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The One Thing Every Marketer Should Do

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the one thing every marketer should do

Marketers tend to be very reactive.

And it makes sense because every time a search engine or a social network changes their algorithm, we jump as marketers.

We are conditioned to be very reactive. Whether it’s your boss who is pissed that your traffic dips or even yourself… everyone hates when sales and income drop because of something you can’t fully control.

And even when you try to be proactive, you are probably planning ahead from a 3-month period to a year max.

But that’s not how you win. You win by making bold bets that take time and can’t be done in a few months or a year… you win by doing what your competition isn’t willing to do.

So how do you come up with these bold bets?

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You unplug!

Here’s how I come up with my ideas

Once a year I try to unplug. Just like right now… as I am writing this, I don’t have cell reception and there is no WiFi.

I’m on a ranch in the middle of nowhere.

backyard

No matter where I look, there are no neighbors. All you have is nature in its rawest form. Just look at how the lightning kept going on for hours.

lightening

By unplugging and just being one with nature, you truly realize what’s important.

See, we all have problems and issues… especially in business. But how bad are your problems? Do they even matter in the grand scheme of things?

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Look, I’ll be honest with you. I am not a big nature person… I’m actually quite the opposite.

I live in a modern, cold feeling house in a heavily congested city. I’m so OCD that I have a full-time cleaner come just because I’m afraid of getting dirty (seriously).

Heck, I won’t even go through airport security without having booties in my briefcase, just in the rare chance they make me take off my shoes. There is no way I can have my socks touch that dirty ground.

Yes, I am crazy when it comes to cleanliness and hygiene.

But even me, I go to places that are full of nature and wild animals… or in this case… cows, bears, deer, snakes, mountain lions, and more. Being there really helps put things into perspective.

Because when you aren’t surrounded by noise caused by us humans, it allows you to clearly focus and think about what’s important.

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For me, spending 3 days a year usually does the trick.

It allows me to forget about the bullshit we all have to deal with on a daily basis and come up with ideas about what I need to do over the next 5 (or even 10) years to win.

I know that sounds like a really long time… and it is. But again, to win you need to think long term and make bold bets that your competition wouldn’t dare to copy.

Just look at what I did with Ubersuggest.

I came up with that idea a few years ago by disconnecting (just like I described above).

Companies like Moz would constantly post their revenue stats and their competitors decided to also talk about their financials. So while being disconnected, I came up with an idea on how I could win and the first step was acquiring a tool like Ubersuggest.

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And since then I’ve executed a few of the steps in my plan, but I still have a long way to go.

Nonetheless, those steps have paid off. Just look at my traffic numbers.

traffic

So what I am going to do over the next 5 to 10 years?

I am going to turn SEO on its head again.

It hit me on this trip that we all have to go to sites like Ubersuggest, SEMrush, Ahrefs, or even Moz to get data.

But why is that?

It’s not natural in our workflow. Wouldn’t it just be easier to see this data as you browse the web?

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When you search Google for any query you can use browser extensions like Keywords Everywhere to get some data or SEOquake or the Mozbar… but what you can’t get is that Ahrefs or SEMrush experience when you are just on a Google Search results page.

What will that look like? I have no clue yet, but I will figure that out over time.

Will that kill the traffic I generate to Ubersuggest over time?

Yes!!!!!!

But that is what needs to be done. I obsess about providing an amazing experience to my audience, even if that will kill off my existing business.

And no, that won’t take 5 years to do… I will probably do it over the next 6 months. I will first roll out a basic plugin like Keywords Everywhere and, eventually, I will add the functionally so you can get that type of Ubersuggest or Ahrefs experience right on Google or on your competitor’s site.

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What will happen over the next 5 years though, is that I will be able to build something that gets you more traffic. Just like a light switch. Something that simple.

Why can’t we automate most of our marketing tasks? Why does SEO have to be manual when I can add a piece of JavaScript to a website and automate most of it? Why do I have to send out a blog post every time I release a new post or a push notification?

It should all be automated.

And no, I don’t mean in a templatized way. I manually send out emails every time I write a blog post because I know I can write custom copy that generates a 30% open rate and a high click rate.

email

But again, it should all be automated. And not just for English based sites, it should be done on a global level and work for every site in any language or country.

So how can you figure out what to focus on?

You may not be able to disconnect like me and spend the money that it costs to go to a ranch in the middle of nowhere.

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And that’s fine… you don’t have to.

When I first started off, I didn’t have the resources or money, and I did just fine within my constraints.

For example, roughly 5 years ago I came up with the concept that I needed to go after global markets and compared to any of my competitors in the digital marketing realm, I’ve crushed all of them when it comes to global marketing.

Most of my competitors just translated their site or translated some of their content. Me on the other hand, I have 7 offices and teams in 18 different countries. And I’ll continue to expand so I can keep beating my competition when it comes to grabbing international attention.

But that idea didn’t come to me when I was in nature, being disconnected.

At that time, I was in my condo in the middle of Seattle and I disconnected my Internet for a few days.

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Before I disconnected my Internet, I went and got food so I didn’t have to leave my house, and then I turned off all my gadgets… from my TV to phone and anything that was a distraction.

It worked well because now only 18.89% of my traffic is from the United States compared to 57% before I started to expand globally.

regions

In other words, you can disconnect no matter where you are. You just literally have to disconnect your router, turn off your phone, and unplug your TV… it really is that simple.

If you do that for a few days, you’ll start realizing what is important and what isn’t. You’ll be able to strategize and start thinking more long term.

Conclusion

The key to winning long term isn’t by being reactive every time there is an algorithm update or even proactive and preparing for each algorithm update.

Because some of those things are simply out of your control.

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Instead, you need to think long term and how you can disrupt your market to make a long-term bet that your competition isn’t willing to make.

Nike wasn’t built by SEO.

Airbnb wasn’t built through paid advertising.

American Express wasn’t built through social media marketing.

Tesla wasn’t built through content marketing.

Doing something disruptive or better than the competition is how you win.

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Ubersuggest gets 1,668,233 visitors and 9,136,512 page views a month from people just coming directly. Not through SEO, marketing, or anything like that… I just focus on the future instead of being reactive.

That’s how I win.

Now, the real question is, how are you going to win?

Neilpatel.com

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MARKETING

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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