Digital Marketing Archives

Digital Marketing

What are post-event strategies for a B2B event?

post-event strategies for a B2B event What are post-event strategies for a B2B event? Understanding the answer is essential for businesses that want to maximize the impact of their events. Hosting a b2b event is just the beginning; the real value comes from the follow-up actions taken afterward. A well-planned post-event strategy ensures that the […]

Digital Marketing

How To Fix Marketing’s Failed Data-Driven Dream

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 that perfect customer view is […]

Digital Marketing

How One Brand Solved the Marketing Attribution Puzzle [Video]

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 brands, small businesses, and agencies […]

Digital Marketing

40 Must-Read Marketing Books (Written by Women)

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 grouped the recommendations into the […]

Digital Marketing

5 Scripts for Content Marketing Requests

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 to-do list. A top executive […]

Digital Marketing

How To Market Yourself for the Marketing Role You Want

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 the Resume. You collect skills, […]

Digital Marketing

Lights, Camera, Conversion: Must-Know Video Strategies and Tips for 2025

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.

Digital Marketing

How 6 Leading Brands Use Content To Win Audiences [E-Book]

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 a loss for actionable inspiration, […]

Digital Marketing

Why (and How To) Write a Strategy for Your Cause-Related Marketing

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 climate-change hashtag in an Arbor […]

Digital Marketing

How To Position Marketing as a Business Driver

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 teams try to incorporate strategic […]

Digital Marketing

How Human Behavior Impacts Your Marketing Strategy

Digital Marketing

How To Set Content Marketing Goals That Matter to the Business

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 the language of your executives […]

Digital Marketing

Stuck in a Creative Rut? 5 AI Prompts To Help Your Content

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 are posed to write another […]

Digital Marketing

Thought Leadership in the AI Age Belongs to Those Who Connect, Not Control

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 deep relationships, and the friendships […]

Digital Marketing

Freelance or Full-Scale Agency? How To Choose the Right Path for You [Video]

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.

Digital Marketing

Boot Barn Kicks High and Low in Its Event Content Marketing Strategy

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 that can inspire any B2C […]

Digital Marketing

GSK Targets Patient-Adjacent Audience With Award-Winning Initiative

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 in its content and marketing […]

Digital Marketing

Fast, Broken, and Stuck? Your Content Team Needs Processes To Break

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 fast and breaking things, only […]

Digital Marketing

What’s the Future of Marketing Analytics in the AI Age? [Video]

Digital Marketing

Give Content Its Own Marketing Strategy To Grow Its Success

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 own marketing strategy is like […]

Digital Marketing

Check Your SEO Strategy Vitals With These 5 Questions

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 visits, and December 2024 saw […]

Digital Marketing

7 (New) Laws for Content Marketing Success

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 was whether pineapple belongs on […]

Digital Marketing

SEO Moves To Make (and Ditch) in 2025 [Video]

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.

Digital Marketing

Why the Future Depends on Responsible Marketing

“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 Strategy. Recently, she participated in […]

Digital Marketing

What the OpenAI Ad Says About Created and Constructed Content in the AI Era

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 that doesn’t feel out of […]

Digital Marketing

Should You Toss Your Editorial Calendar in Favor of This Marketing Strategy?

Digital Marketing

Diversity and Inclusivity in Content Marketing

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 in his classic and often […]

Digital Marketing

Try a Purple Content Strategy To Differentiate in the AI Age

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 breakneck speed. They use generative […]

Digital Marketing

How To Sell Your Biggest, Bravest Ideas — Lessons From a ‘Marketing Baddie’ [Video]

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).

Digital Marketing

5+ Best Practices for Award-Winning Brand Newsletters

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 business. They’re also relatively easy […]

Digital Marketing

8 Meaningful Brand Responses to Natural Disasters

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 must activate a response plan. […]

Digital Marketing

Visionary Content May Not Be Popular (Yet), But It’s Your Secret Edge

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 shared three things he needs […]

Digital Marketing

How To Tell Stories That the C-Suite Wants To Hear [Video]

Digital Marketing

Marketing Toolkit To Improve Your Content Operations

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 wisdom of your industry peers […]

Digital Marketing

Expert Tips To Set Your Strategy

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: LinkedIn Instagram YouTube and YouTube […]

Digital Marketing

Why AI Makes Content Planning Out Loud More Important Than Ever

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 company even admitted she learned […]

Digital Marketing

How To Use GA4 and AI To Find the Gold In Your Data

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 Point Playbook, which provides online […]

Digital Marketing

Forget Fear, Joyful Marketing Works: Examples From Top Brands

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 as negativity sells. Shabnam co-founded […]

Digital Marketing

Why Culture Is Key to Brand Marketing’s Influence

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 Wieden+Kennedy New York and a […]

Digital Marketing

How To Write a 1-Page Content Marketing Strategy in a Few Hours

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 content marketing with the organization’s […]

Digital Marketing

What Marketers Need To Know

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 a promising link, consume the […]

Digital Marketing

Should You Prioritize Speed or Agility? (No, They Aren’t the Same)

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 than Apple regarding product strategy: […]

Digital Marketing

What’s Lost When AI-Generated Characters Lie and Misrepresent?

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 raised ethical questions about using […]

Digital Marketing

How To Promote Your Research for Maximum Press Coverage

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 benefits. You can start with […]

Digital Marketing

What Is a Content Marketer, Anyway?

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 a job search? Or, if […]

Digital Marketing

What’s Your Word for 2025?

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 you write resolutions? Do you […]

Digital Marketing

The Grinch That Stole Creativity: 2024 in Seussian Review

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 the marketing room. With a […]

Digital Marketing

Why Your Great Content Isn’t Driving Great Results — And How To Fix It

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 your products. When your […]

Digital Marketing

What Does Instagram’s Hashtag Move Mean for Marketers?

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 for hashtag stuffers — those […]

Digital Marketing

Should TikTok Ruling Take a Bite Out of Your Marketing?

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 TikTok parent company ByteDance’s argument […]

Digital Marketing

How 5 Travel Brands Inspire Dreams With Powerful Storytelling

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 a pleasant and purposeful journey. […]

Digital Marketing

57+ Content Marketing Statistics for Your 2025 Strategy

. 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 might review your current operations. […]

Digital Marketing

How To Use Friction To Build Better B2B Customers

“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 more evenly distributed. But I […]

Digital Marketing

Should Jaguar’s Bold Rebrand Generate a New Roar for Marketers?

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 put four marketers in a […]

Digital Marketing

How To Make the Case for a Raise in Your Content and Marketing Role

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, which is 3% less than […]

Digital Marketing

What Experience Do You ‘Get To’ Create for Someone Today?

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 happened (and even things that […]

Digital Marketing

What Marketers Should Know About Data Cleaning, Modeling, and Governance

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. James Hunt, principal consultant at […]

Digital Marketing

Holiday Marketing Inspiration: 6 Delicious Content Examples

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. But finding ways to recognize […]

Digital Marketing

Why ‘Know Your Why’ Is Wrong for Content — and How To Fix It

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 should start with that message. […]

Digital Marketing

Will the X Avalanche Lead to a New Social Media Landscape for Marketers?

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 says its user base is […]

Digital Marketing

Ultimate Reading List for Marketers: 60+ Book Recommendations

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 includes 17 books new to […]

Digital Marketing

Manufacturing Marketing Outlook for 2025

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 is very effective, according to […]

Digital Marketing

Are We Walking Backward Into the Future of Content and Marketing?

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 which astronomer and author Clifford […]

Digital Marketing

How To Battle Organic Search Analytics in the AI Era

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 has expanded that SEO work […]

Digital Marketing

At Least One of These Predictions for Marketers Is True

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 drive growth. This was to […]

Digital Marketing

How Caspian Studios Brought Fiction to B2B Content

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 expectations for B2B content. Instead […]

Digital Marketing

27 Definitions for Effective Content Marketing Measurement

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 to stay on top of […]

Digital Marketing

How To Optimize Content Organization for 2025

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 content across all the channels […]

Digital Marketing

Will SearchGPT Whack Google Where It Counts?

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 Grail for getting the coveted […]

Digital Marketing

What To Do When You Can’t Say No

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 done. Or, possibly, the suggestion […]

Digital Marketing

The B2B Game Plan for Success

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 2023 Ogilvy report finds that 75% of […]

Digital Marketing

Why You Need People To Manage the Meaning of AI Content

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 persuade? “Hold on,” you might […]

Digital Marketing

How To Find the Truth in Data and Marketing Analytics

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 and self-described innovator in analytics […]

Digital Marketing

Semrush’s Acquisition Reinforces the Value of Owned Media

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. Semrush’s acquisition of the company […]

Digital Marketing

5 Bright Ideas To Help Your Content and Marketing Shine in 2025

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 the general feeling of “meh” […]

Digital Marketing

How Salesforce Blazed Award-Winning Content Trail for Sales Pros

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 as an additional step in […]

Digital Marketing

3 Disruptions That Will Shape Your Content and Marketing Strategy in 2025

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 workflows.” I say “yes, and…” […]

Digital Marketing

Don’t Settle for This in Your 2025 Marketing

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. After CMI’s chief strategy advisor, […]

Digital Marketing

Content Score: How To Assess Performance

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 performs the job it’s designed […]

Digital Marketing

How To Plan Content To Support Digital Sales

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 switch aren’t looking back,” she […]

Digital Marketing

Embrace the Valuable Friction Between Creativity and Tech

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 do. It’s not just that […]

Digital Marketing

Data Standards for Marketing Are a Must, But Few Brands Have Them [Research]

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 taxonomies for marketing data, measurement […]

Digital Marketing

6 Ideas for Epic Audio and Video Storytelling [Examples]

“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 crowded, noisy spaces where it’s […]

Digital Marketing

How Travel Oregon’s Content Strategy Drove $50+ Million in Economic Impact

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 the digital landscape expanded, so […]

Digital Marketing

Why You Have To Care Enough To Send the Very Best in B2B Marketing

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 or someone driven by curiosity […]

Digital Marketing

How To Catch Content Lightning in a Bottle

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 history. And this year, if […]

Digital Marketing

10+ Overlooked Tools To Improve Your MarTech Stack

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 pause before moving forward with […]

Digital Marketing

B2B Content Marketing Trends 2025 [Research]

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 by The MX Group. More […]

Digital Marketing

B2B Content Marketing Trends 2025 [Research]

Digital Marketing

Set Your 2025 Content Strategy Before Buying New Tech — Here’s Why

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, pliers, etc.). In marketing, I […]

Digital Marketing

How IBM Uses Data To Power Account-Based Marketing Strategy

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 purchase process, and most of […]

Digital Marketing

Is Google NotebookLM the New CliffsNotes?

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 whole line of Shakespeare summaries […]

Digital Marketing

5 Things Content Marketers Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Doing

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 some of these techniques to […]

Digital Marketing

Award-Winning Content for TMRW

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 held marketing-related roles at B2C […]

Digital Marketing

The Marketing Career Path Is Crumbling. What Comes Next?

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 turns out, the entire marketing […]

Digital Marketing

Where LinkedIn’s AI Move Went Wrong

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. Weeks earlier, Meta went through […]

Digital Marketing

How To Find Your Way Through the Marketing Analytics Maze

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 their audience and customer behavior. […]

Digital Marketing

How To Transform a Corporate Blog Into an Award-Winning Website

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. At Ally Financial, that was the […]

Digital Marketing

Map Your Strategic Path to Content Success [Sponsored]

For any successful journey, you need to know where you are, where you want to be, and what paths you can take to get there. Much like traveling in a car equipped with a GPS, a content strategy roadmap can help you navigate complex content decision-making and reach your goal. What is a content strategy […]

Digital Marketing

Isn’t It Obvious? How To Make Content More Useful for Sales

“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 some miscommunication happens. People routinely […]

Digital Marketing

How To Improve Data Storytelling and Gain More Support

“By 2025, data stories will be the most widespread way of consuming analytics.” That prediction from Gartner a few years ago was geared toward CFOs, but it applies perfectly to another group that traffics in data — marketers. Gartner even identified the rise of dynamic storytelling as one of four data and analytics trends: “Leaders […]

Digital Marketing

Don’t Let AI Headlines Steer Your Marketing Career the Wrong Way

The world seems chockablock with research and data about how AI is now — and in the future — having an impact on the careers of marketers and creators. Is that because we’re in the research business and have seen a few recent studies, including CMI’s 2025 Career Outlook for Content and Marketing, that speak […]

Digital Marketing

20+ Tips and Ideas That Make Paid Social Media Content Pay Off

Should you still invest in paid social media promotion and advertising for your brand? When I posed the question to experts in marketing, the responses were almost unanimous: “Yes, but …” Some view it as a necessary evil given the limited organic reach on social today. Others say that although social platforms are crowded with […]

Digital Marketing

Marketing Career Salaries

What’s the outlook (and current reality) for marketing jobs involving content these days? Our 2025 Career Outlook for Content and Marketing research found a mix of good and less-than-great signals. On one hand, most marketers are more or less satisfied with their jobs. And the generative AI boogeyman? Not stealing jobs yet. On the […]

Digital Marketing

Why AI in Demand Generation Is No Knight In Shining Armor [Research]

It’s been a challenging year for most groups within the marketing realm. But marketers who spend their efforts at the earliest parts of the customer journey have arguably had it the worst. With an economy that looks good on paper but doesn’t seem to lead to more marketing budget, the continuing “short-termism” espoused by leaders, […]

Digital Marketing

Determining the Role of AI in Marketing

Artificial intelligence manifests dueling perspectives. Some marketers are uncertain how to feel about this new technology. Some see the opportunities for next-generation marketing. It’s a lot to think about, so we asked CMI’s chief strategy advisor, Robert Rose, for his thoughts. Fortunately, he was already speaking at this week’s epicenter of the conversation — the […]

Digital Marketing

19+ Free or Low-Budget Ideas To Distribute Your Brand’s Content

No marketer has ever said their content distribution budget is too big. That’s why brands of all sizes eagerly consider free and low-cost ideas. So, what are the best no- or small-budget tips that will work in 2024 and beyond? We asked the experts presenting at Content Marketing World, and their responses offer a plethora […]

Digital Marketing

3 Sound Ideas for Building Audio Into Your Content Strategy

Have you heard? Listener-friendly content formats like podcasts, audiobooks, and sound snippets enhance the emotional appeal of your stories and strengthen marketing performance. Think about it. How often do you get your audience’s full attention? “During your workday, you’re getting pitched and pinged on your devices while you’re in ‘deflect and move on mode,’” says Jeanniey […]

Digital Marketing

The Story or the Storyteller?

Does trust begin with the story or the storyteller? I’d argue they should be on equal footing at the start. For example, I can shout out loud in a quiet restaurant and make people aware of me. But who they think I am and what I shout are equally important factors in whether people behave […]

Digital Marketing

Why Data-Driven Personalization Is So Hard (and How To Make It Easier)

Marketers know that data-driven personalization presents a huge opportunity and a meaningful way to deliver on customer expectations. Research backs up that common sense. In one recent study, 89% of decision-makers say they believe personalization “is invaluable to their business’s success in the next three years.” Yet most organizations struggle to personalize content. I explained […]

Digital Marketing

Game Your Paid Media Strategy

Are you ready for “advergaming”? Or is it ad gamification? Gamified advertising? Whatever the word or phrase, interactive advertising is here. Big brands like Disney, Amazon, and even tech company Discord are featuring interactivity in their advertising formats. If you think that sounds like something B2B companies have been doing for a while, you’re right. […]

Digital Marketing

How To Create a Video Strategy for Now and the Future

Everybody loves videos. In the most recent CMI research, 84% of marketers say they use videos — that’s an 11% jump over the previous year. Yet executives, managers, and others still clamor for more videos. You’ve probably sat in a meeting where the CEO says the company needs more videos. Or received a forwarded TikTok […]

Digital Marketing

8 Ways To Ensure That Your Content Is Accessible

Your content isn’t polished until you make it accessible to all. Google regularly introduces new accessibility features and updates to enhance the accessibility of digital content. However, marketers shouldn’t just rely on third-party sites to break down barriers so everyone can enjoy your content. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines provide a foundation based on four […]

Digital Marketing

To Gate or Not to Gate? Is That Really the Question?

Does gating content make sense in 2024? In B2B content marketing, tension typically arises between marketing and sales teams over how much (if any) content should be gated. How much content should be accessible only to those willing to provide contact information? The debate about gating content has been hot for as long as I […]

Digital Marketing

AI-Assisted Search Will Change the Pay-To-Play Games for Marketers

Are you ready for AI-assisted search paid advertising? Whew … a lot of buzzwords in that one question. That’s the concept pitched by Perplexity, a search-focused generative AI platform. Its new advertiser pitch deck shows how the platform will win the hearts and minds of marketers by making them the prioritized answers to queries, all […]

Digital Marketing

Email Marketing: 19 Do’s and Don’ts

Email presents a marketing benefit unavailable on any social media channel: Your brand can show up directly in your audience’s inboxes whenever you want. But to gain email’s true advantage, you don’t just hit the send button. You must do the things that attract audiences to open, read, click, and act. To help, the experts […]

Digital Marketing

Content Governance Is a Must for Successful Content Strategy

When you hire architects to design a house, they don’t just give the interior and exterior drawings to the construction crew and call the project complete. To ensure that the finished product meets everyone’s expectations, they provide comprehensive specifications for the team. So why do many content marketers expect a content strategy to do all […]

Digital Marketing

Solo Stove Brand Reignites Snoop Dogg With Blunt Marketing

We have an update on the Snoop Dogg viral ad from earlier this year. Fresh off his Olympic hosting duties, Snoop Dogg has reunited with Solo Brands for a new campaign called Blunt Marketing. (See what they did there? In case you didn’t know, Snoop is the world’s most famous marijuana aficionado.) Is this campaign […]

Digital Marketing

What It Takes To Build a Unified Content Experience

Most brands understand what it takes to deliver a satisfying content experience — or think they do. But what your brand believes will compel engagement may not align with what works for your audience. When gauging value, the audience’s perception is reality. If your content experience doesn’t deliver at someone’s first point of entry, you may not […]

Digital Marketing

What To Do When the Optimal Strategy Isn’t Optimal

Strategy consultants and agencies often get a bad rap. Sometimes they deserve it. But sometimes they don’t. The cliché (and some stereotypes exist for a reason) is that consultants and agencies recommend strategies the business can’t implement. The proposed changes might be too complex, disruptive, expensive, or lengthy, making them impractical. Sure, consultants often suggest […]

Digital Marketing

How To Mine Customer Reviews and Ratings To Improve Your Marketing and Products

Online reviews are a gold mine for marketers, and fortunately for you, the gold keeps growing. Just four years ago, the volume of online reviews surged 87% year over year, according to McKinsey research. While the growth may have slowed, it hasn’t stopped and is expected to intensify. And all that online feedback is tied […]

Digital Marketing

How AI Grades for Influencers Help With Brand Safety

In a crowded marketplace, influencer marketing ranks as an effective strategy for brands to reach new audiences. Yet, many marketers, whether in B2B or B2C, still equate influencer marketing with A-list celebrity promotion. Think Salesforce enlisting Matthew McConaughey to fight for AI and customer data privacy. Or model Hailey Bieber, wife of singer Justin Bieber, […]

Digital Marketing

21 Great Ideas To Get Your Content Audience To Take Action

You don’t just create content for the sake of the audience. You’re a marketer. You create content to ultimately drive profitable customer action. (It’s right in the definition, after all.) How do you create content that converts? We turned to the experts presenting at Content Marketing World for their best tip. Interestingly, they had different […]

Digital Marketing

Brand Story Archetypes

Does every “new” show, series, and film you watch these days seem like something you’ve seen before? You’re not experiencing déjà vu, and Hollywood (probably) isn’t out of ideas. You’re seeing why sequels, prequels, reboots, and reunion shows have taken over your content channels: Storytelling around instantly recognizable themes has built-in resonance. Humans evolved through […]

Digital Marketing

Can You Rent Success by Publishing Beyond the Website?

“Success is never owned. Success is only rented, and the rent is due every day.” That quote from Rory Vaden’s book Take the Stairs always struck me as a little off. It reminds me of that tired old axiom: “No pain, no gain.” Both sayings suggest that success will always be a struggle. And if […]

Digital Marketing

So, Google’s a Monopoly — Will Anything Change?

Shocking news this week. A U.S. court found Google, that tiny little Northern California company that provides search, advertising, and other online services, to be a monopoly. Yes, a monopoly. If you read mainstream media coverage of the ruling, you might think a giant space alien had just been killed. Headlines scream superlatives, such as […]

Digital Marketing

Branded Content Examples

Branded content is among the most misunderstood of all content tactics. While it’s a distinct approach, it’s easy to confuse it with other paid campaign tactics like native advertising, influencer marketing, or social media ads. Its non-salesy approach, marked by deeply immersive, entertaining, and educational stories, makes it one of the best vehicles to bridge […]

Digital Marketing

How To Turn Old Content Into a New Work of Art With an AI Assist

Have you heard any of the countless remixes of New Order’s instant classic Blue Monday? Each one reimagines the synth-laden ’80s staple, a derivative of the original work, yet brings something new to the table. Content remixing operates exactly like that. It’s a form of “cultural remixing” in the digital realm that uses existing ideas […]

Digital Marketing

The New Facts About Your Owned Media Strategy

I’ve seen several articles and social media posts recently about why modern content marketing needs a “beyond the website” strategy. Here’s the gist of these arguments: With the decade-long slide in search traffic (made worse by AI-powered answers and zero-click search features) and the “for you” trend in social media feeds, you should now distribute […]

Digital Marketing

How To Create User Stories That End Frustrating Conversations About Marketing

The CEO asks the company’s data scientist if the marketing strategy should incorporate generative AI and large language models. The data scientist responds: “The epiphany of large language models, distinguished by their profound deep neural architecture and expansive parameterization, constitutes a quantum leap in the domain of marketing. Their extraordinary capacity to unveil intricately woven, […]

Digital Marketing

Small Player Wins Big in Brand Games

Marketing plasters the Olympics. In the Parade of Athletes, at every event venue, and during every media opportunity, the competitors generally wear the branded apparel of their country’s sponsor. Unless, of course, the athlete is a star who has a different brand deal. For example, Nike is the apparel brand sponsor for the U.S. delegation, […]

Digital Marketing

23+ Roles You Might Need on Your Content Marketing Team

You learn the 2025 budget has room to add a new role to your content and marketing team, and you get to decide what that will be. Would you add another writer? What about a data wrangler? Or would you opt for a strategist? What about a customer-focused role? To help in your analysis, we […]

Digital Marketing

How This B2B Company Stole B2C’s Sizzle To Heat Up Its Content

Everybody expects content about refrigeration products to be boring. That’s why the marketing team at Heatcraft Refrigeration Products wanted to flip the script in B2B marketing. The division of Lennox International manufactures and sells refrigeration products such as walk-in, reach-in, and warehouse coolers, to restaurants, supermarkets, gas stations, and warehouses. So, the marketing team creates […]

Digital Marketing

10 Essential Tips for Data-Driven Content Marketing [Sponsored]

Thanks to AI, any marketer can quickly create a blog post, article, or other type of content in minutes. But whether that content will resonate with your audience is another story — especially if you rely on keyword research and AI’s generic ideas to fuel your strategy. It might boost your search rankings but won’t […]

Digital Marketing

How To Balance Marketing Specialists and Generalists

Do you remember when your whole family went to the same doctor? Believe it or not, that wasn’t uncommon not so long ago. That one doctor was the go-to resource anytime you or a family member got sick, hurt themselves, or needed medical advice. You’d have a checkup once a year. And you’d only see […]

Digital Marketing

Google Drops Out of the Anti-Cookie Campaign. What’s Next?

A huge leader dropped out of a major campaign this week. Oh, you thought we meant that national race in the United States? No, that’s news, but this is news of a different kind. This week, Google decided to say, “Hey, remember third-party cookies — the thing that we’ve been telling you for four years […]

Digital Marketing

What Hiring Managers Look for in Content and Marketing Job Seekers

A dozen applications arrived shortly after the posting for a copywriter on the content marketing team at The TemPositions Group of Companies went live. Walter Prystowsky, director of marketing, says he expected to have more than 100 within the week. “Many of these applicants seem to be very qualified with years of experience producing a […]

Digital Marketing

Don’t Start an Original Research Project Before Answering These 8 Questions

Original research creates a unique differentiator in your content marketing program, but not everyone or any AI tool can do it successfully. Before you ever pose a question, you must know why you’re creating it (i.e., how it will help your audience and your brand), which formats you’ll use to package the findings (i.e., blog […]

Digital Marketing

Creative People Aren’t Wicked Problems To Solve

We’re headed down the wrong road with generative AI. Over the last few months, I’ve been struck by the messages from major gen AI solution providers. Unfortunately, those messages feed the frenzy for implementing generative AI in creative and marketing operations. Take, for example, this recent quote from OpenAI CTO Mira Murati in response to […]

Digital Marketing

Combine GA4 and ChatGPT To Deliver More Insightful Analytics

Optimal day: Friday Optimal topics: Content marketing, SEO Start date: Upcoming Friday Frequency: Every other Friday Of course, you don’t need to follow ChatGPT’s suggestions exactly. However, I’m fascinated that it can generate these suggestions based on the data Andy provided. Complementing and augmenting analytics and AI I was competent in Google’s Universal Analytics, but […]

Digital Marketing

The Best New Metric for Marketers Since SEO Came Along

Do you have a share of model? We don’t mean like a super model or stock share. We’re talking about your brand’s share of answers in the large learning models of search and AI. Imagine a prospect prompting ChatGPT, Anthropic, or even Google for the best brand to provide your product or service. Maybe, they […]

Digital Marketing

Experts Reveal the Worst (and Best) Advice on Using Generative AI in Content Marketing

Generative AI prompts a lot of reactions from content marketers. Everybody seems to have an opinion — or more than one — on the effect of this widely accessible and always evolving technology. But what’s the worst advice out there about generative AI? We asked the speakers at Content Marketing World 2024 what they’ve heard […]

Digital Marketing

How To Catch Audiences With Extraordinary Hooks

My wife had already fed our dog. Undeterred, the dog sat by her bowl with an innocent yet hungry look. I fell for it hook, line, and sinker and gave her a second meal. See what I did there? I used a hook to grab your attention and encourage you to keep reading. If you’re […]

Digital Marketing

Time for a Content Reboot? How to Tell

Don’t you sometimes wish you could redo all that content created years ago? I go back to things I wrote half a dozen years ago and think, “Sheesh, that didn’t age well.” But that’s learning on the record , right? For brands, this problem is relatively new. Before the web and search, a cringy marketing […]

Digital Marketing

Surprising Search Behavior Teaches This Important Lesson

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 really have 133 days to […]

Digital Marketing

How To Unite Roles and Teams and Scale Your Content Operations

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 cracks. Finger-pointing begins. People make […]

Digital Marketing

Pack a Bigger Punch Writing Character-Limited Descriptions and Posts

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. How do you make the […]

Digital Marketing

You Can Build a Better Racetrack Without Chasing SEO

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 show about how Google ranks […]

Digital Marketing

Can a 1985 Marketing Playbook Fix Measurement Problems in 2024?

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 during his visit to CMI […]

Digital Marketing

How Better Source Interviews Lead To More Engaging Content

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 subject comfortable enough to share […]

Digital Marketing

How To Take the All-Important Second Step in Your Content Strategy

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 sure how to move forward. […]

Digital Marketing

What Should Agencies Do in a Flat-Growth Year?

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 (as CMI’s Robert Rose calls […]

Digital Marketing

How To Build a Winning Content Plan for Social Media [Template]

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 shift their business priorities and […]

Digital Marketing

Groundbreaking Autism Travel Series Rockets Myrtle Beach Tourism

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 space but ALL of marketing. […]

Digital Marketing

Why Brand-Building Matters, Even When You Can’t Measure It

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 their audiences’ attention. That’s no […]

Digital Marketing

Did Cannes Lions Awards Just Say Content Beats Advertising?

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 in his keynote presentation at […]

Digital Marketing

7 Authentic Ways Your Brand Can Take a Stand on Social Issues

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 events, while 35% of those […]

Digital Marketing

How To Market Your Marketing To Marketers [New Research]

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 would say, “Our job is […]

Digital Marketing

Is It OK for Platforms To Train Their AI With Your Content?

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.” “I’ve been thinking about this, […]

Digital Marketing

How To Use Technology To Unlock Content and Marketing Potential

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 with tech-human collaborations today and […]

Digital Marketing

What Every B2B Brand Should Know About Influencer Marketing (Pricing Included)

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 the neutral trust level. So, […]

Digital Marketing

A Better Way To Build a Content Strategy

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 airplanes while flying them. I […]

Digital Marketing

Why Brands May Be Saying Less But Not Doing Less for Pride Month

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? Or are politics playing a […]

Digital Marketing

Quizzes, Games, and Polls [Examples]

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 content (13 minutes) than static […]

Digital Marketing

How To Measure the Value of Your Audience (in Real Money)

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 permission to deliver content directly […]

Digital Marketing

Leaked Documents Reveal Search Algorithm Secrets

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 Papers. More than 2,000 pages […]

Digital Marketing

How To Create Headlines: A 7-Point Checklist

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 the target audience, give potential […]

Digital Marketing

Harness AI To Harmonize Your Brand Voice: A Step-by-Step Guide

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 your brand’s content. Let’s delve […]

Digital Marketing

Why Holding Attention Isn’t a Worthwhile Content Strategy Anymore

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 avoid the straightforward path to […]

Digital Marketing

Coca-Cola Focuses Lens on Innovative, Lower-Budget B2B Content Play

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, one of the biggest brands […]

Digital Marketing

How To Use Content Curation To Deliver Fresh Ideas Without Added Resources

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 quality content without having to […]

Digital Marketing

Build a Workflow for Your Content Operation in 5 Steps

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. Smarter work requires clear operational […]

Digital Marketing

Why Even Crushing Content Failures Aren’t Mistakes

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 and smash as the Sonny […]

Digital Marketing

What You Need To Know About Recent ChatGPT and Gemini Features

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 more. Google got a bit […]

Digital Marketing

The Dos and Don’ts of Pitching Journalists To Get More From Your Owned Media

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 wear the public relations hat […]

Digital Marketing

3 Contextual Link-Building Strategies That Actually Work

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 an edge over the competition? […]

Digital Marketing

Time To Evolve Your Social Media Strategy for 2024

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 launch of AI chatbots on […]

Digital Marketing

Tech Takes Over Marketing (But Not How You Think)

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 thing — manage their technology. […]

Digital Marketing

Maximize Content Efficiency With These 7 Agile Practices

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 conversation is moving into the […]

Digital Marketing

How To Protect Your People and Brand

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 linking to the company page. […]

Digital Marketing

Why Your Content Won’t Surprise or Delight Unless You Expect More

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 language, the face, or […]

Digital Marketing

Oops, Google Did It Again — But You Still Need First-Party Data

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 delayed the deprecation of the […]

Digital Marketing

How To Write Faster With or Without an AI Assist

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 can write faster. You can […]

Digital Marketing

How To Develop a Great Creative Brief and Get On-Target Content

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 hasn’t understood (or never bothered […]

Digital Marketing

Avoid Traditional Marketing Metrics To Prove Content’s Real Value

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 marketing because there would be […]

Digital Marketing

Don’t Follow Tesla’s Marketing Mistake

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.” News of the dismissal came […]

Digital Marketing

Build a Content Performance Dashboard With Google Looker

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 that contribute to your overarching […]

Digital Marketing

Your Ultimate Guide To Master the Content Creation Process

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 to mention the stamina it […]

Digital Marketing

Overcome Change Fatigue and Boost Your Content Strategy

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 number of new, active innovative […]

Digital Marketing

Should Your Brand Shout Its AI and Marketing Plan to the World?

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 really contemplate. Watch the video […]

Digital Marketing

How To Write A Lede

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 more often, I get sad, […]

Digital Marketing

How To Use Testing To Create a Competitive Advantage

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 numbers. It’s an art and […]

Digital Marketing

Think Like a Golfer To Create a Winning Content Strategy

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 week, I talked with a […]

Digital Marketing

Will Google Buy HubSpot? | Content Marketing Institute

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? Well, we asked CMI’s chief […]

Digital Marketing

How To Set Up a Content Publishing Process

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 leader who oversees and often […]

Digital Marketing

How To Adapt Your SEO and Content Strategies for SGE and AI Experiences

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 content is represented in search […]

Digital Marketing

How To Get Unstuck With Generative AI in Your Content and Marketing

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 House — ugh). Did you […]

Digital Marketing

The Reality of Generative AI in Marketing May Not Be What You Think

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% of organizations are implementing or […]

Digital Marketing

57+ Words Every Content Marketer Should Know [Glossary]

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 up everything you thought you […]

Digital Marketing

Want More Referral Traffic? Don’t Overlook These Sites

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 sheds light on familiar sites […]