Even worse? It seems the issue stemmed from forgetting to renew the marketo.com domain.

I could just see the counter vigorously ticking away at the number of f-bombs that must have been collectively dropped across MKTO HQ yesterday. How embarrassing.

Not surprisingly, there was a TON of online activity around the matter.

Reactions to Marketo Going Down

Walking into the office to find out @marketo is down pic.twitter.com/FEhHtitjwA

— Tom (@espo92) July 25, 2017

GoDaddy's revenue is going to spike today as 10,000 terrified companies frantically renew their domains in 100 year increments #Marketo

— Melissa (@melissa__juarez) July 25, 2017

@marketo @MarketoCares your docs website is a bit borked at the moment. pic.twitter.com/Go2Aovzjjz

— Ian O'Brien (@MinimalMethod) July 26, 2017

To all the marketers out there who came in and saw #MarketoDown I feel you so hard. Let's grieve lost leads together… pic.twitter.com/N9UQYuhLKh

— Rina Kay (@rinaakay) July 25, 2017

There was also a slew of email and online advertising campaigns that came my way. One in particular generated a colorful dialogue between my team and our CEO. The below email came from Act-On, a Marketo competitor Curata reviewed when it first launched in 2013.

I’ll give it to Act-on, they moved fast, but it really rubbed me the wrong way. And this is coming from a former Eloqua employee who lived and worked through a very passionate rivalry with the big purple guys in the early 2000’s where finding new and better ways to out-market each other was a non-stop extreme sport!

Here’s why I didn’t like it:

• My mom always said, “Do unto others…” We all have bad days. Will Act-On be looking over their shoulders from now until their bad day comes?
• The channel was wrong. How effective is this mass email to existing Marketo customers going to be? Yes, yesterday was painful, but would I be willing to uproot arguably the core of my marketing tech stack over one bad day?
• There were so many better ways Act-On could have leveraged the #MarketoFail. Here are three that sprang to mind during a sleepless night.

Three Ways Act-On Could’ve Played the #MarketoFail Better

1. Be Helpful and Add Value—like RevEngine Marketing did with their blog and email effort, “What Should You Do Once Marketo is Back?”
2. Share a Good Laugh and Generate Social Buzz—Clearly Act-On knows some Marketo customers. Imagine if they had local employees drop off a handful of puzzles or board games to local Marketo customers with a subtly branded note card that read “Use these instead of twiddling your thumbs while Marketo’s down.” For those not reachable physically—email a gift certificate to the iTunes or Google Play store to download a premium game. I don’t know about you, but if I got that message, I would’ve laughed and told my team about it. Then I would’ve snapped a pic and posted it to our social channels as a great (and clever) marketing campaign and logged Act-On as a company with a smart marketing machine.
3. Use a Spear, Not a Net—I’m not that naive. This kind of major mistake is like striking oil for a sales team. So arm them to use it. Have them call their open opportunities and offer that helpful and value-adding content from idea #1 as a connect point. Heck—consider offering a promotional discount to the known Marketo opportunities who are considering moving.

Not everyone had the same reaction to the Act-On email as I did. My CEO thought it was quite clever! But what’s your take? Was Act-on’s email smart or stupid?

Whether you’re responsible for your company’s content marketing strategy or just want to learn more about content marketing, The Content Marketer’s Guide to Marketing Nation 2017 in San Francisco has something for you. It’ll help you find the best sessions, vendors, and fun that this year’s event has to offer.

With four Marketing Nation Summits under my belt, let’s start with some general advice for getting the most out of the conference.

Talk to people… and continue the conversation when you get home

Add like-minded Marketo minds to your network this week. Introduce yourself, share your marketing successes and aggravations, and bond over a few cocktails at the events. You’ll learn plenty at the sessions, but having a group of smart marketers to reach out to throughout the year when you need tips, tricks, or even your next career move is the most valuable thing you can take away from Summit. Set up a monthly chat with your new squad when you get back to the office.

Remember that sponsors are there to help you

No one wants to be sold to; it’s human nature. But every single booth in the expo hall is full of people trying to make you a better marketer. Review the sponsors before the show (see our picks below) and make sure to take some time to visit vendors during the week. Not only will you walk away with some great swag, you could come home with technology that takes your organization to the next level (and make you look really smart too!)

Don’t be hard on yourself

You’re going to hear from a lot of really smart people doing really sophisticated marketing. But they all have a secret… they started out just where you are. Soak up their ideas and experience and get fired up to implement some of their programs at your organization!

Sunday, April 23rd: Kick Off

Marketo isn’t wasting any time this year. The Marketing Nation Summit kicks off on Sunday with a Fun Run, University Day, Certification and, most importantly, the Opening Reception in the Expo Hall! Even if you’re local, make the trek to Moscone. The reception goes from 5:00pm—7:00pm. It’s a great way to start the conference, meet up with your marketing friends (or make new connections), and see what fun sponsors have cooked up to make the week special. (Hint: follow the smell of cupcakes to Curata’s booth.)

Monday, April 24th: It’s Content Time

Avoid the snooze button—the conference kicks off in earnest this morning. One of Marketo’s 3 Can’t-Miss Learnings at Marketing Nation Summit 2017 is The Art of Storytelling. Grab your coffee and note-taking apparatus and settle in. Monday boasts the most sessions for marketers committed to content.

8:30am—11:00am

Day 1 Marketing Nation keynoteKeynote

Speakers: Steve Lucas, CEO, Marketo | James Corden, Tony-Award-winning performer, host of The Late Late Show on CBS
3rd Floor

You might know James Corden from his viral sketches for The Late Late Show. These include Carpool Karaoke and Role Call, where he invites guests such as Matt Damon and Tom Hanks to act out their entire filmography in 6-7 minutes. (I suggest starting with Adele.) Before that, he rose to prominence in the UK with the hit series Gavin & Stacey, which he co-wrote.

Our Take? Get ready to laugh and learn a thing or two about storytelling.

11:30am—12:15pm

What’s Your Story? How Powerful Narratives Drive Great Companies

Speaker: Deb Lavoy, CEO, Narrative Builders @deb_lavoy
Room 2002/2004

Keep the storytelling theme going! A strong, structured narrative is the backbone of any long-term multi-faceted marketing effort, guiding business, content and even product decisions. Narratives aren’t vague constructs—you can actually measure them.

Our Take? No one wants a scattered content marketing strategy. This session arms you with the tools to help you step back, assess, and strengthen your company’s narrative. Bonus: see below for the corresponding workshop!

After lunch, things really heat up. You’ll have some choices to make for some of these session blocks. Here are our picks:

1:15pm—2:00pm

Content & Social Are For Everyone (Marketo @ Marketo)

Speakers: Ellen Gomes, Sr. Content Marketing Program Manager, Marketo @egomes1019
Lisa Marcyes, Sr. Social Media Marketing Manager, Marketo @lisa_marcyes
Room 2014/2016

Read Marketo’s blog? Follow @marketo on Twitter? You’re in luck. Marketo’s Lisa Marcyes and Ellen Gomes share tried and true tactics and examples for creating stellar content that work whether you’re a team of two or a global enterprise.

Our Take? Do you, like us, admire Marketo’s content strategy and social presence? Check this session out to learn how they build and execute on their content marketing strategy.

2:15pm—3:00pm

Human to Human #H2H: Learn to Speak Human, Share Human, and Market Human

Speaker: Bryan Kramer, President/CEO, PureMatter @bryankramer
Room 2005/2007

Are you B2B or B2C? Whatever you answered, you’re wrong. Business and products don’t have emotions; humans do. That’s #H2H marketing. Bryan explores why and how communication needs to be adjusted to exude simplicity, empathy, and imperfection. He delivers practical tools to connect with other humans and be better marketers.

Our take? Content feeling a little impersonal? This session helps you develop tools for more human marketing.

The Three Pillars for Potent Content Marketing

Speaker: Jeff Bullas, Founder/CEO @jeffbullas
Room 2001/2003

Coming at you all the way from Australia, Jeff shares the core content marketing pillars to embrace and master in 2017. Learn how to attract traffic to your content, create content people engage with and love to share, and how to produce content ROI. Understand the content marketing trends you need to beat the competition.

Our take? Check out this session to learn new tactics and tricks for keeping up with the ever-changing digital marketing landscape.

3:30pm—4:15pm

[Workshop] How Strong Is Your Corporate Narrative? Come Find Out!

Speaker: Deb Lavoy, CEO, Narrative Builders @deb_lavoy
Room 2010

Try your hand at assessing your own narrative using the Narrative Strength Assessment scorecard. You’ll get a snapshot into your narrative’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s the first step toward building a deliberate and powerful corporate narrative.

Our take? Get your hands dirty. Rather than a high-level overview, get personalized insights into your own corporate narrative and take action when you return to the office.

Monday Night: Time to Party on the Sponsor’s Dime!

After the networking reception in the Expo Hall from 5:30pm-7:00pm, there are several partner parties to hit up! Don’t be fashionably late unless you like waiting in line. Here are my favorites:

Taking You To The Top, The Battery Club Penthouse, 7pm-10pm
Turn your Snapchat followers green with envy—these views are spectacular.
RSVP
(717 Battery Street, 7 minute Uber from Moscone)

The Tiki Experience, Pagan Idol, 9pm
Who doesn’t love a Tiki Bar?
RSVP
(375 Bush St, 15 minute walk from Moscone)

Tuesday, April 25th: Afternoon Delight

Tuesday really picks up after lunch with some great sessions for the content marketer. We’re not recommending you blow off the morning and sleep in. But maybe take this time to check out some sponsors when the Expo Hall isn’t too crowded.

11:00am—1:00pm

Day 2 Marketing Nation Keynote

Speakers:
Chandar Pattabhiram, CMO, Marketo
Queen Latifah, Grammy Award-winning musician and critically acclaimed actress
3rd Floor

Get ready to bow down to rapper, songwriter, singer, actress, model, television producer, record producer, and talk show host, Queen Latifah! She’ll be joining Marketo CMO Chandar Pattabhiram for the Day 2 Keynote.

Our take? Expect to hear more about the art of storytelling at this keynote. (Just don’t hold your breath for a duet.)

2:30pm—3:15pm

2017: The Year of Tough Choices

Speaker: Michael Brenner, CEO, Marketing Insider Group @BrennerMichael
Room 2001/2003

How do successful marketers decide what to create, where to distribute it, and how to measure it? Marketing expert Michael Brenner offers a simple framework for deciding which activities (and content) will have the biggest impact on your bottom line.

Our take? Brenner boasts that brands big and small have re-invigorated their marketing by using one simple question. Don’t you want to know what that is?

4:45pm—5:30pm

How to Build a Killer Content Marketing Strategy

Speaker: Amanda Todorovich, Director, Content Marketing, Cleveland Clinic @amandatodo
Room 2009/2011

Cleveland Clinic boasts the most visited healthcare blog in the country, 1.3 million Facebook likes, and 750,000 Twitter followers. Learn how they achieved rapid success, grew their content team, and used marketing automation to get more from their content.

Our take? We love hearing from marketers who are in the trenches, fighting the good fight. Amanda is no slouch—she was the Content Marketing Institute’s 2016 Content Marketer of the Year. This session is not to be missed.

Wednesday, April 26th: Highly Sessionable

No keynotes on Wednesday, but there are some great sessions on the last day of Marketing Nation. If you haven’t yet, check out the Marketo Champion Bar to get your toughest Marketo questions answered!

9:30am—10:15am

HOOKED: How Clever Brands Create Addictive Content That Drive Revenue

Speaker: Andrew Davies, Founder/CEO, Monumental Shift @DrewDavisHere
Room 2002/2004

We live in a world where our customers are drowning in content. How can you stand out? Former television producer and agency executive Andrew Davis will teach you how to create content so good it’s addictive.

Our take? I heard Andrew give a similar talk at the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum. He’s a high-energy speaker, and you’ll walk away inspired to create content with a hook. It involves Muppets, so…

10:30am—11:15am

How Allocadia Squeezed More Demand Gen, Sales Enablement, & ABM Juice Out of Our Content Marketing

Speaker: Matt Davis, Director of Content & Digital Marketing, Allocadia @matt_vancouver
Room 2022/2024

Do you have a lot of content? So did Allocadia. Learn how they built a better home for their content using Uberflip and Marketo. And the positive impact it had on their MQLs, ABM programs, and sales teams.

Our take? I know, I know… a vendor session! But marketing technology is here to help, and it’s valuable to hear how other marketers are making the most of their tech stack.

Expo Hall Guide

You’re attending sessions, frantically scribbling all the ideas you want to implement at your own organization. Need some help? Head on over to the Expo Hall on the first floor to talk to vendors that can help take your content strategy to the next level. Keep some room in your suitcase for great swag!

Content Marketing Platforms
Curata
Kapost
NewsCred

Content Hubs
LookbookHQ
Uberflip

Content Curation
Curata

Interactive Content
SnapApp
ion interactive

Video
Brightcove
Vidyard
Wistia
GoAnimate

Curata is hosting a Demo Zone throughout the conference. Sign up to see a quick demo of our Content Marketing Platform and Content Curation Software. (Bonus: you walk away with a sweet Tuxedo t-shirt!)

Extracurricular Activities

The Marketing Nation Summit is back in San Francisco. While Vegas was a bold change of scene, SF is not lacking when it comes to things to see, eat, and imbibe. Fair warning: what happens in San Francisco might not stay there…

Have you tried the infamous sushiritto? Head to the aptly-named Sushiritto to try this buzzy new item. 59 New Montgomery St., eight minutes walk from Moscone.

Long line at Starbucks? Check out the robot barista at Cafe X, just across the street in the Metreon. It might just spell your name right… 135 4th St., two minutes walk from Moscone.

Do you know the password? San Francisco is known for speakeasies, and Rickhouse is a classic option for cocktails. 246 Kearny St., 11 minutes walk from Moscone.

Prefer ballparks to crowded bars? If you’re not feeling the parties, the SF Giants are hosting the LA Dodgers at AT&T Park on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evening. Grab your coworkers and some new friends and root, root, root for the home team! Tickets start at $18.00 on StubHub and MLB.com. (24 Willie Mays Plaza, 21 min walk from Moscone)

Have a little too much fun? You might want to grab a juice at Joe & The Juice (301 Howard St., 13 minutes walk from Moscone). We suggest the Hangover Heaven. Need something more decadent? The Bird keeps it simple: fried chicken sandwiches and curly fries. Opens at 8am. (115 New Montgomery St., 6 minute walk from Moscone.)

Want more? Check out Eater’s map of Where to Eat and Drink in SoMa.

Marketing Nation Summit 2017

There’s plenty to satisfy content marketers at the 2017 Marketing Nation Summit. Come visit Curata at booth #S742 or our Demo Zone. And let us know in the comments if you have hot tips for navigating the conference or fun things to do outside Moscone. Hope to see you there!

There’s no doubt that content marketing must be part of your marketing strategy, however, you won’t get too far without putting a solid measurement process in place.  A key part of this process must be integration with your marketing automation system. With this in mind, I spent two days at Marketo’s Marketing Nation Summit 2014 to learn how connected marketing automation practitioners are to content marketing.  Bottom line?. . . Although social media and content marketers are delivering some great, non-egocentric content to their audience, there’s still a big disconnect between content marketing and lead nurturing/automation; especially from a measurement perspective.

For those of you unable to attend, or simply looking for the highlights from this event, I provided below a summary of my takeaways as well as key points by each of the speakers and panelists from a content marketing perspective:

• Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, @MarketingProfs
• Renaud Bizet, CRM Marketing Mgr., Bio-Rad Laboratories
• Stefan Nandzik, Sr. Mgr. Field Alignment, Citrix Sytems
• Phil Fernandez, CEO, Marketo @PhilF1217
• Cyrus Shepard, Content Astronaut, Moz @CyrusShepard
• Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Marketing @LeeOdden

All insight is sourced, paraphrased and quoted from the respective individuals, except for my personal comments which are in [brackets].

Dear Diary: A Content Marketing Makeover

By Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, @MarketingProfs

• Content marketing challenges:
  • “I created a blog post and I tweeted four times. . . no one commented?”
  • “Everybody is doing sex, but few do it well. . . . just like everyone does content marketing, but few do it well.”  Only 42% of content marketers say that they’re doing it well according to a MarketingProfs study.
• Solutions:
  • Great content = Useful x Empathy x Inspired
  • OWN the media, don’t rent it. (learn how to create a multi-author blog from Brian Clark and Mike Stelzner)
  • Steal best practices from traditional publishers:
    • Have a mission. [What are your goals and objectives?  Ensure they align with the rest of the organization.]
    • Focus on the reader first, not what your CEO wants.
    • Tell stories about people.
    • Think content ecosystem, not content campaign.
    • Tell true stories well.  Words are your currency.
  • How to go beyond publishers:
    • Think experience, not just narrative.
    • Empathy hack:  Use ‘You” to better connect with your audience (check out other marketing hacks here by David Skok and SiriusDecisions)
    • Experiment, have fun with your content marketing.  Seth Godin is always a great example of this in action. [Interested in finding out your content marketing animal spirit? Take our quiz.]
    • Place lots of small wagers. [As with traditional marketing, use multiple channels for content distribution and promotion.  Always market your marketing!]
    • Have a can do, do it yourself attitude. [Today’s marketing technology makes this easier than ever before, even if you’re not a technical person.]
    • Look for what no one else is talking about. [You’ve heard about “thinking outside of the box.”  Well, this is the perfect strategy to take for content marketing to increase your ROI.
  • What does your data tell you? Ann offered up a great example about lplegal.com – Levenfeld Pearlstein, LLC attorneys. Based upon an analysis of their digital marketing data, they determined that their “Our People” page was a great source for recruiting.  Therefore, they came up with a fun design for this site to increase audience engagement.
  • Innovation is more about brains than budget.  [Don’t be intimidated by the big budgets being spent by your competitors.  Digital marketing has leveled the playing field for all marketers. And while you’re at it, do put someone in charge of your content strategy like 43% of your peers have already done.]

Establishing a Global Demand Center

by Renaud Bizet, CRM Marketing Manager, Bio-Rad Laboratories and Stefan Nandzik, Sr. Manager Field Alignment, Citrix Sytems

• Bio-Rad:  $2B+ revenue
  • Challenges:
    • 5 different email marketing systems. (decentralized)
    • Lack of common best practices.
    • Nobody owned customer relationships.
    • They couldn’t measure success.
    • No integrated marketing and sales funnel.
  • Solutions:
    • Built a CRM center of excellence (CoE) team that is part of the marketing services group.
      • Own Marketo platform. (not managed by IT)
      • Other responsibilities: Lead generation; platform optimization; business intelligence (understand customer interactions across all platforms – SEM, SEO, content marketing, SF.com, etc.)
      • CoE team initiatives:
        • Engaged the rest of the marketing organization through continuous education. (e.g., best practices blog – internal use only)
        • Used technology to improve demand generation efficiency and effectiveness. (e.g., they created a name generator to ensure marketing campaigns have consistent names across all systems that are meaningful.)
        • Developed a requirements document with a checklist to standardize campaign processes. (e.g., target audience, timing and flow of tactics)
        • Tracked who is assigned MQLs within sales to better enable auditing capabilities between Marketo and SF.com.
• Citrix: $2.9B revenue
  • Challenges:
    • Every marketing group (i.e., corporate marketing, WW demand generation, product marketing) used to have their own campaigns, processes, systems and other resources.
  • Solutions:
    1. Assess existing models of how teams are running email marketing.
       • Internal team: using the CRM email module (Baseline Cost=x)
       • External agency: using a newsletter engine (Cost = 1.2X)
       • Internal automation team: using marketing automation (Cost = 0.5x)
    2. Recommended migrating to ONE marketing automation system with ONE internal team to manage the process and system, and to collaborate on best practices.
    3. Created a (Demand) Center of Excellence (CoE) team
       • CoE team to support: WW demand generation and product marketing teams that report into corporate marketing, as well as the Americas and EMEA marketing teams that report into Field Sales
       • Developed service level agreements (SLAs)
         • Audience governance (eg., touch frequency, rules)
         • Capacity planning (e.g., audience design, quantity and type of communications)
         • Monitoring (KPIs)
           • Open rate > X%
           • Click rate >X%
           • Leads/form submits
           • Unsubscribe <X%
    • Building the Global Demand CoE for scale: Citrix CoE team services 100+ mktg. managers
      • Collaboration: Use ticketing and/or collaboration systems (e.g., for SLA monitoring, capacity monitoring, charge back)
      • Globalization:  CoE team representation is in each region.  Do not try to do it remotely from corporate.
      • Scalability: Address with an agency model.  Citrix CoE team consists of core folks (“Internal Team”) and an extended team to support scale (“Scalable Team”). [Think of a hub and spoke system.]
        • Internal demand center team:
          • Focused on projects, segmentation, service requests.
          • Limited by headcount, and team size doesn’t change much with budget.
        • Scalable Team: (this team flexes with budget)
          • Campaign managers:
            • Manage campaigns from start to finish.
            • Act as relationship managers with business stakeholders.
          • Producers:
            • Deeply engaged with Marketo and its day to day use.
            • Shielded from business stakeholders so they can stay focused on project and technology execution.

Marketo Keynote

by Phil Fernandez, CEO Marketo @PhilF1217

• The key theme of Marketing Nation 2014?. . . .Innovation!
• The reality is that we’re at the very beginning of a marketing transformation.
• Marketing transformation = 1 on 1 communication, continuous engagement, behavioral data and an integrated experience.
• New Marketo features:
  • Real time personalization across all channels & devices.
  • An integrated marketing calendar and financial management tool.
  • Search engine optimization.

How to Survive the Google Tornado

by Cyrus Shepard, Moz @CyrusShepard

• New hope for marketers. . . Google changes are for the good, rewarding marketers for good content.
• The Past:  
  • Rank as high as you can!
  • Provide a lot of information.
• Today:
  • Organic results are being pushed off the page by paid ads and Google-generated content
  • Google’s redesign (i.e., small “ad” icons in yellow) reduces ad “blindness,” making organic results less obvious
  • Google’s new features often favor Google properties (gives you an indication of Google’s strategic direction)
  • Hummingbird enables greater ability to search for “meaning” versus “keywords”
• What can marketers do?
  • Focus on providing better answers for your audience:  Know that Google wants you to have “answers” for its audience. . . not just a lot of information.
  • Continue to invest in mobile phone searches, but don’t drop support of desktop searches.
  • Move from keywords to concepts.
    • Move from manipulation to actual meaning. (keywords are still important, but more so in context)
    • Focus on keyword themes, keyword topics.  Keywords need context to rank.
  • Schema, Meta Data
    • Google will reward you for adding structured data to your site(s)
    • Enhance SERPs, enable Google+ authorship
    • Increase social sharing as a way to increase distribution. . . . resulting in improved SEO
  • Move from web pages to authority [think content marketing]
    • Google will reward you for regularly publishing content on a specific topic
    • Attach real people to your content (e.g., Google Authorship)
    • Answer many questions in your content. (e.g., Review your audience’s questions, and answer those throughout your content.)
    • Publish many content pieces on a consistent theme [Follow the Content Marketing Pyramid framework]
  • From Links to Endorsements
    • Links are still used by Google as a measurement of endorsement . . however, Google is getting smarter about what’s an editorial link versus “spammy” or paid links
    • Google will value non-linking endorsements by real people
    • Links through Google properties is even more valuable (e.g., through Google+)
  • From page views to satisfaction
    • Google moving towards a satisfied web experience, one that answers questions
    • Focus on measuring bounce rate, time on your site, pages per visit, share rate, mention rate
    • Google is adding “Satisfaction” to its current SEO factors of relevance, popularity and trust
    • Obsess over page speed to increase satisfaction
• Moz content marketing strategy: Give away as much as can for free, with the heaviest piece of content gated.

Attract, Engage, Convert – How to be the Best Answer Wherever Customer are Looking

by Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Marketing @LeeOdden

• Integrated marketing means your brand is the best answer when & where your buyers need it
• Content marketing maturity model = SEO + Social Network & Influencers (create utility, tell stories, monetize)
• 5 steps to content marketing awesome:
  • ID customer segments.
  • Map the buying journey.
  • What questions do they have during the sales cycle. (e.g., ASK THEM, use social media monitoring)
  • Leverage those question and answers for your content plan.
  • Optimize for search, social and user experience.
• Create a hub, or deep repository of information . . . is core to your promotion and networking. There’s nothing better to beat traditional and newer/paid advertising models. [Real world examples powered by Curata’s content curation and creation software: GreenDataCenterNews by Verne Global, IT Strategist by Alcatel-Lucent or IBM Big Data Hub]
• Where to start for your content marketing efforts?. . . Start with a blog for ease of implementation and building your business case.
• For additional information by Lee:
  • Presentation: http://slideshare.net/toprank
  • Free download of Lee’s ebook: http://tprk.us/contentsmarts14

Did you get a lot of value from these highlights?  If so, then you should definitely check out these other resources:

• The Ultimate Social Media Marketing World Wrap Up (from a content marketing perspective)
• Growth Hacking for Marketing by David Skok & SiriusDecisions
• Content Marketing Tactics Planner (A survey of 500+ content marketers)

Or contact us directly to learn how Curata’s content marketing and curation software can help feed your content beast.

Identifying Challenges

Several of the experts we talked to cited sustaining content creation over the long haul as a key challenge. Jeannine Rossignol, VP marketing communications at Xerox, says the initial challenge was understanding their brand’s target audience and what was important to that audience. Then came the task of maintaining the flow of content. “How are we going to sustain it so it’s relevant, engaging, and targeted?” she points out.

Often, content creation is delegated to only one or two employees who many burn out over time due to the constant need to feed the content beast, points out Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing. “Folks can feel like they’ve run out of ideas,” he says.

Jon Miller, VP of Marketing and cofounder at Marketo, echoes this point, adding that it’s also challenging to create compelling thought leadership that says something new to elevate your brand. He also mentions the difficulty of “creating enough variety and types of content to engage broad audiences at different stages of the buying cycle.” This relates directly to how marketers focus too much on talking about themselves and their own brands, supporting the notion to stop egocentric marketing.

Developing Solutions

But while these companies face similar challenges, their marketing pros have different approaches to overcoming them. Rob Yoegel, Content Marketing Director at Monetate, stresses the importance of hiring someone with writing abilities and subject matter knowledge rather than simply hiring a journalist to tackle content marketing.

Rossignol says when Xerox examined the company’s case studies, they realized that they weren’t telling them from the customers’ perspective. Instead of writing up case studies in a challenge/solutions/results template, they started interviewing customers more and inviting them to blog about the issues they’re facing.  The result?  Now it’s completely from their perspective. This approach is a great content marketing technique to provide different opinions, and to market your brand through the voice of your customer. Combining both the company perspective and the customer prospective allow the buyer to understand the full breadth of your offering.

Miller suggests approaching content marketing from multiple angles: creating your own content, reaching out to third-party writers through online marketplaces, and curating content. “Go out and find really good content, and curate it with your own commentary to create a holistic view of all the different kinds of content you might want,” he says.

Of course, “any content a brand publishes should be aligned with its customers”, as Odden points out. “Tap into the stories that will connect with solving problems for customers and at the same time communicate the value you bring as a brand,” he says. Communities can be “never-ending sources of ideas to fuel your content marketing efforts.”

Using Curation to Address Content Marketing Challenges

Several of these experts stressed the importance of content curation as part of a best-in-class content marketing program. Miller says it’s especially useful during the relationship-nurturing phase. As an example, he mentions someone he’s known for a couple of years who periodically sends links to articles in the New York Times or the Economist and adds a little bit of his own commentary. “It’s an incredibly powerful way to maintain the relationship,” Miller says. Curation is also helpful in reaching multiple customer personas at multiple stages of the buying process.

Curation plays a critical part in content marketing’s goal to become a publisher in your target market, according to Yoegel. “Your can’t do it all,” he says. “You have to curate the best content from different websites and publishers and put that out to your customers.”

When Xerox began publishing a new magazine around the theme of optimism, Rossignol says the company partnered with Forbes to “help tell the story and give us permission to play with our targeted audience.” She says the combination of the original and curated content  “gives our prospective clients a fuller picture” of the topics they read about.

Are you faced with similar challenges at your organization? We’d love to hear from you and learn how you overcame your content marketing challenges. Please post a comment below or drop us a line at [email protected] and we may feature you in an upcoming post.

Who doesn’t love a little content marketing coverage?

Our surveys in the past have indicated that many businesses are rapidly adopting both marketing automation and content marketing. In October, we surveyed over 450 marketing professionals and found that 87% of them are currently using marketing automation. Compared to the previous year, content marketing and search engine optimization were the only two marketing strategies that grew from the previous year. There’s a similar story when it comes to marketing automation. The Aberdeen group found that a quarter of all business now use marketing automation, and 58% of top-performing businesses have adopted it.

Despite all the excitement for these two marketing strategies, there’s a big elephant in the room. Anyone who has tried content marketing or marketing automation is familiar with it, but few are able to tackle it: content. For both content marketing and marketing automation to be successful, you need content. For a demand generation program to be successful, you need content. It can’t just be any content though. It needs to be compelling, relevant, and engaging content.

Most marketers simply lack the time, resources, and staff to produce sufficient content. In most organizations, it often falls to the bottom of the priority list, leading to suboptimal results in any marketing campaign that is dependent on a steady stream of content. At Curata, we are familiar with the old journalism saying of “feeding the content beast,” and we understanding intimately the marketers’ never ending need for content.

Using Curata, marketers can supplement their original content with relevant curated third-party content. They can then integrate that content into the email marketing, blogging, and social media strategies. For marketers who are interested in serving that content through their existing marketing automation systems and lead nurturing programs, we hope this partnership is a step in that direction.