Marketers are always on the lookout for the next best thing to help them ramp up their content marketing strategy; however, one avenue they may not have considered traveling down is product packaging. The actual packaging that your product is delivered in can be optimized for content marketing purposes, and a few designers excellently prove this. Recently, BuzzFeed listed a few brilliantly designed packaging ideas that blew my mind as a content marketer. Maybe they will help inspire you or your product development team on new ways to reinvent the wheel, too.
Three Content Marketing Questions to Ask Yourself Before 2014
I don’t know about you, but I gave up on the whole New Year’s resolution thing awhile ago. It’s not that I wasn’t keeping my resolutions; it was that I found it much more impactful to do a self-reflection at the end of every year and think more thematically about the type of person I want to be as opposed to one or two things to tackle for the upcoming year. After all, it feels silly to say things like “I will eat more spinach in 2014” and more aspiring to say “I will be a more health-conscious.”
The end of the year is not only an opportune time for you to personally reflect on areas you would like to improve upon, but it’s also a critical time to encourage your business to ask those ever-important questions. As a marketer, there are a multitude of strategies and tactics you can implement in 2014, so to help you navigate your best course, here are a couple of key questions to get you started: Continue reading “Three Content Marketing Questions to Ask Yourself Before 2014”
Three Quick Tips for Retailers to Optimize Their Mobile Holiday Content Marketing Strategy
This year’s holiday season lines up on the calendar so that it is six days shorter than usual. For consumers, being just a week shy of the regular holiday hustle may mean less stress and a quicker winter season; however, for retailers, this shortcoming represents the potential disturbance of their annual holiday profits. In fact, these six days could potentially cost retailers $1.5 billion in lost sales, according to a new survey commissioned by Adobe Digital Index.
What’s in a Name? What’s in a Brand?
Confession… I am having a bit of an identity crisis. Let me backtrack.
I have just come off of what can only be described as the best two weeks of my life. On October 26, in front of our beloved family and friends, a beautiful sunset and a birch wood, fall-colored altar, my husband and I (still so strange to say that!) said, “I do.” It was the beautiful culmination of five incredible years of dating, one long year of planning and countless well wishes over the last few months. And it truly was, as everyone predicted, the best day of my life.
That Saturday evening was electrifying—from the reading of our personal vows to our first dance to the cake cutting to the throwing of my bouquet. It was a whirlwind of emotions and one of those defining life events. Continue reading “What’s in a Name? What’s in a Brand?”
Twelve Sunny Social Statistics to Warm Up Your Frigid Content Marketing Strategy
Depending on your personal tastes and preferences, now could be either the worst or best time of the year to inhabit the seasonally unpredictable corner of the northeastern United States. I’m a part of the former group of people, as I love the summer and cannot stand the winter (while, it cannot be disputed that the first snowfall of the season is beautiful, that frosty feeling of goodness fades away just as quickly as it stirs within you).
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Cinnabon, Breaking Bad and Pure Content Marketing Magic
Full disclosure: I’m only in season three of Breaking Bad.
There are a few times in a company’s existence – if any – where the stars align just so, inviting the pearly gates of content marketing heaven to thrust open and outpour a surge of selling genius upon those who lie in waiting. This doesn’t happen often; however, the rare – and extremely profitable – occurrence came to fruition for one very lucky Omaha, Neb.-based Cinnabon.
That’s right – the sickeningly sweet treat that all of us hate to admit we eat when we stop at the mall (don’t deny it) has hit the content marketing jackpot thanks to an offhand mention on AMC’s critically-acclaimed crime drama series, Breaking Bad.
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Even Horse ebooks Has a Content Strategy
I’m sure by now you’ve heard of the Internet phenomenon that has been the apple of Google Search’s eye over the last 24 hours. Of course, we’re talking about Horse ebooks. In a perplexing occurrence, Horse ebooks went from being barely recognized one day to sole obsession of the mass public the next – with myself included. And if you’re anything like me, you had – or perhaps still have – no clue as to what Horse ebooks even is.
Just so you’re no longer in the dark, Horse ebooks is a widely perceived spam Twitter account which was originally intended to promote ebooks. However, the ways in which the account did this were particularly unconventional and included odd –albeit amusing – non sequiturs. These non sequiturs (see below) were apparently an effort to evade spam detection, which results in the shutdown of an account. The account also tweeted multiple times per day – most of which receive hundreds of re-tweets and favorites.
Why the Hospitality Industry Needs Content Marketing
You’d think the hospitality industry is far from suffering a dip in revenue (there’s always someone out there who needs a place to stay, right?), But apparently, the global hospitality industry is amidst a flux. According to Ernst and Young’s new “Global Hospitality Insights: Top Thoughts for 2013” report, the demand growth outpaced the industry’s supply growth for 2010, 2011 and 2012, and it’s expected to do just the same for 2013. There are clearly some very wide holes in this industry that need to be filled – especially if those invested want to see steadier growth and a healthier revenue stream.
The answer is just as clear: content marketing.
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Content Marketing Lessons Learned from the World’s Smartest People
It’s what we’ve always wanted to hear: we may have more in common with the world’s smartest people than we think.
I was surfing the Web this morning when I stumbled upon an infographic from NowSourcing showing the good and bad habits of the world’s smartest people and it got me thinking, “This has a lot to do with content marketing.”
Sure, these guys may be well above your IQ level (the average IQ is 100, while this group is above “Genius” and “Extraordinary Genius”), but the positive habits and behavioral traits they display could show us a lot about how we should be mapping out our content marketing strategies. Some of these are a bit more evident than others, yet they are nonetheless important to remember.
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Content Marketing World Keynoter Warns, ‘Brands are in Trouble’
It’s no small feat to deliver the keynote presentation at a convention at 8:30 am, especially when participants have attended a bopping House of Blues party just hours before. But Don E. Schultz, professor emeritus-in-service at Northwestern University, certainly knew what he was up against when he took the microphone at Content Marketing World this morning.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and one of the things I’ve learned is that if you are the speaker on day two, there are three things you have to be careful of: talk softly as many people have some kind of chemical imbalance in their system; avoid any loud noises; and don’t wake them up. If you accomplish this then they will think you have done a hell of a job,” he explained, eliciting a round of laughter from the packed room.
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