Joe Pulizzi Talks Hot Topics from Content Marketing World 2017
Joe Pulizzi, otherwise known as the godfather of content marketing, is the founder of Content Marketing Institute, a world-leader in education and organization for content marketing.
CMI hosts the largest in-person content marketing event on the globe called Content Marketing World.
Today, Joe breaks down the hot topics and key events from Content Marketing World 2017.
What is Content Marketing World?
Joe launched Content Marketing World in 2011 with fairly low expectations. He hoped about 100 would attend but over 600 people showed up.
This year, over 3,500 attendees from 50 counties came to learn about effective customer communication and content marketing.
Content Marketing World 2017 hosted over 200 speakers from around the world to educate and teach people.
Joe says all kinds of people attended the event including folks working on blogs, podcasts, webinars, and even print media. However, many people working in public relations or communications came to learn effective marketing strategies as well.
Top Takeaway from Content Marketing World 2017
Building on research from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, Joe says 90% of successful companies focus on building audiences that know, like, and trust them.
To achieve this, all companies – no matter the industry – need to double as media companies. This means delivering consistent, regular, and valuable content to a very specific audience.
Joe says it's not enough to just tell folks what you know by throwing a wide variety of content out into the void and seeing what sticks. Businesses must create content for a very specific audience.
By narrowing down the audience, companies can focus on solving specific customer problems by creating relevant content. This can also help businesses stand-out from others in the same industry.
Joe explains that when companies build authority through relevant, informational, and interesting content, audiences are more likely to produce profitable behavior.
How to Produce and Deliver Relevant Content
Become a great storyteller. You want to evoke emotions and make a deep impression on someone's life.
Meet customers and talk to people. Understand the problems they face.
Use that information to develop your content strategy. In the beginning, companies should focus on producing small amounts of high-quality content and putting more efforts into promotion. As the audience grows, businesses should devote more resources into content production instead of promotion.
Joe says companies should also put more effort into utilizing videos and less effort into relying on technology such as Facebook, AI, or private groups. Use technology as a supplement but don't go all-in because these platforms want to profit off of you.
What's the next big-thing? Joe recommends keeping an eye out for acquisitions. He says this will change many things regarding media and companies will need to prepare for that.
Joe Pulizzi's fifth book, Killing Marketing, is available on Amazon.
Edited by Mandi Nowitz