Month: December 2022

The year’s end tends to prompt reflection on the previous 12 months and plans for the year ahead. You may spend time assessing what worked in your content program, what didn’t, and what you can do differently next year.

If you’re a content executive or leader, these reflections might influence where you direct those precious content marketing budgets and resources in 2023.

For individual contributors and managers, these reflections might influence how you feel about your current role and future career moves.

As you take this time to reflect and plan, use CMI’s recent research findings to add context to your analysis and reinforce any decisions you make.

What to know about your content marketing career – and your team’s

Our (first) Content Marketing Career & Salary 2023 Outlook (registration required) found:

As we wrote in the report, many content marketers are “poised and ready to leap when the right

Have you heard a lot about ChatGPT lately?

I thought so.

In case you haven’t (maybe you’ve been too tied up with holiday shopping or closing the fourth quarter), ChatGPT is a prototype artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI that’s gotten a lot of media and social media coverage. This class of generative AI technology receives prompts from users, then generates new text or images (based on the data set used to train the model) in response.

That means if you’re a software engineer, you can ask it to write (or check) your code for you. If you’re a writer, you might ask it to write a blog post on technology (reasonable) or a history of London in the style of Dr. Seuss (Why? Because you can). If you’re a student, you might use it to write a college application essay. You get the idea.

The results are impressive

How do you measure content’s impact on the bottom line? That’s the question on every manager’s mind during budgeting season. And for the content marketing directors of the world, this is one of the most challenging parts of the job.

“What metrics will matter to the C-Suite?” “How can I show the value of my content and get more budget to produce better assets?” There’s a reason why everyone asks these questions ­– and why they are so difficult to answer. Let’s dive in together to unpack them.

Why is it so difficult to measure the impact of content?

Chances are your boss doesn’t “get” content. They don’t truly understand why you can’t give them solid metrics to prove why content matters or what impact it has on your brand’s top and bottom lines. (If you’re in that boat right now, I feel for you, friend.)

Let’s break down why

People love to hate Steven Singer.

That “hate” is so pervasive that the jewelry retailer’s website is: IHateStevenSinger.com. The company is so committed to celebrating the “hate” that it doesn’t even own the domain StevenSinger.com.

What’s behind all that “hate” pervading Philadelphia radio and satellite airwaves? (The company says it’s the longest-running advertiser on The Howard Stern Show.) It’s the story of customer feedback (possibly apocryphal) that launched a marketing campaign that’s lasted for years.

It’s also a story about the power of contrarian thinking – a helpful reminder for content marketers.

@IHSS (I Hate Steven Singer) shows the power of contrarian thinking, a useful #ContentMarketing lesson, says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Contrarian strategy stands out in a gift-driven market

The website’s History page recounts the origin story: A Steven Singer customer returned 20 years after buying an engagement ring to buy another diamond ring for their anniversary.

If you publish great content and hardly anyone reads it, is it actually great content?

That’s a question for the ages – or maybe the comments section.

Every content marketer plans, crafts, reviews, and publishes articles with the best intentions. We all want to publish the most helpful content, sharp insights, and genuinely leading thoughts.

Sometimes, articles you think will be great don’t hit the mark for audiences. (I’ve written about steps to take when your content “fails.”)

But what about the content assets in the middle? They are not top performers or true duds, but they didn’t get quite all the love you think they deserve.

Looking at CMI’s 2022 content, I found a set of articles that deserve another look. Here are a few that feel particularly relevant to this moment.

Author: Jonathan Crossfield

Reading time: 10 minutes

Why read (or reread) this now: Competition for audience attention