It’s hard to believe I’ve been consistently publishing content for more than 10 years – and it’s even harder not to be nostalgic about how easy it used to be to drive results with content.

At the risk of becoming one of those marketers who complains about how easy the “good old days” used to be, it’s true that requirements for content quality have evolved dramatically in the past decade.

In 2009, all it took to get lots of traffic was publishing a lot of content. And volume is still important, but in 2019, content marketing is all about getting through to your customers, speaking to the root causes of their problems, identifying high intent and nurturing them as necessary. It’s still possible to succeed with content, but getting there looks a lot different than it used to.

Traditional marketing targets a wide audience. That audience may be very specific; it may be very defined; but your strategy will be inclusive of everyone that falls under the umbrella of “marketing agencies” or “mid-sized ecommerce companies,” or whatever your typical customer happens to be.

Account-based marketing shifts your focus from a wide pool of people to specific “accounts” – i.e. people or organizations – that are a precise fit for your product. Instead of implementing tactics designed to get in front of as many potential prospects as possible, you’re trying to get the attention of a handful of people or companies.

Continue reading → Beginners Guide To Account-Based Content Marketing

Do you create content? Do you often struggle to come up with ideas?

If so, you’re far from alone.

I recently experienced three months of creative block. Three months back-to-back during which I just couldn’t manage to come up with any new ideas.

Initially, this was hard to handle. Sure, I’ve suffered from creative block before, but never for so long. Creative block on that level was alien to me.

In fact, I was once writing up to three articles a day. Even when this number dropped, it wasn’t because I was short on ideas, but because I was busy working on other things. However, after 4 years of creating content, something switched and I realized … I was out of good ideas.

To be honest, I should have seen it coming. Creating content at the rate I was just wasn’t sustainable. At the same time, I realized that only a small amount of the content I was creating was still actually getting results. Pumping out content used to work, but I knew I needed to make a change.

Continue reading → Beating Creative Block After 4 Years of Content Production