Companies are waking up to the power of content marketing due in part to the pandemic.

That’s not some grand pronouncement from the Content Marketing Institute. It’s a recurring refrain we heard from you (or content marketers like you) in our 2022 B2B research.Continue Reading

In March 2020, the world changed seemingly overnight.

In March 2020, Salesforce responded to the new reality of business seemingly overnight, launching its Leading Through Change content initiative on March 17.

That’s not a typo. The first blog of the program launched March 17, days before California issued shelter-in-place orders and airports effectively shut down.

How could such a large company pivot so quickly – not just on one channel, but on all its channels and in multiple formats? And not just pivot but deliver results that surpassed any of their expectations?Continue Reading

How many times a day does your phone ding to notify you someone is “live?” As I sat down to write this article, I found myself struggling to resist the siren of six livestream notifications.

Data science. Goat farming. Cybersecurity trends. Parenting girls. Fast-growth companies. Creating better PowerPoint slides. There’s a livestream for everything that interests me (and probably everything that interests you, too).

Livestreaming isn’t a new technique, but it’s experiencing a surge in popularity.Continue Reading

Have you ever heard (or voiced) these content marketing laments? “If only we had more budget.” “If only we had more people.” “If only we had more time to prove this works.”

Many content marketers believe these factors are the secrets to success. And, according to our latest study of enterprise marketers, there does seem to be a correlation.

But remember, correlation isn’t causation.

Let’s take a closer look at the insights from Enterprise Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends with Insights for 2021. (Enterprise refers to for-profit B2B and B2C companies with 1,000 or more employees.)Continue Reading

2020 was a tough year. And, sadly, the problems we experienced as a society didn’t magically disappear when the calendar flipped to 2021.

If that tough year taught us anything, it’s that we as individuals, brands, companies, and teams need to work harder – together – to course correct.

Last year, I wrote an article, Content Can Perpetuate Racism and Inequity. It’s Time to Do Better, challenging content marketers to do better with diversity, equity, and inclusion. I included, “We must ensure that our content authentically reflects the diverse voices and experiences of our audiences and avoids unconscious bias. If we don’t, we are contributing to the problem.” And it bears repeating today.Continue Reading

Visual storytelling is an important method for educating, entertaining, and making your audience want to come back for more. It brings life to your ideas, brand purpose, and personalities. It lets you show, not just tell.

CMI’s recent Visual Storytelling Summit was full of great tips that will inspire you, make you laugh, make you cry, and get you motivated to try something new – regardless of the constraints the pandemic has imposed on all of us.

Each session offered many eye-opening ideas for your 2021 strategy. I’ve gathered some highlights here, and I linked to the sessions they’re from in case you want to watch them on demand (a single registration form gives you access to all the sessions you select).Continue Reading

Editor’s note: See a new set of predictions for content marketing in 2022.

One of the many lessons of 2020 is that we look to the future with anything but 20/20 vision. But that doesn’t stop people from trying. What are budget forecasts if not our best predictions about the coming quarter or year?

Knowing that the results will be perfectly imperfect, we sent more than 100 virtual crystal balls to industry thought leaders and subject matter experts, including Content Marketing World presenters. After reflection, they revealed their predictions for content marketing in 2021.

A few themes emerged from the otherwise varied responses – empathy, connection, inclusiveness, transparency. The term “human” showed up in many predictions. Several predictions recognized content marketing’s elevated role in the business – supplementing sales, helping data acquisition, impacting the bottom line. And a few got more granular with thoughts on tactics and strategies.

Read these prognostications as lenses for comparison with your thoughts about (and plans for) content marketing in 2021. And please share your predictions (and your thoughts about the ones shared here) in the comments.Continue Reading

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