Content Inc. - The Podcast

Native advertising is not a new idea, but it is picking up steam with most if not all media companies today. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi shares how native advertising is the gateway drug for true content marketing and though it may have it's critics, is not necessarily a bad idea. He shares a few examples of how native advertising may be working but more importantly how taking the risk to give it a try, may be the first step to take.

Content distribution is not easy. But is it a good idea to put your content onto a third party platform vs. your own platform? In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi discusses the recent decision by Basecamp to move their blog from their own site over to Medium. Joe shares his concerns of giving up control of your content entirely and provides an alternative solution if you may be considering a similar move.

In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi again reminds you of the importance of setting specific goals and reviewing them on a daily basis. He breaks down the six areas he works on every year in his goal-setting process and reviews some of the key elements to successful implementation and achievement.

Accomplishing a goal is not the hardest part of the goal-setting process. Setting the goal and then following through to accomplishment is where most people and businesses fail. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi challenges you to make your content marketing goal for 2016 bigger than your brand. Work towards putting full effort on serving your customers and go big in the process.

As 2015 winds to a close and a New Year is set to start just around the corner, it's time to share some predictions for 2016. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi shares three of his big predictions for content marketing as an industry for 2016.

This quote from "The Glory Road" by Robert Heinlein sums up the content marketing journey for those who are successful: "If you walk the glory road, you are certain to find mostly rocks." In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi shares why backbone will win out with content marketing in 2016. Most businesses and teams give up too early in their content marketing efforts, but those that stay the course are much more inclined to experience great success.

"Our goal is to create the least amount of content with the maximum amount of impact."--Robert Rose. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi reminds you that less is truly more when it comes to content creation for your target audience. At the time of year when predictions seem to be all over the web on what will be big in the New Year, less content is an easy, but not necessarily easy-to-implement prediction.

What does the mega-hit movie "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" have to do with content marketing? In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi says...everything. The movie is expected to break box office records worldwide and, of course, this will bring about big revenue dollars for Disney and LucasFilm. But really, even if the movie did not break even in terms of money, it would still be considered a revenue success. The movie is the content that drives other money-making opportunities for the business; ie: merchandise and product. They are, in reality, leveraging their content to sell other products and services.

What makes up the perfect content product? In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi shares the five key elements of the perfect content product as defined by Jason Calacanis. Learn why real time, fact-driven, visual, efficient and curated content is the perfect mix for your Content Inc. model. Then go back to your blog, podcast, articles and other content to compare and set your sights on content perfection moving forward.

In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi reminds you of the importance of developing a strong buyer persona of your target audience. The information obtained in putting together a persona will be the foundation by which all of your content is created and distributed. Adele Revella has developed the 5 Rings of Insight for building buyer personas. Joe breaks down these insights and why they are critical for content marketing success.

The individual pieces of content you create are not valuable. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi asks you to consider the collection of assets you are creating in terms of content vs. the individual output of each platform. The collection of assets is what creates and keeps your audience over time. Not just the one blog post, but that blog with your social media content with your articles with your podcast, etc... Think about the larger strategy of how all these assets work together that will make your content more valuable to your audience over time.

In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi discusses a current quote from Content Marketing Institute's Chief Content Strategist, Robert Rose: "We should plan for creating the least amount of content that we can have the maximum amount of impact'. Really ask yourself the tough questions as you plan for the coming year. Now is the perfect time to take a hard look at your content. If the content you are creating is not truly valued by your audience, maybe it's time to stop.

In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi responds to an article written by Jerry McGovern on a negative generalization that "content marketing is a mixture of snake oil storytelling and winning the lotto delusions". Yes, there are marketing teams that are doing content marketing wrong, but this doesn't mean that all content marketing doesn't work. Though there are marketers doing bad practices, the approach of content marketing as a whole is not at fault.

Setting goals is not a new idea. Yet statistics show that with only 32% of marketers writing down a content marketing strategy, goal-setting is still missing from the industry. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi makes the connection of how Michael Jordan had really, just one big goal for his career (to be the best player that every played the game) and how that one big goal drove him day after day, year after year. You need to set one big goal: building your audience and focusing on subscribers. Every successful Content Inc. model has a strong subscriber initiative that drives the rest of the content marketing success.

Doug Kessler of Velocity Partners says, "If you do not write down your content marketing strategy, it does not exist." Yet only 32% of marketers actually have a documented content strategy. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi breaks down the key elements you need when developing a written content marketing strategy for your organization. This is a critical component to your content marketing success, so be sure to take the time and get it in writing.

Seven out of ten content marketers fail at their content initiatives. But, according to Joe Pulizzi, that's ok. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe discusses how failure can be the driving force that gets you to your biggest success. This is not a new idea, but in a time when only about 30% of content marketing efforts seem to be successful, it's a great reminder.

It seems that the term 'content marketing' is everywhere today. Most brands and companies are taking some sort of content approach to growing their business. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi reminds you to not only create content, but to tell a different story. Find the content gap in your industry and fill it. By sharing this story, you will rise above what everyone else is saying and build a better, stronger Content Inc. model for your business.

In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi shares a bit of the Marcus Sheridan story of how he grew River Pools and Spas by becoming the best teachers in their industry. He reminds you that what you sell will probably change over the next few years. But if you are putting a value first approach to your content and becoming the leading educator in your industry, this won't matter. Content that teaches your audience will ensure you will always be relevant to your audience.

The recent announcement of ESPN's decision to shut down their site Grantland has caused a bit of a stir in the online world. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi shares why brands such as Nike or Under Armour should consider purchasing Grantland as part of their content strategy. With millions of dollars being spent annually on ads that interrupt viewers, listeners and readers, what could an already established site with great content targeted to your audience bring in terms of loyal customers and increased revenue? Perhaps it's time to look at already existing content platforms as part of your content strategy and move ad spend to a Content Inc. model.

Social media has been a game changer for business. But it's important to remember that these platforms are ones you get to use; you do not own them. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi discusses the latest platform to change up their model and require users to make decisions on their content. YouTube's Red subscription model is just another in a long, recent line of social media platforms that are changing things up to gain more revenue opportunities. Don't bet the farm of your business on another company's revenue goals. Focus on building content on platforms that you own.

Are you looking at your competition and simply doing what they are doing with content marketing? Or are you looking to be more original and innovative with what you produce? In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi shares three ways you can get more focused with your content marketing efforts and create content that is original and innovative. Don't go insane trying to copy what others are doing. Become the original content creator that really taps into the audience of your industry.

In the recent B2B content marketing survey put out by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, more and more marketers are embracing content marketing as a philosophy and discipline. Yet, most of these same content marketers admit that they are not being successful with their efforts. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi breaks down the 5 key items that need to be considered to create a successful content marketing program. If you are struggling with content marketing success, listen to this episode!

A self-fulfilling prophecy is when what we believe actually stands as our truth, especially when it is a limitation to success. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi dares you to move away from your self-fulfilling prophecy of not succeeding with a Content Inc. model for your business and instead, frame your ideas to fulfill a prophecy of success.

This week Time Inc. made headlines when they announced that their purchase of the female friendly blog site Hello Giggles. It is estimated that this blog site, that is only a few years old, was purchased for somewhere between $20 and $30 million dollars. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi asks you to not just notice the buying of this site by a major media company, but to ask why other female friendly brands had not considered doing the same thing? If it's often cheaper to purchase existiing assets vs. building your own, perhaps it's time for brands to consider other content assets on the market and bring them into their own companies, much like Time Inc. is doing.

The end of the year is when most businesses start the process of planning for the year ahead. What do you want to accomplish? What goals do you want to achieve? In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi shares the Warren Buffet 25-5 Method of making your list of goals and working on them over the next year. Focused energy on a few things will yield greater results than working on a lot of things a little bit. Get focused.

In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi shares his journey from getting an MBA from Penn State to his role today as Founder of Content Marketing Institute. Though it may look like an 'overnight success', Joe is very clear that getting to where he is today took a lot of blood, sweat and tears over the past decade(or more). He encourages you to not give up and push through any doubts or fears that you may be having. Success is on the way...and luck has nothing to do with it.

As content marketing evolves, so does how and why we measure it's success. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi discusses how content marketing measurement needs to move beyond the campaign mindset and toward the idea that it is an asset for your company. If you treat your content like a product, you will begin to ask different questions around it's value. Questions that could lead to some revelations on how important, or not so important, your content is to your business.

Every time a social media platform makes a big change, it gets a lot of attention. Many speculate how a change to a social platform, like the recent Twitter announcement to drop share counts, will negatively impact businesses using the social media site. In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi reminds you to build your content on your own platform and use social media for the great distribution opportunity it can provide. These companies can and will do whatever they want to when it comes to growing their revenue. Own your own platform so you can do the same.

In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi address what he refers to as the KEC, The Kurzweil Effect on Communications. Ray Kurzweil, famed inventor and futurist, recently stated that "information technologies are doubling in power every year". This means that how we communicate with each other, and especially with our customer is constantly evolving. This will require you as a business owner to make some changes to attempt to stay in line with this constant change.

In this episode of Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi shares how creating something unique and connected to only your band can provide a differentiating factor for business success. He shares how the color orange has become so connected with Content Marketing Institute and for others it may be a type of clothing or phrase. Is there something you are really passionate about or really into that you can lean into with your brand? How can you make quirky work for you?