Ashley Zeckman

Create a Stellar Audience Experience By Slowing Down with These Tips from Ann Handley #CMWorld

Ashley Zeckman on Sep 9th, 2019     Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

You know a conference session is going to be good when literally hundreds of marketers are turned away due to an already packed room. And you know a session is going to be great when the amazing Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer for MarketingProfs, takes the stage and is visibly bummed that she didn’t get the chance to connect with those marketers.

Part of Ann’s magic is her ability to make herself and her content very accessible. She accomplishes this by sharing stories that are personal to her, things she observes in everyday life that inspire her inner marketer. And her session at last week’s Content Marketing World 2019 was no exception.


Create a Stellar Audience Experience By Slowing Down with These Tips from Ann Handley #CMWorld
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Joshua Nite

April Henderson on Data-Driven, Empathetic B2B Content #CMWorld

Joshua Nite on Sep 6th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Forrester’s April Henderson started her Content Marketing World 2019 session with a classic cautionary tale:

Johann Rall was fighting for the British at the turning point of the Revolutionary War. The night before the Battle of Trenton, he was out celebrating at the home of a local Loyalist merchant. That merchant had seen General Washington amassing his forces and knew the attack was coming.

So what did the merchant do? He created relevant content! He wrote Rall a note and slipped it across the table. Rall nodded, put the note in his pocket… and continued his evening of revelry. The British were caught unawares, and the tide of the war began to turn. That lack of content engagement might be how America won the war.


April Henderson on Data-Driven, Empathetic B2B Content #CMWorld
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Lane Ellis

Digital Marketing News: Facebook Like Counts & YouTube Subscriber Numbers Undergo Changes, Gartner’s New Hype Cycle Study & More

Lane Ellis on Sep 6th, 2019     Online Marketing News

2019 September 6 SocialInsider Quuu Chart

YouTube starts phasing out exact subscriber numbers
YouTube has begun removing precise subscriber counts for channels with over 1,000 followers, replacing them with rounded overview numbers, the Google-owned video service recently announced. The move has left some brands with subscriber accuracy concerns, especially large ones that could see rounded counts hiding nearly a million subscribers. Campaign US

Now Facebook says it may remove Like counts
Facebook has begun testing the elimination of “like” counts in news-feed posts, the social media giant recently confirmed, in a move echoing a similar shift from tests conducted with its Instagram property — aimed at placing greater focus on content and less on “like” counts. TechCrunch


Digital Marketing News: Facebook Like Counts & YouTube Subscriber Numbers Undergo Changes, Gartner’s New Hype Cycle Study & More
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Kelly Hogan

Zari Venhaus’s Framework for Gaining Executive Buy-In for Marketing Technology #CMWorld

Kelly Hogan on Sep 5th, 2019     Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

I had the pleasure of sitting in on Zari Venhaus’s session at the second day of Content Marketing World 2019 where she laid forward a process to present martech business cases to senior leadership. She entered the room with a high level of energy and passion for the topic, making her an engaging speaker from the second she took the stage. 

After a quick bit about the company she works for, Eaton, which is a $22 billion power management company, she dove into a marketing technology business case she undertook as their Director of Corporate Marketing Communications. 

She insists she was not successful her first time creating a martech business case. It took living through many failures and successes to reach the process she uses today. Now, she feels ready to share those lessons with an audience like us so we do not have to suffer through the same trial and error. 


Zari Venhaus’s Framework for Gaining Executive Buy-In for Marketing Technology #CMWorld
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Joshua Nite

Lee Odden Shares His Secret to Content Marketing Fitness #CMWorld

Joshua Nite on Sep 5th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Marketing World, Marketing PR Conferences

Let’s face it: Too many of us are yo-yo marketers.

We deploy a campaign the way someone might approach a fad diet: With nothing but our initial enthusiasm to keep it going.

And like a fad dieter, we get results… for a little while. Then the campaign runs out of steam and we’re back at square one.

Wouldn’t it be nice if those initial successes could last? If we could go from “fad diet” marketing to lean, mean marketing machines?

At his Content Marketing World 2019 session, TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden laid out a blueprint for how to do just that.

Not only is Lee a champion of always-on marketing that gets sustainable results over time, he’s also achieved a dramatic physical transformation in the past year. He’s lost 65 pounds and just finished his first half-marathon.


Lee Odden Shares His Secret to Content Marketing Fitness #CMWorld
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Joshua Nite

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

Joshua Nite on Sep 4th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

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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Nick Nelson

Ghosted: What’s a Content Marketer to Do When Your Audience Goes Silent?

Nick Nelson on Sep 4th, 2019     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

How Content Marketers Can Deal with Audience Abandonment

The all-encompassing digital takeover has completely changed the way we communicate and interact as people. Naturally, in our professional realm we tend to tie this back to marketing, but the reality applies to just about every aspect of human relations. 

This includes dating and courtship, of course. The terms of engagement (so to speak) have transformed wildly. Whereas romance still can and does sprout through chance meetings, or encounters at the bar, or mutual college friend circles, it’s increasingly common for these fated connections to take place through online matchmaking sites and dating apps. (I would know — I’m marrying an amazing gal this weekend who I originally met on such an app!)


Ghosted: What’s a Content Marketer to Do When Your Audience Goes Silent?
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Lane Ellis

50 Content Marketing Influencers and Experts to Follow 2019 #CMWorld

Lane Ellis on Sep 3rd, 2019     Content Marketing, Content Marketing World

Content Marketing Influencers 2019

Content Marketing World 2019 is upon us. As the largest content marketing conference in the world, CMWorld brings together a stellar array of talented professionals who are filled with curiosity for future trends, marketing knowledge, and aspirations for new successes. For the past 11 years leading marketers from all over the world have gathered in Cleveland, Ohio for one of the world’s strongest content marketing event, and this year is set to be the biggest and best yet.

Readers of our blog know we have a long history with the conference starting at the beginning, with nine 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 Content Marketing Influencers and Experts to Follow 2019 #CMWorld
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Joshua Nite

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

Can't Miss Acts at CMWorld 2019

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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Lane Ellis

Digital Marketing News: Influencers Trusted More Than Friends, LinkedIn Expands Audience Data, New B2B Studies & More

Lane Ellis on Aug 30th, 2019     Online Marketing News

2019 August 30 Backlinko Chart Image

95% of B2B marketers consider demand creation strategy to be successful
Some 95 percent of B2B marketers view their demand generation tactics as successful, and 60 percent see email marketing as the top-performing demand-gen strategy, according to newly-released study data of interest to digital marketers. ClickZ

PubMatic Reports 26% Increase in Mobile In-App Advertising
Mobile advertising within apps saw impressions increase by 26 percent in the second quarter of 2019 compared to last year, according to new report data, also showing that in-app mobile video is increasingly driving ad spending. MarTech Advisor

LinkedIn Launches New Insights Hub to Provide Additional Audience Insights
LinkedIn has released an expanded version of its SuccessHub marketing data and insights feature, providing additional audience and more finely-tuned LinkedIn (client) market data, the firm recently announced. Social Media Today


Digital Marketing News: Influencers Trusted More Than Friends, LinkedIn Expands Audience Data, New B2B Studies & More
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Lane Ellis

5 B2B Brands Delivering Great Customer Experiences

Lane Ellis on Aug 29th, 2019     B2B Marketing

Colorfully painted wooden planks image.

Today’s B2B customers expect more B2C-like experiences, and here are five brands delivering great customer experiences that go far beyond the tired tradition of boring-to-boring.

Research from Gartner has shown that 89 percent of firms compete primarily on customer experience. Not all companies may be taking this to heart, however, as according to additional research some 60 percent of marketers fail to take into account consumer expectations, despite 95 percent seeing increasing expectations from customers.

Making memorable customer experiences a priority can help build successful campaigns and make for delighted customers, and with further recent research showing that just 14 percent of B2B survey respondents view customer experience and support as a top priority, there may be no better time to work on delivering great customer experiences.


5 B2B Brands Delivering Great Customer Experiences
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Nick Nelson

Wow Your Crowd: The Recipe for Creating Exceptional Content Experiences

Nick Nelson on Aug 28th, 2019     Content Marketing, Content Marketing World, Marketing PR Conferences

Expert Tips for Creating Memorable Experiences Through Content Marketing

Have you been to a stadium concert lately? The big ones touring the country tend to pull out all the stops. It’s not just a singer on stage — they are usually supported by a giant jumbotron as backdrop providing flashy visuals, along with fog machines, laser lights, platforms rising out of the ground, special guest cameos… the works. 

Why is this? Because the bar has been raised. When fans plunk down the big bucks for tickets to see Drake or Carrie Underwood or The Rolling Stones, they expect more than seeing their favorite artists performing on stage. They expect an unforgettable experience that stirs all the senses.

via GIPHY


Wow Your Crowd: The Recipe for Creating Exceptional Content Experiences
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