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Hidden Tricks Industry-Leading Content Marketers Keep Close to the Vest

shutterstock_131728910We’ve all been in the company of that individual—you know, the marketer who seems to be able to come up with witty slogans, awe-inspiring website copy and evocative white paper concepts on the fly. That individual who never seems scared or intimidated by behemoth marketing tasks.

He or she seems like a marketing superhero—even a magician—and, in truth, makes you feel wholly inadequate when it comes to your own marketing prowess.

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Mercedes-Benz Shakes Up Its Marketing Strategy to Target Youth

mercWhen you think of Mercedes-Benz what comes to mind? Luxury, success, sophistication, wealth… youthfulness? If you’re wondering if that’s a typo, it’s not. The renowned car brand recently revamped its marketing strategy to target a younger audience.

According to Mercedes-Benz’s Nathan Tan, a supervisor of advertising, bringing in younger consumers has been a company goal for some time. However, stereotypes of the cars have made it difficult to break into a younger demographic. Young customers tend to view the vehicles as “stuffy” and “more for their fathers than for themselves,” Tan said.

So what did Mercedes do? It took to social media using several platforms, including Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, to get their new, more “youthful” messaging out. Continue reading “Mercedes-Benz Shakes Up Its Marketing Strategy to Target Youth”

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Three Signs you’re in a Writing Slump

shutterstock_171929309We’ve all been there—staring helplessly at the computer screen, resting your fingers limply on the keyboard and willing words to start magically appearing on the screen. It is writer’s block at its best and it is the evil of all evil for marketers. That’s because our job depends on our ability to put pen to paper, redefine originality and string together a series of nouns, verbs and adjectives in such a way that harmony is struck.

So what do you do when your brain starts to enter the “nothing box?” And, even worse, how do you avoid falling into a writer’s slump without noticing it? Let’s take a look at three tell tale signs that you might be slacking when it comes to your copy creation:

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The ‘Spoiler Effect’ and How It Can Transform Your Content

I love “Game of Thrones,” “Breaking Bad” and “The Walking Dead.” At a glance these series seem to have absolutely nothing in common, but they do have one common denominator: they have the “spoiler effect.”

I’ve been seeing the “S” word everywhere lately, especially with the fourth season of “Game of Thrones” now at full speed. Every website you visit, radio station you tune into and tweet you see contains some sort of clause warning: “Spoilers ahead! Do not continue if you have not watched yet!” The fear that someone will stumble upon a juicy online review or overhear a spoiler-filled conversation has become a very real one. We’ve all probably seen irate fans share rants on social media about how people need to respect the fact that others haven’t caught up yet. This still happens even for “Breaking Bad”—whose series finale aired last September.

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Three Reasons Your Marketing Employees Need to be Smarter than You

customertileSome of the most influential entrepreneurs and business tycoons out there—think Steve Jobs, Thomas John Watson, Sr., and David Oglivy—have revealed the secret to their success: Staff your company with employees who are smarter than you. Be comfortable being the “dumbest” person in the conference room. Don’t be afraid of that powerhouse employee who encourages you to challenge the status quo and redefine existing business practices.

“Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he’s hired to do,” contends Malcolm Forbes, former publisher of Forbes.

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Celebrating a Decade of Social Media and Preparing for What’s to Come

facebookIn today’s ever-changing consumer and corporate environments, a decade might as well be a lifetime. Flashback 10 years ago, for example, to see just how far we have come.

For starters, Mark Zuckerberg was tucked away in his Harvard dorm room inventing a social network that would fundamentally change the way in which we interact on both a personal and professional level. BBM, thanks to BlackBerry, was sweeping the nation and the terms “iPhone” and “Siri” were not yet a part of our common vernacular. And TV shows like “The Sopranos” and “The Wire” still dominated our TV line-up.

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Let the Madness Begin: Have You Put Together Your Marketing Bracket?

shutterstock_178064603With a regular season record of 27-4—not to mention an undefeated streak of 25-0, despite a number of near upsets during that reign—there was no disputing what my husband and I (Syracuse alumni) would be doing at 6 pm this past Sunday night. Tuning into CBS to assess see how the Cuse’s recent spate of losses (don’t get me started on Friday night’s North Carolina State game) would affect Selection Sunday.

Sadly, our pitiful performance these past few games undoubtedly cost us a No. 1 seed. But since we will never stop bleeding Orange, bring it on Broncos.

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The Day in the Life of a Content Marketer

shutterstock_110537546Congratulations! You have officially entered the world of content marketing—a world rife with editorial calendars, social media platforms, inbound/outbound marketing campaigns, SEO metrics, demand generation… or have you? For starters, do you even know how to define “demand generation?” Do you even have a documented content strategy in place?

The reality is that while many top-level marketers claim to “walk the walk and talk the talk” when it comes to content marketing, a vast majority are merely only wading in the content marketing pool—rather than diving in head first. Need proof? While 93 percent of B2B marketers and 90 percent of B2C marketers are leveraging content marketing tactics, only 42 percent and 34 percent, respectively, feel their strategies are effective.

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Three Considerations Accelerating the Content Marketing Movement

shutterstock_124219390Historically, there are those junctures in time in which we simply start accepting that a new fate is on the horizon: it happened back in the 19th century with the invention of the typewriter, again in the late 90’s with the dot-com bubble, and more recently with the innovation of the smartphone. And it seems once again we are at the crossroads of a massive shift rocking the business environment—that of content marketing.

Simply put, we are at that familiar place we have been centuries before where early adopters are embracing this avant-garde approach to marketing, full of gumption, while others remain on the sidelines wondering if this trend will really stay. But all one has to do is take a look at history to know that content marketing is only at its dawn. Let’s take a look at three major forces that are forever changing the way in which we go-to-market: Continue reading “Three Considerations Accelerating the Content Marketing Movement”