Jodi Harris is director of content strategy at CMI. She describes her role as a combination of strategic alchemist, process architect, and creative explorer. Prior to this role, Jodi spent over a decade developing and managing content initiatives for brand clients in the entertainment, CPG, health care, technology, and biotech industries, as well as for agencies and media brands. Follow her on Twitter at @Joderama.
There never seems to be enough resources to execute all your killer content marketing ideas, does there?
No matter how large and prolific your team of creators, how efficient your creative processes are, or how ample your outsourcing budget is, too many great content ideas are left on the drawing board. Meanwhile, you’ve got an increasing number of gaps to fill with engaging stories across multiple platforms.Continue Reading
Every time I use the words “analytics,” “metrics,” or “KPIs” in a discussion about the impact of content, a little voice goes off in my head. It’s the voice of Inigo Montoya from the movie, The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
While content marketers may recognize these terms relate to content measurement, it’s easy to confuse their distinctions. Read on for explanations of 23 common measurement terms and how they fit into your content’s performance strategy.Continue Reading
Updated April 21, 2022
No matter how far you’ve come in your content marketing career, you might wish you understood specific strategies, tactics, or skills more deeply. Or you might need a straightforward guide to explain content marketing basics to new team members.
I traveled from print journalism to public relations to digital publishing before landing in content marketing. When I needed to get up to speed on fundamentals that hadn’t factored into my previous roles, I turned to informational resources like CMI to power my journey of discovery.
Now I’m returning the favor by revisiting the fundamentals of successful content marketing from top to bottom. Use this post as a guide to CMI’s best resources on the topics where you (or your team) need a refresher course or an expanded view.Continue Reading
Updated April 14, 2022
No brand exists in a vacuum. To thrive and grow, it needs a constant influx of supporters who buy into its perspectives, points, and purposes and customers who buy its products.
A non-vacuum existence is the very reason marketing was invented – to draw interest by disseminating information about a brand’s favorable attributes, build desire for its products and services, and provide a clear pathway to make a purchase.
High-quality, high-value content can help achieve those goals on its own. But online noise and distractions, declining organic reach on social media, and ongoing shifts in search trends, getting that content seen and clicked often requires paid promotion.Continue Reading
Did you bring a map (digital or otherwise) with you on your last road trip? Most people do – It’s the best way to ensure that you arrive exactly where you intended to go.
Yet relatively few marketers create a map when planning content. They should. A customer journey map is a great way to lead prospects and customers to a destination that meets their information needs (and your marketing goals.)
The journey mapping process also can provide the strategic direction your team needs to know what kind of content to create to help move website visitors and other prospects through the sales cycle.Continue Reading
Updated March 30, 2022
Visuals are essential to creating content that will help your business stand out and draw in an audience. Not only does imagery help make text-centric content more eye-catching, digestible, and memorable, but it can communicate compelling messages that speak volumes without any text.
Visual trends and creative platforms come and go in the blink of a smartphone camera’s eye. Take a fresh look at how your brand’s photos, videos, and graphics can do the talking. This collection of best-practice tips comes from some of the industry’s most creative and design-minded content experts. It also includes best-in-show examples to inspire you to put your brand’s vision on display.Continue Reading
Updated March 22, 2022
“Why didn’t I think of that?”
The best content marketing examples inspire other marketers. All content marketers want to produce content so good that it sparks joy in its intended audience – and performs well as a result. It doesn’t hurt if it earns a little envy from peers, too.
“Unicorn” content initiatives don’t appear out of thin air. Coming up with fresh ideas, aligning them to your strategic goals and audience interests, and supporting them with a thoughtful distribution and promotion plan takes work.Continue Reading
If getting better at working with video is on your content marketing to-do list for this year, you’re in good company. CMI’s most recent Video and Visual Storytelling Research finds 88% of marketers use videos for content marketing, and 60% anticipate spending more on video this year than they did a year ago. Yet, nearly half indicate they weren’t using video to its full potential (48%).
What’s holding them back? Concerns about budget, lack of in-house technical skills, and limited management support sit at the top of the barriers. Once you clear those operational hurdles, there’s still the matter of how to plan, position, and promote your video stories to achieve optimal marketing performance.Continue Reading
For diversity and inclusion to thrive in content marketing, they need to be top of mind in every conversation – the ones brands have publicly and the ones they have internally.
While your content team can’t address all possible perspectives in every content effort, they can make great strides by implementing new thinking and processes and developing “muscle memory” for championing diversity in your content marketing.
We spoke at Content Marketing World with African-American Marketing Association founder Michelle Ngome about integrating diversity and inclusion into a brand’s content marketing. Watch the video below for highlights of that conversation. Then, read on for tips from Michelle to turn her advice into intentional actions that deepen customer engagement and drive business growth.Continue Reading
