July 22nd, 2024
Popular wisdom has it that people like to read stories and that storytelling is a very important skill for content marketers to have—even if they work in the B2B realm. But what if your content team is hesitant about storytelling? How can you convince them of its importance?
This is a question I responded to recently on LinkedIn.
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Tags: Aristotle and rhetoric, content marketing, ethos, influence, influencing audiences, logos, pathos, persuasive copy, persuasive speaking, storytelling
Posted in Content Marketing, Strategic Communications | No Comments »
July 17th, 2024
Creating marketing communications materials can be challenging. After decades in the business (yeah, I’m “seasoned”… ), I’ve had multiple experiences with review processes—some great, some good, some not so good, and some absolutely horrendous and extremely frustrating.
Over the years I’ve come to identify a number of best practices that can help to both streamline the content review process and minimize frustrations along the way—for both content creators and subject matter experts.
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Tags: client input, client review process, content marketing, editing, proofreading, review processes, SEO, SEO review, slave to SEO
Posted in Content Marketing, Publishing | No Comments »
July 11th, 2024
Loyal fans are loyal fans. The more loyal they are the more they feel a sense of ownership over the brands they’re loyal to. Just ask Harley motorcycle owners. Because of their loyalty and sense of ownership, they can often be quite put off when brands make changes they don’t like. Like changes to the brand names they’ve become accustomed to.
Case in point: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: aligning your brand, brand advocates, Brand Management, changing brand names, consumer loyalty, customer engagement, customer loyalty, name change, rebranding
Posted in Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
July 9th, 2024
![Understanding the language of your audience - how SEO still works in 2024](http://blog.stratcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Great-content-300x200.jpg)
In my last blog I talked about what I’ve observed as a disconnect between how businesses often talk about their own products and services and how their prospects and customers talk about them. This disconnect can become a significant obstacle when it comes to SEO designed to get audiences to your website. If you’re not using the same words and phrases that your target audience uses when they’re looking for products and services like yours, they’re not likely to find you. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: content marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, understanding your audience, writing copy
Posted in Content Marketing | No Comments »
July 1st, 2024
Content marketing is still something that a lot of companies, large and small, continue to invest in. The ultimate goal, of course, is sales. But, along the way to a sale, content marketers must first capture attention, drive traffic to a website (in most cases), and deliver on the promise that their copy promo or social media post suggested.
SEO, or search engine optimization, has been a big part of this process. And, while I certainly consider SEO when crafting content for myself or my clients, I’m not a slave to it. Here’s why.
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Tags: content marketing, new SEO, SEO, simple SEO, writing for search engines, writing SEO
Posted in Content Marketing | No Comments »
June 26th, 2024
As I’ve worked within organizations and, for the past 15+ years as an external consultant, I’ve come to admit that most employees, including many senior leaders, really don’t enjoy strategic planning. I think one of the biggest reasons for this is that they see it as a waste of time. Lots of hours spent by lots of people in closed door meetings that lead to a laundry list of activities and assignments that rarely seem to drive meaningful change.
I’d get tired of that too. But I happen to really love the strategic planning process—when it’s done well.
Here are some reasons that I think many strategic planning efforts fail to capture the interest of employees (even senior leaders!), or lead to meaningful results.
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Tags: Strategic Planning, strategic planning assistance, strategic planning best practices, strategic planning consultants, success in strategic planning, why strategic planning doesn't work, why strategic planning fails
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
June 18th, 2024
I’ve been a rabid marketing practitioner for decades. I understand and believe in the power of marketing for companies of all types and sizes, across all industries.
And, I’ll admit, there have even been times when I’ve been too eager to turn to marketing when a go-slow approach might have served me better. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: B2B content marketing, communicating with customers, customer engagement, markeeting communication, new customer communication
Posted in Business Development, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
June 12th, 2024
I was writing a trends piece for a client recently and, as I often do, I posted a call for input on sites like SOS (formerly HERO), Connectively, Qwoted, and Help a B2B Writer. I received close to 200 responses! To help me sort through the input and get a sense for what the top trends were based on this expert input, I did a simple tally.
And I started to notice something interesting. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: GenAI, GenAI for marketing, generative AI, pros and cons of ChatGPT, using ChatGPT
Posted in AI - Artificial Intelligence, Content Marketing, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
June 4th, 2024
I was playing Solitaire on a flight recently and was struck by how much I like developing and following standardized processes, yet how likely I am to vary from a process when I think it’s appropriate.
The trouble is Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: being innovative, consistency in processes, creativity, following processes, Innovation, process management, process variation, variating from process
Posted in Career Advice | No Comments »
May 29th, 2024
When I talk to people about their greatest challenges with social media, what I most frequently hear is “fnding time to stay engaged.”
I can definitely relate.
Currently I’m attempting to maintain two Twitter accounts (business), two LinkedIn accounts (business) and one Facebook account (personal) for myself, along with a growing number of accounts for clients. And, I need to Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: best practices in social media marketing, communicating on social media, marketing with social media, results with social media, social media advertising
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »