If there’s one mortal sin content marketers commit way too often, it’s obsessing over tools or tactics instead of customers. When we talk marketing, we love to jump right into a discussion about a given social network, a new tactic hitting the blogosphere, or some other content format we “have to” learn. Instead of asking customers how we can help them, we ask other marketers how many words make up an ideal blog post or which marketing automation tool they use. Important? Sure. Good place to start? Nope.
Author: Jay Acunzo
So, this one time, a marketing blog called Jay Acunzo a “marketing antihero,” prompting him to immediately buy a Batman mask. Unfortunately, his wife won’t let him wear it in public. Luckily, when Jay isn’t traveling the world delivering keynote speeches, he’s building wildly entertaining podcasts for B2B clients as the founder of Unthinkable Media … and he’s probably wearing his Batman mask the whole time. (Don’t tell anyone, k?) Oh, Jay also advised brands on their digital strategy while working for Google, led the content team at HubSpot, and served as vice president of the VC firm NextView. He’s appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Fast Company, Forbes, and more. Salesforce once called him a “creative savant,” but as far as he can tell, there’s no good mask for that. Say hi to his unmasked face on Twitter or Instagram, or listen to the refreshing stories about driven makers and marketers on Jay’s podcast, Unthinkable.
By jay-acunzo published
December 4, 2014
Twitter’s Founder Unintentionally Gave Content Marketers the Best Advice Ever
By jay-acunzo published
October 26, 2014
The Sticky Note: A Stupid-Simple Approach to Better Content Marketing Brainstorms
Ask a hiring manager about the marketing team’s approach to brainstorming, and what he’ll tell you could be captured in this headline: “Brilliant, Cohesive Team Creates Amazing New Ideas to the Delight of Millions Everywhere – High Fives Ensue.”
But in reality, the vast majority of group brainstorm sessions fail to do anything but waste our time and our employers’ money. It’s not like we aren’t trying, since I suspect nearly all of you have led or joined such a meeting, but we keep ignoring the science and the data behind idea generation to establish a best practice for content marketing brainstorming.
By jay-acunzo published
May 22, 2014
6 Ways to Make B2B Content Marketing That’s Better Than the eBook
Let’s rip the Band-aid right off: For B2B content marketers, eBooks are overrated. (I will now dive for cover under my desk.)
Now before you bombard me with every object within an arm’s reach, let me first explain that I don’t have some weird personal vendetta against eBooks. I find them to be quite a gentle content species. I just think we obsess over creating them a bit too much in B2B, and I know we can do better. Not only have I watched eBooks generate diminishing returns lately, but I think it’s time to inject much more creativity into what we produce in order to stand out. Isn’t that the point of our work? Don’t content marketers count as creative professionals — at least in part? Continue Reading
By jay-acunzo published
August 7, 2013
Scaling Your Content Marketing Team: 3 Lessons From the Field
Making sense of a career in content marketing has never been easy: It’s media, but it’s marketing; it’s art, but it’s science; it’s about quality and audience, but it’s also about quantity and company metrics. Let’s face it: It’s exciting (yet scary) to create content for a living while simultaneously navigating an ambiguous career path.
Yet, sooner or later, if everything we all believe holds true, content marketing teams will explode everywhere and go the way of sales, HR, or development, becoming established teams that function across the business enterprise. In other words, our teams will start to scale. And when that happens, to quote Samuel L. Jackson, “Hold onto your butts.” Continue Reading
