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.

Equilibrium: 10 Tips to Balance Creativity and Process in B2B Content Marketing

Joshua Nite on Sep 21st, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Marketers have to continually earn and reward people’s attention. If we fail at that task, there are plenty of other content options out there. People — yes, even B2B buyers — want engaging, entertaining and valuable content.

That’s great news for those of us on the content side! It means we should be regularly exercising our creative muscles, breaking free of boring B2B, and coming up with new ways to delight our readers. How cool is it, for example, to make Ghostbusters references… for your job?

But as fun and creative as the work can be, there’s a cerebral and analytical side to marketing that we can’t neglect. If you came into marketing through creative writing, not the other way around, you may need to develop the left-brain part of the job:

Equilibrium: 10 Tips to Balance Creativity and Process in B2B Content Marketing

5 Tips for Promoting B2B Content Co-Created with Influencers

Debbie Friez on Sep 8th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Working with influencers creates an amazing opportunity to co-create and co-promote content for B2B brands. The brand can promote the influencer and vice versa. It’s a win-win.

Along with the win comes a responsibility to promote your B2B marketing content in a way that captures attention. It’s social media marketing after-all. To help you get the most out of your investment in content collaborations with influencers, here are 5 tips to spice up your social media posts. Follow this advice and the valuable content your influencers have helped you create will better reach, engage and inspire your customers.

5 Tips for Promoting B2B Content Co-Created with Influencers

6 Timeless SEO Tips Content Marketers Can Do Now

Lee Odden on Jul 26th, 2021
Content Marketing, SEO

Content is the research search began in the first place.

Learning about how to get customers to visit newly created websites is where my search engine optimization education began. In that journey from before there was a Google to today, many things have changed. What has stayed the same is the opportunity to grow business by connecting customers to content by being the best answer and inspiring those customers to take action.

The best SEO practitioners stay on top of what’s current, always experimenting and evaluating what works for topics in a particular industry for the websites and content they’re in charge of attracting customers to. At the same time, the best SEO advice isn’t worth much if it doesn’t get implemented. That’s why many marketers with long term SEO experience emphasize the fundamentals.

6 Timeless SEO Tips Content Marketers Can Do Now

Write from the Heart for More Memorable B2B Content Marketing

Joshua Nite on Jul 20th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

B2B marketers have been pushing for personalized content for a good long while. Now we’re also trying to humanize content — to make the case that B2B buyers are human beings who want to connect with other humans on an emotional level.

Isn’t it remarkable that we still have to make that argument?

But I’m not here to write another 1000 words about humanizing content. I want us to take it a step further, beyond personalization, humanization, personality and empathy.

B2B content marketing needs to come from the heart.

True, genuine heart is the last frontier in content. Every brand has an Instagram with behind-the-scenes content to boost authenticity. Every brand is striving to give at least the appearance of sincerity, personality and transparency.

Write from the Heart for More Memorable B2B Content Marketing

Inside B2B Influence 14: Ann Handley of MarketingProfs on Content Marketing and Influence

Lee Odden on Jun 21st, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Inside B2B Influence is a show that goes behind the scenes of B2B marketing and showcases conversations with insiders from the world of influencer marketing. We connect with influential practitioners at B2B brands of all kinds and sizes to answer the rising number of questions about working with influencers in a business context.

In this first episode of the second season of Inside B2B Influence, I was able to catch up with the incredibly popular, talented and beloved Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, Ann Handley. I’ve known Ann for well over 10 years and she’s been a great friend, client and source of inspiration to me about more meaningful content marketing.

Inside B2B Influence 14: Ann Handley of MarketingProfs on Content Marketing and Influence

Optimize for B2B Customers with Digital First Content Marketing

Lee Odden on Jun 7th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

The evolution of B2B marketing has required companies to extend the transformations and pivots made during the pandemic to more permanent changes in marketing driven by evolving consumer preferences for information discovery, consumption and interaction. B2B marketing is evolved as a digital first practice and there’s no going back.

While most marketers understand it is simply not enough to rely on push marketing tactics and advertising, they still rely on these familiar and comfortable tactics.

Today’s business customers have more content choices in text, images, audio, video and interactive formats on more devices than ever. They expect more than just useful information from the brands they buy from.

Optimize for B2B Customers with Digital First Content Marketing

6 B2B Content Marketing Summertime Sizzlers To Increase Audience Engagement

Joshua Nite on Jun 1st, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

I’m going to knock on wood as I type this, but: It looks like we might have a (mostly) normal summer this year in the U.S. After the lockdowns, isolation, anxiety and fear of 2020, it finally feels like things are opening up.

This is all great for everything except getting people to read your marketing content. In 2020 we had a captive audience starved for entertainment. Now we’ll be competing with everything from music festivals to movies to walking in the park.

The way to break through and have a “hot brand summer?” First, don’t use phrases like “hot brand summer,” because you’ll just make people hate you. Second, it’s all about customer engagement. That means connecting with people on a personal level, offering something novel and fascinating, and using that contact to build a meaningful relationship.

6 B2B Content Marketing Summertime Sizzlers To Increase Audience Engagement

What B2B Marketers Can Learn from Stand-Up Comedy

Joshua Nite on May 25th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Stand-up comedians need to make a connection with their audience. It starts with getting attention, then stoking interest, developing a rapport, and ultimately provoking a reaction.

To do it right, you need empathy, knowledge of your audience, creativity…oh, and a spark that makes you unique.

B2B marketers: Does any of the above sound familiar? I’ve been a professional marketer and an amateur comedian for over a decade, and it’s surprising how much the two inform each other.

Here are just a few lessons that B2B marketers can learn from standup.

Keep It Real

In the early 19th century, standup comedy depended on wordplay and absurdism. For example: “Take my wife…please!” or “The other night I shot an elephant in my pajamas… how he got into my pajamas, I’ll never know.”

What B2B Marketers Can Learn from Stand-Up Comedy

How B2B Marketers Can Build a Community of Influence with Content

Lee Odden on May 24th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

One of the most compelling scenarios for B2B marketers to build content and community is through a combination user generated content (UGC) and strategic content collaborations. To do this, many B2B brands will initiate ongoing social media content and engagement programs to stimulate dialog with customers, community and influencers to build essential relationships.

With B2B marketing shifting to digital first, there is more demand for content than ever, but there are also resource challenges with the need to continuously create new content. At the same time traditional social media and content marketing can have trust issues if the brand isn’t engaging with the community or the right influencers on a regular basis. A content marketing focused solution that solves for both of those challenges that also helps build community and influence for B2B brands can be found through participation marketing – aka, user generated content in the form of content collaborations with external influencers, brand community and customers.

How B2B Marketers Can Build a Community of Influence with Content

10 Ways to Drive Revenue through Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi

Lee Odden on May 20th, 2021
Content Marketing, Guest Posts

Huge congratulations to Joe Pulizzi on the release of the completely updated and expanded edition of Content Inc. Also thanks to Joe for contributing one of the handful of guest posts we’ve ever accepted here at TopRank’s B2B Marketing Blog. Along with thousands of other marketers, I’ve learned a lot from Joe and you will too.

Read on to discover 10 ways you can drive revenue for your business through content marketing from the Godfather of Content Marketing himself:

Whether you are a marketing professional, content entrepreneur or a media executive, driving revenue from an audience is always the same. Once you build a loyal and trusting audience through your content marketing or media strategy, there are 10 different ways to generate revenue: six direct sources and four indirect sources.

10 Ways to Drive Revenue through Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi

Content Marketing Optimization Audits – Find Where SEO Can Boost Content Marketing Success

Lee Odden on May 17th, 2021
Content Marketing, SEO

SEO and content marketing intersect in more ways than optimizing web pages with keywords.

Answering the question, “How does SEO and content marketing strategy interact?” starts with understanding customers, behaviors and preferences for information discovery, consumption and sharing. Knowing what customers care about and how those concerns and interests manifest as search keywords and social topics folds very well into the keyword research practiced by professional SEOs.

Keyword Glossaries and Editorial Plans can be valuable tools for marketers to aid in creating relevant content that is inherently optimized for customers and target audiences alike. Specific keyword optimization is appropriate as well, but the end content product becomes much easier to find, consume and share if an understanding of customer questions is translated into topics and keywords from the start. This is the core of how brands can become the best answer for what customers are looking for.

Content Marketing Optimization Audits – Find Where SEO Can Boost Content Marketing Success