I was recently on a call with someone who insisted that I’d given them the wrong email address. Every email they sent to me was bouncing. Was my website down? Nothing gets my heart racing like the words—”is your website down?” After all, it’s the one owned place where we tell our story of who we are as a company. We use its pages to show you, through our own content creation and content marketing, what you can expect if you engage us to work with you. On our site, we host a curated selection of the most helpful content marketing templates we’ve used over and over. They’re there, in our resources center, ungated and free to use. We want people to take our best practices—and the tools we’ve crafted to make our jobs easier—and apply them to their own content marketing programs. So, the idea of our site being down made me panic—but only for a split second. As soon as they shared their screen with me, the issue was easy to spot—they’d spelled my name “Erica” instead of “Erika” in the account and site names, and it bounced back. Whew! That’s an easy enough fix. I wasn’t ever actually that worried, by the way. Because the one and only time we’ve had website issues, my notifications lit up my phone. That’s the advantage of having created a site with content that people have come to enjoy and regularly use—they let you know if anything is amiss. What about you? Is your website and its content so helpful that your community gives you the heads up whenever a minor issue crops up? And if not, what can you do to upgrade your content strategy to change that? Coming Up on #ContentChatContent Chat is my weekly LinkedIn Live video chat focused on sharing expertise and ideas amongst the content marketing community. Join the conversation on Mondays at noon Pacific / 3 p.m. Eastern. RSVP for our upcoming conversations by clicking the chat date below to get a reminder and to access the chat.
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Will I See You in San Diego for CMworld?Two of my favorite things are coming together this year: San Diego and CMworld! Will I see you at the show? Reply to this email if you’re interested in meeting up, and I’d appreciate you attending my session on how to define a differentiated brand voice using AI. P.S. Register today using the code HEALD100 to save $100 on your registration fee. Content Marketing + Related JobsContent Marketing Manager, Firefly. Director of Content, Rebrandly. Content Marketing Manager, Productboard. Senior Manager, Content Marketing, Headway. Senior Content Marketing Manager, Modern Health. Content Marketing Manager, Gartner. Senior Content Marketing Manager, Bizzabo. Social Media and Content Creator Specialist, Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar. Send Us Your Content Jobs!If you have a content marketing contract position, full-time job, or freelancer opportunity, reply to this email and let us know. We are always happy to share jobs with the community at no cost. ICYMIExperts Reveal the Worst (and Best) Advice on Using Generative AI in Content Marketing. ACTION ITEM: Take the CMI + Marketing Profs Annual Content Marketing Survey. How to Create More Personalized Content Marketing. AI, Ethics, and the Law: How to Stay Aboveboard. What Marketers Can Learn About Great Storytelling from Pro Wrestling. Until next time, stay safe and be well! Cheers, Erika |
Erika Heald is the host of the weekly #ContentChat LinkedIn Live video podcast for content marketers, held Mondays at noon Pacific. As a B2B marketing consultant, she helps organizations define and execute content marketing strategies that drive business and professional growth. As a creator, and gluten-free blogger helping people discover gut-friendly farm-to-table food. She frequently speaks at B2B marketing industry events on employee brand advocacy, content strategy, customer experience, AI readiness, and social media topics. You can find her on her blogs erikaheald.com and erikasglutenfreekitchen.com.
I’ve got a confession to make: there was a time when I thought that a creative brief was a waste of my time. Today, as someone who loves figuring out how to streamline processes by creating templates and other tools, I finally understand why. It’s because the creative brief wasn’t the right tool for the job (my job). First of all, it didn’t reflect the B2B side of the business. The creative team created it for consumer brand projects. It never felt relevant to the operational,...
I’ve been a gamer since I got my first TI994A computer and popped in a racing game cartridge my uncle sent me for Christmas. I’ve had over a dozen computers and game systems since then and played hundreds of games over the decades. Eventually, I settled into being a Mac person, which is great for the work that I do. But it’s incredibly limiting when it comes to the online multiplayer games I like to play, which is part of the reason why I’ve been a World of Warcraft player for 18 years. I...
Early in my career, I was asked to ghostwrite an important all-employee message for an executive I hadn’t even met yet. It was my second day on the job, so I didn’t feel like I could say ‘no.’ So, I wrote the email. The executive liked it well enough to make minor edits before their admin sent it out. But, unfortunately, it set a precedent. I wrote dozens of emails from the executive over my tenure on the job. But I never had a 1:1 with them or had an opportunity to interview them before...