When it comes to marketing, all of us want to work smarter and faster. In order to do that, marketers need to have not only the know-how, but also excellent project management and organization skills. Today we’re talking to the guy who literally wrote the book on agile marketing, Jeff Julian. Jeff is the co-founder of Enterprise Marketer, the author of Agile Marketing: Building Endurance for Your Content Marketing Team, and an event speaker. Today he’ll tell us all about how to boost your efficiency and become more agile as a marketer.

Some of the topics we’ll talk about today include:

• What Enterprise Marketer is and what Jeff does there.
• The definition of Agile Marketing and how Jeff has used it in his career. He also explains how the team works and defines some of the jargon that goes along with Agile Marketing.
• The importance of scheduling and consistency.
• Ways to estimate how long a project will take.
• Tips on breaking down a project and assigning it to team members.
• Why being specialized in more than one thing is vital to the success of the Agile Marketing team.
• Jeff’s thoughts on taking baby steps when it comes to marketing. Where can you start so you’re headed toward achieving your goals?
• Tips on hitting a deadline, delegating work, incentivizing your team members, and ending a project.

Links:

Jeff Julian

Jeff on Twitter

Agile Marketing

Lucy on the chocolate line

Kanban

Scrum

CoSchedule

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You are probably including a call to action on each piece of content, but are you optimizing them as part of your marketing strategy? Even more importantly, are your calls to action placing your prospects well into what today’s guest calls the “marketing funnel”?

Alex Brazeau, the public relations manager at Corel, is going to share his story of how he and his team members optimize content, create great calls to action, and use a marketing funnel to draw in prospects into conversions.

Some of the topics you’ll hear about on today’s show include:

• What Corel does and all about Alex’s role there.
• How Alex keeps everything organized.
• The marketing funnel framework, from focusing on potential customer problems through comparing, acting, converting, and retaining the customer.
• The biggest problems Alex faced when mapping out his funnel, as well as how he resolved the issues.
• An example of what a marketing campaign might look like when using the marketing funnel.
• The results that Alex has achieved with his marketing funnel.
• Alex’s best advice for a marketer looking to implement a similar framework.

Links:

CoSchedule

Corel

VideoStudio

Micro Moments

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Special Offer on the Corel Photo Video Bundle

 

If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play.

 

Or subscribe to receive new podcasts via email.

Have you struggled to come up with content ideas about your niche that are significantly better than what’s already out there? Also called 10x content, this type of content is important for appealing to both search engines and the readers who are going to end up buying from you.

Today’s guest, Sujan Patel, is the co-founder and GM of Web Profits, a growth marketing agency. He’s been quoted in Forbes, Inc, and Entrepreneur, among other publications, and today Sujan is going to talk to us about generating 10x content ideas that will help you succeed as a marketer.

Some of the topics that you’ll hear about today include:

• What Web Profits is all about, what Sujan does, and other projects that he’s working on.
• How Sujan stays focused on 10x growth as evaluates content ideas, from brainstorming to the narrowing-down process, and how publishing fits into the 10x growth plan.
• Why it’s so important to publish lots of quality content, consistently.
• Sujan’s process for generating great ideas for content: How he comes up with ideas and how he makes sure it will be effective in terms of SEO.
• Some of Sujan’s favorite brainstorming methods and tips.
• Sujan’s best advice for a marketer struggling to come up with 10x ideas.

Links:

CoSchedule

SujanPatel.com

Web Profits

Growth Mapping Podcast

Quora

ContentMarketer.io

If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play.

Do you wish your content were more consistent and effective? You’ve probably noticed that some of your posts get a lot of attention, while others tend to go largely ignored. Why is this? And, more importantly, what can you do about it?

Today’s guest is Jeff Goins. Jeff is the author of The Art of Work and the founder of his blog, Goins, Writer. He says that by having a content scorecard, you can improve the standards of each of your posts, raising your blog’s overall effectiveness. If you’re having trouble keeping the engagement factor of your blog posts consistent, today’s episode is just what you need.

Some of the topics we will be discussing today include:

• How Goins, Writer came about, as well as some great advice he received that got him into the habit of writing every day.
• The four points of the content scorecard: A good post is well-written, promises something, fulfills that promise, and containing a large amount of value.
• Some of the biggest challenges Jeff faced when implementing the score card.
• Advice for creating a scorecard that will work for your blog.

Links:

The Art of Work

Goins, Writer

Jeff on Twitter

CoSchedule

If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play.

How’s your email marketing going? As one of the most effective ways to reach your audience, your outgoing emails are something to focus on this year. If you aren’t sure how to handle this essential part of your marketing strategy, you’re not alone! Getting it all under control can lead to more opens, clicks and conversions, so you’re not going to want to miss this episode.

Today’s guest, Kim Courvoisier, is the director of content marketing and social media at Campaign Monitor. One of her specialties is designing successful email marketing campaigns, and today she is going to share her wisdom with all of us. If you’re hoping to build traffic and increase conversions, you’re in for a treat.

Some of the topics you’ll hear about include:

• Information about Campaign Monitor and what Kim does there.
• Some great email list-building tactics that you can put into practice, what to focus on first, and why email blasts are a thing of the past.
• How to boost the chances that your target audience will open your emails and make a great first impression with your subject lines.
• Why personalized content and videos are important when your goal is to generate more clicks.
• An example of what the workflow looks like when creating email campaigns and how to keep your team organized as you carry it out.

Links:

Coschedule

Kim on Twitter

Campaign Monitor

If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play.

Publishing great content that makes your clients successful is the real challenge of marketing. Having editorial values that help your team stay on the same page while creating customer-focused content is the key to success.

Today’s guest, Greg Ciotti, content marketing manager of Help Scout, can help your team create your own set of editorial value and find the connection between content marketing and customer success. Learn how to make your customers more successful, which, in turn, contributes to your success!

Some of today’s highlights include:

• The lowdown on Help Scout: What it is, what they’ve been doing, and Greg’s role as content marketing manager at the organization.
• How Greg defines great content: something that solves a problem, something that contributes to business goals, and content that serves as a positive representation of the company.
• The elements of Greg’s editorial values, including strategy, tactics, and examples. Greg suggests some objectives to consider when creating content.
• What Greg means by “vivid writing.” Being clear and imaginative is a challenge, but necessary to make you and your customers successful.
• How to use content to provide context between prospective customers and your product or service.
• Methods for gathering customer feedback to help you better understand what to cover in your content.

Links:

Gregory Ciotti

Help Scout

Great Content Is Still the Biggest Hurdle

NPS interview by Jason Lemkin

Badass: Making Users Awesome

Support Driven

CoSchedule

If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play.

You know that you can find information on just about anything you want on the Internet. But are you always finding all of the information that you need on a particular topic? When it comes to content marketing, you need to know exactly how often you should publish, exactly who is reading your posts, and exactly what you need to do to boost your readership (and, hopefully, your income). The key to finding these types of information is doing original research.

Today’s guest, Andy Crestodina, is the co-founder and strategic director at Orbit Media Studios. He has done some great original research on publishing frequency, and he’ll be talking about that. He’ll also give us some tips on conducting our own original research. Stay tuned for some excellent hints that you can start using now to make your content marketing even better.

Some of the highlights of today’s show include:

• Orbit Media Studios: Who they are and what Andy does there.
• How long people tend to spend researching, writing, and formatting their blog posts: It might be longer than you think!
• Why quantity and frequency of blogging matters, and how often the most successful bloggers post.
• Tips on conducting original research: How to get enough survey participants and how to write a good survey to begin with.
• How Andy maximizes and promotes his original research.
• How Orbit Media Studios uses original research to improve their own marketing.

Links:

Andy Crestodina

Andy on Twitter

Orbit Media Studios

Coschedule.com/actionable

If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play.

 

Is your marketing doing its job and helping you not only generate quality leads, but also convert those leads into customers? Getting inbound leads is one thing, but making sure they’re viable and turning those leads into sales can be something else entirely. If you’re struggling with making these conversions, today’s episode is for you!

Our guest is Brittany Berger, head of content and public relations at Mention. She’s pulled together a great strategy to generate inbound leads and nurture them toward a purchase decision. She’s worked on this strategy through trial and error, and today she’s going to share how you can generate good leads and convert them into sales.

Some of the topics you’ll hear about include:

• All about Mention, including what Brittany does and what types of content the company handles.
• Lead generation: What it means and what goals Brittany had when solving challenges in generating and converting leads.
• How to prioritize tasks and projects to optimize lead generation.
• An overview of tactics and strategies that Brittany and her team have tried and used to generate and convert leads.
• How HubSpot has been a valuable part of content creation and marketing, as well as how to use and repurpose blog content.
• What to track to understand the types of content that are likely to appeal to your target client.
• Why building an e-mail list is important to conversions.

Links:

CoSchedule

Mention

Brittany on Twitter

If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play.

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You probably already know all of the benefits of writing guest posts on other people’s blogs, but have you considered having guests post on your blog? Some of the benefits you might enjoy include increased publishing frequency, more efficiency and consistency, higher ranking for your keywords, and a better sense of credibility and trust among your readers. Best of all, this move can help you convert more customers.

Today, our guest is Jess Ostroff, the CEO of Don’t Panic Management, which she describes as a “virtual assistant agency on steroids.” She is also the managing editor at Convince & Convert, which publishes a lot of content from guest writers. She is talking to us about how to become a content management mastermind when it comes to hosting guest bloggers on your website.

Some of the topics we’ll talk about today include:

• What Jess does at Don’t Panic Management in her role as Director of Calm and as editor of Convince & Convert.
• How a marketer can attract the best guest bloggers in their industry and how to prove to potential bloggers that your site is worth writing for.
• The writing requirements that are most helpful to be sure you get the quality you want out of your guest blog posts.
• The best way to manage the pitch-acceptance process.
• Suggested tools and strategies to make the guest-blogging process as efficient and successful as possible, from pitch to final editing and eventual promotion.
• The one major thing you should keep in mind if you are hoping to build a guest-blogging relationship with someone.

Links:

Don’t Panic Management

Jess on Twitter

Jess on LinkedIn

Convince & Convert

CoSchedule

If you liked today’s show, please subscribe to the Actionable Content Marketing podcast!

How do you decide what marketing idea is worth your time to work on? When working in a team, ideas seem to come from everywhere: your sales team, product engineers, customer success folks, and yourself!

My guest today is CEO and founder of Baremetrics, Josh Pigford, and he’s here to answer that question. Baremetrics is a revenue and subscription analytics tool that enables companies and marketers to make informed decisions about their marketing strategies. Josh has developed a unique ranking system to score marketing ideas based on project qualities, and his team uses that to decide which projects the company should focus on.  

Today, Josh teaches us how to prioritize marketing ideas and shares the process behind Baremetrics that allows marketers to work on the most effective projects.  Some of the topics on today’s episode include:

• Prioritizing marketing projects with limited resources
• Josh’s process for coming up with marketing ideas
• The “Bulls-Eye framework” for idea prioritization
• Scoring ideas based on project qualities
• Josh’s method for testing ideas

Links:

Baremetrics

JoshPigford.com

Josh Pigford - LinkedIn

Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares

Coschedule.com/podcast - Josh’s Free Idea Spreadsheet Template

30-Day CoSchedule Trial

 

If you liked today’s show, please subscribe to the Actionable Content Marketing podcast!