Personalization and segmentation are closely related, but they aren’t the same thing.

They share a common goal (to deliver content that reflects what the reader, viewer, or listener wants). But each technique approaches it differently.

Think of it this way.

Media companies such as Disney segment their TV audiences into groups with shared interests. The audience for The Disney Channel is different from the audience for ESPN, for example.

Streaming brands such as Netflix personalize their programming by recommending new shows based on what it knows about the viewing behavior of a person or household.

Your content marketing program may use personalization, segmentation, or both at different times for different reasons.Continue Reading

To scale your content marketing, stop thinking like a great home cook and start thinking like a restaurant chef.

A great home cook makes masterful, mouth-watering dishes adored by friends and family. In content marketing terms, their food performs well.

But here’s what typically happens when a home cook opens a restaurant based on those rave reviews. They hire kitchen staff to ramp up production and serve dishes to the masses. But the diners – some of whom are the same friends and family – don’t like the food. No dish tastes as good as it had in their home.Continue Reading

The inboxes are watching.

They’re keeping an eye on your subscribers’ behavior, waiting for them to leave your emails unopened one too many times.

When a subscriber hasn’t opened one of your messages after 30 days, Gmail pops up a notice asking them if they want to unsubscribe.

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People, process, and product. That’s the essential trilogy at the heart of a successful business – as fans of the CNBC reality show The Profit know (yes, I’m one of them).

In that show, serial CEO Marcus Lemonis works to get those factors right when he invests in a struggling business.

Every successful content marketing program relies on a similar magic trilogy, which goes by the name content operations (or content ops, if you prefer).Continue Reading

Updated April 22, 2021

Want to know a few scary truths ignored by too many content creators?

Editing and proofing are not the same. And you can’t adequately execute the two simultaneously.

And if you think the same person can write, edit, and proof their own work, you should be afraid, very afraid of publishing that content.

Even the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recognizes proofreaders as distinct from editors. Its description of proofreaders’ duties includes: “Read transcript or proof type setup to detect and mark for correction any grammatical, typographical, or compositional errors. Excludes workers whose primary duty is editing copy.”

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Phenomenal doesn’t begin to describe Clubhouse’s growth in its first year. The drop-in audio app grew from 1,500 members in May 2020 to 10 million in February 2021.

With numbers like that, it only makes sense for content marketers to be interested in Clubhouse’s potential. But is Clubhouse the right place for your brand to gather? And if so, how?

I’ll give you a peek inside the “exclusive” Clubhouse through the experiences of three people in content marketing who use it.Continue Reading

The conclusion? Impossible.

The subject? Measuring content ROI.

Ahrefs’ Tim Soulo made this pronouncement in a series of tweets explaining the benefits of content marketing for the digital marketing and SEO tool company.

Tim says Ahrefs never intertwines return on investment and content marketing.

And yet, he shares, they use content marketing to advance their business goals – attract new customers, retain existing customers, reactive past customers, sell more to current customers, fuel paid acquisition, and so on.Continue Reading

Unsuccessful prospective guest bloggers act like door-to-door salespeople. They knock on as many doors as possible, delivering the same pitch and hoping at least a couple of people say yes.

Successful prospective guest bloggers act like invited guests who show up with a nice host gift. They knock on one door, follow the submission guidelines, and deliver a personalized pitch.

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