You know content marketing could be driving more impact.You see the gaps, the missed opportunities, the wasted effort. But then you hit a wall. Leadership doesn’t get it. First off, if that's you, you're not alone. Last year we ran The State of (Dis)Content Report to find out what had content marketers feeling down. Among many things, we found: 🔸 Only 30% of in-house content marketers say their leadership is fully bought-in.🔸 41.3% admit they aren't doing audience research nearly enough.🔸 60%...
3 months ago • 1 min read
A few weeks ago, I asked ChatGPT to pretend Frodo from Lord of the Rings was preparing for his journey by reading blog posts. (Stay with me here…) I wanted it to map out what those blog posts would be - the full journey from “Choosing Your Companions” to “Surviving Mount Doom.” Why? Because I’ve discovered something weird about content gaps. EVERYONE is missing out on their full potential. See, when I was at Shopify Plus, we had a massive challenge: We were trying to compete in enterprise...
4 months ago • 2 min read
This year on Studio Insider, I going to do something different. I'm going to use Breaking Bad Season 2 as a vehicle to demonstrate different storytelling principles then show how they can be applied to B2B content marketing. I'm doing this because it's become painful to me to see how shallow most of the "B2B Storytelling" advice is out there. Most of it is some reskinned version of The Hero's Journey, which, while it is a popular framework, it's not a universal reflection of the human...
5 months ago • 4 min read
For years we've heard the phrases "Provide value" and "Be engaging" but these are so vague and lack definition. As someone who has studied storytelling from age 10 - first as a career actor, then as a marketer - I believe there are multiple principles that can be taken from film theory and behavioral psych and ancient philosophy that can help us create stuff that can be valuable and resonate at a deeper level. But to do that, we first need to know what that value is, why the person on the...
8 months ago • 6 min read
Now that The State of (Dis)Content Report is finally out, I’d like to talk about a few of the specific data points and see if we can pick them apart and push past some of these challenges we've been having. Over the next few days, I’d like to read between the lines and point out what I think are the root issues of content marketing, and provide suggestions on how to overcome them. I'm calling the series: Dissecting (Dis)Content You may agree with my assessments (I hope you do), you may not...
8 months ago • 5 min read
Remember the first time you got hooked on a band or musician that was way outside what you normally listen to? Or when that friend said, “No, you HAVE to watch this movie” and you were blown away, even though it never would have crossed your radar?That’s the exact reason I hate the idea that so many people believe “Quality” is subjective. There’s “content” out there that, even if it doesn’t suit your preferences, is objectively good.“Alien” and “Forrest Gump” are often considered objectively...
8 months ago • 8 min read
Welcome new readers, and hello old friends. Now that The State of (Dis)Content Report is finally out, I’m picking The Studio Insider back up so we can talk about the specific data points and see what we can do next to continue pushing our industry forward. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to read between the lines and point out what I think are the root issues of content marketing, and provide suggestions on how to overcome them. I'm calling the series: The 5 Content Marketing Challenges of...
8 months ago • 5 min read
In this issue: Only 2 more weeks to register for the writer's workshop. How I plan a "top-down" content calendar How to modernize your SEO strategy 4/10 companies think their content strategy is ___ Office workers lose how much time on manual tasks?! Rand Fishkin asks one of the most essential questions in marketing today Debunking the "SEO Content" Myth In this one day workshop, we'll look at the #1 reason why all "SEO Content" sounds the same, and the one writing principle that is...
12 months ago • 4 min read
In this issue: Johnathan Dane shares how to stand out How add depth to B2B Content I'm holding a one-day writing workshop AI's & customer retention in 2024 ...and more. Let's do this Debunking the "SEO Content" Myth In this one day workshop, we'll look at the #1 reason why all "SEO Content" sounds the same, and the one writing principle that is criminally underutilized in B2B Content. In this workshop we'll explore: 🔸 The origins of "SEO Content" and how it got to this point.🔸 What Google is...
about 1 year ago • 11 min read