As General Manager of CMI, Stephanie leads the brand’s event, digital, print, and e-learning operations. Previously, Stephanie served as VP of Content Marketing for UBM’s Technology portfolio, providing strategic guidance on content development, content optimization, audience engagement, and go-to-market platforms for technology clients. Stephanie also spent many years as Editor in Chief of InformationWeek. Find Stephanie on Twitter @editorstahl and LinkedIn.
Let’s face it. There’s no shortage of content to consume these days. Content for content’s sake has become a bit of a problem for some brands as their content marketing efforts and teams have grown and matured.
But consumers, customers, and prospects don’t necessarily need more content. They need content that is meaningful, actionable, fun, amazing … anything but excessive and mediocre.
As content marketers, everything we do should serve the needs of our customers and target audience. And from what I’ve seen this week at Content Marketing World 2019, we, as an industry, are making amazing strides.
I’ve seen impressively creative content that makes our businesses more relatable, trustworthy, and responsive. I’ve heard about innovative tools and techniques to distribute our messages and analyze our results. I’ve observed marketers’ willingness to embrace change and pursue new strategic paths when a situation calls for it.
Better. It’s a deceptively simple word. Everyone always wants better. The next draft should be better; the next project should be better; the next reviews; and so on. Better indicates progress.
But the path to better isn’t always clear.
We know teams set out to create, distribute, and promote amazing content – content that matters, that’s fresh, innovative, and relevant. We also know these teams can get in a rut and become risk averse or, worse, stagnant. And that conundrum sets up leadership challenges that even the best managers and most effective executives might not be prepared to handle.
Todd Henry knows all about these potential team crises. He’s written books about them, including The Accidental Creative, Die Empty, Louder Than Words, and, his latest, Herding Tigers: Be the Leader That Creative People Need.
If you want to succeed, it never hurts to dream big.
Ask any entrepreneur what their goals are, and their responses likely boil down to one thing: Growing bigger. They want to make a name for their business, increase marketplace visibility, close more sales, earn more revenue, expand the teams to do the work, and secure a spot in the annals of industry success.
In other words, they want to build an enterprise. And there’s a good chance they’ll rely on techniques like content marketing to help them reach that goal.
It’s the season when lots of well-meaning people set resolutions for the new year. Eat healthier, work out more, spend more time with family, lessen the screen time, connect with friends, be more mindful…
But we know most of those declarations fail before it’s time to eat lots of chocolate (or bacon) on Valentine’s Day while binge-watching 10 seasons of a hot show on Netflix. I mentioned bacon for a reason, but I’ll get to that later.
I’m not judging anyone who doesn’t keep a resolution. I’m not urging you to set lofty goals for the new year. Rather, I’m providing a dose of pragmatic and inspirational advice from a handful of our community members who presented on some of CMI’s most popular webinars in 2018. All of our webinars are available on demand and are free to watch (with registration).
Have you ever wished you could see a year into the future?
I can’t think of any superpower that would be more useful for content marketers than to have a sneak preview of all the important developments, trends, technologies, and key disruptors that will impact our strategic and creative decisions over the next 12 months. (Although the ability to fly might be nice as well – it would sure cut down on all my business travel time and stress!)
With the speed of big shifts happening across our industry lately – businesses merging, algorithms shifting, new tech capabilities emerging, audiences growing ever more fragmented and distracted, and the like – it’s hard enough for practitioners to keep up with what’s happening now, let alone keep our eyes firmly fixed on the horizon.
After I interviewed Tina Fey at Content Marketing World, several people asked if she was as nice in person as she seemed on stage.
Their inquiries called to mind something my colleague Robert Rose raised on the same stage at the beginning of Content Marketing World.
“Trust is the new player … We have the power to shape beliefs,” he said. “(Content marketing) is our opportunity … to become a or the trusted source of interesting things.”
“What’s next for content marketing?” As modern marketing practitioners, no matter how focused we are on today’s pressing challenges and opportunities, we can’t help but keep an eye on what the future might bring.
The dynamic nature of the digital industry means we can never let ourselves get too comfortable or too complacent when it comes to creating meaningful content experiences. Consumer trends, behaviors, and informational needs are always shifting. Our role isn’t just to build strong, trusting customer relationships now but to serve as true agents of change – enabling our brands, our strategies, and our stories to evolve along with them.
Leadership. It’s a lively mix of team building, innovation, excellence, humility, and results. These are just a few of the characteristics we look for when selecting the finalists for CMI’s Content Marketer of the Year award. As we begin to unveil our 2018 finalists in the coming weeks, we want to give you a closer look at last year’s honoree.
Paolo Mottola, managing editor at REI Co-op and the 2017 Content Marketer of the Year, has demonstrated again and again how content can drive more than interest and engagement – it can drive action.
