How-to advice is one of the most dominant strategies used in marketing. While most marketers have good intentions when writing how-tos, they don’t always hit the mark on creating useful content.

Granted, the writers and content topics aren’t the only culprits; SERPs deserve some blame. Constant search index changes make it tough to keep content optimized and leave a lot to speculation… leading us back to content like how-to advice.

We’ve extensively researched marketing’s “advice problem” and have discovered the sweet spot. Let’s talk about practical advice.

[Read more…] about 6 Metrics That Prove Content Marketing Success

“The stock market is not the economy.”

When the stock market is up, it doesn’t always follow that the economy is great. When the stock market crashes, it doesn’t always mean the economy is bad.

That’s as true today as it was 25 years ago when I first got into marketing. And it’s a great reminder to avoid basing business decisions on faulty connections.

Over the years, I’ve learned an adjacent lesson about content and audiences: Popularity isn’t a sign of differentiation. People don’t necessarily regard what is popular among online audiences or the media as high quality – or even true.

[Read more…] about How a ‘Purple Audience’ Approach Leads to a Better Long-Term Content Strategy