Has your organization ever created buyer personas? If so, did you ever use them? Many don't—because they don't create truly useful personas in the first place. Ardath Abee lays out key elements of personas you can really use. more

To win a court case, lawyers must first assemble a gripping argument. Facts need to be combined with compelling story elements to create a persuasive narrative to win the jury over. The same is true in marketing. Just like lawyers, marketers draw their audience to their side by solid storytelling. But ... more

HubSpot's Kipp Bodnar discusses why so few B2B companies blog, how to develop a social media strategy, and what roadblocks companies encounter when trying to implement their strategy (if they actually have one!). more

Content consumption is no longer a choice, it's innate. If you own a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, chances are you're absorbing content the majority of the time that you're awake. This brief survey considers how marketers consume content, and how they use and measure it in their work as marketers. more

As various technology platforms (e.g., social media, apps, tablets, smartphones, and TV) evolve to become more integrated with one another, more customizable, and more participatory, so are people's expectations around their everyday content experiences, according to a study by Latitude. more

Pinterest, the mega-popular online pinboard platform, has more than 20 million users. But what do its users say about it? What about Pinterest inspires love or whips up hate? more

Once in a while, we like to highlight a strong opinion, and Ron Romanski has one. In a post at the Business 2 Community blog, he says lengthy newsletters should be a thing of the past. "With today's fast-paced society, you need to make things as single-focused as possible," he argues. ... more

The "S" word can be intimidating, but failure to articulate a clear strategy (and goals!) for your content marketing will undermine its effectiveness. Here, Michael Brenner discusses how SAP defines—and implements—its content strategy. more

How is content marketing like the daring sport of skydiving? For starters, to avoid a crash-landing, both require careful planning. In her Business Insider blog post titled "Content Marketing Lessons While Skydiving," Amanda Maksymiw compares her first leap from an airplane to leaping into a content marketing campaign. And she ... more

When everything's going well, it's easy to find yourself in an email-marketing rut. Perhaps you've gotten complacent with ROI that's good—but not great. Or maybe you're boring your customers with the same campaigns they've seen a thousand times. "Whether you want to shake things up or simply polish off the dullness," writes ... more

Joe Pulizzi is THE content marketing guy. And he has quite a bit to say about content marketing in general, but I was most curious to find out how he has used content marketing to grow his business at the Content Marketing Institute. The resulting conversation focused a lot on ... more

Sometimes, the hardest topics to talk about are those closest to you. So when businesses have to share their stories, they stumble. This colorful infodoodle slide show can help draw out your inner brand storyteller. more

Mark Brownlow once waited in silent trepidation as he watched a tarantula crawl across his hand. "The experience comes to mind every time I face a blank piece of paper," he says at Email Marketing Reports. "A rising sense of panic…paralysis…a prickle of sweat." You might feel the same way when ... more

Just like a shop owner who tracks his sales and restocks the shelves accordingly, content marketers need to be on top of their content. Otherwise, they end up with empty shelves, disgruntled customers, and fewer coins in the coffer. That's why smart content marketers use an editorial calendar to plan, produce, ... more

Customers learn about brands through an array of devices and media—often simultaneously.That's why your brand needs a strong multiscreen storytelling strategy. Social@Ogilvy offers five principles for getting it right. more

"It's time to master the headline, to get it right where the copy counts most by paying attention to those critical words that appear at the top of your email messages," writes Marco Marini at Email Critic. Headlines also appear at the top of your landing pages—and regardless of their location, ... more

The history of the business video dates back to the 1970s, when AT&T created the Picturephone. The device transmitted an image only once every two seconds—slow speeds that would make any Internet user cringe today. The way we access and share visual creations has changed a lot since those early ... more

We marketers often place media in three categories: paid, owned, and earned. But customers tend to ignore such distinctions. They're looking for the "right" media. How do you give them what they're looking for? These slides from the Altimeter Group can help. more

Visual content is crazy-hot these days, and the hottest place for sharing it is Pinterest. Traffic to the virtual pinboard site has shot up exponentially in the past year. But how effectively are businesses sharing their visual content on Pinterest? Unfortunately, not very. Most companies grab images from wherever they ... more

Marketers' use of social media and mobile marketing has steadied over the past year, whereas the use of viral online video (e.g., use of YouTube) has continued to grow, according to the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) 2012 Digital and Social Media Survey. more

As Google continues to personalize search results, the data you see in ranking reports might not mean what you think. Why? They only tell you what rankings would look like in a non-personalized search. Most of your customers, meanwhile, see rankings driven by their behavior—so your Web page might rank ... more

Though professional news organizations contributed more than one-half (51.2%) of the most popular news footage posted on YouTube during the 15 months ended March 2012, over one-third (39.2%) of such content was uploaded by private citizens, according to a report by Pew. more

If you're still wondering about the value of segmentation, consider these numbers from eMarketer, as reported by HubSpot: "39% of email marketers that practice list segmentation see better open rates; 28% see lower opt-out and unsubscribe rates; and 24% see better email deliverability, increased sales leads, and greater revenue." HubSpot's Corey ... more

As paid video content becomes more available via different channels, tablet and wireless phone viewing of paid video has increased from 2011 levels, while viewing via PC/Mac has decreased, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2012 US Residential Pay-to-View Study. more

It's easy to send "just one email with the same content to everyone in your database," writes Matthew Johnson at the Vision6 blog. "But how do you send that same email and make it relevant to everyone in your database?" The short answer is: You can't. And that's why you need conditional ... more