By Alexandra Reid
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are MarketingSherpa, Fast Company, MarketingProfs, SocialTimes, and Jeremiah Owyang.
Content marketing: 3 tips from the trenches
Short and sweet, MarketingSherpa provides three content marketing gems in this post.
By Alexandra Reid
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we read in the past week. On the podium this week are Velocity, Forrester, TopRank, The Washington Post, and Econsultancy.
‘You had me at hello’ – How to nail personalized marketing in B2B
Say “persona” to a marketer and nine times out of 10 he or she will need to fight an involuntary eye-roll reflex. Author Ryan Skinner is on a one-man mission to turn personas into the sexiest topic you work with. He covers a few simple ways to apply personas so that people see your marketing and think “Damn. I wish I did that.”
By Alexandra Reid
Mitch Joel sparked an interesting conversation recently on his blog when he argued that podcasts could make a comeback.
Joel runs the popular podcast Six pixels of separation and admitted that the podcast is a guilty pleasure for him to ask interesting people his burning questions. He also confessed that he had no data to back up his claim that podcasts could be on the rebound, but listed a handful of successful podcasts which are acting as indicators that consumers do in fact have an appetite for longer, in-depth and content-rich audio programming. These podcasts are:
By Alexandra Reid
As usual, we covered a lot of ground this month on our blog. We argued that RIM won’t commit suttee, why Harper’s free trade efforts need more thought, how Don Drummond’s arguments on Canadian business are flawed, and we also offered loads of advice for PR and marketing professionals.
Here are our posts from August, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
August 27: Harper’s free trade efforts need more thought by Denzil Doyle
August 29: Thinking outside the bunker by Leo Valiquette
August 30: Marketing’s hidden treasure map by Francis Moran
August 13: Secrets of bulletproof marketing implementation by Rob Woyzbun
August 8: 5 tips content marketers should take from journalists by Alexandra Reid
August 14: Five common content marketing mistakes by Alexandra Reid
August 1: Any press is not always good press, but it may pay dividends down the road by Leo Valiquette
August 28: 2012 B2B content marketing trends by Alexandra Reid
August 22: Inbound marketing: An alternative to traditional PR? by Alexandra Reid
August 23: Truth … and sincerity … in advertising by Leo Valiquette
August 2: Waterloo will not commit suttee on any RIM funeral pyre by Francis Moran
August 9: How to get the media’s attention with your dignity and reputation intact by Leo Valiquette
August 21: The case for inbound marketing: What’s in it for you? by Alexandra Reid
August 15: The buck has to stop with whoever owns the byline by Leo Valiquette
August 16: Unleash your inner consultant by Caroline Kealey
August 7: Don Drummond on productivity by Denzil Doyle
August 10: The worst marketing sin by Francis Moran
Image: Curt Fleenor Photography
By Alexandra Reid
Holger Schulze recently conducted a valuable LinkedIn survey on 2012 B2B content marketing trends that managed to attract an immodest 740 responses, the majority of which came from senior marketing professionals in high technology companies.
The survey provides answers to content marketing questions about: what’s working and what’s not; who is creating content and what they are creating; and how marketers measure content marketing results.
Overall, the report demonstrates that content marketing is expanding dramatically in terms of tactics, forms and volume of content, with 84 percent of marketers reporting an increase in content marketing production over the next 12 months, and more than 30 percent of those respondents saying they are increasing their production significantly.
However, many B2B marketers are struggling in these activities because of tight budgets and are outsourcing much of their content production to agencies to keep up with competition.
