Blueprint for a successful content marketing strategy
Who in their right mind would build a house without a blueprint? You need a detailed blueprint to convert the piles of building materials on your empty lot into a beautiful, finished home. If you try to build it on your own, without a blueprint, you’ll end...
Marketing’s Secret Sauce: The Message
Marketing’s Secret Sauce is the first “taste” of our new series of marketing education videos, which we’ve christened ACCELERATE: Smart Strategies That Power Business Growth. Each one will contain essential insights you need to become a more successful...
They keep moving the marketing goalposts
There's an inherent mystery around the art and science of optimizing a web site for search. The optimization process changes nearly every week as Google works behind the scene, changing the rules to make their engine’s results more search friendly and...
12 tactics to transform your email signups from a trickle to a torrent
Your email list is one of your most valuable owned assets. It's the key to engaging your target audience and building trusted relationships with them. But most marketers don't do enough to build and nurture theirs. "But wait just a minute," you protest. "I put a...
Targeting your audience using LinkedIn
One of the mistakes marketers often make in trying to reach their target audiences is over-relying on organic distribution and under-relying on paid distribution. For many B2B firms, LinkedIn is the most important channel for sharing content with the people they need to target.
8 must-have elements of a strong home page
When visitors arrive at the home page of your website, are they able to quickly and efficiently find what they’re looking for? Or do they become confused and frustrated - because they can’t easily figure out exactly what you do or how your website is structured and...
How to choose the right email marketing platform
Email is a critical element of any B2B marketing program because it enables you to communicate with your customers and prospects on a schedule that you control. In addition, if you grow your email list over time, it can become a strategic asset that can help you grow...
There’s a runaway train barreling towards you
Today, if you’re not yet on board the content marketing train, you may get run over. It's that simple. Your customers have changed and you need to adapt the way you're marketing. If you continue to use the same old ways to communicate with them, you'll be left in the...
Stop burning cash on these inefficient content marketing strategies
Would you stack bagfuls of cash into a crude pyramid, and then set it on fire? Of course not! That would be stupid, and you’re not stupid, so you’re not going to ignore inefficiencies in your content marketing initiative, are you? Here are five areas that are...
Rock your list – it’s your biggest asset
Do you have a strategy for growing your email list and using it to communicate with your target audience on a consistent basis? If not, you’re missing a huge opportunity. Email isn’t a sexy topic, but it represents the backbone of nearly every successful content...
“Tilt” your way to grab your audience’s attention
In the classic Spanish novel The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, a nobleman becomes so enamored with stories of brave knights and ladies fair that his perception of reality becomes warped. At one point, he attacks...
Content marketing without a documented strategy is doomed to fail: Survey
A documented strategy is a must if you want to be successful with content marketing. That’s the conclusion of the first-ever Milwaukee Area B2B Content Marketing survey, conducted by Cultivate. The majority of the marketing managers who responded to this new survey...
How to tame the content approval monster
Lurking in the corner of your office is an unseen threat to the success of your content marketing efforts. It’s the approval monster and his favorite activity is not to dismember, devour and destroy, but rather to plant his fat butt on top of your content, bringing...
How to make your blog posts as popular as a hit record
One of the biggest roadblocks content marketers face is developing original, relevant and engaging content - content that people actually want to read and most importantly share with associates. Just like song writers, everyone wants their content (song) to be a hit...
Unzip your head and leave your brain on the table (it’s time to think like a publisher)
You're going into the publishing business. Are you struggling to get a content marketing program off the ground at your company or organization? Perhaps you need to approach it from a different perspective. Content marketing requires a much different way of thinking –...
Good vs. bad content – what’s the difference?
We’re awash in a cesspool of bad content. Much of it is content that is so self-serving, it makes you cringe. Tired topics that have been covered ad nausem by many other authors – apparently in an attempt to validate the theory that an infinite number of monkeys...
Two easy ways to launch your first blog
A high-quality blog, consistently filled with high-quality, customer-focused articles, video and other content is the cornerstone of many marketing initiatives. But what do you do if you don’t have a blog or enough internal support to launch one within your corporate...
Don’t build your house on rented land
Do you dream of building a big following on one or more of the major social media channels? Don’t bother – it’s a waste of your time and it’s important you understand why. It wasn’t always that way. During the last decade, the bigger your social networks were, the...