Content Marketing Advice From 27 Experts

ADVICE FROM 27 EXPERTS

CONTENT MARKETING

Michael Gerard, CMO, Curata | @MichaelGerard | michael@curata.com

Ryan Skinner�Senior Analyst, Forrester�

@rskin11

“Ensure your content creates interest, relevance and relationships. Understand & listen to your customers, including analyzing data about them, and build up your content ecosystem.”

David Cooperstein�VP, Research Director, Forrester Research�@Minicooper

“Customer obsessed marketing is no longer an option. In this ‘Age of the Customer’, the

best marketers will create content, not advertising, contextualize the customer

experience and make real-time data a reality.”

Ann Handley�CCO, MarketingProfs�

@MarketingProfs

“Steal best practices from traditional publishers: have a

mission, focus on the reader first, not what your CEO wants, and tell

stories about people.”

Jay Baer�Author of Youtility�@JayBaer

“The secret is not to do more. . . it’s to create content

that matters, that they cherish since people crave

useful things.”

Michael Gerard�CMO, Curata�

@michaelgerard

“Be fearless and relentless in your pursuit of success. The key to innovation in social media and content marketing is to continuously reinvent your strategy and tactics. In some cases this may lead to mistakes. Great! Learn from them.”

David Skok�General Partner, Matrix Partners�@BostonVC

“Funnel optimization: Understand your buyers’ journey as they pass through the stages of

awareness, consideration and purchase.”

Chris Brogan�CEO, Human Business Networks�

@ChrisBrogan

“Stop sucking up to the people above you and spend

more time raising up the people alongside of you.”

Andy Crestodina�Strategic Director, Orbit Media�@crestodina

“Go deep into specific topics. Identify what topics you can own, and create the best pages on the Internet for that topic.”

Marcus Sheridan�Founder, The Sales Lion�@TheSalesLion

“‘They Ask, You Answer’ is your key to listening to your audience and engaging with them. Too many companies ignore the

simplest of questions that their audience asks them, and become an ostrich

with their head in the sand.”

Mike Stelzner�Founder/CEO, Social Media Examiner�

@Mike_Stelzner

“Do not be discouraged if there are 1000s of blogs in your niche. This didn’t discourage me. I saw it as an opportunity to develop something that’s different. All those blogs are just proof that there’s a large audience out there.”

Joe Pulizzi�Founder, CMI�@JoePulizzi

“For every six pieces of content, four should be from your influencer targets’

interests, one should be an original thought leadership piece and one

should be related to sales.”

Stan Smith�Founder, Pushing Social�

@PushingSocial

“Brainstorm 9 SEO phrases: 3 readers use to find information, 3 to research key topics in your area & 3 to decide if they should do business with you. Brainstorm 5 posts per SEO phrase to get 45 great posts.”

Lewis Bertolucci�Head of Social Media, Humana�@Lewis502

“Don’t reinvent ROI metrics. One company developed a ‘return on conversation’ metric;

resulting in more spent time explaining it to the CEO versus communicating in terms

they’re already used to.”

Gini Dietrich�CEO, Arment Dietrich; Founder, SpinSucks�

@GiniDietrich

“Many companies are missing the opportunity to leverage their employees for content development. The best content marketers are crowdsourcing across their organizations.”

Ann Lewnes�CMO, Adobe�@alewnes

“Allocate 20% of your marketing budget to technology as a rule of

thumb.”

Phil Fernandez�CEO, Marketo�

@PhilF1217

“The reality is that we’re at the very beginning of a marketing

transformation: 1 on 1 communication, continuous engagement, behavioral data

and an integrated marketing experience.”

Cyrus Shepard�Senior Content Astronaut, Moz�@PhilF1217

“Focus on providing better answers for your audience: know that Google wants

to have ‘answers’ for its audience, not just a lot of information.”

Lee Odden�CEO, TopRank Marketing�

@LeeOdden

“5 Steps to Content Marketing Awesome: 1.  ID Customer Segments 2. Map the buying journey 3. What are questions during the sales cycle? 4. Leverage those questions for content 5. Optimize for search, social and UX”

Heather Loisel�VP, SiriusDecisions�@HeatherLoisel

“You can’t get to ‘growth’ without taking risks, and

you need marketing transformational change to

catalyze this process.”

Alan Belniak�Content Expert�

@abelniak

“Tap into the power of different content delivery channels based on your buyers’ needs.”

Todd Wheatland�Head of Strategy�@ToddWheatland

“Be intentional regarding content creation – that is,

create content that will be relevant and of high quality

for your target audience.”

Brian Clark�Founder, Copyblogger�

@BrianClark

“We only publish once a day so that we don’t burn out our audience’s attention.”

Denise Wakeman�Founder, The Blog Squad�@DeniseWakeman

“Don’t forget to focus on getting your message out. You

need to go far beyond publishing a blog post.”

Justin Levy�Head of Social Media, Citrix�

@JustinLevy

“Regardless of reporting relationships, all digital marketing teams should work together.”

Nick Robinson�Social Media Channel Manager, SAP�@SocialRobinson

“Three key KPIs used by SAP: cost per impression, cost per

engagement and pipeline touched.”

Cory Edwards�Head of Social Business Center of Excellence, Adobe�

@coryedwards

“Four key areas of CoE: 1. Governance – Establish polices &

audits 2. Enablement – Develop & execute

training 3. Measurement – Measure & meet

objectives 4.  Innovation – Determine what’s

next”

Nichole Kelly�President, SME Digital�@Nichole_Kelly

“Company pages aren’t the only possible brand voice in social.

Empower employees on their own networks and extend reach.”

Sources of Expert Quotes

•  The Ultimate Social Media Marketing World Wrap-Up http://bit.ly/SMMW14WrapUp

•  Growth Hacking for Marketing by David Skok http://bit.ly/GrowthHack4Marketing

•  Content Marketing Perspective of Marketo’s Marketing Nation Summit http://bit.ly/Marketo2014

•  Customer Engagement Guidelines from Forrester’s Forum for Marketing Leaders http://bit.ly/Forrester2014  

eBook: Look Book Content Curation

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…and more online at: www.curata.com/resources

Industry Resource & News: Content Curation Marketing Site www.contentcurationmarketing.com

eBook: Content Marketing Done Right:

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Methods

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Additional Resources

eBook: 2014 Content Marketing Tactics

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