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

With the amount of content organizations produce – and the sheer volume of multimedia assets and formats – it’s time to consider a digital asset management system. A DAM can increase production efficiency, enhance cross-team operability, and improve marketing productivity and performance.

Marketers spend over 60% of their time retrieving information or restructuring lost assets and other low-value tasks. Implementing a DAM system may be the best way to reclaim that wasted time.Continue Reading

Updated January 20, 2022

Why does your company create content? Who is it for? What will it do for them?

If you don’t know the answers, you need to figure them out. And you should do so before you create anything more for the company blog, website, newsletters, or any other content platform.

Why? Because if you don’t know what someone will gain from consuming your brand’s content, your audience won’t see a compelling reason to engage with it.

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On the surface, content marketing seems straightforward: Create great content, publish it on channels popular with your audience, and reap business benefits from their attention and interest.

Of course, we all know there’s a lot more to it. But it can be hard to dive into the nuances, complexities, and conditional decision-making when struggling to understand the basic principles, techniques, and tactics. Even seasoned veterans can interpret key terms differently, leading to challenges in communicating and implementing strategies.Continue Reading

Content marketing work hasn’t slowed down – and it’s not likely to anytime soon.

Yet content marketers have adapted admirably to constant disruptions and changes in direction.

Many of you have explored newer content platforms (metaverse anyone?). Many have built a presence on new channels like Clubhouse and those that have entered the mainstream like Discord. And some have experimented with content formats like NFTs and pushed the envelope in AI, AR/VR content experiences

What’s even more impressive? Two-thirds of B2B marketers say they made these strides without additional budget resources or team support, according to CMI’s 2022 B2B Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report.

We’re all doing more with less. A new year is a great time to flip that script. So, I’ve pulled together a collection of tips and resources that will help you do less heavy lifting and get more value from your effort.Continue Reading