Our popular Collective Wisdom series has explored the entire B2B content marketing life-cycle. The eight-part series featured information-packed posts covering everything from creative conception to postmortem analytics.
As we settle in to the new year, we wanted to bring it all together here, in one handy B2B content marketing codex, to help jump-start your digital marketing campaigns for 2019. Read on!
The 1st Pillar: The Power of Planning Ahead
As Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.” Take her famous advice to heart, and create an actionable content plan long before beginning to create actual content.
You can boost your content marketing success and plan ahead by:
- Documenting your plan
- Building a sharer list
- Incorporating content reuse ahead of time
- Using audience personas
- Finding your best distribution options
Explore these and other tactics for planning ahead with essential insight from Isla McKetta, Heidi Cohen, Caitlin Burgess, Cathy McPhillips, and others in How to Boost Your Content Marketing Efforts By Planning Ahead.
“You spend so much time creating epic content, so why not spend that same amount of time coming up with a plan for distribution and promotion?.” — Cathy McPhillips @cmcphillips Share on XThe 2nd Pillar: Crafting Powerful Content
The content creation stage is undoubtedly one of the most important and forward-facing parts of any successful content marketing campaign. But being consistently successful at it is easier said than done.
Creating great content involves many aspects, including:
- Incorporating appropriate, effective, and engaging visuals
- Making sharing easy
- Harnessing the power of gamification
- Using fundamental SEO tactics
- Offering best-answer content
Dig in to these and a sizeable collection of additional proven content creation strategies — including expert advice from Dr. John Medina, Joshua Nite, Jeff Bullas, Heidi Cohen, Caitlin Burgess, Liraz Rahmin Postan, Ashley Zeckman, Lee Odden, Rand Fishkin, Anne Leuman, Scott Adams, and even artist Paul Klee — in The Art Of Crafting More Powerful Content: 5 Top Tactics from the Experts.
“People will forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou Share on XThe 3rd Pillar: Meaningful Messaging Tactics
How can you use clarity, tone, personalization, collaboration, and credibility to create dopamine-inducing messaging?
With powerful messaging tactics, marketing experts Debra Jasper, Purna Virji, Scott Monty, Lee Odden, and Roger Dooley give you the answers, exploring how to:
- Use the right tone to engage your target audiences’ brains
- Use clarity to deliver better messaging
- Understand personalization to know your audience
- Create better messaging through collaboration and credibility
- Focus on the most-desired messaging outcomes.
Dig in and learn relevant methods for creating engaging and bookmark-worthy messaging to help you create a successful content marketing campaign with 5 Powerful Messaging Tactics For 2019 And Beyond From Marketing Experts.
“Today’s clients and colleagues have an eight second attention span. Eight seconds. To break through the noise, you must communicate with more power, clarity and impact.” — Debra Jasper @DebraJasper Share on XThe 4th Pillar: Hidden Content Creation Practices
Don’t blink, or you may overlook some fantastic content creation practices.
Take a look at the value of specific strategy practices that are sometimes overlooked or underutilized when it comes to creating strong content, featuring insight and examples from some of the world’s best digital marketers including Ann Handley, Jessica Best, Lee Odden, Grace Jones, Ashley Zeckman, Joshua Nite, and A.S. Byatt.
You can uncover hidden content creation tactics by:
- Harnessing the power of staying fresh while thinking long-term
- Experimenting with new techniques
- Identifying appropriate needs through research
Read Don’t Blink: 3 Often-Overlooked Practices for Highly-Effective Content Creation to get the full scoop.
“There will always be a replacement coming along very soon — a newer, crazier, louder version. So if you haven't got a long-term plan, then you are merely a passing phase, the latest trend, yesterday's event.” — @Miss_GraceJones Share on XThe 5th Pillar: Content Promotion Showstoppers
Take your content promotion to the next level with eight content promotion showstoppers for 2019. Jay Baer, Lee Odden, Guy Kawasaki, Scott Monty, Avinash Kaushik, and others share actionable tactics for:
- Unleashing the influencer marketing Kraken
- Invading social media with hyper-specificity
- Going for the win with awards
- Practicing thankfulness
- Cranking up your crew
- Boosting with paid
- Testing new frontiers
- Using professional help when appropriate
With Step Right Up! 8 Content Promotion Showstoppers For 2019, you’ll master show-stopping content promotion using tactics from of the best in the business when it comes to the art of promoting your content, with methods that will make your audience stop, look, and engage.
“Never let ads write checks your website can’t cash.” — Avinash Kaushik @avinash Share on XThe 6th Pillar: Giving Content Promotion Your Own Unique Twist
How can you combine separate promotion tactics for content marketing that amazes and delights? Put your own spicy twist on marketing as Andy Crestodina, Lee Odden, Carla Johnson, and even Julia Child explore the role and advantages of self-reflection in influencer marketing.
Their actionable tips include how to:
- Combine the right tactics to take your customers into the unknown
- Use enchanting promotion that amazes and delights
- Turn the mirror of marketing self-reflection into your own personal crystal ball
With Spicy Twists and Tactics For Unique Content Promotion, you’ll learn several hot ways to take existing content promotion tactics and make them uniquely your own, including a smattering of flavorful insight from some of the best in the business when it comes to the art of promoting your content.
“The three pillars of enchantment are likability, trustworthiness and a great product or service. If you have these down pat, you could rub two sticks together and enchant people.” @GuyKawasaki Share on XThe 7th Pillar: Analytics Insight For Success
Measuring and analyzing your content’s performance is critical so you can uncover new opportunities, make improvements, and determine whether you’re meeting your goals.
What are the best measurements of content marketing success? Über-smarties Tamara McCleary, Daniel Newman, Jay Acunzo, and some guy named Einstein are ready to share a great selection of helpful analytics tactics and insight to help you:
- Learn the fundamentals of data analytics
- Choose the tools that best fit your own particular needs
- Keep up on the latest measurement and analytics industry news
These and other analytics tactics are covered in Measuring Content Marketing Success: Analytics Advice & Insight from the Experts, to give your content marketing a measurable advantage.
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” — Albert Einstein Share on XThe 8th Pillar: Beyond Analytics
Break though old analytics limits and examine experimental trends and a glimpse at future metrics innovations, with helpful insight from Purna Virji, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Andy Mauro, Robert Rose, Courtney Cox Wakefield, Sergey Brin, Lee Odden, and Larry Page, including how to:
- Implement a truly better way to rank and relate various online content
- Think differently about how to measure performance and assess success
- Go from boring statistics to being the best answer
- Take advantage of the rising use of answer boxes and featured snippets
- Be ready for the confluence of influencer marketing and analytics
- Utilize smart data analytics to power a more relevant and authentic iteration of influencer marketing
Widen your analytics scope with New Year, New View: 3 Ways to Approach Analytics in 2019, and study how Web pioneers including initially envisioned analytics and what some of them now hope to someday see.
True measurement is designed, it’s not just a simple dashboard. Great measurement means walking out of our cubes, meeting the front-line people, and working out the meaning behind the numbers. @Robert_Rose Share on XBe A Lifelong Learner & Put It All Into Action
In this codex of content marketing collection wisdom, we’ve looked at the full range of content marketing tactics and best practices, including planning ahead for success, the art of crafting powerful content efficiently, analytics, and several strong promotion tactics.
Each campaign you undertake in 2019 and beyond can benefit by going through these eight strategic pillars, to ensure you haven’t overlooked an element of your content marketing.
We hope you’ve found the Collective Wisdom series helpful, and use it as part of your continued efforts to be lifelong learners in content marketing, a practice, science, and art that is constantly evolving.
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” — Henry Ford Share on Xvia GIPHY
As bonus insights, get yourself psyched up to put all these tactics to use with 10 Inspiring Expert Quotes That Honor Timeless Content Marketing Best Practices, and take a look at our top predictions and trends for the new year with Explore, Experience, Engage: 6 Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2019.
