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5 Best Practices in Content Marketing That Leave Audiences Behind

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5 Best Practices in Content Marketing That Leave Audiences Behind

Almost everybody loves best practices.

They let you learn what’s worked for someone else. They save you time because you don’t have to do research to understand the best way to proceed.

But many people erroneously equate “best” with “infallible” or “in every circumstance.” That’s not the best thinking for best practices.

But some best practices get repeated so often they’re followed without question – and that’s where the trouble begins. Let’s look at five seemingly harmless best practices you should start to question. (Many of the items on this list were suggested by CMI community members Luke O’Neill, a writer and content consultant in the fintech and financial services industry, and Amy Brennen, brand manager at Rapyd.)

1. Create content your audience wants

I like this one. Frankly, too many businesses think only about themselves when creating content. They create content to put the company, product, services, and employees in the best light. But in doing so, they fail to consider the interests and needs of the audience outside their business.

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So, I’m all for creating content that the audience wants. But if you stop at that idea, you’ll miss out. What about the content the audience doesn’t yet know it wants?

Yes, create #content your audience wants. But what about the content the audience doesn’t know it wants, asks @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

For example, let’s say a governing body quietly passes a new regulation that will affect your industry. Your audience may not realize anything has happened. Wouldn’t it make sense to create information the audience doesn’t know they want or need?

Or, what if your content marketing team interprets data to help your audience in a way they didn’t know was possible?

If you only create content you know your audience wants, you’ll cover the same old ground and may eventually bore them. Leave room in your plan for content experiments, surprises, and education. Finding new helpful information or presenting fresh angles can reinvigorate your content’s usefulness for your audience.

This approach does wonders for your editorial calendar. Don’t forget to experiment with content formats, too.

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For example, you may not offer audio versions of your company’s blog articles because the audience hasn’t clamored for them. But if you added the feature, you might learn that a segment of the audience appreciates that audio option.

2. Evaluate engagement metrics, not just views

Most advice about content performance analytics pushes you to focus on how the audience interacts with the content, not how many people saw the content. Views, impressions, and reach often get disparaged as “vanity” metrics.

But narrowing your analysis to look only at engagement is a mistake. Luke O’Neill explains it this way: “Some of the audience is invisible. They don’t comment. They don’t share. They don’t sign up for emails. And yet this invisible audience is often still paying attention at different times – waiting in the wings. They can become customers or clients years later. They may be missing from many metrics, but we still need to serve them.”

Some of your audience is invisible. They may be missing from engagement metrics, but they can be customers years later, says @lukeoneill via @AnnGynn @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

3. Write content to rank at the top of search engine results pages

Fortunately, the days of keyword stuffing are long gone (or at least the days of rewarding keyword-stuffed content are.) But writing for SEO remains a best practice for many content marketing teams. You prioritize appearing on the first page or front screen (for results with Google’s newer scrolling results). You devote a ton of content development time to searches for volumes for keywords, alternative keywords where your content could stand out, analyzing your content competitors’ rankings, etc.

But a top ranking in search results may not be the best for your content marketing strategy. Google increasingly delivers answers to searchers’ questions on the SERP so they don’t have to visit the website. A featured snippet or top ranking may only lead to awareness of your brand at best.

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Instead of making a top ranking the goal, realign your objectives to focus on content that will help you achieve the company’s business goals.

4. Use content metrics to understand your audience

Content consumption metrics can help you understand what content your audience responds to. But don’t stop there in your quest to understand them.

What if the audience that consumes your content isn’t made up of people who would buy what your brand sells? Yes, I know, not every person who consumes your content will turn into a buyer (or give a referral), but many should.

Take the extra step to connect consumption metrics to conversion metrics, and you’ll learn much more about your audience. You may not be able to connect them directly to a purchase, but you can spot behavior more likely to lead to a purchase.

By incorporating consumption and conversion metrics, you can now better understand the audience segment that’s likely to convert and develop content that will resonate best with them.

5. If you want leads, gate your content

Content marketers charged with lead generation often follow this best practice – they put the most valuable content behind a gate. The key to that gate is the audience member’s contact information. Then, both the content marketers and sales team can follow up with the newly recognized prospect.

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Gated content can be a good option for lead generation, especially if your team is measured on the quantity of marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) generated. But it’s not necessarily the best or only way to create leads.

Gartner study found that B2B buyers spend about 27% of the buying process conducting independent research online. How much of that research time leads to gated content that prospects dismiss because they don’t want to be hit up with a subsequent sales call or email outreach?

Instead, strike a balance in your gating strategy. Limit gating to those content pieces targeted for the lowest parts of the sales funnel. The audience for those pieces is ready to evaluate products and services, so they’ll be more likely to respond to sales outreach.

Your sales team will appreciate the change, too, because leads from bottom-of-the-funnel content are more qualified than leads generated from top- and middle-of-funnel content.

If you’re going to gate your #content, do it with the content targeted for the lowest parts of the sales funnel, says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Including key details from the gated content on the landing page can whet the whistle for those who want to go deeper while providing a bit of information for those who only want the gist. (I like this option as a writer who often downloads research reports to get the overview data with no intention of buying from the brand.)

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Mid-gating is another option. As Foleon explains: “A reader who has started reading before deciding to fill out the form is more likely to be genuinely interested than someone who blindly fills out a form, downloads a piece of content, and promptly forgets it.”

If you’re going to do that, let the reader know what to expect before they start reading. Your audience won’t be thrilled if you dupe them into thinking it’s a “free” read-only to be confronted by a “register-to-read-further” note when they’re mid-way through the content.

The only best practice you should follow

Every time you hear a best practice that you think sounds great, take a pause to think critically. Consider these questions:

  • How well would this best practice work for my company’s content marketing, given our resources, processes, culture, etc.?
  • What does this best practice omit? What potential disadvantages would it present?
  • Is it worth modifying this best practice to fit our content marketing strategy?

In the end, you may decide the practice truly is the best, and that’s OK. What’s important is that you didn’t just do it because you heard it was the “best.” And that really is the best practice of all.

Want more content marketing tips, insights, and examples? Subscribe to workday or weekly emails from CMI.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute



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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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