Content marketers may not have cause to shout, “Lights, camera, action,” but in a way, we do work in an entertainment industry, of sorts. As Academy Award-winner and raconteur Kevin Spacey said in his keynote presentation at Content Marketing World 2014, “We’re all struggling to meet the same goal — to make a connection with the audience.”
So do you think about your content marketing job like someone in the entertainment business thinks about producing their next show? Spacey and several Content Marketing World presenters think that perhaps you should.
Have any doubts? Just look at the recent announcement from Marriott that it is creating its own global creative and entertainment studio with the goal of becoming the largest producer of travel content. Of note is that Marriott hired a former Disney-ABC television executive and producer to lead its initiative.
While most B2B, B2C, and nonprofit brands can’t make the level of investment Marriott has, all content marketers can improve their programs by recognizing how the job of a content marketer resembles the work done at a Hollywood studio. Continue Reading
General Electric uses the tagline “Imagination at Work” to capture the essence of its $16 billion-plus company, which is staffed by more than 305,000 workers in more than 170 countries. A richly connotative description like that requires no small amount of imagination from GE’s marketing team, which is charged with the task of translating this three-word concept into relevant stories that will engage its target audiences.
You may already consider your content marketing efforts to be successful — according to CMI’s 2014 research, 32 percent of enterprise content marketers do just that. But think about how much better they could get if you take a step back to ask: What have we learned in the last year that could make our 
Every successful content marketer should have a trick or two that they can pull out to address their toughest business challenges. For example, for those of you who find it difficult to produce enough content to meet your marketing needs, you might want to try author Andrew Davis’ new action plan: Forego original content and leverage regularly scheduled columns on other publishing platforms. Or, if you are struggling to distinguish yourself from your competition, consider stepping up your content quality, or even producing original research, as Orbit Media’s Andy Crestodina has started to do.
Purpose-driven 
Is your content doing what it is supposed to do? When questioned about the degree of success your content marketing efforts are achieving, anecdotal answers like “Readers seem to be interested in our content” or “We are getting a lot of “likes” on our Facebook page” just won’t suffice. When you are trying to prove that your content marketing brings value to your business, you need clear evidence of what’s working, and what isn’t — and accurate measurement is really the only way you are going to get it.
Personalization is the process of targeting content to individuals based on one or more of the following: who they are; where they are; when, why, and how they access content; and what device they use to access it, according to Scott P. Abel of The Content Wrangler. 
