August 05, 2014

In Case You Missed It: Recap of This Summer's Hottest Content Marketing News

Have you been out of the content marketing loop this summer? If so, it’s time to shake off the beach sand and get your content marketing strategy back on track. At Content Boost, we’ve been keeping up with all of the latest news from big acquisitions to future forecasts. So without further adieu, here is a recap of the most important happenings from around the content marketing industry:

Forrester study highlights need for quality content

Let’s face it; there is a flood of content spreading across the Internet. But is it all worth consuming? According to the results of a recent Forrester study, the majority of marketers are still struggling to produce quality content. In fact, just 4 percent of B2B content marketers are “true masters of content marketing.” And while 51 percent of respondents claimed that their content strategy is “very mature,” the majority find it difficult to produce engaging content. This is due to the fact that most marketers are now focusing on quantity over quality.

“In this mad rush to create all of this content, they’re not really thinking about how to make the content better or more compelling or more interesting,” explains Forrester VP Laura Ramos. “Marketers are still struggling to figure this out. They’re doing a lot of things around content marketing, but they fully admit they don’t think it’s going that well.”

Why this is important: Don’t underestimate the value of a dedicated, full-time content marketing staff. Whether it’s in-house or outsourced, marketers need to have a team of professional content producers, editors and directors to oversee issues like consistency and branding.

Want to read the full coverage about the Forrester report? Click here.

Joe Pulizzi offers valuable advice for content marketers

In the June, 2014 issue of Chief Content Officer Magazine, CMI Founder Joe Pulizzi offered some valuable advice for marketers who are struggling to understand how to approach content marketing: Stop thinking of content production as a campaign. According to Pulizzi, a campaign can result from content marketing; but it’s incorrect to say that content marketing is in fact a campaign.

As Pulizzi explains, this is an important lesson to teach your in-house staff, but it’s also important to think about when partnering with a content vendor.

“Be wary of any agency pitching you a campaign over a program,” explains Pulizzi. “There is one thing that’s certain with any campaign: It has an end date. Not so with content marketing.”

Why this is important: Instead of thinking about short term gains, focus on achieving long term goals like an impeccable brand image and a sustainable customer base. Focus on consistency over speed. And before you create any piece of content, think about whether it aligns with your company’s strategy and if it fits with your overall marketing agenda.

You can find Content Boost’s coverage of Pulizzi’s article here

LinkedIn purchases digital ad agency Bizo

LinkedIn has positioned itself as one of the biggest content distribution channels on the Web. Just a few months ago, the networking company released its Dynamic Duo dashboard, which provides marketers with trending topics that resonate most with their core audience as well as a way to measure how readers are engaging with content. Next, the social platform purchased Newsle, which helps businesses zero in on information about their most important contacts. And just recently, LinkedIn went a step further when it purchased digital ad agency Bizo.

Through social advertising, a targeted display and a quality metrics dashboard, Bizo allows marketers go the extra mile toward understanding exactly how readers are engaging with content.

Why it’s important: Join LinkedIn if you haven’t already! LinkedIn is an essential tool that you need to leverage in order to keep from falling behind your competition. The social networking platform offers access to over 300 million professionals looking to network. And it provides you with just about everything that you need to reach them—except for the actual content.

Matt Cutts takes a leave of absence from Google

Google engineer and Webspam team leader, Matt Cutts is officially on a leave of absence. In a recent blog post, Cutts informed readers that he will be out through at least October to spend more time with his wife.

Since joining Google almost 15 years ago, Cutts has emerged as one of the most visible— and powerful—players at Google. Amongst his greatest accomplishments at Google, Cutts spearheaded large scale anti-spam efforts like the Panda and Hummingbird algorithms and regularly helped website operators and marketers understand what it takes to reach No. 1 on Google. His personal blog, “Gadgets, Google, and SEO,” is a critical resource for understanding how to stay in compliance with Google.

But now, Cutts is on break. And you might feel like a teenager whose parents left you the house and car for the weekend.

“Thanks to a deep bench of smart engineers and spam fighters, the webspam team is in more-than-capable hands,” Cutts posted on his blog before he left. “Seriously, they’re much better at spam fighting than I am, so don’t worry on that score.”

Why it’s important: Even though Cutts may be out of the office for several months, very little—if anything—will change while he is gone. As a marketer, resist the urge to revert back to black hat SEO tactics, and don’t try and outsmart Google’s search engine spiders quite yet. Remember: quality content is king.

Gartner Study Shows Digital Marketing Budgets are on the Rise

According to Gartner’s new “Digital Marketing Spending Survey,” digital marketing budgets will increase by 10 percent this year.

According to Managing Vice President at Gartner Yvonne Genovese, marketing leaders are securing bigger budgets. This is helping to not only define markets, but also develop offerings and customer bases. As a result, companies are allocating an increasing amount of marketing dollars into digital marketing. 

Why it’s important: Make sure that content production is at the heart of your digital marketing strategy. Over the next 12 months, content marketing will emerge as the top area for marketing investment. This includes text, video, audio and image production across all digital marketing channels.

Click here to read our article on the Gartner report. 

The world of content marketing moves quickly, so it’s important to stay informed. You can stay on top of all of the latest news from across the industry by signing up for our monthly eNewsletter. 




Edited by Brooke Neuman




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