Andi Robinson

Leaders like data. The more concrete metrics you can show them, the better. And you need to make those metrics easy to understand. Put yourself in your boss's shoes. They are juggling many priorities and may have budget in mind. They need to make decisions about where to put human and monetary resources. They will base that decision on cold, hard facts. You may think your content strategy is the cream of the crop, but your boss must be objective.

Having useful technology that meets your needs is essential for your team being productive and effecient. This allows your team, no matter where in the world they are located, to always know what is happening with your campaigns and your content initiative. You are not waiting for people in another time zones to reply to your Teams DMs or emails just to get information. It is all in one place and accessible 24/7.

I try to attend a couple of webinars each week. Even if I can't make it live, most companies record the session and send the recording afterward. But make sure you choose sessions that will help you grow your business. If you have LinkedIn Premium, you can also access LinkedIn Learning, which can be a wealth of knowledge. You can also attend live or virtual sessions from industry organizations like the American Marketing Association.

I get almost 100% of my referrals that turn into clients from networking. Get to know other people in your industry or the industries you want as clients. Personal relationships are much stronger than cold-calling, cold-emailing, or impersonal advertising. You never know who will remember you after conversing about what you do. It may not be today or tomorrow, but eventually, they will need your services. Or they will know someone who does and pass your name along.

One of the key differences between content marketing and other forms of marketing is that it starts with the audience in mind, instead of starting with what the business needs. That is the value that needs to be included in your content marketing efforts. What does your audience need? What will help their lives? What can you give them that they will find of value. Don't throw a list of product attributes out there or talk about the greatness of your business. Audience first. Business second.

Whether you are a B2B or a B2C company, one thing to remember is that your audience is human. And humans come chock full of experiences, biases, and emotions that impact everything they do. From what clothes they are going to put on in the morning to the route they take to work and even how they react to an advertisement or social media post that you release into the world, psychology has an impact. They each bring their own unique experiences and viewpoints to the table. But that doesn’t mean you need to market to each individual (although, in some cases, you will definitely want to personalize your content). The good news is that there are some constants about human behavior we can consider when creating our content strategies.