Do you want to make a career in content marketing?
Are you looking for an industry expert who can help you write awesome and shareable content?
In this article, you will meet the top content marketing experts who dominated the industry with their deadly writing skills.
1. Aaron Agius
Aaron Agius is the managing director and co-founder of Louder Online. He is recognized in the field of SEO, content and social marketing. He also writes blogs for his company and contributes articles to the Entrepreneur.
Content Writing Strategy:
- Original work is important. But don’t forget your grammar and punctuation as well as spelling
- Make sure your content is written for your target market
- Create headlines that will grab people’s attention and read your article
- Provide readers with actionable steps that they can follow
Quote:
“Create content that answers questions and solves problems.”
2. Ann Handley
Ann Handley is the founder of MarketingProfs, a content marketing education company. She is the author of “Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content”. Handley is credited as both the world’s first chief content officer and the most influential female in content marketing.
Content Writing Strategy:
- Make your customer the hero of the story
- When it comes to writing content, it’s all about the reader
- Don’t pressure yourself too much when you’re writing
Quote:
“Writing is an attempt to understand and create meaning in a crazy world.”
3.Brian Clark
Brian Clark is the founder of Copyblogger, StudioPress, and the CEO of Rainmaker Digital. He is also the host for the Unemployable podcast. In addition, he is also considered as among the top influencers in the field of digital marketing and blogging.
Content Writing Strategy:
- Who – Through research, you can create your “ideal customer.” This means choosing the right persons you want your content to reach.
- What – This means finding out what kind of information your readers need to do business with you.
- How – You have to devise a way on how to reach your readers. Fortunately, this won’t be a problem if you know who they are and what they want to hear.
Quote:
“Make your ideal prospect view you as the only reasonable choice.”
4.Brian Fanzo
Brian Fanzo is a social strategy consultant and international keynote speaker. He is the founder and CEO of iSocialFanz.com. His #ThinkLikeAFan philosophy is credited for creating storytelling campaigns that are used by many Fortune 50 companies.
Content Writing Strategy:
- Write and publish your own articles through various sites such as Blogger, LinkedIn Publisher, Medium, Shareist, and WordPress
- Curate content to tell the story your way.
- Create and treat your hashtag as a personal brand
- “He introduced a process called “Upcyling”. In essence, converting old contents into slides, memes or infographics in order to attract new readers or audience
Quote:
“Social Media is the perfect platform for storytelling but to do it correctly is more than just telling your story with words. It’s a compilation of all your digital actions.”
5.Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the man behind Problogger.net. It’s an online resource for those who want to learn about blogging and how to make a living from it. He also co-authored a book, “ProBlogger“.
Content Writing Strategy:
- Know your audience and create content that will interest them
- Your article should solve problems
- Writing a good article is not enough. To get noticed, you have to promote it
- Create networks with the top bloggers in your niche.
- Using SEO is good but creating quality content is better.
Quote:
“I’m just trying to be a good citizen of the web and produce the best content…ultimately, what Google is trying to put…is great content.”
6.Ed Dale
Ed Dale is an Australian online marketer. He started the 30-day challenge where people can make money online within a month.
Content Writing (Copywriting) Strategy:
- Remove the adverbs if it makes your content “salesy”
- Talk the talk of your audience
- Show or describe the stuff, don’t just tell
- Read what you’ve written out loud
Quote:
“Copywriting and selling is not a gift.”
7.Emma Brudner
Emma Brudner is Hubspot’s blog, community and marketing director.
Email Subject Line Strategy:
- Use only a few words that’s easy to understand
- Tailor fit the subject based on your intended recipient
- Tell them straight away about what they should expect in your email
- Avoid using ALL CAPS and go easy with the exclamation points
Quote:
“Start with a title and headers, and then fill in the body copy from there. (This) helps me organize it in my head so I’m not writing crazy stream of consciousness.”
8.Eric Siu
Eric Siu is the CEO of Single Grain. He’s also a keynote speaker and a podcast host.
Content Writing Strategy:
- Write about topics that interest you
- Use SEO but don’t over-optimize
- For content feedback, you can ask your friends and family to read it first
Quote:
“Producing great content is no longer an option, it’s a must-have.”
9.Erika Heald
Erika Heald is a content marketing strategist and consultant. She is also a blogger and freelance writer.
Editorial Calendar Tips:
- Keep a good mix of different categories, topics, and content types
- You can use brand events and dates to create content
- Don’t forget to include content goals and personas
- Your editorial calendar is a daily scheduling tool but make it flexible enough to accommodate unexpected content changes.
- Include in your editorial calendar, social media and national holidays. You can generate great content ideas from them.
- Include your high-level content strategy in the editorial calendar.
Quote:
“I think then and now a big driver behind my writing was its ability to connect with and get to know other people.”
10.Gail Gardner
Gail Gardner is a small business marketing strategist
Content creation tips for serious (boring) topics:
- Research and write something that excites you about the topic
- Read and make use of existing content
- Consider writing the topic from a different point of view
- Add images or videos to make it more interesting
Quote:
“The ability to excite and inspire is a crucial ingredient for online marketing success. What are you doing today that will connect and engage viewers of your content.”
11.Gerry Moran
Gerry Moran is the Cognizant global head for social media and the North American social media chief of SAP.
Content Marketing Strategy:
- Start your content writing strategy by writing it down
- Develop your content based on your current audience
- Storytelling can help your reader remember your proposal
- Add pictures to your content. Your readers will love it.
Quote:
“Listen, amplify and connect to develop an audience.”
12.Jay Baer
Jay Baer is a digital marketing and customer consultant, as well as an author and keynote speaker.
B2B Content Marketing Strategy to Drive up Customer Conversion:
- Publish your own research to increase your customer conversion rates
- Create content that readers can download
- Concentrate on quality since that’s what readers are demanding
- Organic search is still the biggest booster
- Update your content to maintain its relevance
Quote:
“If your stories are all about your products and services that’s not storytelling. It’s a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.”
13.Jayson De Mers
Jayson De Mers is the founder and CEO of AudienceBloom. He’s also the author of “The Definitive Guide to Marketing Your Business Online” eBook.
Call to Action Strategy:
- Write as if you’re talking to your reader and make every word count
- Avoid using passive sentences and keep it short if possible
- Use the word “you” to talk directly to your readers
- Remind your readers why they went to your site.
- Tell the benefits and the advantages if the readers take the next step
Quote:
“Content marketing is all about publishing content to attract more traffic.”
14.Jeff Bullas
Jeff Bullas is the CEO of Jeffbullas.com. He’s also a content marketing influencer, social media marketing strategist, and speaker.
Content Marketing Strategy:
- Cultivate a follower base on social media networks like Twitter
- Distribute and share your post via social media regularly. Use tools if necessary
- Write content that will remain relevant for a long time if possible
- To double reader engagement, make sure to post your content at regular intervals
- Increase your followers and readers by creating an email list
Quote:
“The reality is that being found online requires constant SEO activity and content creation, publishing, and marketing.”
15.Jim Stewart
Jim Stewart is the CEO and founder of StewArt Media. He is also a digital marketing speaker.
SEO Ranking Strategies for Bloggers:
- One way to rank higher in Google is to remove all duplicate contents when the search engine crawls your site. You can find the duplicates by typing “site:domain.com.” Use a tool like Yoast to remove the archives and tags.
- Use the Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmasters Tools) to look for errors in your site before submitting its sitemaps
- Adding your domain name in the permalink structure is an effective optimization strategy.
- Make sure that your URL has the page title with the h1 tags. For images, include descriptive names.
- Encourage readers to stay longer at your blog by interlinking the posts into a series or sneeze page.
Quote:
“Build your brand, forget about Google.”
16.Joe Lazaukas
Joe Lazaukas is the Head of Content Strategy at Contently, a keynote speaker, and author of “The Storytelling Edge”.
Storytelling Strategy for Content Marketing:
- Tell stories that will make an impact. Your readers will more likely remember it
- Creating great stories will require hard work and optimization
- Change your storytelling strategy if readers don’t want to finish reading it
- No amount of paid distribution can make readers like a bad story
Quote:
“Content doesn’t exist in a vacuum.”
17.Joe Pulizzi
Joe Pulizzi is the founder of the Content Marketing Institute. He’s also an author and keynote speaker.
Strategy for Developing and Growing a Successful Podcast:
- Build an audience first, before starting a podcast
- If possible, identify the content that your competitors have not yet exploited
- Decide on the format and frequency of your podcast
- Forget the studio, the only thing you need is a “quiet room and a great microphone”
Quote:
“Good content marketing makes a person stop, read, think, and behave differently.”
18.Larry Kim
Larry Kim is the founder of WordStream and its current Chief Technology Officer
LinkedIn Profile Boosting Strategy:
- Make sure that your LinkedIn profile has your current information
- Photos can get you more views but only use professional looking ones
- Put some personal branding to your LinkedIn profile by adding some nice looking background images
- Make sure you write a summary that’s easy to read and filled only with relevant information
- Create and publish articles that showcased your expertise. This will get you noticed and even gained followers on LinkedIn
Quote:
“Be funny, ironic, or outrageous – just don’t be BORING.”
19.Lee Odden
Lee Odden is the CEO of TopRank Marketing. He’s also a digital marketing strategist, author, and speaker.
Content Marketing Strategy:
- Find out what problems your customer face and where do they look for solutions
- Do your customers prefer to read, watch or even listen to your content? Do they prefer images or videos?
- What will make your buyers take action? What kind of content will make them subscribe or transact with you
Quote:
“Content isn’t King, it’s the Kingdom.”
20.Mark Traphagen
Mark Traphagen is Stone Temple’s Senior Director for Brand Evangelism
Strategy for Creating Great Content:
- Make the content useful to your readers
- Connect the reader’s need with that of your business goals
- Make your content unique or at least present a new angle to the article
Quote:
“It’s a simple fact of human nature that people trust people long before they’ll trust faceless brands or organizations. “
21.Michael Brenner
Michael Brenner is the CEO of Marketer Insider Group, a keynote speaker, and author.
Content Marketing Strategy:
- Establish your brand using three voice characteristics – passionate, quirky and authentic
- Identify and understand your buyers
- Study successful content marketing strategies used by your competitors
Quote:
“Content marketing represents the gap between what brands produce and what consumers actually want.”
22.Nathan Chan
Nathan Chan is the founder and publisher of Foundr, a digital magazine.
Strategy for Increasing Instagram Followers:
- Be consistent when posting pictures on Instagram
- Post as frequently as you can, around four to eight times a day if possible
- Watermark your images especially if they are good enough to share
- Put as many hashtags as you can in the comment section to increase engagement
- Ask other Instagram account holders if you can share each other’s pictures.
Quote:
“Having a magazine can be very powerful. It’s a little sexier than a blog.”
23.Neil Patel
Neil Patel is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and KISSmetrics. He’s also an entrepreneur, investor, and columnist of several publications such as Forbes and Huffington Post.
Content Marketing Strategy:
- Great content will always produce a big return on investment
- If possible, contribute articles through various media outlets such Forbes or Medium
- You can use online tools such as Google Analytics to know more about your target readers
- Hosting events allows you to meet and connect with your audience
Quotes:
“If you want to continually grow your blog, you need to learn to blog on a consistent basis.”
24.Oli Gardner
Oli Gardner is a co-founder of Unbounce and a keynote speaker.
Landing Page Strategy:
- Create a landing page that will address the expectations of your intended customers
- You need a marketing campaign and a landing page if you want to convert your readers into customers
- For mobile landing pages, remove all the non-essential parts and leave all the valuable information for your visitors.
Quote:
“Your landing pages aren’t Wikipedia. Stop adding unnecessary links.”
25.Ramit Sethi
Ramit Sethi is the best-selling NYT author of “I Will Teach You to be Rich”. He’s also the founder and CEO of IWT.
Strategy for Creating a Viral Blog Post:
- Write topics that your readers will care about
- Create articles that will help solve their problems
- Keep your content organized
- Create a personal connection to your readers by just being yourself
- Engage your readers as if you’re having a conversation
- Include all the relevant information but don’t overload them with too much data
- You can make your blog unique by putting a new spin on an old idea
Quote:
“The 85 Percent Solution: Getting started is more important than becoming an expert.”
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