7 Stolen Content Marketing Ideas You Can Use Today

In 2013, Joe Pulizzi published a popular post called 8 Remarkable (and Stolen) Content Marketing Ideas. In it, he shared his favorite ideas from others in the content marketing space.

While those original “stolen” ideas are definitely worth revisiting, here are seven more from 2015 that came from blog posts and Content Marketing World speakers. Each of these things has changed my thinking, directly attributed to better content, or is expected to be implemented in 2016. (Not only am I stealing people’s ideas, but I’m also stealing Joe’s post format.)

Try one new thing in every piece of content

Stolen from: Jay Acunzo | @Jay_zo

When to try this: You are in a content rut and/or want to continually challenge yourself to create better content.

In August, Jay threw down the gauntlet with this challenge:

The next time you’re creating anything, be it for work or for fun, here’s what I’d challenge you to try: At the top of your notes or your draft, write out a placeholder that simply reads, “One Different Thing.” Then, by the end of your work, before you hit publish, make sure something is written next to it.

I pass this challenge along to you. How can you try something new every single time you publish something? Some things may work – and some things won’t – but I guarantee you’ll start thinking more creatively.

Figure out which keywords you almost rank for

Stolen from: Andy Crestodina | @crestodina

When to try this: You want to get more visibility for some key terms.

One of my goals for 2016 is to be systematic and diligent with the data we are collecting – and make certain how we are using the data we take time to collect. While I have been compiling a lot of tips and have been working with the CMI team on creating internal dashboards, I love this tip from Andy that truly is easy:

Search engine optimization is the slowest form of marketing I know. It really is. But there’s one big shortcut … It’s the only fast SEO tactic that I know of.

Andy’s post, How to Rank Higher in Google in 5 Minutes Using Analytics, outlines how to do this, but, in essence, you can view which keywords you rank for and then optimize those pages.

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Focus on referral traffic

Stolen from: Rand Fishkin | @randfish

When to try this: You want your content to truly help your biggest influencers.

Rand shared this tip in a roundup post about how to get the most from Google Analytics:

Look at the list of websites (not social media or search engines) that have sent you the most traffic. See what the top 20 to 50 are writing about, to whom they link, and what their writers or founders are sharing on social. Use that intelligence to create content that you can feel confident is up your referral viewers’ alley. Chances are that you’ll be much more informed about the types of stuff that will earn you amplification, links, traffic, and mentions from influencers.

I remember reading this tip in particular and immediately copying it into Trello (where I store the ideas I want to try out). This is a great exercise from Rand — and one that is certain to help you uncover some ideas of your own.

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Consider pop-ups

Stolen from: Aaron Orendorf | @iconiContent

When to try this: You are struggling to convert people once they get on your website.

Pop-ups as an idea to steal? Really?

Yes, pop-ups are a decisive tactic in the marketing world. As users, many of us hate them, but as marketers, we love them because they work. But, as Aaron pointed out in his wildly popular post on 11 email sign-up strategies, there are many types of pop-ups to consider.

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Create a core content strategy statement

Stolen from: Meghan Casey | @meghscase

When to try this: You want a sure-fire, efficient tool that keeps your whole team’s content ideas on target – for customers and for the business.

Meghan wrote a brilliant yet simple article about one construct that content strategists use – the core content strategy statement. This brief statement is generated with a four-step process that helps get stakeholders on the same page. It also helps content creators focus on topic ideas that hit the sweet spot – that elusive intersection of customer interests and business goals – every time.

Set priorities

Stolen from: Neil Patel |@neilpatel

When to try this: You are overwhelmed with your list of things to do.

I think we can all relate to having too many things to do and too many ideas. Where do you focus? I love this simple yet true sentiment from Neil:

A list is useless. Why? There is no priority. A priority is a thing that is regarded as more important than another. If you had to pick a single goal of your content efforts, what would it be? Focus on that until you achieve it in a measurable way. What about side effects like growing your social media presence? Forget it.

Gary Keller, author of The One Thing, wrote “You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects.”

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Focus on your one thing.

As you move into the new year, ask yourself what your one thing should be. If there is something getting in the way of that, why?

Identify your content tilt

Stolen from: Joe Pulizzi | @joepulizzi

When to try this: You think your content sounds like everyone else’s.

I know I’m biased, but I adore Joe’s newest book, Content Inc. It sets up such a clear model for how to use content to build a successful business. These tips are useful for both entrepreneurs as well as those in larger organizations. While I had a lot of aha moments while reading it, my favorite concept – by far – is that of the content tilt.

In short, the content tilt is how your content is different than what anyone else is publishing. How can you become the leading informational provider in a certain niche?

He shares the story of Ann Reardon to help you understand this concept. Ann is the founder of the website, How to Cook That. You may be thinking, Baking? There are thousands of sites on baking. And you’d be right. That is where the content tilt comes in.

Ann specializes in how to make impossible dessert creations, such as a cake that looks like the Instagram logo or a giant Twix bar.

Honestly, if you are ever stuck on how to be different than your competitors, try tilting your content. I have used this exercise extensively over the past year.

A huge thanks to everyone in our community for all of the wonderful ideas they have shared. It’s tough to choose just a few. Please share your favorite ideas from the year in the comments.

To steal content marketing ideas throughout the year, subscribe to CMI’s blog posts.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post 7 Stolen Content Marketing Ideas You Can Use Today appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Quick-and-Dirty Roundup of Content Marketing Trends [Best of CCO 2015]

Let’s ditch the pretense that you’ll have a quiet weekend to catch up on reading and pen your list of personal goals for 2016. Instead, I’m offering you a quick-and-dirty roundup of my favorite CCO articles over the last 12 months. Pick one article for each month listed and read it in full. You’ll be done in 35 minutes – and have some great ideas for that 2016 planning. I promise.

February

One of my favorite articles published all year was Amy Higgins’ A Content Strategist’s Big Bang Theory. She maps how marketers can think of content as a planetary system, with one meta-asset acting as the sun, and variations on that single asset functioning as planets, moons, and satellites. If you read only one CCO article for the entire year, make it this one. And if possible, pull out the print version, as it’s easier to understand when laid out graphically.

Also in the February edition was our inside look at Society of Grownups, a curious project from Mass Mutual. (I think it’s among the most ambitious and original content experiments of 2015.) The global insurance company opened a storefront in a posh suburb of Boston to host financial classes and supper clubs for Millennials. Classes run the gamut from advice for freelancers to the basics of investing over fine wine. My own evening at Society of Grownups was nothing short of a blast.

April

I can’t possibly offer a CCO roundup without nominating an article from Kirk Cheyfitz, founder of Story Worldwide and content marketing sage. In The Too-Slow Death of the RFP, Cheyfitz wonders how brands can ask their agencies to innovate and still use such a defunct evaluation tool. May it inspire you to ditch your clunky RFP and think up better ways to partner with agencies.

Jonathan Crossfield is CCO magazine’s longest-running columnist, and his April contribution, Avoiding a Social Media Tragedy, is a must-read. Shortly after the Sydney Siege, the Australia native explained how off-key marketers often sound in the wake of tragic events. He says marketers must be prepared to turn off automation and tread carefully during unpredictable, unfolding tragic events – and train to do so well before anything goes wrong.

June

In June we pitted two influencers against one another to hash out an idea: Assuming you have limited time and resources, should you focus on creativity and craft or would your time be better spent on applying the tenets of content strategy (e.g., structured content) to scale your efforts? Jay Acunzo works at a venture capital firm in Boston and Ann Rockley is a content strategist in Toronto. While they take opposing views in the article Machined or Handcrafted: What’s Your Content Creation Ethos?, they offer sagacious perspectives about the perils facing content marketers.

Our own Cathy McPhillips put together The 7-Minute Email Marketing Workout. Find basic, intermediate, and advanced skills – from ideas for improving open rates to the importance of constantly cleaning and maintaining your lists. Pop it out of the print issue and pin it to your wall.

August

Marcia Layton Turner’s interview with YouTube legend and video game analyst, Matthew Patrick (aka MatPat) was one of my favorites from 2015. Now before you demur and tell me your audience doesn’t overlap even a little with MatPat’s … stop and listen. I’m going to go out on a limb and say you either don’t use YouTube all that much, or if you do, you don’t use it very successfully. The MatPat Phenomenon recounts his early experimentation with YouTube, and how he went from new kid to channel master. He shares specific advice for brands looking to break in successfully – from hiring the right talent, to how often you’ll need to experiment and iterate. Plus the guy is downright charming. Trust me on this one.

I also urge you to read Gary Lipkowitz’s article, Plain Talk About Video for Marketing Executives. Gary is an expert’s expert when it comes to video, and he offers a fantastic overview of all the varieties of video-based projects your company can undertake, and which are best to use at each stage of the marketing funnel. If you’re serious about video in 2016, this one’s a must-read.

October

If you’re at all confused about the difference between content marketing and branded content, read this column from Joe Pulizzi: Can We Please Stop Using Branded Content? Joe spells out the essential difference between the two, explains why campaign-based content still rules Madison Avenue, and entreats marketers to take the long view when developing audience-focused content.

Among the most popular speakers at Content Marketing World 2015, Andy Crestodina is a marketing nerd wrapped up in a friendly, approachable package. In October, we ran an interview with Andy (Content Mover) in which he dishes out one useful nugget after another about topics like search engine optimization, email marketing, and influencer marketing.

December

While not the sexiest topic around, social media governance is one of those critically important-but-overlooked imperatives you need to get serious about in 2016. Lisa Welchman and Kristina Podnar explain how assigning social media roles and responsibilities, and developing clearly documented policies not only minimizes risk, but helps you withstand crisis in their article, Governing Brand Identity in the Age of Social Media. Plus, the article lists three must-have social media governance documents with explanations of each.

In The Content Talent Crunch, Jay Acunzo describes the talent shortage for critical content marketing positions. (He works for a venture capital firm so he sees the problem firsthand among his portfolio companies.) Jay has great ideas about improving your hiring process to attract better candidates, and he speaks frankly about the need for content marketing teams to treat talented creatives with more respect for their craft.

These featured articles appeared in the 2015 issues of Chief Content Officer. Sign up to receive your free subscription to our bimonthly, print magazine.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Quick-and-Dirty Roundup of Content Marketing Trends [Best of CCO 2015] appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

9 PR Stunts that Backfired Big Time

PR is undoubtedly a critical aspect in modern business. Well executed PR has the potential to yield significant brand recognition and revenue. Bad PR on the other hand… it has the potential to completely cripple a company’s integrity. Any publicity is good publicity you say? Well you will surely disagree with that figure of speech after reading a few of these.

1. Paramount Pictures PR Fail

2014 saw the long awaited Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie grace our silver screens. However, an unfortunate coincidence with the poster sparked anger across social media.
Clearly, paramount’s less than diligent marketing team failed to pick on the link between the release date of the film and the shelled quartet leaping from an exploding skyscraper. Needless to say, Paramount pictures received a lot of negative press for this blunder.

2. UK Supermarket Horse Meat Scandal

Who could forget this sensational scandal? Back in 2013, the UK media practically exploded when Irish food inspectors announced they had discovered traces of horse DNA in the meat products of many top UK supermarket chains.

As a result, sales of frozen meat products plummeted overnight, with many supermarkets forced to offer public apologies in the form of adverts and newspaper spreads.
Inadvertently, this scandal helped drive sales for many UK butchers in a kind of ‘knock on’ effect. I bet the supermarkets weren’t anticipating that!

3. Ghettopoly

Although this scandal is old enough to be considered ‘retro’, it is still a perfect example of PR gone wrong.

‘Ghettopoly’, based on the popular board game monopoly, caused a major stir after offending many minority communities in the US. This controversial board game substitutes hotels for crack houses and even replaces the loveable thimble with a rock of crack cocaine.

Needless to say, Hasbro (the creators of monopoly) aren’t too happy with this parody of their iconic board game and are even using the negative press surrounding this pariah to launch a legal dispute against the game. Unfortunately, Hasbro lost the dispute due to the fact that they do not own the rights to monopoly.

Peter Herbert, the chairman of the society of black lawyers is quoted to have said: “I can’t remember seeing anything quite as racist or stereotypical for a long time. It’s the sort of game the SS would like to play”.

4. Belkin review scandal

Consumer electronics conglomerate Belkin suffered a spate of bad press after an employee advertently used a crowdsourcing platform to generate positive reviews.

A Belkin employee utilising Amazon’s crowdsourcing service – Mechanical Turk – to generate fake reviews can only be described as a PR blunder of monumentally idiotic proportions.

The actions of this individual have caused the company to come under scrutiny from the tech world, forcing the company’s president to release a formal apology and a swift dismissal for the offending employee,

5. Auto industry CEOs fly in private jets to plead for bailouts

In possibly the most furiously ironic PR fail ever, CEOs from General Motors, Ford and Chrysler flew to Washington in their private jets to plead for a $25 Billion bailout of taxpayer money.

Now, don’t be so quick to judge. Those CEOs are probably so used to travelling in uber-luxury that they’ve forgotten their dire financial situation.

It has been estimated that their plane journeys cost approximately $20,000 each. Pocket change when you’re begging for billions. Still, this stunt infuriated a fair few members of the public. However, the CEO’s have acknowledged this and will be attending in hybrid vehicles in future

6. Sainsbury’s 50p challenge

Now, you really must be fresh out of marketing ideas if you hang a poster in your store window ASKING people to spend more. Well that’s exactly what UK superstore Sainsbury’s did, and became the butt of many jokes thereafter.

Except this poster wasn’t meant for the public, It was actually intended to be displayed in the staff room in a bid to get employees to encourage more spending amongst customers. Needless to say, these types of PR stunts work better when the customers are not aware of your motives.

Perhaps even funnier still, supermarket chain Lidl released a poster in the wake of the Sainsbury’s gaffe, encouraging every one of their customers to save as many 50p’s as possible.

It just goes to show, one can always benefit from someone else’s bad PR.

7. McDonalds twitter fail

If you’re looking for a good source of PR fails and blunders, look no further than twitter. Whilst twitter may be an excellent platform for companies to connect with their audience and increase brand recognition, it also gives your audience voice, much to the dismay of McDonalds…

McDonalds started this twitter campaign – #McDStories – with the honest aim of spreading good news about the fast food firm… and you could say that it backfired big time!

Within minutes, thousands of twitter users descended on McDonalds, each describing their gruesome tales of their own McDonalds experiences. Even animal rights activists PETA got in on the action!

8. Malaysia Airlines Ultimate Bucket list
Now this doesn’t sound too offensive, I mean, everyone’s got a bucket list right? There’s nothing offensive about a bucket list is there?

Well, let me just say that Malaysian Airlines timing could not of been worse with this social media campaign. Since the disappearance of MA flight 370 and the destruction of MA flight 17, in which a total of 537 lives were lost, a bucket list seems a bit insensitive considering.

Malaysia Airlines agreed and has since rebranded the campaign to ‘win an ipad or flight to Malaysia’, thereby avoiding further potential PR fiascos.

9. Hurricane Sandy Sale

Many Americans will remember hurricane Sandy as the most destructive force on the East coast for generations. Not to mention the people who lost their lives. Clothing Company American Apparel on the other hand was capitalising on the disaster.

Using the slogan “In case you’re bored during the storm” and offering 20% off everything, American Apparel launches a marketing campaign to profit from the disaster.
Many were appalled by the underhandedly exploitative nature of the sale and vehemently voiced their opinions on twitter.

About the author

This post was written by Mark from Phipps PR. Mark is an online PR fanatic and he loves finding creative ways to get better exposure – hopefully with making a faux pas like the ones above! Mark’s background is in business management but he is also part time coder and loves everything related to the internet.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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This post is courtesy of: http://www.dailyblogtips.com

This Week in Content Marketing: Sure, Social Media Platforms Will Never Change

PNR: This Old Marketing with Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose can be found on both iTunes and Stitcher.

In this pre-Christmas episode, Robert and I discuss the meteoric growth of T Brand Studio, The New York Times’ content studio, and predict what will happen to Madison Avenue agencies if they ignore it. Next, we ponder Shafqat Islam’s 2016 content marketing predictions, and point out where our opinions align with and diverge from his prognostications. Finally, we question the wisdom of Basecamp moving its blog to Medium. They’re doing this under the premise that Medium won’t try to monetize the Basecamp blog without its permission. We think Basecamp executives may end up with coal in their Christmas stockings. Rants and raves include the renaissance in scripted TV content and a review of Joe’s 2016 predictions. We wrap up the show with a #ThisOldMarketing example from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

This week’s show

(Recorded live December 20, 2015; Length: 1:01:41)

Download this week’s PNR This Old Marketing podcast.

If you enjoy our PNR podcasts, we would love if you would rate it, or post a review, on iTunes.

1. Content marketing in the news

• Industrial strength branded content (5:20): Last year, The New York Times set up an entire division devoted to producing and commercializing content for its advertisers, T Brand Studio. In less than 12 months, it has a staff of 50 people and sales in the neighborhood of $30-40 million – 15-20% of the $200 million the NYT will make this year in digital advertising. Robert warns what will happen to Madison Avenue agencies if they continue to ignore the growing threat posed by big media content studios. He and I agree there’s a lot of risk in simply outsourcing content creation and distribution to an ad agency or content studio, and we explain why.

• 2016 content marketing predictions (17:45): In 2015, content marketing peaked, according to a new article by Shafqat Islam, the CEO of NewsCred. 2016 will be a challenging year, as marketers struggle to justify their investments in it. But those who persevere and focus on their strategy will emerge as long-term winners. Budgets will continue to grow, but will require more justification than ever, he predicts. Robert and I agree with many of his predictions, including focusing on specific channels and content types and creating more immersive experiences for customers.

• Signal v. Noise moves its blog to Medium (27:58): Basecamp’s blog, Signal v. Noise, has moved to the Medium blogging platform in order to leverage its polished authoring environment and to leverage the reach of its huge community. Since making the move, Basecamp founder and CTO David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) reports that two of its articles have been viewed more than 500,000 times – far exceeding the size of its audience on the Basecamp website. Robert and I are stunned that Basecamp would abandon its owned blog in favor of this shared platform, which is likely to change and won’t help them build an audience. We predict what will happen by the end of 2016.

2. Sponsor (36:25)

• Visual storytelling takes a village: In most businesses, the creation of rich-media content is not a scalable process. Whether your organization is using in-house teams, agencies, or freelancers to create these assets, creative efforts seem to be more disparate, ad hoc, and siloed than ever before. To put it simply, great visual storytelling takes a village – but that village seems to be more and more spread out. This new white paper from Widen explains how to transform it into an efficient community that can work together to streamline critical creative processes. You can download this white paper at http://bit.ly/widen-visual-storytelling.

3. Rants and raves (39:23)

• Robert’s rant: A new article from The Wall Street Journal has raised Robert’s ire this week. It says there are a record 409 scripted television shows on broadcast, cable, and streaming services this year, according to research by FX Networks. It tries to build the case that a glut of scripted shows is to blame for depressed network ratings. Robert calls bullshit on this claim, and explains why new distribution models are driving an unparalleled creative renaissance in television content. The key to success in the Brave New World of television content is remarkably similar to the challenge content marketers face today.

• Joe’s rave: I’m excited that CMI is sharing its 8^th annual content marketing predictions, by far the longest-running set of predictions of this type. It contains insights from the best and brightest in the world of content marketing. I share three of my predictions with Robert, and we discuss his outlook on them.

40+ Predictions on Content Marketing in 2016 from Content Marketing Institute

4. This Old Marketing example of the week (53:52)

• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: During the first part of the 20^th century, department store chain Montgomery Ward produced Christmas-themed coloring books, which were given away to children as holiday gifts to entice parents to visit and shop at its stores. In 1939, Montgomery Ward chose Robert May, a copywriter employed by the company, to write the coloring book. Inspired by the story of the ugly duckling, May wrote a marvelous tale of a misfit reindeer named Rudolph. During this project, May’s wife died after a lengthy bout of cancer, leaving him with a mountain of medical bills. During the 1939 Christmas season, 2.4 million copies of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer were distributed. In 1947, as interest in this wonderful Christmas story grew, May convinced the company’s president to turn the copyright over to him. Soon after, he was able to parlay this gift into a best-selling song performed by Gene Autry, two stop-motion television animation shows, games, toys, clothing, and much more. The misfit reindeer with the glowing red nose that helps Santa save Christmas is now recognized and adored worldwide. This is Robert’s favorite example ever of #ThisOldMarketing.

For a full list of PNR archives, go to the main This Old Marketing page.

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The post This Week in Content Marketing: Sure, Social Media Platforms Will Never Change appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

12 Content Marketing E-Books: A Year’s Worth of Gifts That Keep on Giving

Excelling at any marketing initiative can be intimidating, and with content marketing representing a significant departure from the “old ways” of connecting with customers, there are bound to be plenty of processes that involve a bit of a learning curve.

This is why the CMI team does what we do: Share insights that can help increase your understanding of the discipline; support your efforts with helpful tips, resources, and guidance; and prepare you to achieve greater levels of success as you move forward.

This past October, I reached my first anniversary as CMI’s content curator. My biggest takeaway so far is that curation is an ongoing journey of discovery – as I am always on the lookout for the best ways to make our tips and insights easier to access, understand, and apply.

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Though the tactics and formats I use in my efforts vary widely – from blog posts to social collections, to infographics, checklists, quizzes, and beyond – one format that our audience seems to find the most valuable is our e-books. It’s also one of my favorite formats as it gives me a chance to do a really deep dive into a topic, and learn a lot in the process.

Of course, I’m not the only member of the CMI team who appreciates the benefits of using this format to share information and ideas with our audience. In fact, as a team, we’ve shared over 35 e-books this past year on our SlideShare channel alone on topics that range from essential processes and tactics to collections of examples to ideas from some experts from whom we draw our inspiration. Here are 12 of my favorites from 2015 — in case you missed them.

1. Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends Reports for 2016

No list of CMI’s most popular content would be complete without mention of our annual research reports. Covering the B2B, B2C, and nonprofit sectors, as well as the content marketing landscapes in the United Kingdom and Australia, these reports reflect the state of the industry, and identify some of the key opportunities and challenges that content marketers should plan to address in the upcoming year.

For example, this year’s B2B research report found that only 30% of marketers felt their organizations are effective at content marketing – down from 38% last year. When you consider the finding that fewer B2B content marketers have a documented strategy than last year (32% vs. 35%), it seems likely that developing a written content marketing strategy for your organization may result in increased success.

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Only 30% of marketers felt their organizations are effective at #contentmarketing via @cmicontent #research
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2. Launch Your Own Content Marketing Program: Who, How, Why

For all those novice content marketers struggling to answer questions like, “How are we going to create all this content?” “What topics will our audience benefit from most?” or “How on earth do we align our content with our business goals?“, this e-book answers your cries.

Through a series of easy-to-complete practical exercises, this workbook provides a step-by-step walk-through of everything you need to set your goals and mission, generate relevant ideas, manage your workflow, and position your program to achieve optimal results.

3. Mastering the Buy-In Conversation on Content Marketing: The Essential Starter Kit

When management doesn’t understand the impact content marketing can have on your company’s audience – and its business goals – getting the support you need for success is probably going to be an uphill battle. It’s critical that content marketers get proactive by answering stakeholder questions, presenting evidence of its value, and setting their expectations right from the beginning. This essential starter kit has done most of the prep work for you, providing key talking points and support statistics you can use as the basis for your own buy-in conversation.

4. Digital Governance: A Primer for Marketers

If you have ever felt overwhelmed by all the content you have and the many processes to create and distribute it, this e-book will help. Digital governance gives you a strategy and process to maintain and update old content so it remains useful for your audience. Discover a step-by-step process for designing how your content marketing team operates so it can scale effectively for years to come.

5. The Essential #BestBooks Reading List for Content Marketers

As much as we all love e-books, there’s something special about the experience of diving into the kind of complete conversation that can only come from a book. Frequent CMI contributor Roger C. Parker creates a semi-annual list of recommended reading, and this e-book compiles the best of those lists. Whether you are looking to immerse yourself in a particular content marketing technique, gain a better understanding of how content can be used to build a business, or learn to master a new technical skill, you’re sure to find something worth curling up with here.

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6. These 20 Startups Found A Better Way To Launch And Grow A Business

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the majority of businesses fail in their first five years. In Joe Pulizzi’s latest book Content Inc., he outlines a content-first model for starting and growing a business that can help entrepreneurs beat those odds. But don’t take our word for it: Consider the success stories of how these 20 startups monetized their content audience as proof of principle.

7. 75 Examples to Spark Your Content Marketing Creativity

Few learning tools are as valuable and insightful as experience, and this collection shares it in spades. Get inspired by some of the best content marketing efforts being produced today, from stand-out blogs and magazines to engaging microsites and multichannel experiences to innovative ideas that can help expand your view of what can be achieved through content. Then, take that inspiration, go forth, and conquer your own content marketing challenges with renewed energy and purpose.

8. 13 Content Marketing Mistakes That Are Poisoning Your Progress

Let’s face it: We all make mistakes. The important thing is that you identify your missteps, address the problems, and move forward with renewed confidence. To help you accomplish these goals, we gathered some of our favorite insights from KISSmetrics founder Neil Patel, who reveals common trouble spots to look for and explains the fixes that will get your program back on track.

9. How to Get More From SlideShare: Super-Simple Tips for Content Marketing

Think you know every way to use this popular presentation platform in your content distribution efforts? Chances are that you are missing out on some of the non-conventional features and functionalities SlideShare offers that can help turn your static slideshows into show-stopping storytelling. This e-book shares some of those secrets, along with tips to help you ensure that your SlideShare content communicates in a clear, meaningful, and strategically sound way.

10. Building the Perfect Content Marketing Mix

We built this e-book as a way to examine two separate, yet equally essential facets of the content marketing equation – and provide guidance on how they can be combined and applied for optimal success.

Part 1, Top Priorities for 2015, offers data on which internal processes and strategy tactics your content marketing peers are prioritizing in their marketing mix.

While Part 2, Execution Tactics, outlines the most popular content creation and delivery techniques and offers tips to help companies get the best results from their efforts. Together, the two provide a road map content marketers can use to identify the particular initiatives that will be most beneficial to them – and implement them more efficiently and effectively.

11. Content Marketing Inspiration From John Cleese and Other Creative Innovators

As the legendary John Cleese once said, creativity is not a talent – it’s a way of operating. Anyone can learn to bring more creativity into their content marketing efforts – sometimes all it takes is passion, the right frame of mind, and a few of the tricks we’ve gathered from some of the most innovative minds in the industry.

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As John Cleese once said, creativity is not a talent - it's a way of operating via @cmicontent
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12. Become a Content Marketing Productivity Master: 21 Tips from the #CMWorld Community

The struggle is real: We all want to find ways to maintain focus, increase our output, and achieve better results from the work we do. However, short of breaking the laws of time and space, it doesn’t always seem possible to squeeze more into our already hectic workdays. The planning techniques, tactical shortcuts, and time-saving tips included in this e-book won’t keep the clock from ticking; but by minimizing wasted time, they may help you feel less distracted, stressed, or overwhelmed by the tasks you need to complete.

Bonus: Meet the Content Marketing Institute Team 2015: While not necessarily “need-to-know” information, our annual staff “yearbook” gives CMI a chance to share a bit of our own backstory, and provide a glimpse of some of the things our team members are most passionate about – in our industry, as well as in our personal and professional lives. We hope our experiences can inspire you to learn, and share, more about what makes your own organization unique, vital, and worthy of your audience’s attention.

As 2015 draws to a close, the CMI team is already hard at work on new ideas, insights, and advice to help content marketers tackle their challenges – large and small. But we’d love to hear what topics you would like to see us tackle in future e-books. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments or connect with us directly at any time.

Want a reminder to read the latest tips, tools, and more insight from the Content Marketing Institute? Subscribe to our blog posts and never miss a day.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post 12 Content Marketing E-Books: A Year’s Worth of Gifts That Keep on Giving appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

You Spoke. We Listened. 11 Top Content Marketing Challenges Solved

Whether it’s starting from the beginning (making the case for content marketing) or enhancing your programs (figuring out what’s working), the opportunities for content marketing learning are endless.

As CMI’s director of online training, I have the privilege of working with leading industry experts to identify the most pressing challenges you face and help them create the courses to help you learn on your own time through CMI University.

Today, I share 11 of those challenges, offer a brief tip from an instructor, and provide resources for you to use today and in the future to expand your knowledge.

1. Challenge: Making a case for content marketing

Tip: You first need to create a foundation that’s going to increase the probability that people say yes. The way to do that is to focus on why and who: Why do we want to invest in content marketing? And who do we need to convince of its value?

Remember: People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. So you need to understand why you want to do this, and be able to pitch it, and help the organization understand why they want to do it.

Tip provider: Don Stanley, president, 3Rhino Media

Course: Building the Business Case for Content Marketing

LEARN MORE:
How to Win Your Battle for Content Marketing Buy-in [50+ Stats]

2. Challenge: Finding data about your audience

Tip: LinkedIn is the best tool ever for creating personas because it gives you access to people who hold roles similar to roles held by those you want to become your customers.

Tip provider: Ardath Albee, CEO, Marketing Interactions

Course: How Personas Improve Marketing and Sales Alignment

LEARN MORE:
How to Create Easy, Yet Actionable Content Marketing Personas

3. Challenge: Envying other people’s content

Tip: The best content that we see on the web often looks effortless, as if someone just sat down at their computer, created this beautiful piece of content, and put it online, and it’s perfectly aligned with whatever the conversation is about that day. The truth is that that’s not likely. Anything that’s highly produced or anything that’s good content was planned meticulously and most likely went through several rounds of editing. So the challenge for us as content marketers is twofold. We must come up with content that’s relevant to the conversation at the moment in our ever-changing culture. And we must apply resources to our content in order to make it memorable, in order to make it unique.

Tip provider: Dani Fankhauser, journalist, Mashable

Course: Entertaining vs. Thought Leadership

LEARN MORE:
5 Essential Skills for Content Marketing Copywriters Today

4. Challenge: Creating a story for your brand

Tip: You might think that you don’t have a good story because your brand isn’t that exciting. And if that’s the case, I disagree. Your story doesn’t have to be a whimsical comedy, it just has to be interesting. Your brand is solving a problem or fulfilling a need, and I think that’s really interesting. And interesting is memorable. Interesting is shareable. It’s engaging. It’s inspiring. And it’s relatable. That’s what makes your story so great.

Tip provider: Shelly Bowen, content strategist and founder, Pybop

Course: Breathing Life into Your Brand Story

LEARN MORE:
Brand Backstory: Where Your Content Marketing Strategy Is Born

5. Challenge: Wondering if your story is getting stale

Tip: In order for consumers to start believing your message, they need to hear it, see it, and interact with it three to five times. What that means is that as consumers are navigating the digital ecosystem, you have to have a very specific story that’s compelling, that’s integrated, and that is consistent so that you can fully change consumer behavior.

Tip provider: Michael Brito, group director, WCG

Course: Storytelling for Channels

LEARN MORE:
5 Easy Steps to Define and Use Your Brand Voice

6. Challenge: Creating visuals that make a difference

Tip: A visual strategy expands your brand awareness and visibility. It influences what others think of you, but it also humanizes your company. So you’re not going to be this stodgy, impersonal corporate entity anymore. Online engagement is all about relating to people. Visuals can help get you there. They are very engagement-friendly. People love them. They can also help you cultivate brand advocates.

Tip provider: Paul Biedermann, creative director, re:DESIGN

Course: Create a Brand Strategy Before Developing Your Visual Strategy

LEARN MORE:
27+ Handy Tools for Better Visual Content Marketing

7. Challenge: Becoming a thought leader

Tip: Why does thought leadership matter? True thought leadership is synonymous with authority. It’s also synonymous with attention. If you have the attention of an audience, then you’re a leader already. And great leaders plan, listen, observe, inspire, and then give direction. They continually demonstrate their leadership mindset by freely sharing their ideas through content and channels that help spread them so that they can maintain that leadership position.

Tip provider: Carla Johnson, founder, Type A Communications; co-author, Experiences: the Seventh Era of Marketing

Course: Moving From Content Producers to Story-Driven Thought Leaders

LEARN MORE:
Why Your Thought Leadership Strategy Should Make You Uncomfortable

8. Challenge: Looking beyond the sale

Tip: Customer retention and loyalty often get ignored when we’re talking about content marketing, or marketing in general. We focus a lot on acquiring new customers. But content is also a great tool to retain customers, as well as to upsell and cross-sell them.

Tip provider: Hana Abaza, vice president of marketing, Uberflip

Course: The Ultimate Guide to Content Metrics & Analytics

LEARN MORE:
Get Your Fans to Share Their Love: What Every Brand Can Learn from GoPro

9. Challenge: Getting your content in front of the right people

Tip: It’s amazing to me how some brands can spend a huge amount of time, money, and effort creating great content but invest almost nothing in content promotion. They just sit back and expect the world to beat a path to their content, and it just doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to help your target audience discover your great content.

Tip provider: Doug Kessler, co-founder and creative director, Velocity Partners

Course: Principles of Social Conversation for Content Marketers

LEARN MORE:
How to Attract Over 50K Subscribers in 6 Months

10. Challenge: Integrating the right social channels into your promotion plan

Tip: Building momentum has little to do with where you distribute your content. Building momentum is all about when you choose to distribute your content. How are you actually putting together a series of content distribution approaches that end up building momentum for the story you create? I want you to think about maximizing every channel’s reach and influence one at a time. You’ll be able to maximize the reach of your content but also make a bigger impact and create less content over time.

Tip provider: Andrew Davis, author, Brandscaping and Town, Inc.

Course: Momentum: How Smart Brands Turn Regular Content into Mega Success

LEARN MORE:
Danger Ahead: When Content Distribution Is on Auto-Pilot

11. Challenge: Figuring out what is working

Tip: We now report everything, and that gets us into this sort of myopic view of using analytics to prove a point rather than improve our process. I sometimes call analytics WMDs or Weapons of Mass Delusion because we can really make the statistics say anything we want them to when we’re reporting on that many numbers. So I encourage marketers to always look at the analytics from the idea of what action can we take on this metric. That is one of the biggest reasons to only report what is necessary, positive or negative.

Tip provider: Robert Rose, chief strategy officer, Content Marketing Institute

Course: Developing Your Content Marketing Analytics

LEARN MORE:
Metrics Made Easy: 8 Easy-to-Use Categories and a Dozen Tools

Want to learn more from these tip providers and other industry experts? Sign up for the winter session of CMI University before Dec. 31, 2015. Winter session participants also have free access to Content Marketing World 2015 and Content Marketing Show 2015 video-on-demand programming (value: $1,200+). Save $150 by using code cmiuniversity15 until December 31.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post You Spoke. We Listened. 11 Top Content Marketing Challenges Solved appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

5 Hacks to Improve Your Blog and Get More Traffic

How do you imagine your perfect blog post?

I bet it is a copywriting masterpiece with hundreds of comments and thousands of social shares. Sure you care about SEO performance, but a bigger pleasure is when your content wins readers’ recognition. And it spreads like wild fire because your post is just awesome.

Unfortunately, the reality is different. You wait for days, but your well-written blog post remains ignored. Nobody shares it and it does not bring the desired traffic.

That is a perfect time to ask a simple question: What did I do wrong?

Start your analysis by reviewing these tips and implementing them if they weren’t followed.

But I must warn you. If you’re looking for a magic elixir, a perfect remedy to instantly bring you tons of traffic, you won’t find it here. Actually, you won’t find it anywhere. Creating viral content which brings tons of traffic requires hard, consistent work. And if you consider these tips, you will be able to make consistent improvements from post to post.

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Tip 1: Spend more time writing headlines

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar. –David Ogilvy, Confessions of An Advertising Man

You must understand the readers. If they don’t consider your headline worthy, they will never read your article. Remember that your headline almost always will be visible with many others. You want it to stand out.

When writing a headline, think about incorporating these types of words:

• Numbers
• Strong adjectives (simple, fun, free, incredible, surprising, strange, awesome)
• Smart rationale (reasons, ideas, facts, hacks, lessons, ways, tactics)
• Instructional (when, how, why, what)
• Beneficial (what readers will take away or why they should read)

Here are some examples:

Number + adjective + keyword + beneficial = 10 New WordPress Plug-ins to Simplify Your Marketing Efforts

Instructional + number + keyword + beneficial = How to Craft Viral Content: 7 Tactics to Get Your Blog Posts Shared

Number + adjective + beneficial = 13 Awesome Rock Songs You May Not Have Heard

While crafting your best headline, remember that it is the first, and sometimes the only impression you can make on your potential reader.

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Helpful Headline Tips and Tools

Tip 2: Build on top of proven ideas

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. – Ecclesiastes 1:9

Also known as the Skyscraper Technique as presented by Brian Dean, this tip’s main principle can be expressed as: “If it worked for someone else, it should work for me too.”

You primary task is to find content that already generated a lot of traffic and shares. Then you can build on top of it – create content on the same topic, but make it even better, bring it to a new level.

Here are some options that you can consider:

• Go deeper than the original author.
• Create a visually oriented post.
• Expand on what’s poorly covered.
• Sustain your information with facts, statistics, and links.

You can use Ahref’s Content Explorer tool to find the most popular content for your keywords. Just put them in the search box and get a list of top posts, sorted by the number of shares in different social networks.

Click to enlarge

Tip 3: Make sure your content has practical utility

The time has come to ask yourself another simple but important question: What are the benefits from reading my post?

You have to understand the psychology of sharing. People share content to lift or to sustain their authority in the eyes of their audiences. While they are not the authors, they are the ones who found it and gave it away.

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People share #content to lift or to sustain their authority in the eyes of their audiences via @NickChurick
Click To Tweet

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A HubSpot study reported that the most shared types of content were:

• How-to articles
• Lists
• “Why” posts
• “What” posts

You see? These types of content educate people, answer their questions, and give them explanations and helpful lists. They all have practical utility.

Analyze your recent content: Is it a topic that’s useful for your readers and in a format they’re likely to share? Or it is more salesy text, which does not inspire the readers to share?

Tip 4: Add more ways to share

Put yourself in the reader’s place. You found an insightful post that you think your Facebook friends would like. What do you do? Click on the Facebook share button on the blog post. But if there is no such button, do you take the extra steps to copy the link, write something, and paste it into your feed? Probably not.

Ensure that you provide relevant social-share buttons for your posts. But that’s not the only way that people share. Add some more options:

• Make your images shareable. Visual-only shares can still link to your blog post. Consider making your images easily pinnable by adding one of Shareaholic’s image-sharing WordPress plug-ins.

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27+ Handy Tools for Better Visual Content Marketing 

• Add tweetable quotes and sound bites. Highlight quotes from the post –the author’s, a celebrity’s, influencer’s, etc. You also can highlight your own sound bites, summary, or important notices.

Use a click-to-tweet-type service. When the reader clicks the highlighted text, a tweet of the highlighted text and a link to your blog post or page is created. Another tool to consider is a WordPress plug-in, which provides templates of quote-box design. It also can make your images tweetable.

Here is a fine example of a tweetable quote design:

Tip 5: Want a share? Ask for it.

It’s surprising that many people don’t use such simple and obvious opportunity. Calls to action really work. Take a look at how a call to action influenced retweets in this chart from Dan Zarrella:

Don’t hesitate to ask your readers to share your post with their friends, and some of them will. Give them even the most ridiculous reason to do it and even more of them will share.

Asking people to share your content has a surprising bonus too. Have you ever heard of the Ben Franklin effect? I’m sure you have experienced it. As Wikipedia explains, it is that “a person who has done or completed a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than they would be if they had received a favor from that person.”

Just by asking your readers to share your content you start building a relationship. And as they do you a favor, they will be more likely to favor you in the future.

Conclusion

Follow these five tips when you craft your next blog post and the post after that and the post after that. Remember, blogging is hard, consistent work. That’s the only way to success.

And now, considering tips No. 3 and No. 5, please share this post with your friends. I’m sure they will love it and find it helpful.

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Want to expand the success of your content marketing programs? Ensure that you have a documented content marketing strategy. Get started with CMI’s 16-page guide.

Cover image by pixelcreatures via pixabay.com

The post 5 Hacks to Improve Your Blog and Get More Traffic appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.