Content Marketing Quickie

Hey, it's Stiles from Brand Content Studios and here's your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of March 18, 2019

-Do you know when the first email was sent? 1971! 1971! The top song was Three Dog Night's Joy to the World, you know, the Jeremiah was a bullfrog song? The highest grossing film was Fiddler on the Roof. On TV we were watching the then highly controversial political fights between Archie and Meathead on All in the Family. They think that in 2018, 124.5B emails went out. And yep, emails are content. Or at least what you put in them is content. So it's worth knowing how to do it right and things like the Email Marketing Survey Summary Report help because their research gives us some insights, or at least some things to debate. The first thing they found out is engagement and improving brand awareness is the main thing companies want out of their email campaigns. Nobody likes to see low opens and click rates. And you're never going to up your engagement unless you learn what your target audience likes and wants. It's actually amazing how little companies know about who they're selling to or care what kind of content they like to get. Next, most marketers think a mix of personal messages and one topic emails are most effective. By the way, only 17% think plain-text emails work. 64% of marketers say the effectiveness of their emails is improving moderately. It's almost like you shouldn't believe those "Is email dead" thought leadership pieces. Lastly, companies appreciate that when it comes to email, they can mostly handle that in-house, 39% use in-house people only. Now when they get all fancy schmancy and pursue the personalization and machine learning automation whiz bang, that's when they reach out for some specialists. As always, our take is you can build the machine and the data can be right and your targeting can be on point…but if your content isn't worthwhile, all that's for nothing. Stop making what kind of show you're going to put on the last thing you think about.

-Well it's been about a month since Spotify said surprise! We're spending over $300M to buy Gimlet Media and Anchor, cause we're getting big into podcasting. And then we all went, "Okay but why?" And then they didn't say anything, and we kept saying, "No really, why did you spend $300M on podcasting?" But answers are starting to trickle out, apparently there's a plan. And the plan is essentially to cover bases and hedge bets. Spotify's CEO, Daniel Ek and Gimlet's founders Alex Blumberg and Matt Lieber have been making at least some public comments about the plan. First, what's Spotify going to do with a high-quality podcast producer like Gimlet and an app that makes it super easy for any Joe to make low quality podcasts like Anchor? First of all those brands apparently aren't going away, they won't get swallowed up by the Spotify brand. Courtney Holt, Spotify's head of studio and video, says it's like Pixar and Marvel being owned by Disney. They're still their own powerful brands. Is it? Is Gimlet and Anchor really like Pixar and Marvel? Here's what Spotify knows, there IS money in podcasting, an expected $659M in ad revenue by 2020. So here's what we're going to do, we're going to be the primary place people go for podcasts, and we're going to have podcasts you can only get on Spotify. Like Netflix does with movies and TV. We're also going to be the main way people discover new podcasts cause our algorithm we did for music is that awesome. Maybe you, like I, have listened to a song on Spotify's Discover Weekly and thought to yourself, "Why in God's name do they think I'd like this song?" Well they're gonna do that for podcasts. Like Netflix does with movies and TV. Holt says their algorithm is "pretty darn good." Hey, watch the language, I checked clean content on my show description settings! Spotify's CFO says they'll invest in podcast content and that will increasingly be exclusive. But Gimlet's Blumberg says well, our existing shows will stay available everywhere. Now, about Anchor. They don't know. What do you want? They don't know. Spotify says maybe exclusive originals will work best, but maybe user-generated shows will work best. So they're exploring both.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/5/18243729/spotify-podcast-strategy-gimlet-media-anchor-purchase

-The expectations are pretty high for those who use tech, including content technology, to sell tech tools. I mean they should know how to kill it right? The Technology Content Marketing 2019 report tells us how they're doing. First, 75% say their content marketing's working better than a year ago. So there's that. But what, if anything, are they struggling with? Here's the thing about the answer, which I will give you here in a sec, stay in the car. There's not a lot of difference between the struggle named by those who are top performers and those who aren't. Which means it's a real and sticky problem. And that problem is creating content that appeals to the different multiple roles that are involved in buying decisions. Everybody cares about something different. There was actually only one other thing where there wasn't that much difference between top performers and the others. They both pretty much say they care a lot about making content designed to build customer loyalty. Still, only 53% of tech marketers and 73% of top performers said they did that more successfully than the previous year. Success for early funnel goals – brand awareness, lead gen, and education, that's what's growing. For those that did better, what exactly did they do better? They covered more stages of the buyer journey. Only 62% of tech marketers overall said they cover all those bases well. How do they research what the audience wants? 80% actually listens to what their sales team tells them. 71% look at their website analytics. And get this, 55% actually, and I know this is weird, ask their customers. Email's huge, 92% use it to nurture prospects. 64% reported using video more often compared to last year. But check this out, just as many say they did more written content like blog posts too. 37% even increased their use of audio. Getting back to the expectation tech companies should be better at marketing tech than the average bears, it's true, they are. 36% say their proficiency with content marketing tech is at expert level while only 24% of regular enterprise marketers would say that. Get your shopping cart ready, there's a sale on smarty pants!

https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2019/03/tech-content-marketers-research/

That's the Content Marketing Quickie for this week. If you thought it was worth the time you gave it and it made you think about stuff after you listened, it'd be great if you subscribed. I promise, you will not make me rich. We'll see what happens next week.

Hey, it's Stiles from Brand Content Studios and here's your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of March 11, 2019

-Time for another chapter in the continuing story of "how do you get some kind of control over lunatics on Twitter who leave nasty replies to your tweets"? If you're waiting for a good answer, you won't find it here and you won't find it at Twitter. Bless their hearts, they've tried. They want to fix the problem. But every fix creates a new problem. CEO Jack Dorsey himself said a year ago, the platform's just not that great at keeping conversations productive or meaningful. You probably have people in real life who can't keep their conversations productive or meaningful. You're thinking of a name right now aren't you?! Here's what you find, too often, on Twitter, good ol' abuse, harassment, lies, definitely echo chambers. I think this, you're welcome to agree with me all you want. The initial thought was well, we can ban the worst offenders and kick them off Twitter. That wasn't working so hot. So Twitter's thoughts turned toward promoting "conversational health." My insurance plan does not cover conversational health. After promoting conversational health a year, not much has changed. The fake accounts didn't care. So here comes another new thing, a feature that lets you hide replies to your tweets so no one will see replies you don't like. You already see the problem with that don't you? That doubles down on the echo chamber. If users can't win a debate, they can just hide the opposing viewpoints. Twitter product manager Michelle Haq is among those who hope the community will police itself against that. You can't see the hidden reply, but you'll see a reply was hidden. So if I do an enormous amount of hiding, you'll know I can only handle my own opinion and my feed will be boring. Anyway, Twitter's confirmed the hide the reply feature will be tested here in the next few months.

https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-let-users-hide-replies-fight-toxic-comments/

-I've started a Mike's Boiled Pineapple business, and I want to sell them using that coolio ecommerce thing on Pinterest. Now when I start this, I notice, stop the fruit, other, bigger brands can do things on Pinterest that I can't, and that's not fair. So it should come as good news that Pinterest is expanding these capabilities to rank and file merchants. We now have access to Catalogs, which will let me upload and convert my whole boiled pineapple catalog into shoppable Pins. Tim Weingarten, their head of shopping product, says a Related Products feature will start showing up under product Pins so I can show off boiled pineapple products I think shoppers might be interested in based on what they've looked at. You'll also have expanded Personalized shopping recommendations that shows you products that resemble your saved pins based on available inventory from merchants who have shoppable Pins. If you've saved pins on spikey fruit and on boiling water tips, you'll probably see one of my products. I also get access to Pinterest Shopping Ads that used to only be available to certain brands. You can have that if you're in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. Hey, speaking of Pinterest, and we were weren't we, rumor has it they're getting ready for an IPO and they might seek a $12B valuation. Pretty pictures can make you rich.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/04/pinterest-expands-personalized-shopping-recommendations/

-Poor B2B decision makers. You know they get content just like everybody else, but for some reason, the image of a B2B decision maker is someone in a cold, impersonal office with a computer chip in their brain, a kitchen sweeping device firmly lodged in their nether regions and dressed in attire that's perfect for stock photography sessions. That's why they keep getting content that's completely unimaginative and skull crushingly boring. You can almost see the thinking on the brand marketer side…ooo we'll send them this website that's so dense with info it could choke a horse, and we'll give them this gated whitepaper that's got enough graphs in it to permanently cross their eyes. Then they'll think we're super intellectual and buy us because we're so over their heads. This isn't just me thinking that's a silly way to go, the B2B decision makers think that too. Propeller Insights, which never spins their results, see what I did there, says 82% of them wish they were getting the same creative care and thought that goes into B2C content. I mean, how would you like to read or watch the stuff you're sending out if you weren't you? 48% find B2B content boring. 49% think websites aren't nearly as creative or engaging as websites meant for consumers. So, does creative B2B content really matter? No, not if you actually want to sell anything. Only 22% think the B2B content they're getting motivates them to take another step in the buyer journey. Cause here's the drill, maybe you have something they do need and would want, but because you're leading with a thick mass of information presented as dry as you can dry it, they're not going to dive in and abuse themselves to find your diamond in the rough. They want to make good decisions for their companies but 81% think they could do a much better job of that if B2B content was better and, I never have a problem saying it, entertaining. Audrey Merritt, she's a partner at WHM, says two things I say a lot. "So much B2B marketing falls flat because it doesn't make the audience feel something." And, "We understand tech companies get excited about pushing the features of their product. But most buying decisions are emotional." But hey, if you're selling only to Vulcans, stick with cold, impersonal and logical.

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/332226/b2b-advertising-is-boring-prospects-study-finds.html

-Do you listen to podcasts? Yes you do, you're listening to this one. But don't worry, you're hardly weird or the only one doing it. In fact, Edison and Triton Digital's annual Infinite Dial study, which it seems like that happens every year, says 70% of Americans 12 and up now know what a podcast is. Which makes you wonder how many people age 12 and up know what a cassette tape is. By the way if you don't know, it's like brown string in a plastic box and the machines you put it in pulls out and chews up that string. It's fun. Okay so 70% know about podcasts, that's up 6 points from a year ago and the biggest year-to-year increase in 3 years. Larry Rosin, the president of Edison, also released new data from their Share of Ear study late last year. And that showed the time people spend with podcasts has more than doubled in 4 years, in fact the 122% increase was the biggest percentage change of anything Edison's tracked. So now let's just look at ad-supported audio. For that, podcasting's 3.9% share of listening goes up to 6%. Now that might not seem like news worth putting in this podcast at first since streaming audio gets 18% and my old industry of AM/FM radio still gets a whopping 73%. But podcasts get twice the 3% of listening that satellite radio gets. And President Larry says once someone becomes a podcast listener, they get addicted to it, spending 28% of their audio time with it. So with all this going for it, you'd think advertisers are all over podcasting and podcasters like me are making a good living at it. Oh hell no. Most podcasters make nothing and are burning out, that's what's happening. Advertisers spend billions on audio advertising every year, but podcasting only gets a sliver of love, despite the listenership trends and targeted topics you'd think would be very attractive. Well Edison's wondering what's going on too. They say podcasting is being enormously "undersold" right now and the upside is huge IF ad buyers wake up and read what's going on in their industry. Still, beyond ad buying, there's the opportunity for brands to be doing their own podcasts and building their own audiences. And of course, many are doing just that, some much, much better than others. But they're at least in there swinging. With no podcast, you're not even at the plate. You're not in the ball park. You're watching your competition play from a bar somewhere on the other side of town.

http://www.insideradio.com/podcast-familiarity-hits-thanks-to-significant-spike-during-past-year/article_0db16f92-3fe7-11e9-9103-8702d76c8e8c.html

That's the Content Marketing Quickie for this week. If you thought it was worth the time you gave it and it made you think about stuff after you listened, it'd be great if you subscribed. I promise, you will not make me rich. We'll see what happens next week.

Learn: what the biggest skills gap in marketing is Learn: why Google's giving up on comments on blogs Learn: whether or not you should use vertical instead of horizontal video

The Content Marketing Quickie brings you a quick and fun look at the latest happenings in content - delivered with fun and snarky commentary by Mike Stiles and Brand Content Studios.

Here's your Content Marketing Quickie for the week of March 4, 2019

-The good news when the Internet came along was, the people had a voice. The bad news was, people had a voice. And none other than Google has decided eh, we don't so much want to hear what people have to say. Frankly that content's usually just crap and it's too much trouble to manage. So, at least for their Webmaster Central Blog, they're cutting off comments. You'll see that's becoming typical on publisher sites too. Ever read an article that was actually good and made you care and you couldn't wait to say what you thought only to find…oh, there's no way to comment. They don't want to hear from me. Then you feel hurt and censored until you realize later you never read comments, and no one would have read yours. So how do you monitor and moderate user generated content so it's worth a damn? Cause that's what some sites count on, hey the public will make our content for us and we'll get rich. But you aren't Facebook or YouTube, and even those guys are getting held accountable for what the public puts on their platforms. Making UGC safe and good takes enormous time and effort. Google's one of the biggest companies with the best tech and the most resources in all the land, and they just told us, it's not worth it. And to prove it, if your UGC is a problem, it's Google that will bust you. AdSense rules say even the user comments on your site can't violate their hate speech policies, whatever that is today, and if they do, no ads for you!

-If you see a video director or cinematographer and they have kind of a hurt, betrayed look behind their eyes, you can assume one thing has at least a little to do with it. Vertical video. Brands are embracing it, and if what CMSWire reports is true, it gets better engagement. So here's the thinking, hey, people hold their phones vertically 94% of the time, cause they have to pop their bubbles or whatever. And they like to hold with one hand, swipe and tap with the other. And most shoot their own videos vertically. So let's ignore all of cinematic history and the natural tendency for the human eye to move left and right, and say brand videos should now be vertical. Some say it's the "best watching experience" because vertical takes up the whole screen, you know, kinda like horizontal used to do before apps stopped letting you turn your phone and watch a horizontal video full screen, which I've always been able to do with one hand, but I guess I'm some kind of freaking magician. MuteSix CEO Steve Weiss says you video creators should adapt and make eyes move up and down and make the narrative work in vertical spaces. Krista Neher of Boot Camp Digital says you can even turn a horizontal video into a vertical by slapping a header and footer on it with titles or captions. Still, some platforms like LinkedIn won't even take vertical video. Well this is like a Coke or Pepsi argument, Coke wins by the way. Depending on your brand, what the vibe is, what the length is, what the platform is, maybe vertical's the way to go. But for other things, like professional looking, cinematic, emotive storytelling of deeper substance, don't let anyone make you think horizontal is passe. No one's racing to make vertical versions of Star Wars and The Godfather. The only thing we know for sure is, for users and app developers…apparently the thought of turning phones 90 degrees is just too mind blowing to handle.

https://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/how-vertical-video-is-changing-content-marketing/

-If you look at the job postings for marketing, you may have noticed that companies are keeping the dream alive. They want one modestly paid person to be an experienced master in about 13 marketing specialties and show provable results. So, good with all that. But it makes you think, if you had to hang your hat on just one digital skill that will serve you well in the future, what would that skill be? You don't have to wonder. Because you listen to the Content Marketing Quickie, you'll know what to skills to master. First of all, Econsultancy says 90% of marketers admit there are skills missing on their team. The skill they think will be most important in the future is data analysis and measurement. 30% said that and only 11% say their operation is expert at it. Next at 20% came content marketing. Of course, that's a wide collection of skills under one term too, but they're mostly looking for expertise with video content and personalization. Not gonna lie, I wasn't sorry to hear that considering what we do at Brand Content Studios. The 3rd-most important skill is a familiar one, because it's been a talent gap for years, it's user experience. Only 8% consider their team experts at it. Now beyond that stuff, there are those touchy feely soft skills, which 93.9% of marketers feel are just as important. Tops on that list at 70% was the ability to embrace change. Then comes critical thinking at 67% and working with others at 66%. Lateral thinking also made the list at 58%. Now get out there and future proof yourselves you crazy kids.

https://www.marketingcharts.com/business-of-marketing/staffing-107533

That's the Content Marketing Quickie for this week. If you thought it was worth the time and it got you thinking about something, do subscribe so you don't forget about it, which you will cause we know you're busy. And we'll see what happens next week.

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