Back by popular demand: Check out the newest version of our Content Marketing Playbook!

Last week, we shared Part 1 of our best practices guide, Building the Perfect Content Marketing Mix, in which we explored some of content marketing’s top-priority internal processes and strategy tactics. In this second installment, we take a closer look at the execution tactics that make it easier to implement content marketing effectively and meet your business objectives more successfully.

Though we always recommend starting off every content marketing program with a documented strategy, eventually we all need to move past the theoretical decision-making and process-planning phase and really get to work.Continue Reading

Back by popular demand: Check out the newest version of our Content Marketing Playbook!

As the practice of content marketing continues to evolve and expand, so has the list of possible initiatives that a marketer can undertake as part of this discipline. This increased complexity can lead to confusion: How can you determine which initiatives are really worth your (precious and limited) time and budget?

To start, look for a way to prioritize. Of all the initiatives you may be considering for the upcoming year, we think four should be on top of your list – no matter what your particular business priorities may be:

1. Understanding your audience
2. Developing a content marketing strategy
3. Creating a subscription model
4. Understanding what’s most effective

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I know what you’re thinking: “How can it already be 2015? I wanted some time to plan, but I’m still trying to catch up with all the industry advances, changes, and opportunities that came rocketing at me in 2014.” 

I’m sure most of us can commiserate – no matter what we’ve accomplished in the past year, our industry changes so fast that it’s hard not to feel like there’s something we missed or could have done better.
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The end of the year is always a great time to reflect on what we’ve learned, what we hope to improve, and what will drive us to keep progressing. Sure, we may not have hit it out of the park with every single piece of content we created, but despite the obstacles, oversights, or disappointments, every experience brought us closer to creating content magic the next time around.

Every Wednesday on our Facebook page, the CMI team shares one of its favorite examples of content marketing that really shakes things up and stands apart from the pack. Here, we’ve compiled 15 of the killer efforts that inspired us in 2014 – and that makes us certain that we’ll be seeing even more epic content in the new year.Continue Reading

Just for kicks, I recently took a Facebook quiz to see if I am more right-brained or left-brained. The results — split nearly down the middle: 49% left, 51% right — confirmed something I’ve suspected all along: My Libra brain craves equality and balance in all things, and doesn’t like dealing in absolutes, especially when there are multiple factors to consider.Continue Reading

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.” –President Barack Obama, July 2012.

For those who celebrate, Happy Thanksgiving!Continue Reading

Editor’s note: Because editorial calendars continue to be the cornerstone of content marketing planning, we’ve updated this 2014 post by Jodi Harris. You can find the 2017 post here.

Is there anyone in the digital marketing industry these days (or any industry, really) who thinks that they have their jobs completely under control?

No matter how good we are at what we do, or how many years we’ve been doing it, we all seek the elusive “better way” to accomplish our everyday tasks – new tools to explore, new techniques with which to experiment, new information to take into consideration – innovations are constantly emerging to help people do what they do in less time, with less wasted effort, and with greater success. Reinvention is practically a commodity we trade these days to keep pushing our digitally enabled society forward.Continue Reading

Over the last several weeks, we’ve had a chance to get recommendations on a lot of aspects of the content marketing process — from ways to find great content creators (both internally and externally), to the latest tools and techniques for executing on and measuring the impact of a content marketing strategy, to ways to infuse content with a higher purpose.

But successful content marketing doesn’t just involve writing and technology decisions. The images that go along with a story work just as hard to convey your business’s value and message. In fact, as videos, infographics, and photo-centric social networks like Instagram and Pinterest continue to gain favor, visual content is increasingly being leveraged to engage and inform an audience in uniquely compelling ways.Continue Reading