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.
The #ContentChat Bulletin: These Three B2B Trends Will Have a Big Impact on Your Content Strategy
I'm not just a MarketingProfs 2024 B2B Forum speaker, I'm a decade-long Pro member and a HUGE fangirl.
They are always publishing insights and tools that help me refine my content strategy to adapt to ever-changing industry trends and customer preferences.
Case in point: just as I was starting to plan my agenda for this week's conference, I came across this recent post, Emerging B2B Trends You Need to Know [Infographic].
What specifically caught my eye was the section on B2B Customer Expectations:
- 48% personalized experiences
- 48% always-on customer service
- 30% consistent brand experience
So, how are B2B organizations adapting to meet these expectations? 68% of B2B business professionals are adopting AI to streamline business operations. And that makes sense—AI has the potential to allow us to create personalized, on-brand content that adapts on-the-fly to an individual's needs, content consumption, and purchase history.
Putting aside the debate over the ethics and legalities of using AI to create content, there's a steep learning curve and knowledge gap many of us will need to overcome to put AI to use in the rest of our marketing activities.
That's why I'm planning on attending most of the B2B Forum's sessions on AI for marketers. Yes, I've had AI clients, and regularly present on personalization topics (leaning in heavily on using AI to scale personalization). Which is why I can't wait to hear how other marketers are making AI work for them.
I promise I'll share my notes and "aha! moments" here and on LinkedIn. Is there a specific question you have about AI for marketers? Hit reply to let me know, and I'll happily ask it in one of the sessions.
Coming Up on #ContentChat
Content 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. Be sure to mark your calendar to join the #ContentChat community and me for these upcoming guests:
- TODAY on #ContentChat, I’ll explain how you can create a truly useful content style guide. This will preview some of the takeaways from my upcoming MarketingProfs B2B Forum session on Oct. 5. I am gobsmacked that the session is already full! Join me for today's livestream where I'll also teach you how to use AI to keep your content on brand across the organization.
- Next Monday (Oct. 9) there is NO #ContentChat given the U.S. Indigenous Peoples’ Day holiday. We’ll be back on Oct. 16 to discuss why brand sponsorships can be a smart content marketing strategy with Kanaar Bell.
Get Involved with #ContentChat
Want #ContentChat on your calendar? Use this link to follow our calendar, so you never miss a chat.
We're booking guests for November and beyond—send us your pitch!
Are you a content marketing practitioner or consultant who is interested in being a guest for an upcoming edition of #ContentChat? We’d love to see your topic pitch via our Content Chat guest submission form.
Content Marketing + Related Jobs
Senior Copywriter, Skillable.
Skillable provides hands-on learning experiences to help people develop or validate their technical and digital skills with customers that include Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM. The fully remote brand is hiring a senior copywriter to create crisp marketing sound bites aimed at the C-Suite and decision-makers. The role includes interviewing stakeholders to ghostwrite articles, writing digital ad campaign copy, and growing Skillable’s digital footprint.
Senior Manager, Content Marketing, Grammarly.
Tens of millions of people (including me!) use Grammarly to improve their written communication. Its team is seeking a senior manager of content marketing to build and maintain a content strategy that supports B2B Grammarly Business and Grammarly for Education. Note that the role requires you to meet for 2-4 weeks every quarter in San Francisco.
Senior Content Marketing Manager, Finch.
Finch is on a mission to democratize access to the infrastructure that underpins the employment sector, offering APIs to connect data across employee benefits, HR tech, and fintech solutions. The company is hiring a senior content marketing manager to own its technical content strategy and align with cross-departmental stakeholders to manage the editorial calendar. The position is hybrid with offices in San Francisco, Seattle, New York, and Toronto.
Senior Manager, Content Marketing, NIQ.
NielsenIQ (NIQ) provides brands and retailers with consumer shopping insights through omnichannel measurements. Its team is looking for a senior manager of content marketing to develop, execute, and report on content campaigns designed to support NIQ commercial priorities. This includes developing thought leadership campaigns across integrated channels and managing the development of webinars and live events. The role is remote-eligible.
Content Marketing Strategist, Teachable.
Teachable offers a no-code platform that enables people to create online courses, coaching platforms, downloadable content, and community sites. The company is hiring a remote-eligible content marketing strategist to help grow its top-of-funnel content and nurture leads. The role involves creating content for the in-course academy, blog, video, and email.
Are you hiring? We can help!
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.
ICYMI What to Read/Watch/Listen to This Week
#ContentChat Recap: How to Repurpose Content to Maximize Your Content Marketing Value.
For every piece of content you create, you should have at least three variations of it. And you should plan for each of these versions before you start writing. To help you make the most out of the content you create and give it meaningful life in multiple forms, I talked with Meisha Bochicchio to glean her favorite content upcycling tips (and her insights from repurposing VMware’s event content) in this #ContentChat recap. Do you have an example of content repurposing that spanned all your content channels? I’d love to see it!
The Drift Conversational AI Starter Guide.
Marketers must start to explore AI today to augment our workflows and learn its limitations. To put it bluntly: if you lag on AI adoption, you will fall behind (and I don’t want that to happen!). This guide from Drift is a perfect primer to help you understand what conversational AI is and how it can help your brand increase its sales pipeline.
#ContentChat Recap: Content Marketing Career And Salary Outlook 2024.
There is a lot to be optimistic about when looking at content marketing as a career (as long as you don’t see AI as an enemy, that is)! But there are a few challenges ahead, and companies need to be prepared to give content marketers what they need to thrive. Listen to or read through this #ContentChat recap for insights from CMI Content’s new Content Marketing Career and Salary Outlook 2024, including highlights and insights from CMI’s Kim Moutsos.
B2B Content Promotion in 2023: Channel and Format Trends.
Don’t just post your content and then move on—you should be promoting everything you create to maximize its reach! New research from Converge found that 65% of B2B marketers say they’re not spending enough time on content promotion. MarketingProfs digs into the findings in this article.
How to Use Content to Boost Your Personal Brand in Midlife.
No matter where you want your career to go, content is an essential way to articulate your goals and attract meaningful connections and opportunities. To dig into ways you can use content to boost your personal brand in midlife, I joined Bernie Borges on this episode of the Midlife Fulfilled podcast.
5 Creator Business Mistakes Made by Entrepreneur Brian Fanzo.
Brian Fanzo is one of my go-to experts for understanding Web3 and NFTs. It’s been a true delight to see his business grow over the past decade (how has it been that long?!). But, as he shares in this article, there are a few mistakes he’s made over the past decade. Learn from his journey to accelerate yours. I love the tip about doing work for no fee—but not free (and sparingly, of course).
This is AI Powered SEO: 7 Ways to use ChatGPT for Higher Rankings.
SEO and content optimization is a great place to get your feet wet with testing AI and driving noticeable improvements fairly quickly. This article from Andy Crestodina shares seven ways you can use AI to boost your rankings and organic traffic. You can bet I’ll be refining my site audit process to reflect these insights.
Until next time, stay safe and be well!
Cheers,
Erika
Erika Heald, Founder & Lead Consultant
Erika Heald Marketing Consulting
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/erikaheald
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/misserikasf/
Threads: @MisserikaSF
The #ContentChat Bulletin
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.
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