It’s been a little
over a week since Content Marketing World 2018 in Cleveland, and I think I’ve
finally recovered from the mid-event party at the House of Blues. While I can’t
help you relive the magic of 2000 marketers leaping around to a Kris Kross’ JUMP, I can give you a taste of some of the best takeaways CMWorld ’18 had to
offer. Here are some standouts to steal for your next strategy meeting.
10. Focus Below the
Fold
Allan Gannett, the CEO of TrackMaven,
has LinkedIn pretty much figured out. If your audience is present on the
platform, you’re in luck – the platform is far less congested than other social
channels (looking at you, Instagram) and as Gannett explains, there are some
simple ways to significantly boost your reach on LinkedIn without fumbling
through LinkedIn Ads Manager. The key? Talk to people! Respond to comments and
engage people in conversation. The LinkedIn algorithm strongly favors content
that people are talking about. This means offering your commenters more than a
“Great point, Ted!”. Ask questions, seek opinions, and – if you dare – flirt
with takeaway #9…
9. Don’t Avoid
Conflict – Invite It
Every marketer has a
client or two that is absolutely terrified of controversy. Rather than take a
stand that might invite backlash, these clients would sooner offer a neutral
nod in the politically correct direction or stay mum altogether. As Nadya Khoja, Head of Marketing at Venngage points out, this is a missed opportunity. Speaking out
in a way that aligns with your core audience is a hot trigger for genuine
engagement. Your core audience is more likely to develop strong positive
associations with brands that share their moral leanings. Nike’s recent ad with Colin Kaepernick is a great example. As for those who disagree? Well, chances are, they aren’t
your buyers. But they might feel strongly enough to engage with your buyers in
the comment section, boosting your engagement rate.
8. Communication: Too
Much is Better than Enough
Sometimes, a
customer’s expectations and your actual product don’t exactly match. You don’t
have to work in marketing to be familiar with that situation. Mykim Dang,
Director of Video for America’s Test Kitchen, is an evangelist of
proactively protecting your work from disasters, and it all comes down to
transparency. When working on content – whether you’re on the client side, the
creator side, or even on an internal team – you must eliminate assumptions from
your process. Like, all of them. Kill them dead, as soon as one pops up.
Assumed your client knows how many hours of editing might be required to make
the changes they asked for? POW! – shoot them that email. Assumed the agency
you hired is optimizing your video for social media? WHAM! – book that meeting.
Assumed your VP of Marketing doesn’t care how many hours you put into that
internal brand video they asked you to do? OOF! – it’s softer to land in a
sandbox than to hit your ass on the curb.
7. SEO is the Cure for
Writer’s Block
Want to create
content, but not sure what it should be about? With so many SEO tools out
there, including many great free ones like Ubersuggest,
there’s really no excuse to avoid content creation because you can’t pick a
topic. In her presentation in the Brightcove PLAY Studio workshop, Katie Pennell,
Senior Performance Content & SEO Manager at Nina Hale points out,
there are many ways to find out what your audience is searching for. Start by
performing keyword research that replicates what real people are typing into
Google or YouTube. No matter what your product, there’s sure to be a niche of
people searching through all their questions about it. Think of the questions
your customers ask you in person and start there. For instance, “How do I
install…”, “How often should I replace…”, “How much does it cost to…” – think
along these lines.
6. Research Gets No
Credit but Earns All the Value
This was probably the
biggest “aha!” moment for me, thanks to Michele Lin
and Clare McDermott, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief
Research Officer at Mantis Research.
In the marketing world, there tends to be two main archetypes of people. There
are the creative folks who flunked chemistry (anyone else?) that tend to zero
in on narratives. Then, there are the analytical people – who would rather use liquid
White-Out as eyedrops than write a short story – who focus on hard data. The
strongest content has a balanced combination of both. Think of all the
fascinating infographics, the compelling articles and the educational videos
you’ve seen over the past year. For great content, you need excellent research
to earn trust and build value, but you also need a strong and interesting narrative
to keep people engaged. For maximum value, use original research and stamp your
logo on your infographic – you do want the credit, don’t you?
5. High Production
Value ≠ Meaningful Content
Tim Schmoyer and his
wife Dana have been creating
YouTube videos since their early days as a
couple, and he had some eye-opening insights in his session. As someone who
coaches other creators, he shared an anecdote about a group that was creating
beautiful, sparkling video content – yet, they struggled to connect with an
audience. Meanwhile, they lamented, the guys sitting at home on their mid-range
webcams seemed to be raking in millions of views. What gives? Schmoyer points
out that creating a loyal audience, in reality, has little to do with cinematic
polish. He cites Primal branding by Patrick Hanlon, which points out the tribal nature of a dedicated audience. I
won’t spoil the book for you, but the key takeaway is creating intimacy with
your viewers. It’s the sense of being part of an “inner circle” that turns
users into fans – not the price of your camera lens.
4. Create
Opportunities for Others, Every Chance You Get
Tina Fey has been a
personal hero and source of inspiration for about 3 generations of women in my
family. The audience at CMW – mostly other female content writers who, like me, saw
her as a career idol – hung on her every word during her 45-minute talk
session. I could gush about her apparently effortless likability for hours, but
for brevity’s sake, I’ve picked just one aspect of her talk to focus on:
inclusivity. Fey called attention to the importance of making sure the room was
not filled with too many people of the same background, and the importance of
building platforms for other voices to speak. For some people in positions of
power (like Fey), it could mean creating opportunities for women and people of
colour. For those of us who aren’t decision makers, it can be as simple as
amplifying the great ideas of others who don’t bring a lot of power to the
table. (“I agree with Rachel,” or “Kaitlyn’s plan sounds like it really hits
the mark.”) These are simple acts that have powerful benefits, both for the
careers of others and for the final product of the team.
3. Don’t Capture Leads
– Interact with Them
This is where many of
you internal marketers and sales managers are probably leaning in. Leads – we
all want them, we all want more of them, and we all want to know more about
them before we call them. Maybe your organization has a couple of gated
whitepapers which act as your “bait” for those whale-sized leads. Or, fine,
sturgeon-sized. Bass-sized? Can I just get a damn trout?
Here’s the thing – the
whitepaper game is a very overpopulated pond. You might be thinking of what
makes your lead qualified. Don’t forget, they’re thinking about what makes YOU
qualified. So, you must have a cutting-edge hook.
As David Cunningham,
Director of Demand Generation at SnapApp points out, the way forward is to
create lead-generating content that is also interactive.
First, remember your SEO basics and create content tailored for your desired
lead’s search queries - “Top Ten Digital Marketing Trends” could be “Top Ten
Digital Marketing Trends for Retailers in 2018”. Then, between subheads,
imagine micro-surveys (1 or 2 questions) that ask your audience pertinent
questions, like “Which of these marketing challenges does your business
struggle with most?” or “Which of these tactics do you think your business
could be doing better?”. The benefits of these micro-surveys are many. From the
lead’s perspective, they engage conversation, boost scroll depth, and stand out
in a sea of plain text. On your end, they help qualify individual leads with
relevant questions for your sales team and collect useful data on your
audience’s pain points.
2. Curiosity is the
Key
Ever since Andrew Davis, author of Brandscaping, took the stage, I haven’t stopped thinking about this
takeaway. Davis defended the humble goldfish, marketing’s favorite scapegoat
(scapefish?) for the world’s dwindling attention spans. He recalls an
experience sitting in a restaurant’s waiting lounge next to a giant aquarium,
in which a tiny goldfish scooped up a few gravel pebbles and spit them at his
face. The goldfish did this repeatedly – for over ten minutes. As Davis says,
“don’t blame the goldfish!” Audiences’ attention span can be kept for longer
periods, if you earn their interest. So how do you hold interest without
falling back on “snackable” content? Don’t give your audience all the answers
too soon. It’s up to content creators to create the “curiosity gap”, the space
between “what they know” and “what they want to know”. Focus on creating
questions in your audience’s mind in the first few moments of your piece of
content, starting with the title. Then, don’t give them the satisfaction of an
answer until the very last moment. As soon as your audience thinks they’ve
absorbed all the value your content has to offer, they’ll bounce.
1. Don’t Wait to Start
Creating Content
If every presenter at
the conference had one piece of advice in common, this would be it. There are
so many mobile-friendly video editing apps available now (try VidLab or
Videoshop), as well as amazing platforms to help you elevate your content
strategy, today is really the best time for anyone to become a creator. You
don’t have to be the best at any one medium. Just pick one that you can stick
to – podcasting, blogging, video, whatever – and put something out there. Go
forth! Make mistakes! Fail constructively! You have your whole life to get it
right, you have limited time to get started.
As long as this list
is, it could be ten times longer with all the incredible insights brought forth
by each presenter. Feeling like you missed out? You can still purchase a post-show video pass at the Content Marketing Institute
website. Big thanks to Joe Pulizzi and the Content Marketing Institute for putting on this awesome event. See you next year!
UPDATE: It
turns out, I CAN share the magic of 2000 marketers dancing to Kris Kross’ JUMP.
Thank you Stephanie Stahl for capturing this!
Thanks for reading!
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