The document presents insights from 27 experts in content marketing, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs, creating valuable content, and leveraging data in marketing strategies. Key themes include customer-centric approaches, the role of storytelling, and the significance of collaboration within marketing teams. Additionally, the experts highlight the necessity of innovation and intentional content creation to adapt to market transformations.

1. ADVICE
FROM 27 EXPERTS
CONTENT MARKETING
Michael Gerard, CMO, Curata | @MichaelGerard | michael@curata.com

2. Ryan Skinner"
Senior Analyst, Forrester"
@rskin11
“Ensure your content creates interest,
relevance and relationships. Understand
& listen to your customers, including
analyzing data about them,
and build up your content
ecosystem.”

3. David Cooperstein"
VP, Research Director, Forrester Research"
@Minicooper
“Customer obsessed marketing is no longer
an option. In this ‘Age of the Customer’, the
best marketers will create content, not
advertising, contextualize the customer
experience and make real-time data a
reality.”

4. Ann Handley"
CCO, MarketingProfs"
@MarketingProfs
“Steal best practices from
traditional publishers: have a
mission, focus on the reader first,
not what your CEO wants, and tell
stories about people.”

5. Jay Baer"
Author of Youtility"
@JayBaer
“The secret is not to do
more. . . it’s to create content
that matters, that they cherish
since people crave
useful things.”

6. Michael Gerard"
CMO, Curata"
@michaelgerard
“Be fearless and relentless in your
pursuit of success. The key to innovation
in social media and content marketing is
to continuously reinvent your strategy
and tactics. In some cases this
may lead to mistakes. Great!
Learn from them.”

7. David Skok"
General Partner, Matrix Partners"
@BostonVC
“Funnel optimization:
Understand your buyers’ journey
as they pass through the stages of
awareness, consideration and
purchase.”

8. Chris Brogan"
CEO, Human Business Networks"
@ChrisBrogan
“Stop sucking up to the
people above you and spend
more time raising up
the people alongside of you.”

9. Andy Crestodina"
Strategic Director, Orbit Media"
@crestodina
“Go deep into specific topics.
Identify what topics you can
own, and create the best pages
on the Internet for that topic.”

10. Marcus Sheridan"
Founder, The Sales Lion"
@TheSalesLion
“‘They Ask, You Answer’ is your key
to listening to your audience and engaging
with them. Too many companies ignore the
simplest of questions that their audience
asks them, and become an ostrich
with their head in the sand.”

11. Mike Stelzner"
Founder/CEO, Social Media Examiner"
@Mike_Stelzner
“Do not be discouraged if there are 1000s of
blogs in your niche. This didn’t discourage
me. I saw it as an opportunity to develop
something that’s different. All those blogs
are just proof that there’s a large audience
out there.”

12. Joe Pulizzi"
Founder, CMI"
@JoePulizzi
“For every six pieces of content, four
should be from your influencer targets’
interests, one should be an original
thought leadership piece and one
should be related to sales.”

13. Stan Smith"
Founder, Pushing Social"
@PushingSocial
“Brainstorm 9 SEO phrases: 3 readers use
to find information, 3 to research key topics
in your area & 3 to decide if they should do
business with you. Brainstorm 5 posts per
SEO phrase to get 45 great posts.”

14. Lewis Bertolucci"
Head of Social Media, Humana"
@Lewis502
“Don’t reinvent ROI metrics. One company
developed a ‘return on conversation’ metric;
resulting in more spent time explaining it
to the CEO versus communicating in terms
they’re already used to.”

15. Gini Dietrich"
CEO, Arment Dietrich; Founder, SpinSucks"
@GiniDietrich
“Many companies are missing the
opportunity to leverage their
employees for content development.
The best content marketers are
crowdsourcing across their
organizations.”

16. Ann Lewnes"
CMO, Adobe"
@alewnes
“Allocate 20% of your marketing
budget to technology as a rule of
thumb.”

17. Phil Fernandez"
CEO, Marketo"
@PhilF1217
“The reality is that we’re at the very
beginning of a marketing
transformation: 1 on 1 communication,
continuous engagement, behavioral data
and an integrated marketing
experience.”

18. Cyrus Shepard"
Senior Content Astronaut, Moz"
@PhilF1217
“Focus on providing better answers for
your audience: know that Google wants
to have ‘answers’ for its audience, not
just a lot of information.”

19. Lee Odden"
CEO, TopRank Marketing"
@LeeOdden
“5 Steps to Content Marketing Awesome:
1. ID Customer Segments
2. Map the buying journey
3. What are questions during the sales cycle?
4. Leverage those questions for content
5. Optimize for search, social and UX”

20. Heather Loisel"
VP, SiriusDecisions"
@HeatherLoisel
“You can’t get to ‘growth’
without taking risks, and
you need marketing
transformational change to
catalyze this process.”

21. Alan Belniak"
Content Expert"
@abelniak
“Tap into the power of
different content delivery
channels based on your
buyers’ needs.”

22. Todd Wheatland"
Head of Strategy"
@ToddWheatland
“Be intentional regarding
content creation – that is,
create content that will be
relevant and of high quality
for your target audience.”

23. Brian Clark"
Founder, Copyblogger"
@BrianClark
“We only publish once a day
so that we don’t burn out
our audience’s attention.”

24. Denise Wakeman"
Founder, The Blog Squad"
@DeniseWakeman
“Don’t forget to focus on
getting your message out. You
need to go far beyond
publishing a blog post.”

25. Justin Levy"
Head of Social Media, Citrix"
@JustinLevy
“Regardless of reporting
relationships, all digital
marketing teams should work
together.”

26. Nick Robinson"
Social Media Channel Manager, SAP"
@SocialRobinson
“Three key KPIs used by SAP: cost
per impression, cost per
engagement and pipeline
touched.”

27. Cory Edwards"
Head of Social Business Center of Excellence, Adobe"
@coryedwards
“Four key areas of CoE:
1. Governance – Establish polices &
audits
2. Enablement – Develop & execute
training
3. Measurement – Measure & meet
objectives
4. Innovation – Determine what’s
next”

28. Nichole Kelly"
President, SME Digital"
@Nichole_Kelly
“Company pages aren’t the only
possible brand voice in social.
Empower employees on their own
networks and extend reach.”

29. Sources of Expert Quotes
• The Ultimate Social Media Marketing World Wrap-Up
http://bit.ly/SMMW14WrapUp
• Growth Hacking for Marketing by David Skok
http://bit.ly/GrowthHack4Marketing
• Content Marketing Perspective of Marketo’s Marketing
Nation Summit
http://bit.ly/Marketo2014
• Customer Engagement Guidelines from Forrester’s
Forum for Marketing Leaders
http://bit.ly/Forrester2014

30. eBook: Look Book
Content Curation
Case Studies
eBook: 5 Steps to
Becoming a Content
Curation Rockstar
…and more online at: www.curata.com/resources
Industry Resource & News:
Content Curation Marketing Site
www.contentcurationmarketing.com
eBook: Content
Marketing Done Right:
Ethical Curation
eBook: Open & Shut
Case for Curation
Guide: Content
Curation Annotation
Methods
Twitter: @GetCurata
LinkedIn Group: Content Curators
eBook: Stop Egocentric
Marketing: Content
Marketing Strategy
Additional Resources
eBook: 2014 Content
Marketing Tactics
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