Zari Venhaus’s Framework for Gaining Executive Buy-In for Marketing Technology #CMWorld

I had the pleasure of sitting in on Zari Venhaus’s session at the second day of Content Marketing World 2019 where she laid forward a process to present martech business cases to senior leadership. She entered the room with a high level of energy and passion for the topic, making her an engaging speaker from the second she took the stage.  After a quick bit about the company she works for, Eaton, which is a $22 billion power management company, she dove into a marketing technology business case she undertook as their Director of Corporate Marketing Communications.  She insists she was not successful her first time creating a martech business case. It took living through many failures and successes to reach the process she uses today. Now, she feels ready to share those lessons with an audience like us so we do not have to suffer through the same trial and error. 

Getting Started

Throughout her presentation, Zari peppered in powerful quotes and statistics, starting off with a strong stat that illustrated the marketing technology landscape of today:  “29% of marketing budgets are spent on Martech” - Gartner CMO Spend survey 2018-2019 After letting that statistic sit with the room, she conveys yet another statistic, showing that not far behind marketing technology spend, is that of labor. Zari implores those in the room to consider how the two work together as we begin our own journey of building a business case, seeing as the best business cases often address both. Then, she takes a step back, encouraging us to ask ourselves three questions before we begin building our cases, noting that all great strategies start with insightful questions. 

1. How can I demonstrate to senior leaders, who are often removed from the day to day activities in which marketers are enveloped, how integral technology is to our job performance?
2. What are the objections they are likely going to need to have addressed as we present our case?
3. How can I tell a story that is not only educational but also compelling, to bring them to a place where they are comfortable and confident signing on the dotted line. 

Once these questions have been mulled over by key people involved in building the case, it’s time to apply the answers. Here’s how to do it.

Setting the Stage

Start by painting a picture of how marketing teams use technology. Use that picture to ensure your senior leaders understand the significance technology has on the efficiency and effectiveness of your team.  Then, put it in language that resonates with them. Whether it’s drawing on quotes from industry thought leaders or using tried and true marketing vocabulary, use language that is going to help you get the point across that, “marketing without technology is not marketing at all”.   Once that point is conveyed, prepare for potential objections. Common ones include: 

• “The cost is too high.”
• “I don't understand the value.”
• “ I don’t see the ROI.” 
• “It’s too hard to measure.”
• “We can’t afford it.” 

Know the audience and document answers for a wide range of questions that incorporate their respective areas of interest.

“34% of CMO’s said that their company’s resistance to embracing and investing in innovation and digital is the number one thing that keeps them up at night.” - Korn Ferry, CMO Pulse survey 2017

It’s our job, as marketers, to get to the roots of that resistance. If you can understand the cause, you’re going to be able to better address the objection. Often, Zari has found, the root of that hesitance is a lack of technology knowledge that makes the decision-making process overwhelming for senior execs (we’ve all seen the graph of the marketing technology landscape…). It’s up to us to simplify it for them. Ensuring your business case explains, in a very thorough and detailed manner, how and by who the technology is going to be leveraged is of the utmost importance. If senior leaders understand how a core, competent team is going to be using the technology to achieve particular goals within the larger marketing strategy, you’ve given them a tangible reason to support your case.

Crafting Your Story

After the stage has been set and the importance of technology has been conveyed, it’s time to begin crafting your martech story. Here’s how Zari recommends you do it: 1. Map your marketing process Create a process flow showing the steps it takes for your team to complete a particular task, pre-technology implementations. Illustrate the complexities. Emphasize the time on task. Point out potential data pitfalls. At the end of the day, this is the process you are recommending needs fixing, so show why it needs fixing. 2. Identify the opportunity  Once the process flow has been built, identify the gap within it to open up the stage for your recommendation. Draw out a comparison of what that process will look like post tech implementation. Articulate the reduction of steps needed to complete the task. Equate the number of hours saved throughout the process. Show the decreased complexity in the workflow.  This is your chance to demonstrate how the implementation of this new technology will increase the efficiency of your processes. Use it wisely to tell your story of opportunity. 3. Intro the technology platform Now, it’s time to show what your technology can do. This is when you grab from other companies with similar challenges, to show how the technology helped them achieve their goals. Use proof points and specific data to demonstrate to senior executives at your company the power of the tool. Then, to take it to the next level, show how that same story could be applied to your own challenges. 4. Quantify the value with financials Lastly, it’s time to gather financial data. Although this may be some marketers' least favorite step in the process, it is certainly the most important. Zari stressed two points as she explained how to go about this.

• Identify and stick to what you can actually measure. This often comes down to the efficiency of your team and the effectiveness of the tool. 
• Always be conservative with your predictions. Now is not the time over-promise. Be realistic with your forecasts so that leadership does not have hesitations for renewal down the line.

Close the Martech Business Case

A business case built with the steps Zari laid out can help incite confidence in the creator. It ensures marketers are doing their due diligence to prepare for potential obstacles, paint a picture of success and ultimately, show the cost-benefit to your organization, which is of utmost importance to your senior exec team.   Need more Content Marketing World in your life? Stay tuned to the TopRank Marketing Blog for more tips, tricks, and live coverage. And follow our team: @leeodden, @NiteWrites, @azeckman, and @toprank on Twitter for real-time insights.

The post Zari Venhaus’s Framework for Gaining Executive Buy-In for Marketing Technology #CMWorld appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Lee Odden Shares His Secret to Content Marketing Fitness #CMWorld 2019

Let’s face it: Too many of us are yo-yo marketers. We deploy a campaign the way someone might approach a fad diet: With nothing but our initial enthusiasm to keep it going. And like a fad dieter, we get results… for a little while. Then the campaign runs out of steam and we’re back at square one. Wouldn’t it be nice if those initial successes could last? If we could go from “fad diet” marketing to lean, mean marketing machines? At his Content Marketing World session, TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden laid out a blueprint for how to do just that. Not only is Lee a champion of always-on marketing that gets sustainable results over time, he’s also achieved a dramatic physical transformation in the past year. He's lost 65 pounds and just finished his first half-marathon. Turns out, the same discipline and strategy that makes for great content marketing is fantastic for fitness, too. It’s all about consistency and persistency. Here are Lee’s 10 Exercises for Content Marketing Fitness.

10 Steps to Content Marketing Fitness

#1: Warm Up with Customer Insights

“Know your customer” is a pretty standard motto for marketers. But most of us don’t get deep enough into what those three words really mean. Truly knowing your customer means having insight into:

• Activities: What does their workday look like?
• Pain: What are they suffering from/worried about?
• Goals: What do they wish they could accomplish?
• Influences: Who or what is providing guidance?

To warm up your customer insights, you need to answer all of these questions for each stage of the customer journey, preferably with first hand data.

#2: Strengthen Your Core with Strategy

Before you start creating content, you need to know what that content is meant to accomplish. Most content plans won’t involve jumping straight into driving leads and closing sales. The first part of your strategy should involve meeting the customer where they are (based on your footwork in step 1), challenging their status quo and inviting a change in perception. Then you can begin the process of capturing leads and driving revenue.

#3: Optimize Your Strategy with KPIs

As you developed your strategy, you had goals in mind: Our content should change people’s mind about X, help them see the benefits of Y, etc. Now you need to put those goals into measurable KPIs with matching metrics, like so: The most important part? Set benchmarks before you start. Without benchmarks, you have nothing to compare your new campaign to.

#4: Create a Powerful Story

This is my favorite part: Take your content strategy and turn it into the story you will tell throughout your campaign. That means building a bridge of narrative that connects your audience from their current state – their wants, needs, pain points – to your solution. It means helping them solve multiple problems along the way, even problems that have little to do with your offering. For example, this campaign from our client Prophix ultimately leads their audience to a solution: Using real-time data with their plug-in for PowerPoint. But along the way, it helps finance leaders level up their presentation skills in many other ways, along with advice from influential experts (more on that later).

#5: Optimize Your Content Mix

With your story outline in place, the next step is to create the framework for your content. Lee recommends a hub and spoke model. Anchor content is supported by crosslinked content about secondary topics. Get creative as you plan your mix: You can include the standard blog posts, of course, but also look at quizzes, infographics, audio and video. Also think about content with built-in amplification, like guest blogs from influencers (more on that in the next point) and posting your own blogs on third-party sites.

6: Boost Quality & Reach with Influencers

For B2B marketing, “influencer” doesn’t mean someone holding up your product in Instagram photos. It’s more about developing relationships with people who are genuinely influential to your target audience, co-creating content with them, and making it easy for them to help promote the content. Or, as Lee puts it: “People who invest their time to help you make a thing, are generally motivated to help share the thing, to make it successful.” The planning you’ve done so far will help make sure that your content is aligned both with SEO and with your influencers’ areas of expertise.

#7: Create Powerful Content

As you’re creating content, Lee recommends a hub-and-spoke model. You have a central, substantial asset that addresses search demand and includes influencer contributions. Then you augment that hub with secondary content that further explores side topics (and meets demands expressed in longtail keywords. For TopRank Marketing, our go-to hub is the “Power Page.” It’s a definitive guide, optimized for search and for humans to read. It’s specific, lengthy, and goes into deep detail. Here’s a wireframe Lee shared:

#8: Create Your Content Promotion Timeline

When you’re creating content this great, you can’t just graft on promotion after it’s done. Lee says, “The best time to plan your promotion is when you’re planning the content.” Let’s say it again in bold: The best time to plan your promotion is when you’re planning the content. When you plan in advance, you can build in repurposing like influencer round-up posts, infographics, even capturing audio interviews instead of written so you can turn them into podcast episodes. Here’s what a well-rounded promotion timeline might look like:

#9: Measure & Optimize

Now we’ve reached the stage that turns all of your effort so far into an ongoing marketing commitment – the kind that breaks free from yo-yo marketing and gets sustainable results. Instead of publishing, having your initial promotion push, and moving on to the next campaign, keep watching your metrics, make changes based on your observations, and repeat. Lee points out that we often optimize when content isn’t performing well, but we should also be looking at content that’s performing better than expected. What made that content and promotion mix special? How can we duplicate it? How can we make it even better? Here are a few metrics to measure:

#10: Repurpose with Purpose

Part of the optimization process is getting every bit of juice out of the content you worked so hard creating. If you included repurposing in your strategy at the planning stage, you’re good to go: Turn your interviews into round-up posts, your blog posts into infographics, infographics into motion graphics, etc. But don’t just do it to make more stuff, Lee says. Rather, repurpose to suit your content to different audiences. For example, audio content as a podcast might appeal to a younger set of decision makers who wouldn’t read a 2,000 word blog post. Or think about different verticals: Imagine your audience is both IT decision influencers and executive decision makers. With a few cosmetic changes, the same content can be optimized to target each audience individually. As Lee put it, “Personalization is the best kind of repurposing.”

Content Marketing Fitness for the Long Haul

The hardest part of losing weight is keeping from gaining it back. It’s easy to fall into old habits and lose the progress you’ve made. The same is true of marketing. Your biggest challenge isn’t a disinterested audience or a boss who won’t expand your budget – it’s simple human inertia. And the only way to fight it is to commit to a sustained effort, make sure your whole team is on board, and embark on your content fitness journey together. Need more Content Marketing World in your life? Stay tuned to the TopRank Marketing Blog for more tips, tricks, and live coverage. And follow our team: @leeodden, @NiteWrites, @azeckman, and @toprank on Twitter for real-time insights.  

The post Lee Odden Shares His Secret to Content Marketing Fitness #CMWorld 2019 appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Carlos Abler Details How Content Marketing Can Contribute to the Greater Good #CMWorld

Can content marketing make the world a better place? Let’s dial that in tighter: Can brands, businesses, make the world a better place? And can they do it while making money at the same time? According to content marketing leader Carlos Abler, not only can brands provide social value, they must – and, not for nothing, it’s in their best business interest to do so. In his session at Content Marketing World 2019, Carlos shared a blueprint brands can follow to find the convergence of business value and social value.

How Can We Make Content More Valuable to Customers?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Content needs to be customer-centric, it needs to have value, and it needs to be relevant to the customer’s needs. Most content marketers could recite a similar mantra in their sleep. So if we all know better, why does content consistently miss the mark? Carlos identified three reasons that we fall into the “value generation black hole":

1. Brand Egocentricity: It’s hard for brands to talk about anything but themselves.
2. Product Silos: We tend to see people as vehicles to purchase our products, discounting the majority of their lived experience.
3. Inward-Focused Organizations: It’s easy to lose sight of the customer’s experience in our day-to-day grind.

To turn that black hole into a big bang, says Carlos, we need to think about the different kinds of value we can bring to the customer:

1. Product Value: We can help the customer understand how our product is valuable to them, and provide that value in the product. This is the easiest value for brands to express, but has the narrowest usefulness to the customer.
2. Application Consulting Value: Helping our customer use our product most effectively or efficiently. Again, this is easy for brands to provide, but only of use to existing customers, or those very near the bottom of the funnel.
3. Application Adjacency Value: Brands can help people do their job better as it involves the product, helping roll out the product throughout the organization. This broadens the scope of value beyond immediate customers, but is still pretty brand-centered.
4. Non-Application Adjacent Value: Brands can help people be more successful in their careers, in ways that include but aren’t limited to the brand’s product or service. That’s the most valuable for the most people, and it’s the least about the brand.

To get started, Carlos says, start thinking about the pain points that don’t necessarily map to your product. For example, imagine you sell dental hygiene products for dentists’ offices. Most dentists have solo practices. Their pain points might include:

• How can I get more customers?
• How can I balance my books?
• How can I hire the right receptionist?

These problems are the most relevant to the dentist. But they have little to do with your product offering. The solution is to move away from the product to begin with, meet the dentist’s needs, and build a relationship from there. But we can broaden the scope even further, Carlos argues.

How Can We Make Content More Valuable to Society?

We tend to think of value in content as a two-way street: We provide value to customers, and we get value for the business in return. But can our content change the world, too? Can we add social value to content? Carlos believes we can. More importantly, he has plenty of real-world examples to back it up. Content can address enormous issues like poverty, hunger, sustainability… it can contribute to the greater good while still serving a business purpose. To get started, Carlos suggests looking at the ways content can drive business value: And searching for overlap with ways content can drive social value: But here's the real kicker: Economic and social issues are interconnected. They’re not two different types of problem, and we can’t keep thinking of them in silos. Carlos quotes Edward R. Freeman: “We need to understand the complex interconnections between economic and social forces… Processes, techniques and theories that do not consider all of these forces will fail to describe and predict the business world as it really is.”

Making the Case for Social Entrepreneurship

The idea of using content to make the world a better place is a concept Carlos calls “Social Entrepreneurship.” He’s seen it work with small organizations, NGOs, groups who are trying to build a business case to solve a social problem. What would happen, he asks, if we applied a business’ ability to scale with the social entrepreneur’s ability to identify social problems and find solutions? One example Carlos provided is Aponjon, an SMS-text-based service for pregnant women and new mothers in Bangladesh. The program was developed to curb infant mortality rates, designed to be accessible and affordable. But rather than an externally-funded charity project, it’s a sustainable business. Paying for the service is optional, so the extremely poor can use it for free, but 80% of users choose to pay. In the first 18 months, Aponjon gained 600,000 subscribers and achieved their goal of being a self-sustaining business. Now imagine, Carlos says, that Aponjon was able to partner with a healthcare brand that could ethically use the platform as an opt-in database. There would be actual synergy (not the buzzword kind) between the business’ goals and the platform’s mission.

Consumers Want Brands to Provide Social Value—But Don’t Believe They Will

To wrap it up: When it comes to social value, customers have high expectations and low trust. The research Carlos presented boils down to, “We want brands to do good. But we don’t believe brands will do good. And we won’t trust them when they say they’re doing good. But we still want them to do it.” The solution, Carlos says, is to make social value part of the company’s DNA. It can’t be surface-level. People can smell when brands are being shallow or exploitative, and they’ll back away. The only way to be authentic about it is to find that synergy between business value and social value, understand how the two are connected, and work towards providing both. Need more Content Marketing World in your life? Stay tuned to the TopRank Marketing Blog for more tips, tricks, and live coverage. And follow our team: @leeodden, @NiteWrites, @azeckman, and @toprank on Twitter for real-time insights.

The post Carlos Abler Details How Content Marketing Can Contribute to the Greater Good #CMWorld appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Ghosted: What’s a Content Marketer to Do When Your Audience Goes Silent?

The all-encompassing digital takeover has completely changed the way we communicate and interact as people. Naturally, in our professional realm we tend to tie this back to marketing, but the reality applies to just about every aspect of human relations.  This includes dating and courtship, of course. The terms of engagement (so to speak) have transformed wildly. Whereas romance still can and does sprout through chance meetings, or encounters at the bar, or mutual college friend circles, it’s increasingly common for these fated connections to take place through online matchmaking sites and dating apps. (I would know — I’m marrying an amazing gal this weekend who I originally met on such an app!) We can tie this trend back to marketing as well. Last year, our Annie Leuman shared integrated content marketing insights drawn from the world of online dating. Today, I’m a little more interested in the content marketing implications of a specific element of this new playing field: ghosting.

What is ‘Ghosting’ and How Does It Relate to Marketing? 

Ghosting is defined as “the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.” (Yes, it’s actually in the dictionary now.) Technically this is a behavior that can be traced back decades and centuries, but it has really risen to prominence at a time where achieving radio-silence — via text or messaging app, with fewer mutual acquaintances in play — is easier than ever.  via GIPHY Here’s the thing about ghosting: it sucks. I’ve been on both sides of it, and I’m sure many people reading this have too. Most often, folks engage in this practice because — when you’re not really feelin’ the vibes — it can feel gentler to simply disappear and move on than to explain your detachment directly. But the truth is that ghosting is actually more cruel than the alternative. As Psychology Today puts it, “The opposite of love isn’t hate, it's indifference.”  “Ghosting gives you no cue for how to react,” adds the PT article. “It creates the ultimate scenario of ambiguity. Should you be worried? What if they are hurt and lying in a hospital bed somewhere? Should you be upset?” As a content marketer, even if you’ve never been ghosted in personal capacity, you probably have experienced the phenomenon in your work. Blog traffic has inexplicably dropped. Your social media accounts have stopped receiving engagement. People aren’t opening your emails anymore. It’s upsetting to see the numbers take a dive, but all the more so when you can’t diagnose the cause. If readers were sending you angry messages about how you’re overloading their inbox with newsletter frequency, or posting totally irrelevant tweets, it might sting a little but at least you know what’s up. For those situations shrouded in paranormal perplexity, let’s pull out our P.K.E. meters and do some ghost-busting. via GIPHY

Don’t Get Spooked: How to React When Your Audience Ghosts You

A sharp decline in traffic or engagement can be as upsetting any unreturned text message. When you can’t identify the reasons behind such a drop-off, it’s like sitting in limbo. Here’s a look at four common scenarios where your audience may have inexplicably gone quiet, and what to do about it.

Blog Visitors or Comments Have Taken a Dive

Your blog was cruising along. Your analytics dashboard showed a steady flow of visitors, and your content was even compelling a healthy amount of feedback from readers. But lately, the traffic has been consistently down and you’re not getting any comments. What Might Be Happening

• Your topical alignment is missing the mark
• Your publishing cadence isn’t jibing with your audience
• There are technical issues affecting your blog
• Your headlines aren’t grabbing attention
• You’re aren’t properly promoting your posts
• You aren’t optimizing enough for search

What To Do

• Consult your analytics to determine which subject matter is gaining the most traction. Then, take a step back and build out topic cluster, or content pillars, around these areas (in a way that also makes sense for your business and objectives).
• Audit your posting frequency to find your sweet spot. Do you get more traffic if you post daily? Weekly? Every other week?
• Huddle with your SEO specialists to identify content opportunities (widening your topical umbrella) or technical issues (like broken links, missing metadata, or canonical URL problems). Link building is another opportunity to explore.
• Test headlines and CTAs with punchier and more interesting words.
• Put more effort into promoting new posts (social media, email, employee advocacy, etc.). Don’t fall victim to invisible content syndrome!

Organic Search Traffic Is Trending Down

This is a digital marketing KPI for most companies these days. Whether to your blog, your home page, or other prioritized assets, organic traffic is extremely valuable because it is so cost-efficient — when you have a fruitful strategy in place, you are driving a steady stream of (relatively) targeted inbound visits that you don’t have to pay for directly.  So needless to say, when you see your organic traffic charts declining or stagnating over multiple months, it can set off some alarm bells. What Might Be Happening

• Your rankings are dropping for high-volume queries on SERPs
• Previously high-performing pages are seeing diminished traction
• You’re overly concerned with technical SEO aspects, at the expense of user experience
• Searcher behaviors or engine algorithms are shifting
• Something is broken or amiss on your site, preventing Google from crawling it properly
• Site redesign or migration issues are taking a toll

What To Do

• Reassess your keyword strategy to determine where you’re losing steam, and whether you should focus on other terms
• Identify specific pages that are seeing a decline in performance and investigate
• Explore your site from the perspective of a user, and take a hard honest look at the quality of the experience. (Google increasingly prioritizes sites based on UX signals as opposed to strictly technical ones.)
• Research broader trends around your audience and Google’s algorithm to see if changes are potentially affecting your traffic.
• Huddle with your web developers and SEO specialists to identify technical issues (like broken links, missing metadata, or canonical URL problems).

Social Media Engagement Is Drying Up

Social media channels present an opportunity to engage with your audience directly and authentically. When the engagement with your brand stops however, this community of more than 3 billion people can start to feel very lonely indeed.  What Might Be Happening

• You’re on the wrong channels
• Your content isn’t valuable to your audience
• Your content isn’t soliciting responses and interaction from your audience
• You’re not posting frequently enough
• You’re not sharing enough interesting visual content
• Social media algorithms are suppressing your reach
• You’re not reaching out and building relationships

What To Do

• Re-evaluate your channel mix and make sure you’re focusing on social networks where your audience is present and active.
• Make sure you’re sharing plenty of content that doesn’t promote your brand or solutions, and is solely intended to inform, interest, or entertain people in your niche.
• Create more posts that ask questions or feature polls/surveys. Try running a contest with a fun incentive to encourage participation.
• Post more frequently if it makes sense for your audience. On crowded and ephemeral feeds, you’ll want to generate familiarity and recognition with your followers.
• Include more visually-centered posts, with images, videos, gifs, etc. 
• Algorithms can be tough to overcome, especially when your following is still small. Integrate paid tactics to amplify your content with targeted audiences, and grow your following. Also use appropriate hashtags and encourage your employees to share posts from your accounts in their own networks.
• Social media is a two-way conversation. Make sure you’re responsive, and proactive in talking to others. In addition, build genuine relationships with influencers in your industry. This can not only lead to active conversations on social platforms, but also more content collaboration.

Emails Aren’t Getting Opens or Clicks

If someone unsubscribes from your email list, at least they’re making a definitive statement. It’s like receiving a text that says, “I’m not interested anymore.” They might not give a specific reason, but you can look at the timing and circumstances to form your own deductions.  When people just stop opening or clicking, though? That’s more mysterious. What Might Be Happening

• Your subject lines aren’t compelling enough
• Your email content isn’t displaying properly
• Your messages aren’t personalized
• Your email list is outdated, unsegmented, or purchased
• You’re sending emails too frequently
• Your messages are getting stuck in the spam filter
• Your sender name isn’t a real person

What To Do

• Test punchier subject lines with evocative statements and action-oriented words.
• Keep in mind that various email clients won’t display all of your images, emojis, or multimedia. Don’t be afraid to get snazzy, but design your emails with basic accessibility/readability in mind.
• Make your emails more personalized. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be speaking individually to each recipient, but you want to make them feel like you are. Apply the full extent of knowledge about your audience personas.
• Email lists can be problematic for a variety of reasons. Frequent cleansing is recommended. Remove inactive email addresses. Make sure people are opting in and never being added with their explicit permission. Use segmenting to create more customized messaging for various slices of your audience.
• Few people complain about brands emailing them too infrequently. Been when they’re seeing you in their inbox multiple times a week, it can feel clingy. Treat the ability to email your list as a privilege and show restraint.
• Spam filters are pesky. Avoid using words that are likely to trigger them (i.e., sale, buy, price, discount, offer). In your initial “Thanks for subscribing message,” it doesn’t hurt to encourage new sign-ups to add your email address to the non-spam list so they don’t miss your great content.
• Use the actual name of a marketer or executive at your company in the “From” field. People want messages from people, not faceless businesses.

Reignite the Spark and Engage Your Audience

In dating, getting ghosted is usually an indication that it’s time to take the hint. In content marketing, this is not necessarily the case. As we’ve established, there is a wide variety of reasons why your traffic or engagement might’ve dropped off. They’re not out of reach, nor are the solutions.  Need the resources or expertise to win back your audience? An SEO audit can uncover opportunities to optimize your content marketing efforts. Stay tuned to the TopRank Marketing Blog for insights from Content Marketing World 2019, where our CEO Lee Odden and Senior Director of Digital Strategy Ashley Zeckman are presenting on boosting your content marketing fitness and scaling influencer marketing, respectively.

The post Ghosted: What’s a Content Marketer to Do When Your Audience Goes Silent? appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

50 Content Marketing Influencers and Experts to Follow 2019

Content Marketing World 2019 is upon us. As the largest content marketing conference in the world, CMWorld brings together a stellar array of talented professionals who are filled with curiosity for future trends, marketing knowledge, and aspirations for new successes. For the past 11 years leading marketers from all over the world have gathered in Cleveland, Ohio for one of the world's strongest content marketing event, and this year is set to be the biggest and best yet. Readers of our blog know we have a long history with the conference starting at the beginning, with nine years of speaking and attending along with seven years of partnering with the Content Marketing Institute to develop speaker and influencer content marketing campaigns. Our partnership resulted in a interactive digital experience filled with show-stopping insights from top marketers who will be taking the stage this week. If you haven't yet experienced it, have a look here: Another TopRank Marketing tradition that has been imitated in recent years but never truly duplicated, is our annual list of content marketing experts ranked according to their social influence, a helpful compilation derived from the excellent 200-plus #CMWorld speakers. List Methodology: For this list we utilize the Traackr influencer marketing platform to filter the content marketing experts who are speaking at the current year's Content Marketing World conference using a large number of criteria including the relevance of the individuals to the topic, the degree to which their networks engage, the size of their networks, and other factors. Online data is pulled from blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, SlideShare, Flickr and other platforms. The focus topic in question is most definitely "content marketing," and everyone included on this list is:

• A speaker at #CMWorld 2019
• Ranked in the top-50 for "content marketing" according to relevance, resonance, reach and audience metrics

People always thank me for including them in these lists and there's no thanks to be given other than to the people who worked hard sharing useful knowledge about content marketing to their social channels, in blogs, videos, and online in general. Many thanks go to ALL the people who are actively sharing knowledge about content marketing by engaging and helping others with helpful opinions, insights and expertise on the social web. This list is only a starting point to help expand your content marketing universe. In this year's list there are familiar faces and quite a few new entries. We plan to learn new lessons from these 50 content marketing influencers and hope you’ll do the same throughout the year and into 2020.

50 Content Marketing Influencers Speaking at CMWorld 2019

BIG congratulations to Pam Didner for the top spot and to the other three in the top spots: Christopher Penn, our CEO Lee Odden, and Heidi Cohen. Congrats AGAIN to Ann Handley for being the Most Engaging Content Marketing Influencer out of this year's group of speakers, based on Traackr's analysis. Pam Didner @PamDidner Author, Effective Sales Enablement Presenting: 5 Creative Ways Content Marketers Can Better Support Their Sales Team Presenting: How to Leverage Your Existing Marketing Programs and Content to Enable Your Sales Team Christopher Penn @cspenn Co-Founder, Trust Insights Presenting: AI for Marketing: Specific Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Enhance Your Marketing Campaigns Presenting: How AI Will Change Content Marketing Forever Lee Odden @leeodden CEO, TopRank Marketing Presenting: Content Marketing Fitness - 10 Exercises to Build Your Marketing Beach Body Presenting: How to Develop a B2B Influencer Marketing Program That Actually Works Heidi Cohen @heidicohen Chief Content Officer, Actionable Marketing Guide Presenting: The Continuous Content Distribution Playbook: How To Keep Your Best Content Visible and Viable While Saving Your Sanity Jay Baer @jaybaer Founder, Convince & Convert Presenting: Mouth Moves: How to Conquer the New Frontier of Voice Content, Alexa, and Smart Speakers Brian Fanzo @iSocialFanz Millennial Keynote Speaker, iSocialFanz Presenting: Press The Damn Button: How To Stand-Out From the Bad News and Fake News On Social Media Michael Brenner @BrennerMichael Keynote Speaker, Author & CEO, Marketing Insider Group Presenting: Content Marketing 101: Setting and Documenting Your Strategy and Building Your Team Andy Crestodina @crestodina Principal, Strategic Director, Orbit Media Presenting: Asking the Right Questions: How to Use Original Research for Valuable Content That Drives Business Results Presenting: How to Analyze Content Performance Using Google Analytics: From Basics to Advanced Presenting: Maximize the Value of Your Google Analytics Ian Anderson Gray @iagdotme Founder, Seriously Social Presenting: Strategies, Tools and Techniques to Level Up Your Impact and Authority Through Confident Live Video Christoph Trappe @CTrappe Chief Content Officer, AC Business Media Presenting: Publishing Forum: How Publishers Use Content Marketing to Monetize Their Audiences Julia McCoy @JuliaEMcCoy CEO, Express Writers Presenting: A Masterclass on Creating & Publishing Authority-Building SEO Blogs Bernie Borges @bernieborges CMO, Vengreso Presenting: Why You Need Content for Effective Sales Enablement Viveka Von Rosen @LinkedInExpert Chief Visibility Officer, Vengreso Presenting: A Whole New World - Reanimating your Desiccated Company Page on LinkedIn: Building Your Brand, Encouraging Employee Advocacy and Inviting Engagement with LinkedIn Pages. Ann Handley @MarketingProfs Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs Presenting: What Do We Want? CONTENT. When Do We Want It? ASAP. Your Strategic Approach to Sane + Sustainable Success Erika Heald @SFerika Consultant, Erika Heald Consulting Presenting: Community Rx: The Proper Care and Feeding for a Highly Successful Online Community Presenting: How to Define and Document Your Brand Voice Dennis Shiao @dshiao Marketing Consultant, Dennis Shiao Consulting Presenting: Community Rx: The Proper Care and Feeding for a Highly Successful Online Community Drew McLellan @DrewMcLellan Ad Agency Owner & Consultant, Agency Management Institute Presenting: Agency Edge 2019: How and Why Clients Around the World Choose Their Agencies Robert Rose @Robert_Rose Chief Strategy Advisor, Content Marketing Institute Presenting: Welcome to Content Marketing World 2019 Presenting: Content Marketing Strategy For Agencies – How To Create, As Well as Deliver, Content Marketing Strategy To Clients Presenting: Technology Forum A. Lee Judge @ALeeJudge Global Digital Marketing Manager, Hexagon Geosystems Presenting: Content Marketing for the Robots (Search Engine Marketing) Andrea Fryrear @AndreaFryrear President and Lead Trainer, AgileSherpas Presenting: Failure is Feedback: How to Succeed at Agile Marketing by NOT Doing These Things Andrew Pickering & Pete Gartland @AndrewAndPete Co-Founders, Andrew and Pete Presenting: The Secret Rule for Getting Massive Content Marketing Results in a Fraction of the Time Katie Martell @KatieMartell Executive Director, Boston Content Presenting: Trust Fail: How Brands Can Earn Back the Trust of Skeptical Buyers Tom Martin @TomMartin President, Converse Digital Presenting: Turning Conversations Into Customers Jay Acunzo @jayacunzo Founder, Marketing Showrunners Presenting: Creativity Impossible: How to Avoid Stagnation and Consistently Exceed Expectations Juntae DeLane @JuntaeDeLane Founder, Ditgital Branding Institute Presenting: Why Your Brand Works In The “Real World” But Fails When Online Cathy McPhillips @cmcphillips Vice President of Marketing, Content Marketing Institute Presenting: Getting the Most From CMWorld 2019 George Stenitzer @GeorgeStenitzer Founder & Chief Content Officer, Crystal Clear Communications Presenting: How to Use AI to Unlock Secrets Inside Questions Matt Heinz @HeinzMarketing President, Heinz Marketing Inc Presenting: Customer Engagement Benchmarks: How Today’s Top B2B Brands Increase Action, Intimacy, Conversion & Loyalty Scott Monty @ScottMonty CEO & Principal, Scott Monty Strategies Presenting: Curate Your Way to More Subscribers Kristina Halvorson @halvorson CEO, Brain Traffic Presenting: How to Conquer Content Chaos Donna Moritz @SociallySorted Visual Content Strategist & Founder, Socially Sorted Presenting: Travel/Tourism/Hospitality Forum - The World's Biggest Visual Content Team: How to Leverage Key Visual Storytellers, Strategies and Tools to Better Manage and Share Your Destination Experiences Kathy Klotz-Guest @kathyklotzguest Founder, Keeping It Human Presenting: 185 Comics Walk into a Storytelling Bar… Tom Augenthaler @taugenthaler Consultant, 551 Media LLC Presenting: What the ... Influencer Marketing! Amy Higgins @amywhiggins Content Strategist, Salesforce Presenting: Charting the Course to a Career in Content Marketing Joe Lazauskas @JoeLazauskas Head of Marketing, Contently Presenting: The Content Marketer of the Future: 5 Big Traits You Need to Thrive in the Coming Marketing Revolution Aaron Orendorff @AaronOrendorff Founder, iconiContent Presenting: How Connecting Content and Commerce Is the Future (And Can Drive 1,447% B2C Growth) Arnie Kuenn @ArnieK Founder & CEO, Vertical Measures Presenting: Should You Fire Your Chief Marketing Officer? My Farewell Gift Learned From 13+ Years of Being CEO of a Digital Agency Leslie Carruthers @LeslieCarruther President, The Search Guru Presenting: Retail & eCommerce Forum Berrak Sarikaya @BerrakBiz Integrated Marketing Specialist, Yesler Presenting: So You Think You Want to Start an Online Community? What to Know Before You Open the Doors Joe Pulizzi @JoePulizzi Founder, Content Marketing Institute Presenting: Getting the Most From CMWorld 2019 Presenting: Keynote - MKTG 2030 Ardath Albee @ardath421 CEO, Marketing Interactions, Inc. Presenting: Personalization that Drives Profitable Engagement: Activate, Don’t Alienate Andrew Davis @DrewDavisHere Author, Brandscaping & Town, INC. Presenting: Loyalty Loop: How Small Content Adds Up to Big Business Presenting: Video Marketing Makeover: Transforming Boring Case Studies and Testimonials Into Stories That Inspire Action Ashley Zeckman @azeckman Senior Director of Agency Marketing, TopRank Marketing Presenting: Guardians of Content Vol 1: How to Scale B2B Influencer Content to Save the Galaxy Amber Naslund @AmberCadabra Senior Content Marketing Evangelist, LinkedIn Presenting: Disrupting Thought Leadership: What It Really Takes To Create a Personal Content Platform That Works Ian Cleary @IanCleary Founder, RazorSocial Presenting: A Strategic Step-By-Step Approach to Drive More Traffic and Conversions From Your Existing Content Presenting: Content Optimization & Distribution Strategies Amy Balliett @AmyBalliett Founder and CEO, Killer Visual Strategies Presenting: How to Achieve a 70% Conversion Rate Using Interactive Content John Hall @johnhall Co-Founder and President, Calendar.com Presenting: Maximize Your Time To Focus On What's Most Important For Your Company's ROI Buddy Scalera @BuddyScalera Associate Director, Social Media Safeguarding and Solutions, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Company Presenting: We Can Do Better: How to Be a More Effective Marketing Professional Marcus Sheridan @TheSalesLion Keynote Speaker, Author and Partner, IMPACT Presenting: The Perfect Content Marketing Organization: 7 Essential Qualities of the World's Most Successful Content Marketing Companies Amanda Todorovich @amandatodo Content Marketing Director, Cleveland Clinic Presenting: How to Transform Your Corporate Blog into an Owned MEDIA Platform Presenting: #CMWorld Cleveland Clinic Health Summit

Spread the Content Marketing Wisdom & Love

Statistical analysis, no matter how deep and well-researched, can only go so far in finding the people who you'll find the most helpful and influential in your daily professional marketing lives, which is why we'd love it if you'd please share the name of content marketers that influence you most in the comments section below. To further your own content marketing expertise, here's a bonus list of some of our best recent posts about content marketing:

• Your Interactive Guide to Creating Showstopping Content with Insights From Top #CMWorld Speakers
• Wow Your Crowd: The Recipe for Creating Exceptional Content Experiences
• How Influencers and Media Integrations Can Add Pizzazz to Your Content Act
• Content Marketing Interview: Margaret Magnarelli on Applying Journalistic Integrity to Content Strategy #CMWorld
• How Content Marketers Can Create Powerful Audience Connections
• How Content Planning Sets the Stage for Unforgettable Experiences
• Content Marketing Planning: How to Build Your Editorial Calendar
• Cooked to Strategic Perfection: The Layers of a Deliciously Integrated Content Marketing Lasagna
• How to Refocus on Your Audience for Better Content Marketing Results

If you'd like to learn more about creating a successful B2B influencer marketing campaign and boosting your content marketing fitness, you're in luck! Both our CEO Lee Odden and senior director of digital strategy Ashley Zeckman will be presenting at Content Marketing World on the topics. Here are the details: Tuesday, September 3th – 1:00pm – 4:00pm Workshop with Lee Odden & Amisha Gandhi, vice president of influencer marketing and communications at SAP Ariba How to Develop a B2B Influencer Marketing Program That Actually Works Wednesday, September 4th – 2:00pm – 2:45pm Solo Presentation with Lee Odden Content Marketing Fitness – 10 Exercises to Build Your Marketing Beach Body Friday, September 6th – 8:00am – 8:45am Solo Presentation with Ashley Zeckman Guardians of Content Vol 1: How to Scale B2B Influencer Content to Save the Galaxy Along with our TopRank Marketing teammates Kelly Hogan, Susan Misukanis, and Joshua Nite, we hope to see you at the Content Marketing World conference. Check out what we're looking forward to most at CMWorld and be sure to follow us on Twitter at @toprank for real time updates during the conference and this blog for live-blogging coverage of select presentations.

The post 50 Content Marketing Influencers and Experts to Follow 2019 appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

16 Can’t-Miss Acts at the Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth: #CMWorld 2019

Come one! Come all! Come several! Come few!  Step right up! Don’t be shy! You there in the back, with the funny hat, step right up! You over there with the earrings and the weird mustache, come on in! There’s room for everyone under the Big Top, and it’s time for the Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth! That’s right, Content Marketing World is mere days away. There is no more exciting place for a content marketer to be next week than Cleveland, OH(sure, it would be great if it were in Hawaii next year, but Cleveland is not without its charms). There’s a lot to look forward to: The opening night festivities! The keynotes! The sessions! The potential to see amazing marketing geniuses do bad karaoke! If you’re headed to the big show, you have some tough decisions to make. There’s no way to see every must-see session live — there are 120 over just three days. But we’re here to help. Here’s our list of sessions we’re particularly excited to see. Use it to help guide your schedule-setting.

16 Can’t-Miss Sessions at Content Marketing World 2019

#1: How to Develop a B2B Influencer Marketing Program that Actually Works

Speaker(s): Lee Odden and Amisha Gandhi Time: 9/3, 1:00 p.m. Lee is the CEO of TopRank Marketing (maybe you’ve heard of him), but editorial bias aside, he’s well-recognized as a leading authority on B2B influencer marketing. Lee is doing for influencer marketing what Joe Pulizzi did for content: Turning it into a disciplined marketing strategy that gets results.  Amisha is the founder of the SAP* Global Influencer Program, responsible for creating and maintaining influencer relationships for a Fortune 500 brand, another pioneer in the B2B influencer marketing space.  Put them together and what have you got? An intense working session that will equip you with plenty of practical experience to apply to your own program.

#2: Keynote: MKTG 2030

Speaker: Joe Pulizzi Time: 9/4, 8:15 a.m. Going to Content Marketing World and missing Joe’s keynote would be like going to the Vatican and missing the Pope. Joe continues to be one of the guiding voices of content marketing. He’s sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes controversial, sometimes downright shocking — but he’s never boring.

#3: 3 Cs To Drive Your B(rand): Putting The Focus On Content, Customer, And Culture

Speaker: Maliha Aqeel Time: 9/4, 10:15 a.m. Customers are demanding consistent, and consistently exceptional, brand experiences. To meet that demand, marketers must step out of their comfort zone and work alongside sales, customer service, and customer experience. Maliha Aqeel has been working to build a holistic brand model at Ernst and Young, and her insights here are sure to inspire.

#4: Find Your Brand Voice And Connect With Your Customers

Speaker: Dipanjan Chatterjee Time: 9/4, 10:15 a.m. Here’s your first difficult choice: Forrester Vice President Dipanjan Chatterjee is presenting his company’s research on marketing for voice interaction at the same time as Maliha’s presentation. If your organization is exploring the potential of voice search and smart assistants, this is definitely a can’t-miss session. Pick the one most relevant to your current needs, and catch the other one on the replay.

#5: From Nontent To Content: Why Social Innovation Is The Future Of Winning At Relevance

Speaker: Carlos Abler Time: 9/4, 11:20 a.m. We’ve followed Carlos’ emergence as a content marketing thought leader for the last few years, as he’s gone from up-and-comer to sought-after public speaker. His work with 3M* has been consistently excellent.  This session seeks to turn content marketers into “social entrepreneurs” to deliver hyper-relevant content.

#6: Content Marketing Fitness - 10 Exercises to Build Your Marketing Beach Body

Speaker: Lee Odden Time: 9/4, 2:00 p.m.  I may not be the most physically fit guy in the world, but my content marketing strategy is totally buff. It’s all thanks to Lee’s content marketing fitness regimen: It’s all about trimming the fat, getting back to basics, and avoiding the temptation of new shiny objects. This session will help you ditch your content marketing bad habits and become a lean, mean, ROI machine.

#7: What Do We Want? Content. When Do We Want It? Asap. Your Strategic Approach To Sane + Sustainable Success

Speaker: Ann Handley Time: 9/4, 3:05 p.m. Ann Handley is a brand unto herself. Her name is synonymous with entertaining, high-quality, educational content. Just read the description for her session for a preview of how charismatic, relatable and knowledgeable she is. Just as you should never miss a chance to hear Lee Odden talk about influencers, you should never miss Ann Handley talking about content creation.

#8: Building A Business Case For Marketing Technology

Speaker: Zari Venhaus Time: 9/5, 10:15 a.m. Personalized content marketing at scale: That’s the dream. Martech is the only way we’re going to make that dream a reality. And until we have unlimited budgets, we’ll have to justify the expense of all that shiny new tech. As the Corporate Marketing Communications Director at Eaton, Zari has plenty of experience to bring to what promises to be a practical, tactical session.

#9: Diversity In Marketing Using Artificial Intelligence

Speaker: Robbee Minicola Time: 9/5, 10:15 a.m. Robbee is the Senior Director at Microsoft, so she’s bound to have the inside track on what’s happening with artificial intelligence. The idea of using AI for good — promoting diversity and inclusion in content, overcoming natural human biases — is particularly exciting to me. 

#10: Empathetic Content: The Key To Creating Lasting B2b Customer Relationships

Speaker(s): April Henderson and Laura Ramos Time: 9/5, 11:20 a.m. Data nerds, rejoice: April and Laura from Forrester Research are here to bring their insights about the evolving nature of B2B consumers. This session promises to teach five data-driven best practices in creating more empathetic content.

#11: Walking The Tightrope: Architecting Teams To Deliver Consistently Innovative Content Marketing Results

Speaker: Carla Johnson Time: 9/5, 11:20 a.m. If you’re in charge of a marketing team, this session is essential. Carla is a keynote speaker and an experienced practicing CMO who has worked with dozens of innovative brands. She’s had to take diverse groups and turn them into productive teams over and over again throughout her career. She’s sure to have fresh insights to help your team be more productive.

#12: Don't Let Them Scare You, A Machine Can't Do Marketing

Speaker: Tameka Vasquez Time: 9/5, 12:20 p.m. Will AI replace content marketers? What skills should we be developing to survive and thrive as technology takes over? Are we freaking out a little too much? Tameka, Assistant VP of Marketing at Genpact, promises a refreshing new take on what machines mean to marketing. 

#13: What the...Influencer Marketing!

Speaker(s): Amisha Gandhi, Tom Augenthaler Time: 9/5, 12:20 p.m. This session brings together an accomplished brand practitioner (Amisha Gandhi from SAP*), and a B2B Influencer Marketing consultant with a proven track record in the field. If you're just getting started with influencer marketing, or looking to level up to a more strategic, long-term program, this is the session for you.

#14: Disrupting Thought Leadership: What It Really Takes to Create a Personal Content Platform that Works

Speaker: Amber Naslund Time: 9/5, 1:45 p.m. In a way, personal thought leadership is just content marketing with yourself as the client. Amber Naslund of LinkedIn* has been instrumental in developing the social media site as a platform for thought leadership. Their forays into long-form social and personal publishing have set a new standard for the industry. This session will help you choose the right topics, develop your personal voice, and distribute your content where it will get seen.

#15: Ushering In The Era Of Integrated Marketing: How (and Why) Content Teams Can Drive Organizational Transformation

Speaker: Shafqat Islam Time: 9/5, 1:45 p.m. Already comfortable with your personal thought leadership? Attend this 1:45 session and start thinking bigger about marketing’s role in your larger organization. As I said, businesses are starting to take a more holistic approach to marketing/sales/customer experience, and someone needs to drive the bus. This session promises practical advice on reforming your teams to meet the challenge.

#16: Guardians Of Content Vol 1: How To Scale B2b Influencer Content To Save The Galaxy

Speaker: Ashley Zeckman Time: 9/6, 8:00 a.m. You’ll hear a lot about personalized, more relevant content throughout your Content Marketing World experience. TopRank Marketing’s own Ashley Zeckman offers one of the best ways to create that next-level content: Ongoing B2B influencer marketing at scale. Learn what brands like Dell* and Adobe* already know: How to co-create amazing content with influencers regardless of your industry or vertical.

See You Under the Big Top

The TopRank Marketing crew have brought you the best of #CMWorld for five years running, and we’re ready to bring the noise this year, too. We hope to see you there, but if you can’t make it, we have you covered. Look forward to liveblogs, tweetstorms, tons of takeaways and dozens of selfies. Subscribe now to stay up-to-date on Content Marketing World and beyond. *Disclosure: SAP, 3M, LinkedIn, Dell, and Adobe are TopRank Marketing clients.

The post 16 Can’t-Miss Acts at the Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth: #CMWorld 2019 appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.