In the B2B Content Marketing 2019: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America report, CMI and MarketingProfs found that 61% of B2B marketers increased their use of social media for content marketing purposes in the previous year:
Author: Dennis Shiao
Dennis is an independent marketing consultant who works with brands on content marketing, product messaging, and social media marketing. Formerly, Dennis led the content marketing function at DNN Software. Dennis curates an email newsletter called Content Corner and publishes marketing-related content on Medium. Feel free to reach out to Dennis on Twitter @dshiao
By dennisshiao published
May 23, 2019
7 Insider Tips to Jump Social Media Hurdles
By dennisshiao published
April 29, 2019
How to Stand Out in an Overpopulated World of Content Marketing Experts
Search for “content marketing expert” on Google and you’ll see 614 million results. A search on “content marketing expert blog” returns 177 million. Even a search on “cuddling expert” returns 5.23 million results.
Who knew an expert in cuddling was even a thing? Well, it is.
What’s the problem with being an expert? There are too many.
By dennisshiao published
April 5, 2019
Don’t Fail in the Future: Develop an Audio Strategy Today
As content marketers, we create experiences that connect with our target audience. By forming these connections, we increase brand perception and preference, lower barriers, and eliminate objections.
Ultimately, we want our content marketing to drive positive business outcomes and brand loyalty. Each month, we busily work away at our content calendar: blog posts, contributed articles, webinars, infographics, white papers, and more.
Our content marketing strategy is seemingly sound. What could it be missing?
Audio.
By dennisshiao published
March 22, 2019
Client and Content Agency Share Insider Tips to Successful Relationship
To succeed in content marketing, you need to be in for the long term.
With direct response marketing, ROI can be measured in weeks or months. With content marketing, however, it can take a year or more to see a return on your efforts. When hiring a content marketing agency, brands ought to plan for a long-term relationship.
By dennisshiao published
March 14, 2019
How to Be the Content in the Enviable Google Answer Box
The keyboard and mouse may soon become relics.
By 2020, 30% of web-browsing sessions will be done without a screen as voice-first interactions rise, according to Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Predictions for 2017 and Beyond.
With voice search, your inquiry receives a single answer, which is determined by what’s in Google’s answer box.
By dennisshiao published
February 14, 2019
What You Need to Know About Native Advertising
Jesper Laursen, CEO of the Native Advertising Institute, defines native advertising as “paid advertising where the ad matches the form, feel, function, and quality of the content of the media on which it appears.”
Your target customers are elusive. They’re online all day and consume a lot of media, but how do you reach them with your media and your message?
Native advertising can be a solution.
By dennisshiao published
February 7, 2019
Why You Need Better Conversion Tracking to Win the Sales Game
Consider the following via research from Think with Google:
- 90% of B2B researchers who are online use search specifically to research business purchases.
- 71% of B2B researchers start with a generic search.
- B2B researchers average 12 searches prior to engaging on a brand’s site.
- B2B buying process influencers and decision-makers are over halfway down the path to a decision before they perform an action on your site.
By dennisshiao published
January 29, 2019
Are You in a Boring, All-the-Same Industry? Your Content Doesn’t Have to Be
You’re a contestant on a Content Marketing Game Show and you see three marked doors.
Behind each door is a content marketing position. Is your dream job behind one of these doors? Let’s see.
Door No. 1: Apple!
Door No. 2: Acme Accounting!
Door No. 3: ABC Plumbing!
With Door 1, you get to tell customer stories about the Apple Watch, iPhone, and Apple TV. With Door 2, you create content about forensic accounting – a topic that’s boring and complex for most. And with Door 3, you create content marketing for a service that’s undifferentiated.
By dennisshiao published
January 21, 2019
Do What Most Content Marketers Don’t and Get Better Results
Let’s begin with some simple math:
0.28 x 0.47 x 0.15 x 0.65 = 0.0128
The answer, expressed as a percentage, is 1.28%. I know what you might be thinking: What happened to the content I’m used to reading here at Content Marketing Institute?
Let me explain.
Take the four numbers on the left side of the equation and turn them into percentages:
By dennisshiao published
January 9, 2019
Opportunities for AI in Content Marketing Easily Explained
Until recently, the closest I’ve come to understanding artificial intelligence is knowing that it powered tools in my martech stack (e.g., marketing automation, predictive lead scoring, etc.).
Beyond that, I found the concept hard to grasp until Chris Penn’s presentation at Content Marketing World, How to Use AI to Boost Your Content Marketing Impact.
Chris, co-founder and chief innovator at Trust Insights, covered several real-world applications of AI. His examples helped transform abstract concepts into tangible use cases.
