When UBM acquired the Content Marketing Institute in June 2016, I became the General Manager. As a long-time consumer of CMI content and a multi-year attendee of Content Marketing World, I was thrilled to welcome this amazing and talented team to the UBM family. Previously, I 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 our technology clients. I’ve worked for UBM for more than two decades, helping shape new multimedia content and event offerings. I also served as editor in chief of InformationWeek for many years. I live in the Washington, DC area with my husband, two teenage daughters, and many pets. You can find me on Twitter @editorstahl and LinkedIn.
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.
What’s your story? It’s a common question when you’re first getting to know someone. It begs for details about your past, your career, your family, your hobbies. You probably never hear anyone reply: “I studied content marketing as an undergraduate and earned a Ph.D. in creating great customer experiences.”
Those degrees don’t exist, of course. But that’s OK. Great storytellers come from all sorts of places. And they’re telling stories in so many new ways that each day seems to add proof to Daniel Pink’s dramatic 2006 assertion:Continue Reading
Next week I’ll join my counterparts from around the world in Berlin to talk about live event experiences. It’s an annual gathering where we can share ideas, successes, and challenges, and learn to better understand each other’s businesses. For many, creating pre-event content to build excitement (and maybe a bit of FOMO [fear of missing out]) for our events is a hot topic.
Regardless of your industry or region of the world, pre-event content is an important element for delivering on an amazing event experience.
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I’ll get back to the white squirrel in a minute …
We hear from content creators all the time about the struggle to be creative day in and day out. We understand. The struggle is real. So are the excuses:
But creativity is critical when it comes to standing out among the screaming noise that distracts your audience daily. There’s hope. And there are tactics you can use to inject more creativity into your content marketing efforts.
At CMI, we’ve always taken our mission of advancing the practice of content marketing seriously. And one of the best methods we know of when it comes to sharpening our skills and expanding our vision of what’s possible is to follow the examples set by some of the industry’s best and brightest practitioners.
I’m sure you follow the advice of many of the well-known industry pros who graciously share their insights in our blog posts, at Content Marketing World sessions, and throughout our social media forums. But today, I am proud to introduce you to a new batch of experts to keep an eye on: the winners and finalists from this year’s Content Marketing Awards.
For the 13th year, the awards program recognizes the remarkable accomplishments of content marketers in categories that span strategy, distribution, design, and editorial. In all, 96 winners were selected this year from a field of over 1,000 submissions.
When it comes to excellence in content marketing, there are many things to consider – audience, intent, format, design, ROI, and more. We are excited to showcase excellence across these content characteristics from the winners and finalists in the 2017 Content Marketing Awards, which were just announced today. With over 1,100 entries across 93 categories, our 90 judges were impressed with the creativity, quality, and passion visible in the submissions.
While we plan to profile many of these award winners in the coming months, these six key themes emerged from some standout programs.Continue Reading
Email drip campaigns can be powerful and effective ways to build a loyal audience and share your great content with prospects and customers. But they can also fail miserably. Common — but easily avoidable — mistakes are enough to make babies cry and ruin your sender reputation.
During CMI’s ContentTECH virtual event, Gini Dietrich, CEO at Arment Dietrich Inc. and author of Spin Sucks, and Mike Madden Sr., demand generation program manager at Marketo, offered tips and techniques to make your campaigns smart and blunder-free.Continue Reading
When visiting my twin sister’s office recently, I pretended to be her and chatted about five minutes with her assistant. It was hard to keep a straight face, but until my sister walked in, he had no idea I was Stephanie and not Melanie. Yes, we’ve pulled that trick a number of times in our many decades of twin life. Most of our close friends can easily tell us apart, but for others it can be disarming. But it’s all in good fun!
There, I’ve told you something personal about myself. There is a lot I could tell you about me that goes beyond my standard corporate bio, and I think B2B content writers need to consider going beyond the corporate template more often.Continue Reading
