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The key to marketing momentum

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Most marketing fails to deliver its maximum potential. And the reason is simple: lack of prioritization. 

“If we just had more time and resources then we could produce a better result.”

This might sound familiar. In fact, most marketing teams are drowning in work, overwhelmed with requests, and unable to keep track of everything that’s happening.


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I’ve worked with marketing teams of all sizes across a wide range of industries and it’s often the same scenario — complete chaos. You’re not alone.

If marketing organizations hope to deliver on the promise of marketing then we must address and fix this fundamental problem. Marketers have a responsibility to recognize and accept that this problem is within their control. 

It’s time for ruthless prioritization.

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Accepting limitations

Capacity is arguably the biggest challenge facing marketing teams. In today’s environment there are so many options and avenues to explore in order to pursue the goals of marketing.

There are dozens of ways to reach your ideal customers with new channels and distribution methods popping up constantly. Change is the only constant of marketing. It’s nearly impossible to keep up with the persistent barrage of updates and algorithms. And new tools and technologies lure us in with their bold promises of better, faster, and easier results.

On top of it all, the marketing organization is inundated with innumerable requests that pile up and create a massive logjam. 

When will we get all of this work done? And how will we ever achieve our goals?

If we are to be successful as marketers we must first accept our limitations. After all, we have finite time, resources, and energy. 

There is an important difference between the limit of what we can do and the limit of what we can do exceptionally. The most successful marketing teams are the ones that focus on the latter and not the former, which happens to be the lower limit.

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I’m fond of the analogy from Jerry Weinberg who calls it the “Law of Raspberry Jam”. The more you spread it, the thinner it gets.

For our marketing efforts to be impactful we must stop spreading ourselves, our budget, and our team too thin.

The key to marketing momentumThe key to marketing momentum

Prioritizing ruthlessly

As marketers, we like to think that great marketing should be complicated or complex. After all, doesn’t more effort and involvement imply, and justify, an increased outcome?

There isn’t enough capacity, time, or budget to waste on marketing that doesn’t work. We must be critical of every initiative from the beginning before embarking down a road destined for disappointment.

For every initiative we undertake, we must understand how big of an impact it will have on our results and how confident we are in our ability to achieve that impact.

In short, we must prioritize ruthlessly.

Prioritizing ruthlessly is a simple process that:

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  1. Applies an objective and consistent evaluation filter to every initiative and commitment
  2. Rigorously focuses on ensuring confidence and consensus among decisions
  3. Allows the marketing organization to evolve and make smarter bets over time

In other words, every initiative must pass a trial by fire. And every decision is revisited, reviewed, and used to tweak the prioritization process. 

The obvious outcome is that only a few priorities emerge as worth executing. But the secondary outcome is just as valuable, if not more-so.


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Stop turning around

Imagine taking a road trip and making a few wrong turns. No big deal, right?

Now imagine making wrong turns so often, and needing to turn around time and again, that you run out of gas before you reach your destination.

That’s exactly how most marketing teams approach their marketing. Taken off course time and again from internal requests, the promise of a new channel, or adopting new technologies.

Prioritizing ruthlessly helps prevent your team from wasting time, money, and effort on useless activities, assets, and endeavors that wouldn’t have a major impact anyway. In other words, it stops your team from having to turn around more than necessary.

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Marketing strategy is what sets the final destination. Ruthless prioritization is the GPS system to keep your team on the fastest and most direct route.

How to prioritize ruthlessly

There are four steps to prioritizing ruthlessly and the entire process is collaborative, fosters useful discussion, and takes little time.

Here are the steps, demonstrated via example of a marketing team considering which marketing events to pursue and invest in.

Step 1: List out all of the potential activities, efforts, or decisions

Write down every event and the high-level details (name, date, brief description). Share the list with the team who will help evaluate the potential alternatives to select from. Everyone will have their own opinions and biases of which events are best, which should be chosen, and which are a waste of time. These opinions aren’t bad (they might actually be right), but they can’t be accepted blindly.

Step 2: Map the list of items onto the prioritization matrix

One at a time, place each event onto the map based on the two axes:

  • Potential: How much will this move us towards our goal and produce the desired result?
  • Confidence: How certain are we that we can realize the expected impact?
The key to marketing momentumThe key to marketing momentum

For instance, one event may have a huge attendance of ideal customers (a high potential) but it may be our first time attending that event (low confidence).

The team — as a group — decides where to place the item on the map. This is where the discussion and debate enter the picture. Go back and forth until the team comes to a consensus on a reasonable place for the item.

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During this mapping process, the team can discuss ways to mitigate risks, improve odds, and thereby move the placement of items on the map. For example, attending a big event for the first time is a risk and constitutes low confidence, but perhaps there are partners you could work with to increase the confidence of being able to successfully participate or sponsor the event. If so, that would raise the confidence of attending the event.

Step 3: Identify the Top Choices

Items located in the top right quadrant of the map will reflect those that have a high potential of success and that the team has a high degree of confidence in achieving. These are the top choices, but we’re not done yet. It’s time to be even more ruthless in our prioritization by passing each of these items through a series of filtering questions.

If there are too many items in the top right quadrant, take only those items that fall within the extreme top right corner of the map and continue on.

Step 4: Evaluate & Reject Options

The last step is to take each item and ask the following questions, keeping in mind that eliminating options is desirable. If too many options pass through your filtering questions then the team’s assumptions or objectivity may be faulty.

Here are the questions to answer for each option:

  • Why now? Justify the immediate need and identify dependencies.
  • What’s better? Compare the alternatives to this option and ensure it is the superior choice.
  • What if we don’t? Uncover the risks of not choosing this option, or if it is chosen and fails.
  • Are we ready? The final question to ensure that the team accepts this as a priority.

After answering each of these questions for the remaining items, the decision will become clear. The items that have survived this quick yet rigorous process are worthy of becoming full fledged priorities—and nothing else.

These are a starting set of filtering questions you can use. As your team embraces the process and revisits the outcomes of their choices, they will develop more filtering questions that will help in further tightening the selection criteria.

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Read next: 6 steps to help you prioritize tasks when everything is a priority

Building marketing momentum

Prioritizing ruthlessly doesn’t end once you decide and commit to the finite set of actions you and your team will pursue. Having a retrospective at the conclusion of every effort is a vital part of reflecting on whether or not it was a valuable priority to have selected. 

Whenever an initiative is completed and it was deemed a successful and worthwhile priority, celebrate with your team. And if it wasn’t successful or worthwhile, reevaluate the assumptions and data points used to accept it as a priority, then tweak the prioritization filter accordingly. This often takes the form of notes, guidelines, and additional questions you and your team develop over time.

Marketing isn’t going to slow down. In fact, it’s only going to keep accelerating. Things will continue to change because that’s what marketing does best.

The most successful marketing teams are those who can embrace the volatility, maintain the requisite speed, and prioritize ruthlessly.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.

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About The Author

The lost art of talking to customersThe lost art of talking to customers
Tim Parkin is a consultant, advisor, and coach to marketing executives globally. He specializes in helping marketing teams optimize performance, accelerate growth, and maximize their results.
By applying more than 20 years of experience merging behavioral psychology and technology, Tim has unlocked rapid and dramatic growth for global brands and award-winning agencies alike.
He is a speaker, author, and thought leader who has been featured in AdAge, AdWeek, Inc, TechCrunch, Forbes, and many other major industry publications. Tim is also a member of the American Marketing Association, Society for the Advancement of Consulting, and an inductee to the Million Dollar Consulting Hall of Fame.

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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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