Marketing Content Expert, Jason Miller
Compelling Marketing Content
I recently had the fun honor of talking to one of my fave content marketing people, Jason Miller of LinkedIn. And while I am pretty sure he wouldn’t describe himself this way (he’s humble), he’s a master at it. He’s also a rock ‘n’ roll photographer – a pretty cool job. And I love that he mixes his personal passion with his professional role of content marketer.
Keys to “Compelling”
We’ll have to have Jason back when his book, Welcome to the Funnel, comes out. Of course, his biggest product launch is due in November: a baby girl. Congrats to Jason and his wife.
A few of the big ideas we discussed:
1. Keep it simple. Too often we complicate content marketing. It doesn’t have to be. I think he’s spot on.
2. Think about variety of content. Jason often refers to the Blogging Food Group that includes meaty content, how-to ‘list’ content, inspiring and fun content, thought leadership content, and even controversial / strong point-of-view single issue posts. Every strategy needs variety. And great content doesn’t have to be long – some of the best posts I’ve ever read are short posts that hone in quickly on a single, big idea.
3. Re-purpose bottom of the funnel (further down the sales path) content to top of the funnel (first touch / awareness). Jason gave a great example of how a company took a case study (bottom of funnel content) and created a great top of the funnel piece, “Seven Successful Launches.”
4. Look for inspiration everywhere. I totally agree. However you do it – and I can be old school here – write down ideas. Relate dissimilar ideas, or take a personal passion and marry with professional learnings. Jason mentioned his piece on content marketing lessons from Guns N’ Roses. I’ve written about storytelling lessons from the Comedy Stage. I love the thought that a great content marketer has more ideas than he or she can act on. I think that’s true. I may act on 60% of those ideas, for example. Ideas are all around. Always be thinking how you can make content interesting, human, inspiring, entertaining, and educational.
5. See what others are doing that’s interesting and modify/adapt. B2C has great content and storytelling. There are some great examples in B2B, too, including content from Marketo, Kapost (comic books!), LinkedIn, Hubspot, Symantec, Appirio, and a company called Pantheon.
6. One big piece of advice that can make your content marketing better today . You’ll have to listen to the podcast to get this gem!
Got Humor?
Want to learn how to add more humor and levity to your content? Check out Kathy’s ebook on Amazon!
