content marketing world

This year, I went to CMWorld — again. (It was so great last year that I decided to go again in 2018! And I plan on going in 2019, too.) I brought our Content Director with me. And we had a blast. Content marketers getting together, talking about content, is always a good thing in my book. The event happened Tuesday, September 4 — Friday, September 7, in beautiful Cleveland, Ohio. Hannah and I attended the kickoff party at the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, the keynotes and sessions in the Main Conference Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and took flights home Thursday night. Besides the sessions and speakers, it was absolutely wonderful to see friendly faces while there — hug friends, meet online friends IRL, talk content, and chat over breakfast and dinner. I walked away with some great insights from the event. Here are my major takeaways from this year’s trip to Content Marketing World. Have you heard? My Expert SEO Content Writer Course is now open for beta launch — for a limited time only. Save your seat here! CMWorld 2018: 8 Biggest Takeaways & Content Marketing Lessons This year’s keynote speaker to start the event was Andrew Davis, and to wrap up the event was Tina Fey, aka Liz Lemon, a huge attraction for many of us marketers. (Also, YAY for #girlpower and bringing a woman to deliver the main and final keynote! Kudos, Content Marketing Institute team.) Before Andrew Davis opened with the first keynote, Robert Rose and Joe Pulizzi took to the stage. And it was awesome. 1. Today’s Most Important Marketing Element is Trust First: Robert Rose introduced the “player” to fit well into this year’s theme at CMWorld, Game On. Player 2 in today’s marketing, he revealed, is trust. As marketers, he said, we’ve entered the game of talent, trust, and technology. AI is out there. Tech is sophisticated. But the values we have will come from talent driven by trust. The media trust isn’t there. We’ve got to create it and deliver on it, as marketers. 2. Record, Repeat, Remove & FOCUS for More Success in Marketing Joe Pulizzi took to the stage next, amidst many whoops of joy from the crowd (I may have added to the noise — he is, after all, one of my all-time favorite content marketing heroes). We all miss him, ever since he ended the PNR With This Old Marketing Podcast and stepped down from CMI after it was acquired by UBM. Of course, even if he did sell CMI, he sure didn’t let go of any of his stylish orange outfits. Two new things I learned about Joe: He majored in rhetoric His favorite book: Stranger in a Strange Land (I bought it and plan to read it!) Joe said that on his first few months off (the first time in years he’s had that much time off!), he studied success. And here’s what he learned. First, he asked this of all of us: Have you made a positive impact in the world? During his sabbatical, Joe studied success, and he found that most of us have programmed our brains in a way that precludes success. We have a great opportunity to start with a clean slate. Success (in marketing and life in general) only takes three things: Record Repeat Remove These three things will make us successful. They will also make our marketing successful. Joe said that if we lead our mission statement with “making money,” we’ve got it wrong. We need to serve. Serve our audience first. [bctt tweet=”#CMWorld 2018 highlight: @joepulizzi saying ‘If we lead our mission statement with making money, we’ve got it wrong. We need to serve our audience first.’ @JuliaEMcCoy ” username=”ExpWriters”] He recommends we review our goals every night and when we wake up in the morning to be successful. Why marketing fails: Our recorded goals aren’t big enough We do not put in enough repetition (consistency) We don’t clear the garbage that stops us from achieving our goals Joe said that in all the content marketing strategies he’s helped implement, and the ones he’s studied, the minimum time was 9 months, average 18 months or longer, of implementing content to see success. [bctt tweet=”Out of hundreds of #contentmarketing strategies studied, @joepulizzi said at #CMWorld that the minimum time is 9 months, average 18 months or longer, of implementing content to see success. – @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”] Joe recommends focusing in on the right things and cutting the clutter. When he hears, “Not enough time to hit my goal,” he answers: the average American watches 3 hours of TV a day, which becomes a decade at 80 years old. We have the time, it’s what we choose to make time for. [bctt tweet=”.@joepulizzi says that focusing is key to success in #marketing and life. He recommends we clear all distractions to make an impact. #CMWorld #recap @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”] Content run amuck was the most common error when he and Robert Rose consulted and helped brands build content marketing strategies. Focus. Choose one thing. Even if it’s a big, scary goal. In 2009, no one knew what content marketing was. Joe wanted 150 people to come to the first CMWorld, and 600 did. Whatever you do, if you believe it to be true, it’s true. — Bill Durham. 3. Forget About Snackable Content: Create Binge-Worthy Content that Focuses on the Curiosity Gap A repeated takeaway I heard in many sessions this year at CMWorld was this one: comprehensive content > bite-size / snackable content. In fact, I heard many marketers recommend that those two words — bite-size and snackable! — should die. Andrew Davis, a highly-rated speaker at last year’s CMWorld, took to the stage as the opening keynote for Content Marketing World 2018. He’s a bestselling author and keynote speaker. And what he shared was terrific. First, Andrew asks, have you heard this from marketers? “I wanna gut it and create snackable content.” Andrew recommends that we forget about creating “snackable content.” Quit blaming the goldfish and focusing on the short … Read more