Top marketing insights from 4 marketing experts

Looking to learn the latest top marketing insights? Read on to discover insights from 4 marketing experts.

Joe Pulizzi – Content marketing strategy is about choosing the right platform

Founder of Content Marketing Institute (CMI), a renowned content marketing educational resource launched in 2007, Joe Pulizzi is one the world’s leading experts on content marketing.

He is the author of Epic Content Marketing (2013), which was named one of 5 must-read business books by Fortune magazine and Content Inc (2021), an Amazon bestseller.

In Joe Pulizzi’s latest article for Search Engine Watch, he talks about one of the biggest challenges of brands everywhere: creating content for the platforms where their audiences spend time.

Is your audience on Facebook? Create content for Facebook. Is your audience on YouTube? Create content for YouTube. Did your audience join Clubhouse, the latest fast-growing social media platform? Have your content team brainstorm ways your brand can make itself heard there.

Joe argues that it’s time to revisit the well-known content marketing rule of Be where your audience is.

Yes, you need to be where your consumers are, but if your consumers are on 10 platforms, you need to choose which platform you focus on. At least at the beginning, before you start to diversify your efforts.

We always want more. We believe more is better. When launching a new content effort, “master of none, jack of all trades” never, ever works. How did Amazon become the most valuable company in the world? For three years the company sold only books. Once they perfected that model, only then did they begin selling other things. A proper content marketing strategy behaves the same way.

Joe Pulizzi

The goal of every content marketing strategy, Joe says, is to “focus” and be “truly remarkable at one thing”, “the one thing that will really move the needle.”

Nadya Khoja – Determine the search intent of your B2B audience

Nadya Khoja is Chief Growth Officer at Venngage, a fast-growing company whose simple infographics tool enables anyone to create beautiful infographics in minutes.

Nadya is an experienced marketer who has been featured in Entrepreneur, The Huffington Post, Forbes, Marketingprofs, Social Media Examiner and more.

In her latest article for Moz, Nadya writes about generating qualified B2B sales leads.

Here are 3 recommendations I found most valuable:

• Determine the search intent of your B2B audience

Choose keywords and terms that are relevant to your audience — not solely based on search volume. Popular searches in your industry will attract more B2C consumers, whereas focused keywords that have a higher value, but a lower search volume, usually fall in the B2B realm.

• Find decision-makers within target companies with a presence on social channels and choose personnel who can make personal connections with them on these channels.
• Personalize your landing page to generate B2B sales leads

What we’ve learned from making our landing pages is that you do not want to put too much information on there — that can be overwhelming for a visitor. Keep it short and sweet — focus on one selling point, not all.

Michael Brenner – Exceed your audiences’ expectations

Michael Brenner is the CEO and founder of Marketing Insider Group, a content marketing agency. He has worked in leadership positions in sales and marketing for global brands like SAP and Nielsen, as well as for thriving startups.

How does every marketer evaluate whether or not a piece of content was successful?

By how much attention that piece of content has earned.

Michael Brenner defines content marketing as “a low-pressure yet effective way to earn attention from your target audience by offering useful insights and expert advice.”

How much traffic did the latest blog post get? What is the engagement rate level of that Facebook post? What is the viewership rate of that YouTube video?

To become top of mind, you need to first get your content in front of your audience. And once you have achieved that, repeat the process again and again.

It’s not an easy task to accomplish and it’s time consuming, but when you find the right content, it’s like finding a goldmine: seeing the audience engagement levels increase gives you an adrenaline rush and you can’t get back to the writing board quickly enough.

In one of his latest blogs, Michael shares 11 tactics to create highly shareable content.

Before you discover Michael’s tactics, what I think is the key factor underlying every highly shareable content is curiosity.

You might think it’s easy to stoke curiosity, except it’s not.

You need to know what your audience knows on a specific topic.

Refrain from delivering information that is all over the internet.

Do extensive research and come up with interesting facts and industry-related stats.

Deliver an unique point of view.

Go for bigger and exceed expectations.

Michael A. Stelzner – Written content becomes easier to monetize

Michael A. Stelzner is the founder of Social Media Examiner, one of the world’s largest social media marketing resources, and an expert in social media.

In his article The Future of Social Marketing: Trends to Track, Michael talks about disruption in marketing today and how difficult it is for marketers to make themselves heard.

The first trend identified by Michael refers to the monetization of written content.

Blogging was the first type of written content that readers consumed on the internet. It’s generally recognized that the first blog was Links.net, created in 1994. The social media craze won’t take over our lives until 2004, ten years later.

Platforms like Medium, Substack or Patreon provide content creators with different monetization models.

While Substack makes money when a writer gets a paid member, Medium pays writers based on Medium member read time. Compared to Substack, Patreon doesn’t focus on writers alone, it supports a variety of content creators.

What about email marketing?

Older than blogging, email is the king of marketing ROI. When done correctly, email marketing has an average ROI of 42$ for every 1$ spent.

An email list with thousands of engaged subscribers is a highly valuable asset for any company.

Building an email list takes time and some companies would rather acquire successful publishers than invest resources in an email list of their own.

This is the case of CRM provider HubSpot which acquired The Hustle, a media company that produces a newsletter, podcast, and premium research content. The Hustle’s newsletter was started in 2016 and has more than 1.5 million readers.

In January 2021, Twitter acquired Revue, a service that allows anyone to start and publish editorial newsletters. With the help of Revue, Twitter will give all types of writers a way to monetize their audience.

Conclusion

1. You don’t have to produce content for every platform out there. Focus on the platform where you know you can create the most valuable content and say no to the others.
2. If your audience is B2B, create unique content on the specific keywords that are relevant to your audience even when they have a lower search volume.
3. Exceed your audience’s expectations with content that delivers awe moments. It’s about stoking the curiosity of your followers in a way that prompts them to say Oh, I didn’t know that!
4. If content creation is part of your audience’s skills and interests, provide them with a new way to monetize their skills.

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