expert Pointers To Create Better B2B Content With Authentic Influence

Incredible Content Marketing: 6 Tips for Infusing Credibility into B2B Content

Nick Nelson on Nov 10th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

One of my favorite moments from The Simpsons is when the hilariously incompetent physician Dr. Nick burns down a building by mishandling a clearly marked chemical tank, and then exclaims, “Inflammable means flammable?! What a country!”

via GIPHY

“Incredible” is a word that can spark similar cognitive dissonance for marketers. Sure, it might technically be defined as “impossible to believe,” but if your content isn’t credible, would anyone describe it as incredible?

Quite the opposite. In this business, incredible means credible. So let’s explore the cornerstones of creating credible, and thus truly incredible, content marketing.

Incredible Content Marketing: 6 Tips for Infusing Credibility into B2B Content

50 Top B2B Content Marketing Influencers To Follow in 2021 #CMWorld

Lane Ellis on Oct 7th, 2020
Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

The all-virtual Content Marketing World 2020 is upon us. As the largest content marketing conference in the world, CMWorld brings together a stellar array of talented professionals who are loaded with curiosity for future trends, marketing knowledge, and aspirations for new successes in the post-pandemic world. For the past 12 years leading marketers from all over the world have gathered in Cleveland, Ohio for one of the world’s strongest content marketing events, and for this unusual year Content Marketing World is entirely virtual.

Readers of our blog know we have a long history with the conference starting at the beginning, with 10 years of speaking and attending along with seven years of partnering with the Content Marketing Institute to develop speaker and influencer content marketing campaigns.

50 Top B2B Content Marketing Influencers To Follow in 2021 #CMWorld

New Research: How B2B Content Marketers Are Impacted and Pivoting During the Pandemic

Nick Nelson on Oct 6th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Each year, Content Marketing Institute releases a new version of its B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report, providing a timely contextual snapshot of the discipline at large and its ever-shifting landscape.

Needless to say, this year’s edition hits differently. While there is always change and evolution afoot in the annual study’s findings, 2020 has been a year of unprecedented upheaval for our profession, along with most every other.

The impact of COVID-19 on B2B content marketing is a direct and prevalent focus in CMI’s latest report, which helps leaders and practitioners in the field understand how their peers are reacting and adapting to a disruptive global event.

New Research: How B2B Content Marketers Are Impacted and Pivoting During the Pandemic

How to Win at B2B Influence With The Magic of Content Co-Creation

Lee Odden on Sep 7th, 2020
Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Today we live in an age of information overload where the speed of content discovery and the variety of options for media consumption across connected devices presents new challenges for B2B brands and buyers alike.

The natural response for buyers is to filter their choices and focus those few sources which are most trusted, credible and meaningful. For brands that want to differentiate and even dominate in their category, becoming known as “the best answer” for their domain of expertise will have enormous impact.

The challenge of increased digital sophistication brings an opportunity: businesses can differentiate and capture market attention by growing their authority and influence.

How to Win at B2B Influence With The Magic of Content Co-Creation

Your Guide to Effective Storytelling in B2B Content Marketing

Nick Nelson on Sep 3rd, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a guy who understands content. He was the featured keynote speaker at Content Marketing World three years ago, and his company HitRecord empowers creators to collaborate and produce awesome stuff together.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt also understands storytelling. He is an actor, director, producer, and writer who has appeared in numerous beloved movies and TV shows. His work as an author includes a series of works called The Book of Tiny Stories.

“The universe is not made of atoms; it’s made of tiny stories,” the tagline asserts.

Given his experience and expertise at the intersection of content and storytelling, it’s worth listening any time Gordon-Levitt speaks on these subjects. So I definitely took notice when the film icon suggested recently that the future of storytelling lies not in movies, but video games.

Your Guide to Effective Storytelling in B2B Content Marketing

5 Steps for a More Powerful B2B Content Marketing Strategy

Lee Odden on Aug 24th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Content Marketing continues to be a driving force behind meaningful B2B marketing that powers marketing and business growth. According to research by HubSpot, 70% of marketers actively investing in content marketing and there’s no sign of a slowdown, especially as SEMrush research has found, marketers are focused on using content to generate more quality leads (75%), attract more traffic to their website (71%), improve brand reputation (56%), and improve customer engagement and loyalty (45%).

The problem is, many of those marketers are not creating best answer content experiences. Creating useful content by itself is not an effective strategy in a world of brand distrust, content attention deficit and the distractions brought by a global pandemic. Being the best answer for your customers means being found and also delivering on expectations. Creating findable, credible content that is also useful and experiential is at the center of what being the best answer means for marketers.

5 Steps for a More Powerful B2B Content Marketing Strategy

7 B2B Content Marketing Tactics For Long Term Success

Anne Leuman on Aug 20th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

I have an important question for you:

Athlete A runs a marathon in under 3 hours. Athlete B runs a 40-yard dash in under 5 seconds. Which athlete is more impressive to you?

Athlete A can run the distance, but Athlete B is explosive. ?

via GIPHY

If you’re anything like me, you answered that they’re both very impressive. And you’d be right. Having both endurance and power are extremely important. So, why am I asking this question on a blog all about marketing? Well, the most successful content marketing strategies have tactics that cover those two qualities: endurance and power. AKA long-term and short-term tactics.

7 B2B Content Marketing Tactics For Long Term Success

How to Optimize Original B2B Research Content For Credibility and Impact

Lee Odden on Aug 17th, 2020
Content Marketing

For many in the B2B marketing world, original research provides an effective way to build thought leadership and drive content for owned and earned media.

Unfortunately, many research reports from B2B companies are dry, uninspired and focus solely on pontifications from the brand point of view. Such unremarkable content isn’t helping customers, especially if they never see it due to information overload or they don’t trust it.

“With more information, options and people involved in a buying process, buyers are paralyzed when trying to move forward.” Gartner

Fortunately, there’s a better way.

More often than not, B2B research reports have marketing objectives focused on building brand thought leadership, attracting new names for nurturing and to serve as a resource for sales. Since most B2B brands don’t have the credibility and distribution to reach their marketing goals on their own with such reports, they rely on advertising and PR to attract attention.

How to Optimize Original B2B Research Content For Credibility and Impact

A Day in the Life of a Content Marketer During the Pandemic: Challenges and Tips

Nick Nelson on Aug 13th, 2020
Content Marketing

I’ll never forget the night that everything really changed.

It was my wife’s birthday, March 11th. I took her out for dinner at a lovely restaurant in South Minneapolis, and for a couple of blissful hours, over exotic cocktails and delicious food, we unplugged from the loudening noise of a worrisome outside world.

After we walked out of that restaurant, there would be no more tuning out.

Stepping out from the darkly lit building, I looked down at my phone, and tried to process the sudden rush of stunning headlines:

WHO declares global pandemic. NBA suspends season. Trump addresses the nation. Tom Hanks has coronavirus. Tom Hanks!

A Day in the Life of a Content Marketer During the Pandemic: Challenges and Tips

In Search of Trust: How Authentic Content Drives Customer Experience

Lee Odden on Aug 10th, 2020
Content Marketing

The experience customers have through marketing content can be one of the most important differentiators for brands today.

And yet 58% of B2B buyers don’t not believe claims made by the vendors they most recently bought from (TrustRadius).

It’s hard to create a great experience if customers don’t trust brand communications.

Trust is the gateway to influence perceptions, behaviors and actions and brands that want to succeed in the uncertain environment of today’s digital world need to double down on building trust with their customers. But how?

Today’s increasingly digital buyers have high expectations of the companies they do business with: buyers want personalized and relevant information, they want a consistent experience across channels, they want confidence in the brand as a company that cares about privacy, their customers and the community.

In Search of Trust: How Authentic Content Drives Customer Experience

6 New Rules for B2B Marketing in the COVID-19 Era

Joshua Nite on Aug 4th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

I was supposed to go to an Alanis Morissette concert this July. When the pandemic hit hard in March, I wasn’t ready to cancel my ticket yet. Surely, surely we would have it sorted in time for an outdoor concert four months from now. I held out hope. Then, in June, she rescheduled for July, 2021. And now I’m wondering if that will be enough time.

Isn’t it ironic?

Don’t you think?

All of which to say: This pandemic has been around for longer than we thought it would, and is looking to linger far longer than we would like. What seemed like a brief, surreal interlude to be gotten through has now become a reality to live with, at least for the time being.

6 New Rules for B2B Marketing in the COVID-19 Era