Marketers have been sold a dream: Collect more data, and you’ll get better insights to make smarter decisions. We all chased big data, embraced digital transformation, and invested in AI-powered analytics in the hopes that the elusive 360-degree view of each customer would finally materialize. As it turns out, chasing…

Content Marketing Institute Team The Content Marketing Institute team byline indicates this article reflects the collective work of the CMI team. CMI is a global marketing education and training organization dedicated to advancing the practice of content marketing. We create and curate content experiences that teach marketers and creators from enterprise…

Want a good book to advance your content skills, inspire creativity, or grow your business acumen? Look no further. One of these 40 books recommended by the CMI community is sure to help (and not coincidentally, given this is Women’s History Month, they’re all authored or co-authored by women). I’ve…

How many times have you rolled your eyes or screamed (silently) about an unnecessary or misguided request crossing your content marketing desk? You know what I’m talking about: Sales asks for a new piece of collateral for a prospect meeting next week. Your boss adds another project to your lengthy…

It’s been a rough few months for marketers. For all the announcements on LinkedIn celebrating the landing of a new job, I see as many (or more) marketers increasingly asking for help landing a new job. Applying for marketing roles today feels like an open-world video game called Tears of…

If your brand treats video like an extra in the background of your marketing strategy, it’s time to make it the star. Discover why, learn the trends for 2025, and see examples of B2B and B2C brands that make video shine.

If you work in content marketing, you’ve experienced the “battle of the brains.” Your creative brain gets excited to develop your next innovative, engaging, and impactful content effort. But your logical brain points to the blank screen and kills the buzz, saying: “OK, hotshot. Where do we start?” When at…

These days, brands championing a social cause or initiative must treat it as a serious commitment. Of course, it was never a good idea to take an ad hoc approach to cause marketing — adding a rainbow frame to the brand’s social media profile for a month or using a…

I see one mistake derailing marketing strategy again and again: Setting up marketing teams as internal agencies that serve cross-functional “customers” in other departments. That’s a problem because it typically leads to reactive, disconnected efforts — even in the era of sophisticated AI, automation, data, and marketing analytics. Sometimes, marketing…

Content Marketing Institute Team The Content Marketing Institute team byline indicates this article reflects the collective work of the CMI team. CMI is a global marketing education and training organization dedicated to advancing the practice of content marketing. We create and curate content experiences that teach marketers and creators from enterprise…

Marketing goals often use soft, fuzzy language like “brand awareness,” “credibility,” and “education.” They’re nice things for the business, but they aren’t easy to measure, and worse, they don’t speak to what’s important to the business. For marketing to get the recognition (and budget) it deserves, set goals that incorporate…

Sound familiar? You stop writing after the intro to ponder what details to include. You need facts to support the solutions recommended in the content, but you don’t have them. You’ve written and written and written, but you’re not sure it makes sense, let alone if it’s good. Your fingers…

I meet regularly with a group of seasoned professionals to explore big ideas, emerging trends, and how we might anticipate what’s coming next in the business world. The insights and learning from these meetings are invaluable. But the real magic isn’t in the ideas. It’s in the shared stories, the…

Don’t launch a new agency or any brand before listening to advice from someone who’s done it and even written a book about building brands that break barriers.

Fashion shows function well as a marketing tool. Models walk down runways showcasing what the brand is selling. It’s a common-sense tactic. Yet, this marketing play doesn’t have to be common, as Boot Barn illustrates with its recent Boot Barn X Wonderwest Fashion Show. The western lifestyle brand did something…

When someone lives with a health condition such as asthma, psoriasis, or bacterial infections, they’re not the only ones who are affected. Their family members — parents, spouses, siblings, children, or other relatives — often step up to provide care at home. Global biopharma company GSK recognized this patient-adjacent audience…

We’re living in an era obsessed with overachievement. Tech billionaires tout themselves as the sole architects of progress, preaching the virtues of moving fast and breaking things. Eager to emulate this mindset, companies chase disruption at all costs. But here’s the irony: Marketing teams have spent the last decade moving…

Content Marketing Institute Team The Content Marketing Institute team byline indicates this article reflects the collective work of the CMI team. CMI is a global marketing education and training organization dedicated to advancing the practice of content marketing. We create and curate content experiences that teach marketers and creators from enterprise…

Is it time to expand the definition of content marketing? In 2020, I posed that question. My argument was simple: Content marketing isn’t just about creating content for marketing — it’s also about marketing the content. Four years later, this expanded definition is even more relevant. Great content without its…

Did you hear the canary chirping in the marketing coal mine? It got a little louder in the past month after Ahrefs released a report showing a 32% month-over-month drop in search traffic at HubSpot.com, the website home of the popular customer relationship management software. (January 2025 had 5.7 million…

Remember 2019? We were all riding the Old Town Road with Lil Nas X while watching the slow-burn soap opera that was Brexit unfold across the pond. That was just six years ago, but everything from that era feels like it belongs in a museum. Back then, our hottest debate…

SEO isn’t dead. It just needs a fresher approach. In this video presentation, experts from TopRank Marketing reveal why traditional SEO still has a role and how marketers should embrace a wider view of getting content found.

“With great power comes great responsibility.” That’s what Uncle Ben told Peter Parker (aka Spiderman) in 1962. Let’s twist the phrase for our industry: “Great marketing comes from great responsibility.” That’s the message Lola Bakare sends in her 2024 book, Responsible Marketing: How To Create an Authentic and Inclusive Marketing…

What was your favorite ad from the Super Bowl LIX? I couldn’t pick just one. As is true every year, I love how creative they all are. But OpenAI’s ad has stayed with me. With a new CMO at the helm, the company finally seems to have captured a message…

Content Marketing Institute Team The Content Marketing Institute team byline indicates this article reflects the collective work of the CMI team. CMI is a global marketing education and training organization dedicated to advancing the practice of content marketing. We create and curate content experiences that teach marketers and creators from enterprise…

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are being cancelled by public institutions and private companies. But the end of formal DEI initiatives shouldn’t signal that your content and marketing should stop representing the many voices of your brand’s customers. After all, that’s just bad business. As Michael P. Krone explains…

Just when it seemed like the generative AI landscape was beginning to settle, DeepSeek stepped in and said, “Hold my beer.” Wall Street seems convinced that China’s generative AI entry will change the game. Still, remember, popular doesn’t mean differentiated. Yet businesses push their marketing teams to chase trends at…

Take the lead on innovation and creation with your brand’s content and marketing. Learn how to get the buy-in and budget for innovative ideas with this advice from one marketing baddie (SAS’s Amanda Wise) to another (you).

Trendy content marketing formats and platforms can come and go. Today’s TikTok campaign is tomorrow’s “Remember when …?” But one format has stood the test of time — email newsletters. Newsletters offer plenty of marketing appeal, helping brands build a subscribed audience of consumers who want to hear from your…

Many brands line up with statements of “thoughts and prayers” after natural and human-made devastation, such as the recent California wildfires and hurricane flooding in western North Carolina. Interestingly, though, that expression emphasizes their silent response. However, brands that truly want to help the people who suffered tragedy know they…

One of the best motivational speeches I’ve heard came not from a business event or even a TED conference. It came from the Academy Awards stage. Matthew McConaughey’s three-minute acceptance speech for the Best Actor Oscar delivered a life lesson that has stuck with me for the last decade. McConaughey…

Content Marketing Institute Team The Content Marketing Institute team byline indicates this article reflects the collective work of the CMI team. CMI is a global marketing education and training organization dedicated to advancing the practice of content marketing. We create and curate content experiences that teach marketers and creators from enterprise…

You have too many marketing tasks and responsibilities to do them the hard way. Your work is too critical to business success to let best practices slide and details fall through the cracks. Since you can’t always trust AI tools to do the job right the first time, trust the…

Confession time. Just before sitting down to write this article, I was working on a social calendar project for a new client. I turned to Google and asked: “What’s the ideal frequency to post on LinkedIn?” As I typed, the search engine’s auto-populated options finished the phrase with options including:…

Visibility. Once upon a time, that word was the most common answer I heard when I asked marketing leaders what was wrong with their content operations. “We have limited visibility into what content is planned and produced and how effective it is,” they’d say. One CMO of a Fortune 1000…

Open a marketer’s treasure chest and you’ll see an abundance of data. How do you select the valuable gold among all the worthless pyrite? And how can AI help you find that gold? Dana DiTomaso has some thoughts based on her experience as the founder and lead instructor of Kick…

As the founder and CEO of The Joy Brigade, Shabnam Mogharabi counsels people to rebel with joy. She’s embraced the strategy herself, doing the research, getting brands to buy in, and executing projects in marked contrast to her journalistic beginnings where she knew “if it bleeds, it leads,” also known…

I recently interviewed Marcus Collins, author of For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want To Be, for an episode of Live With CMI (with my co-host, JK Kalinowski). Marcus is an award-winning marketer who is the former head of strategy at…

To get everybody on the same page with your brand’s content marketing, you need an actual page. Your team — and everybody else involved in the process — needs to know the who, what, when, where, why, and how behind their work. A written strategy makes it easier to: Align…

People prefer the easiest route. When they search for information, that now means they turn to generative AI tools, like Gemini and ChatGPT, or even AI Overview in Google Search. These LLMs deliver neatly packaged answers. They don’t require the information seekers to scroll through a results page, click on…

Have you seen that video of Mark Zuckerberg talking about the difference between Meta’s and Apple’s development approaches? For some reason, LinkedIn keeps serving me a clip from the September 2024 episode of the Acquired Podcast. At the beginning of that segment, Zuckerberg notes that Meta takes a different approach…

Meta just learned the hard way that no one likes fake friends. Users quickly sniffed out the company’s AI-generated profiles with their awkward bios, wonky AI-generated photos, and deceptive backstories, and the backlash has been swift. Meta called it a “bug” and quietly deleted the accounts, but not before it…

Brands generate original research to grow their recognition as thought leaders in their industries. But the buzz won’t materialize if the marketing team doesn’t promote the research. Whether you have a massive budget or not, consider these five strategies to ensure that your organization’s research maximizes its direct and indirect…

Content marketers have long had an identity crisis. In recent years, the crisis has grown with the ubiquity of content creators in the creator economy. In truth, you know who you are in the workplace. But does your title reflect that? Does your job description? What happens when you do…

Happy New Year! Here we are again. It’s the beginning of a new year — that magical time when your journaling app sends you a passive-aggressive reminder to “set your intentions” (and you almost believe you’ll live up to them). What are your New Year’s traditions for starting again? Do…

I hope you are getting ready for a wonderful season of giving, and taking a pause from all things marketing and business. For the last — well, decade — I have ended the year with a special review. This year, AI seems to have taken all the oxygen out of…

When your content fires on all cylinders, the signs are obvious. Your audience searches for your content by name, eagerly engages with it, and spends time exploring your related assets. Rave reviews are posted across social media. Buyers fill the sales funnel to connect with your sales team and buy…

Hashtag stuffing isn’t as tasty a dish as it once was. This month, Instagram ended its following hashtags feature. Users can no longer follow hashtags and have that content show up in their feeds or Reels. However, they can still search for a hashtag. The move is a definite problem…

Earlier this year, everybody was all aflutter about the U.S. ban on TikTok. But when the ban moved into the courts, everybody moved on to something else. Well, the ban is back. Or is it? Last week, a federal appeals court upheld the law, citing national security concerns and rejecting…

Exciting destinations. Luxurious accommodations. Friction-free coordination. Memory-making experiences. For consumers, these are the things travel dreams are made of. For content marketers, empowering aspiring travelers to realize those dreams is their job. “Job” is the operative word, as storytelling in this crowded space takes more than associating the brand with…

. As a marketer, you might ponder generative AI’s role in the industry and the outlook for marketing jobs. As a demand-gen marketer or a marketer to marketers, you may reflect on how you made it through a difficult year. As a writer or manager of a corporate blog, you…

“The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed yet.” That fantastic quote, usually attributed to author William Gibson, perfectly captures the state of generative AI and automation in marketing. As we approach what I hope will be a better year, I’m optimistic that AI’s benefits will become…

This past couple of weeks, it wasn’t politics or U.S. Thanksgiving gatherings that dominated social media arguments. Instead, it was a car manufacturer. That’s right. Jaguar’s bold rebrand, including a new logo, visual style, and everything else, prompted the internet to lose its collective mind. There’s a saying, “If you…

You’re underpaid for the marketing work you perform. That’s the sentiment of marketers surveyed for CMI’s 2025 Career Outlook: Content and Marketing Professionals (registration required). How much are marketers underpaid? About 20%. That’s a lot of money, given that the survey finds marketers in the U.S. average $108,380 per year,…

Sometimes, trends in content marketing last so long that they stop counting as trends and turn into truths. Here’s one: People need great content in their lives. Not OK content. Not pretty good content. People need content that makes them feel seen. Content that, yes, stops the scroll. But more…

It hasn’t been an easy year, and I won’t be sad to say goodbye to 2024. I’m looking at 2025 as a complete reset and a time to focus on positivity, hope, and community. Meanwhile, having just experienced the American Thanksgiving holiday, I’m struck by my gratitude for everything that…

You can access a wealth of marketing-related data — from web analytics and customer journey behavior to competitor analysis and product usage. However, if the data isn’t clean, you can’t truly tap into its value. Or worse, you could steer your marketing in the wrong direction and see diminishing returns.…

It’s Thanksgiving Day in the United States, when you try to leave work behind, put aside petty squabbles, and be present with the people you care about (at least until the post-meal nap attacks hit). Of course, not everyone observes the same holiday traditions or shares the same good fortune.…

At a conference last week, the CEO of a professional services firm asked me about some advice they’d received from a marketing consultant. The consultant urged the company to overhaul its messaging to focus on its team’s passion for what it does. According to the advice, even major client pitches…

On Nov. 6, the day after the U.S. elections, more than 115,000 users deactivated their accounts on X. That’s the most in a single day since the mercurial Elon Musk took the company’s helm. On the other hand, Threads and Bluesky have seen an astronomical rise in new accounts. Bluesky…

Every year, the Content Marketing Institute asks the community to share their opinions on the best books in marketing (and for marketers). Often, the titles ring familiar. After all, many people have a favorite and don’t sway from it year after year. That’s why this year’s list surprised me. It…

New research suggests that manufacturing marketers — like a lot of other B2B marketers — only feel “average” about their content marketing. Sixty-seven percent of manufacturing marketers say their content strategy is moderately effective. Thirteen percent say it is not very or at all effective, and only 20% say it…

Predicting the death of anything is the easiest way to land in hot water. The second easiest is clinging to once-disruptive concepts after they, in turn, have been disrupted. For example, let’s take a journey back to February 1995. Newsweek, then a weekly national print magazine, published an article in…

What happens when search-related data shows your organization’s content isn’t delivering? You dig deeper into data. That’s what Brian Piper does as director of content strategy and assessment at the University of Rochester. At the Marketing Analytics & Data Science Conference, he explained what his team’s done and how it…

Predictions for 2025 started fast and furious before the calendar flipped to November. But, as you’ve learned, marketing predictors are really bad at them. In 2023, virtual and augmented reality was supposed to take off. And 2024 was to be filled with agile marketers scrambling to do innovative things to…

Caspian Studios likes to shake things up. Take its Murder in HR podcast. Many agencies listen to client needs and then develop a program to match. But Caspian took the opposite approach — coming up with an intriguing idea first, then pitching it to potential clients. Another unexpected element subverted…

You’ll never know what content works — and why — unless you regularly track and evaluate its metrics against your business goals. However, just as content performance doesn’t remain static, best measurement practices, definitions, and tools don’t either. In this mad world of measurement musical chairs, your best defense is…

How do you approach content optimization? It’s easy to get stuck working on one piece at a time — trying to make one thing rank higher, reach its conversion goal, or have the intended impact. But what if you zoom out to optimize — or simply organize — all the…

For the last 25 years, people have used internet search in a straightforward way. Input a keyword or phrase, and the search engine returns pages and pages of results that match identically or conceptually to the request. The results were ranked by relevance — the word that became the Holy…

This post was co-written by Monica Norton. We’ve all been there. Someone suggests a content marketing tactic or topic, and you instantly think, “That’s an awful idea. We can’t do it.” Maybe it’s a new tactic that doesn’t fit into your content strategy. Perhaps it’s an idea that’s already been…

You likely associate influencer marketing with well-known B2C tactics. Engaging social media personalities to co-create content and promote products to their massive follower base is a proven way to drive awareness for consumer-friendly products and services. The technique is playing just as big a role on the B2B side. A…

What’s your data strategy? Your first thought might be about first-party data collection, performance metrics, or metadata for targeted content. But that’s not what I’m getting at. Instead, I’m asking: What’s your strategy for shaping thought leadership, crafting stories, building your brand message, and delivering sales materials that engage and…

What are your brand’s “left ventricles” waiting for discovery? Seth Stephens-Davidowitz posed a variation of that question in his keynote presentation at the Marketing Analytics & Data Science Conference. Let me explain. Seth, a data scientist and New York Times bestselling author, recounts the story of Jeff Seder, an entrepreneur…

It looks like Semrush took notes on CMI’s advice that the best way to launch a content marketing platform is to acquire one. The search engine software provider acquired Third Door Media, which owns and operates properties that include Search Engine Land, MarTech, Search Marketing Expo, and Digital Marketing Depot.…

A spark can ignite a creative fire. A spark can illuminate a moment. Last week, I witnessed glimmers of light building into full-on radiance on the faces of thousands of attendees at Content Marketing World as new ideas took hold. The enthusiasm expressed in San Diego felt especially welcome given…

Did Salesforce really need another content project? The company’s mega-successful Trailblazer program, launched way back in 2007 as IdeaExchange, had evolved into a global community (mainly Salesforce admins and developers) that helps members learn and succeed in their careers and businesses. In 2014, the free online learning platform Trailhead launched…

In introducing our latest content marketing research, CMI’s Stephanie Stahl wrote: “While many [companies] find themselves simply treading water, a group of top performers has found a way to surge ahead. They’ve figured out how to understand their audience’s needs, produce high-quality content, and use AI to create more efficient…

This week, thousands of content marketers from all over the world invaded San Diego to celebrate the beloved practice, do lots of learning, and have a little fun, too. Yes, it was Content Marketing World 2024, and we’re thrilled to have connected with so many new and returning community members.…

Universally acknowledged truth: Good content serves as one of the most effective ways to attract and retain your target audience’s attention. Research-confirmed truth: Half of content produced goes unused in the relentless onslaught of information consumers live in. So, how do you know if your brand’s content gets used and…

The pandemic didn’t just change the B2B buying game; it flipped the whole table. That’s how Susan Gonzalez, director of marketing at the wholesale e-commerce platform RepSpark, describes the 2020s revolution in B2B e-commerce. “It forced businesses to go digital almost overnight. And now, buyers who had to make that…

As Content Marketing World 2024 kicks off today, I’m sharing my opening remarks on our beloved practice’s current state and future direction. Marketers are living in extraordinary times. Every day, we have the opportunity to reshape how people think, work, and connect with the world. But too few of us…

Does your marketing measurement and data have standards? What does that even mean? Well, it means you have a standard method for naming, storing, and tracking data across the organization, according to new research (registration required) from Claravine, a software provider, and research firm Advertiser Perceptions. This could include shared…

“Let me tell you a story …” Those six simple words command attention. They create an expectation that an engagement-worthy experience is about to unfold. Thoughtfully produced podcasts and videos can deliver on the promise of brand storytelling. But success is far from a given. These efforts typically play in…

When Mo Sherifdeen joined Travel Oregon 19 years ago, he was the first person hired to work on the website. His role as web manager involved uploading documents and images via FTP sites. In other words, he was a glorified pixel pusher (the digital version of a pencil pusher). As…

Pretend it’s late 2024. Oh, wait, it is. How time flies. As you plan your marketing strategy for 2025, think about the team you’ll be part of or that you’ll build. When considering your next hire or agency option, would you prefer someone with deep expertise in a specific niche…

Fragmentation. It’s the best word to describe today’s landscape of entertainment and information consumption. Two years ago, user-generated content accounted for 39% of time spent on social media, according to research from the Consumer Technology Association. Last year, time spent watching online videos overtook television for the first time in…

Building the ideal tech stack for content marketing remains a pie-in-the-sky dream for most marketers. So, we asked the experts presenting at Content Marketing World 2024 which tools should be in those tech stacks but usually aren’t. As usual, some rejected the premise, offering smart advice about why you should…

Tell me something, marketers. Are you satisfied with the state of B2B content marketing? According to 980 of you, the answer is likely “no,” given how much more you say you want in the Content Marketing Institute’s annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025, conducted with MarketingProfs and sponsored…

Tell me something, marketers. Are you satisfied with the state of B2B content marketing? According to 980 of you, the answer is likely “no,” given how much more you say you want in the Content Marketing Institute’s annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025, conducted with MarketingProfs and sponsored…

“Isn’t it obvious?” How many times have you asked this question? How many times have you heard it asked? In a work setting, this phrase often comes out when you realize some request or suggestion you thought you conveyed wasn’t acted on. This signal amplification bias (as psychologists call it) explains how…

Like most people, I hate spending money on some things but love spending on others. For example, I’ve been known to overpay for hotels, restaurants, good wine, and good food because I enjoy them. But I’m a Scrooge when it comes to things like cars or handyman tools (screwdrivers, hammers,…

This story may sound familiar. A small team writes and publishes content for a corporate blog. The company doesn’t know what, if any, impact the content has on visitors. The team just keeps creating and publishing content, and no one knows if, let alone how, it ultimately drives action. Ally…

My neighbor was a math professor at a college in San Francisco. He once told me: “The longest distance between two points travels through a committee.” His quote applies well to B2B sales. A Forrester survey found that 80% of respondents say at least three people are involved in the…

In the 20th century, marketers relied on coupons, customers’ anecdotal feedback, and mainstream media subscriber numbers to understand their reach and impact. It was an educated guessing game at best to discover what worked and what didn’t. But in the digital world, numbers abound for marketers to analyze and interpret…

An update to terms of service isn’t usually a headline-making event, even at the biggest brands. Yet, this past year tells a different story. In June, Adobe got into hot water for scraping content to use for its AI-learning models and then changing its terms of service to allow it.…

Is a career path in marketing even a thing anymore? As we approach Content Marketing World 2024, I’m struck by how much has changed in just 12 months. In my opening keynote talk last year, I proclaimed, “Content marketing is marketing.” It felt slightly provocative at the time. As it…

Almost three years ago, Micky Onvural made a surprising move. She left her role as CEO of a B2C fashion brand, Bonobos, to become CMO of TIAA, a century-old B2B brand focused on retirement plans. “This was a whole new ball of wax for me,” says Micky, who has also…

Reasons abound when you don’t want to do something: “I haven’t the time.” “The team is just me.” “Our audience needs new content.” But are those the real reasons? Or are they excuses to thwart your fears of the unfamiliar, the unexpected, and the unknown? If it’s the latter, try…

Do you remember CliffsNotes? The iconic yellow-and-black books summarized all manner of literary works. They digested the plot and detailed the themes and symbolism. CliffsNotes referred to them as “study guides,” but many used them to get around reading the full-length version. (Fun fact: CliffsNotes started in 1958 with a…

You have 173 days left to reach your marketing goals this year. Well, let’s be honest. Nobody really works or does anything after Dec. 20. And if we’re really honest, December itself is a wash, and so is the last week of November with the U.S. Thanksgiving celebration. So, you…

Ali Orlando Wert has led multiple content teams at high-growth companies fueled by acquisition. Although these teams are often pieced together from multiple acquired companies, they must operate as one. Moving quickly to that point can expose flaws in processes, Ali says. Balls get dropped, and things fall through the…

Consumers really like short-form content. Billions watch TikTok videos, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels every month. But it isn’t just consumers who like short content. Google, YouTube, social media platforms, and more expect brief content. In meta descriptions, excerpts, episode descriptions, and sometimes posts. Some even set total character limits.…

Let’s talk about SEO. More than a month after a source gave thousands of pages of internal Google documentation to SparkToro co-founder Rand Fishkin, the importance of this leak is still being debated. Rand and others continue to dissect the findings for search optimization hints based on what the documents…

Marketers should stop using attribution models and return to a 1985–like measurement model if they want their brands to succeed in 2024 and beyond. “Attribution is fully broken these days, but we’re still using it like we used to,” says Rand Fishkin, co-founder of SparkToro. He recently shared that message…

Ask a question; get an answer. Ask the next question; get the next answer. Repeat until done. That’s the basic formula of any interview. But making an interview great requires more than you posing questions and the interviewee answering them. A great interview incorporates a thoughtful approach that makes the…

I had two interesting discussions with marketing leaders recently. Both revolved around the same question: “Where do we start?” One told me she’d road-mapped an entirely new content operation for her marketing department. She’d gotten the go-ahead from leadership, but everybody was so busy with other work that they weren’t…

How are things for marketing agencies? Not as great as last year, according to Ad Age’s Agency Report 2024 (subscription required). In 2023, total revenue for the 30 biggest agency companies in the world rose 5.6%. The forecast for this year? It’s between 2% and 3%. The Too Big Five…

Social media offers a volatile space for marketing. The rules of engagement vary across platforms, as do the audiences and opportunities for brands. The platforms’ popularity ebbs and flows while new challengers emerge, hoping to disrupt the scene and steal the spotlight. Once seemingly stable and reliable, shared media outlets…

Stuart Butler is a trained rocket scientist turned content marketing rock star. Though the career as a rocket scientist didn’t stick, he applied what he learned to a 20-plus-year career in marketing. Now, as chief marketing officer of Visit Myrtle Beach, Stuart wants to disrupt not only the destination marketing…

A long time ago (so long ago that Nickelback still had hits), my marketing leader would ask me what value my brand-building programs added to the business. My answer to him was always the same: “Good things.” Halfway through 2024, brands are desperate to make every piece of content catch…

We didn’t get to the south of France this week, but we’ve been talking about Cannes Lions. At the International Festival of Creativity, the most interesting thing happened. The early big prize winners weren’t great ads as much as they were classic content marketing. In his most recent book and…

Brands’ words and actions — including yours — matter. As politics, health care, and other cultural topics become more polarized, being authentic about your values and causes can build audience loyalty. Over half of young U.S. adults (ages 18 to 29) want businesses to take a public stand on current…

A mentor of mine used to drill the following into my head: “You are not your target market.” He meant that it doesn’t matter if you think the headline is great, the ad design is impressive, or the copy is sublime. It only matters what the customer thinks. As he…

When is your content, our content? In the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) has a pizza delivered to his history class taught by Mr. Hand (Ray Walston), who isn’t pleased. “Mr. Spicoli, you’re on dangerous ground here. You’re causing a major disturbance on my time.”…

Two brains are better than one. Embracing the machine brain of technology as a partner with the human brains of content marketers lets you do things for your audience and brand that you could only imagine or considered too resource-intensive just a few years ago. These examples of what’s possible…

Time for a quiz. Do people trust: Non-governmental organizations (NGO)? Government? Media? If you answered no, no, and no, you would be right. According to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report, less than 60% of the global population trusts NGOs (59%), government (51%), or media (50%), putting them at…

I’ve heard about more organizations kick-starting their content marketing strategy lately. That’s a welcome change from the past year when teams hunkered down to figure out generative AI and all the changes in social media and search. But I too often hear these teams say they’re trying to rebuild their…

Does Pride Month seem quieter this year? No big controversies stand out like last year, but no creative campaigns — so far — stand out either. So, what’s going on with content and marketing celebrating LGBTQ+ communities? Is this quieter Pride Month a broader shift in advertising and marketing creative?…

A perplexing irony exists in content marketing. Though most content is static, interactive content usually delivers better results. Interactive content saw 52.6% more engagement than static content, according to an analysis of content engagement data by Mediafly. It also found that buyers, on average, spent 53% more time on interactive…

Audience building is one of the hottest topics in marketing today. That’s why you hear so many software vendors claim their product will help you build, engage, measure, and convert “owned audiences.” I prefer the term “addressable audiences,” as it indicates that the people in this group have given you…

Depending on your age, you’ve heard of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Younger people may recall the Edward Snowden revelation or Wikileaks and Julian Assange. More recently, the Panama Papers made headlines. All these scandals arose through the unintended disclosure of documents. Well, this past week could be Google’s Panama…

Headlines are the workhorses of content. When they work well, they pull readers into your articles, e-books, podcasts, etc. When they don’t work, they keep audiences away from even the most well-written content. The headline does more work than any other component of the content. It must attract interest from…

A cacophony of brand voices hums in discord across your content spectrum. Getting them to sing together presents a challenge for even the most experienced content marketing professional. But a consistent brand voice is possible. With an assist from artificial intelligence, you can create a solution that brings harmony to…

You’d think that a new company with the resources of OpenAI would have a straightforward path to building trust. They had no legacy brand problems to unwind, no historical scandals to overcome, and no CEO constantly planting foot into mouth. Until recently. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, seems determined to…

When is your audience NOT your end customer? If you’re a B2B marketer, you know the answer. Your job requires engaging and winning over distributors, resellers, retail outlets, brokers, and even influencers who promote and sell your products and services. It’s a core focus of great content marketing. This month,…

More content marketers should act like museum curators. Museum curators pick an exhibit theme, carefully select the artifacts, and organize them into a story that visitors will want to consume. By adopting a similar strategy, you — and, ultimately, your audience — will reap the rewards. You will create more…

You’ve heard the expression, “Work smarter, not harder.” Content marketing teams would do well to adopt that philosophy. Hard work alone can’t solve the struggle to meet the demands for more (and better) content. Smarter work, though, can remove the friction, confusion, and production inefficiencies that can hinder their success.…

Did you follow the Apple iPad Pro content debacle? Here’s a quick recap. A recent online ad for the new iPad Pro showed a large hydraulic press slowly crushing various symbols of creativity. A metronome, a piano, a record player, a video game, paints, books, and other creative tools splinter…

OpenAI and Google made waves in the world of artificial intelligence this week. In a studio set seemingly from the 1970s Merv Griffin Show, OpenAI brought the “magic” to improve the ChatGPT ecosystem. It built a model that can analyze images, video, and speech, added a new desktop app, and…

Wouldn’t it be great if the content your brand invests so much time and resources in could earn attention from the media? More people would see your content, and your brand would get a credibility boost from a third-party source. That’s the magic of combining content and PR. Whether you…

  Quality content can get your web pages ranking higher in Google search results. But contextual links can help, too. Google says the inclusion of relevant, high-quality links signals the content that includes them may be quality content, too. So, how can you earn contextual links to give your content…

What the heck should you do with social media in marketing these days? Content and marketing teams have been so wrapped around the AI axle for the last 18 months that many haven’t reacted to the fundamental changes in social media. Some of these changes have AI underpinnings, like Meta’s…

An old saying goes that marketers only worry about two things — the logo and the Pantone color. Well, the entry of digital technology 25 years ago certainly changed all that. But has it gone too far? New research indicates that in a few years, marketers will do only one…

Content marketing teams rarely talk about efficiency. You frequently discuss quality, conversions, and brand alignment. Your primary concerns center around the awesomeness of what you do and the results of that work. Any talk of systems and processes usually takes a back seat. However, for more marketing teams, the system…

Your lack of social media guidelines could discourage employees from becoming brand advocates and even applicants from joining your company. I speak from personal experience. When I first joined LinkedIn, my profile said I worked for a “Bay area Fortune 500 financial services company” instead of noting its name and…

We should rename generative AI. I suggest calling it “expressional AI.” The dictionary defines “generative” as “having the ability to produce, originate, or reproduce something.” That’s an inaccurate description of generative AI because it suggests that it originates an idea. “Expressional” is defined as “relating to or of expression, especially…

In the immortal words of Britney Spears, “Oops, they did it again.” No, we’re not talking about the US government approving a TikTok divestiture.  It’s possible, but so remote that it won’t stop people from investing every dime in it. We’re talking about Google’s most recent oops. Last week, they…

If only you could write faster … The deadline pressure would lessen. The work volume wouldn’t overwhelm. The headache assignment would go away more quickly. And generative AI only amplifies the stress. It just increases expectations — for both completion time and quality — for your human-written content. But you…

Every editor knows what it feels like to sit exasperated in front of the computer, screaming internally, “It would have been easier if I’d done it myself.” If your role involves commissioning and approving content, you know that sinking feeling: Ten seconds into reviewing a piece, it’s obvious the creator…

There’s something in the air. In the past week, I’ve been asked more questions about how to measure content marketing than I have in two years. So, let me welcome you to the wonderful world of content marketing measurement. I can already hear your response: “I went into content and…

Tell us you don’t know anything about marketing without telling us you don’t know anything about marketing. Last week, multibillionaire and marketing genius Elon Musk fired the newly formed content and marketing team one year after he begrudgingly said he would “try a little advertising and see how it goes.”…

With so many nuances to content, from distribution to format to the buyer’s journey, you must take a drill-down approach to your analytics. Assess performance from a bird’s eye view and then break it into multiple perspectives. This process allows you to truly grasp the components of content and distribution…

Content creation acts as the heart of effective content marketing. And, as a skilled creative practitioner, you pour your heart into your work every day. It also takes a sharp mind to make effective decisions and helping hands to consistently transform fresh ideas and insights into resonant brand storytelling. Not…

Change fatigue. It’s a thing. My good friend and amazing consultant Jenny Magic wrote a whole book on the topic. Undeniably, fewer businesses have worked on innovative or incremental marketing change over the last 12 months. I’ve seen it. Technology companies have seen it. Consulting firms have seen it. The…

To use AI or not to use AI, that is the question. Let’s hope things work out better for you than they did for Shakespeare’s mad Danish prince with daddy issues. But let’s add a twist to that existential question. CMI’s chief strategy officer, Robert Rose, shares what marketers should…

I have a tough time putting aside my editor’s brain. Editors and good writers know what I’m talking about. It’s the hazard of the job. Sometimes, I marvel at an article’s great intro, packed with an interesting narrative and powerful verbs that speak directly to me or my interest. But…

Are you motivating your audience to take action? How do you know which creative assets compel your audience to act? Understanding how your audience interacts with your creative is crucial to generating leads, making sales, and keeping your readers coming back. But knowing which does better is not all about…

Do you play golf? I don’t, but I’m intrigued by one thing: The goal of golf is to play the least amount of golf. Think about it. The winner is the person who swings their clubs the fewest times. A smart content strategy should work in a similar way. Last…

Google + HubSpot. Is it a thing? This week, a flurry of news came down about Google’s consideration of purchasing HubSpot. The prospect dismayed some. It delighted others. But is it likely? Is it even possible? What would it mean for marketers? What does the consideration even mean for marketers?…

Creating content gets a lot of attention. But it can’t get an audience without a well-executed content publishing process. Content production requires systems and easily repeatable processes to get the content ready for the publish button and everything that happens after that. To accomplish that, your team needs an operations…

A massive change is coming to search. As Google experiments with AI in its standard search results and its Search Generative Experience (SGE), marketers must understand how to adapt their content strategies for new AI-impacted search experiences. Since 2023, Google has been prolific in its AI experimentation, changing the way…

Feeling stuck with generative AI? Here’s a way to get unstuck. I’d like to ask you to think about two questions. First, did you see the new movie Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire? If you didn’t, just think about the last movie you saw (for me, it was the remake of Road…

What’s really going on with generative AI and marketing? We wanted to know, so we went straight to the source and asked. No surprise, generative AI said a lot is going on — 73% of companies use generative AI in their marketing campaigns, according to Statista. CapGemini says almost 60%…

As a kid, you probably learned the phrase, knowledge is power. As a marketer, you prove its validity every day through your content that educates, informs, and inspires your audience. But knowledge isn’t a static construct. Perceptions and attitudes change, innovations emerge, and new insights and ideas arrive to shake…

Just as LeBron James has dominated NBA courts and conversation, Google has dominated search and content conversations since the turn of this century. But LeBron isn’t the only player in the NBA. And Google isn’t the only player who refers traffic to websites. A recent study by SparkToro and Datos…

One of the more exciting trends in marketing is the rise in interest in engaging employees as influencers and content creators. Recent research from agency giant Ogilvy finds that 89% of C-suite B2B marketers recognize that tapping employees as influencers “holds immense value for their businesses.” As a result, I…

Everybody knows the apocalypse of ad tech data approaches. Yet, most aren’t rushing to do anything about it. That’s the latest finding in the Internet Advertising Bureau’s 2024 State of Data Report: How the Digital Ad Industry is Adapting to the Privacy-By-Design Ecosystem (subscription required). IAB finds that 94% of…

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI. The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling. The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a topic of huge debate among content creators. It’s been hailed for its efficiency yet critiqued for diluting the human touch in content — not to mention serious concerns around security, privacy, attribution, plagiarism, and more.  Nevertheless, AI is here to stay. But how you decide…

“I have too much time and too much money, so let’s make a podcast,” said no marketing person ever. Podcasting has become huge, but it’s a daunting format for many marketers. Much like writing a book, it’s difficult, time-consuming, and ultimately won’t reach nearly as many people as you would…

The alarmist headlines grow louder these days — TikTok Ban: It’s Here! Americans Sound Off on TikTok Ban in Viral Rants! Say Farewell to TikTok! Content creators and influencers who earn their living from TikTok are having a toxic freakout and spreading misinformation about what ByteDance and the Chinese government…

When women make up so much of your target audience, why does your content marketing focus on quotes from Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Richard Branson? Effective content marketing connects your audience’s wants and needs with the education and insight your company wants to share. That connection is…

Have you ever had to edit bad content? You know the kind. It doesn’t contain enough dots for you to connect. You can’t save it by asking the author a question or two. It’s that bad. But what if you can’t send a straightforward rejection email and throw it in…

When marketing budgets get tighter, an easy trap to fall into is failing to create long-term content plans. I’ve seen it: The budget gods come down early in the year and proclaim that X amount will just have to do. Now, the “X” is often well short of what the…

Today is the Ides of March. It is not a day to celebrate; it is a day to beware, as the soothsayer told Julius Ceasar. It didn’t work out well for him, but will the 2024 caveat — beware of the Ides of AI — from OpenAI’s Sam Altman work…

Are you in job hunt mode? Maybe you recently lost a job or expect cuts to your team. Perhaps you’re seeking new opportunities that fit where you want to go professionally or personally. Does anyone enjoy job hunting regardless of the circumstances? A successful job hunt requires you to market…

  For enterprise content marketers, 2024 is all about efficiency and results. That’s what 333 enterprise marketers (in companies with 1,000-plus employees) told us during CMI’s latest annual content marketing survey. We asked an open-ended question about top content-related priorities for 2024 and learned they’re focusing on these areas: Streamlining…

  Let’s dispel a myth going around right now. You are NOT behind if you haven’t fully integrated generative AI into your marketing or content strategy. For all the bluster going on, exceedingly few companies have integrated any of it, much less have it figured out. Recently, I was struck…

How is your thought leadership program going? Is it more thought than leadership?  Or are the thoughts more like what everybody else is saying? New research from Edelman and LinkedIn says most thought leadership apparently doesn’t encourage or inspire much thought. It’s also mostly under-resourced and misused. Yet, if done…

It’s hard out here for content marketers to attract the right traffic organically. With search engine optimization practices evolving and content competition coming from everywhere, it’s all too easy to get confused. While watching several SEO presentations at Content Marketing World 2023, including talks by Andy Crestodina, Carlos Meza, and…

You’re busy enough doing the work. You don’t have the time to search for content that can help your content and marketing. So, we asked the CMI community in our newsletter and on social media for their favorites. We also pitched marketers on Qwoted to share their top picks. And…

Last week, I had a lively discussion with a colleague about “evergreen” content. I argued evergreen does not automatically mean the content will stand the test of time. Nor is content that stands the test of time necessarily evergreen. The debate arose from a discussion on the state of AI-generated…

Air Canada tried to throw its chatbot under the AI bus. It didn’t work. A Canadian court recently ruled Air Canada must compensate a customer who bought a full-price ticket after receiving inaccurate information from the airline’s chatbot. Air Canada had argued its chatbot made up the answer, so it…

You receive or finalize your organization’s latest content marketing strategy. That means you’re ready to jump right into creating great content, right? Not so fast, friend. Sorry to tell you, but that strategy is a virtually useless piece of (digital) paper unless you have a content plan, too. Why? Because…

Business podcasting differs from entertainment podcasting in almost every dimension. (The hint is in the adjective.) So don’t look to podcasts from Trevor Noah, Glennon Doyle, Joe Rogan, or even The New York Times for hints on how to succeed. You don’t want to be like those people. You’re taking…

Digital experience platforms (DXPs) are a relatively new arrival in the alphabet soup of martech offerings. But the genesis of these solutions comes on the back of technology that’s been around since the outset of the digital era: the content management system (CMS). In the internet’s early days, content was…

If you had to pick the impact your content on a potential customer, would you choose: Deeper trust but quickly fading attention and recall or Fixed attention and great recall but minimal, if any, trust? Now, I know you want both, but in this exercise, you can have only one.…

How long has it been since your marketing team got restructured?  Wearing our magic mind-reading hat, we’d guess it was within the last two years.  Impressed by the guess? Don’t be.   Research from Marketing Week’s 2024 Career and Salary Survey finds that almost half of marketing teams restructured in the…

Intuit knows people ask a lot of questions about taxes. For over 10 years, its TurboTax brand provided an online question-and-answer support forum to address them. But a few years ago, Intuit saw the potential to evolve the robust FAQ into a year-round community to discuss all aspects of personal…

In a 20-minute demo, the sales engineer deftly clicked through the interface, configured a new image set, assigned the metadata, and set the rights-management properties. He logged in as different users to demonstrate a sophisticated workflow. Then, he published an asset and showed how the system presented it in channel-specific…

My wife and I have a running bit of funny banter. Well, we think it’s funny. On occasion, as we do our end-of-evening ritual — close up the house, brush teeth, get a glass of water, etc. — I demand a bedtime story. When, predictably and inevitably, she refuses, I…

In my career, I’ve seen it all. I’ve been through economic downturns. I’ve been through booms. I’ve worked with startups. I’ve worked at large publicly traded companies. And I’ve always had to come up with scrappy content and marketing solutions that didn’t cost any budget because we just didn’t have…

Imagine a world where you make candy and cakes. Almost all your competitors make similar candy and cakes, but you do well because your cakes are awesome. In this world, you and your fellow confectioners in the marketplace rely on the same kind of chocolate. One company controls a huge…

Have you welcomed AI onto your content marketing team? AI-powered tools and techniques can add invaluable assistance to your content and marketing work. But you first must understand the possibilities before you can benefit from them. Industry experts (human ones) shared the potential they see for AI on your team…

AI doesn’t solve anything but is an opportunity to solve many things. A weird tension builds as marketing teams across all manners of business experiment with generative AI tools. It boils down to this: Generative AI solves problems you don’t know if you even have. Last week, a CMO at…

Who will win the Super Bowl? The Kansas City Chiefs? The San Francisco 49ers? Will one of the 40-plus brands (yes, at least 40) advertising during the show win? What about half-time performer Usher? Or Taylor Swift?  OK, that last one is a no-brainer.   But who will be the…

Mentorships took the No. 1 spot in LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report. The subject beat diversity, equity, and inclusion (No. 2), upskilling and reskilling (No. 3), leading through change (No. 6), digital fluency transformation (No. 7), and hybrid/flex work (No. 9), to name a few. Mentoring’s top ranking doesn’t surprise…

You hit the live button, and the viewer count doesn’t budge. You assume it’s a tech problem and open another screen to see if it shows up. It’s working. The counter shows one viewer but returns to zero when you close the second screen. What happens if crickets are the…

Ironically, a difficult thing for creative marketing and content teams to do is the one thing they want (and must) do frequently: Inject new, creative approaches into their work. I always see this challenge in my consulting, especially with companies building internal capabilities. In most cases, they do not lack…

Are you skilled for the hottest jobs in the market? LinkedIn recently released the 25 fastest-growing roles in the United States. Like many other fields, marketing and sales are changing. But are these the same old jobs wrapped in a fancier, buzzword-heavy title?  Or do these roles have new functions…

B2B marketers love LinkedIn for a reason. Your desired audiences are right there. So, LinkedIn Ads seem like a great opportunity for paid campaigns. But with great opportunity comes a great cost — accessing that LinkedIn audience comes with a premium. I’ve spent years learning tips, tricks, and strategies for…

Here’s a burning question many marketers look to answer when figuring out how to optimize their content operations: What does an effective content infrastructure look like? Ongoing advances in modern technology have made it easier to build a content roadmap that complements your organizational goals. Yet, as technological change continues…

  What if you created content so great your audience doesn’t even realize it’s an experience? That scenario can happen when you opt for one or more of these ideas to take your content goals beyond simple consumption and clunky experiences. 1. Write with an inclusive heart Someone who constantly…

Your brand is flawed. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your company does. The character of your brand is flawed. Brands behave badly in major and minor ways. Even the most well-intentioned brand efforts go awry.  Elon Musk has arguably purposely acted out to devalue X’s brand value.…

Google followed through on its resolution to give up cookies. Well, maybe “give up” is too strong to describe Google’s deprecation of its third-party cookies. It stopped tracking 1% of Chrome browser users to display content based on the attributes discovered in that tracking. Estimates put global Chrome users at…

Seven years ago, Hackensack Meridian Health operated on content autopilot. It’s a story familiar to many marketers. Some with the brand published a print magazine. Others sent newsletters with syndicated content that used medical sources unaffiliated with the largest health system in New Jersey. They had different names and aesthetics.…

How many owned media properties does your company have? Yes, I’m asking you to count the newsletters, websites, campaign microsites, blogs, communities, and resource centers your business actively maintains. Many of you probably have that number readily available. For others, it might take a moment. You might ask, “Well, our…

Last week, Solo Brands, the parent company of direct-to-consumer-brands Solo Stove and others, appointed Christopher T. Metz as its president, chief executive officer, and director of the board. But that isn’t the interesting story. The story is why Solo Brands switched their brand quarterback. The CFO said Solo’s unique marketing…