It's time to buckle up for what is sure to be an epic flight as we prepare for a safe landing at Content Marketing World in Cleveland, Ohio, USA this September 5-8. The Content Marketing Institute and TopRank Marketing teams once again will bring you a series of three #CMWorld conference ebooks showcasing some of our amazing speakers with their thoughtful advice on content marketing. Hang on for a fun ride - and we'll see you in September! (And be sure to listen to Joe Pulizzi's "message from your captain!" We had fun with this one.)

2. Adele Revella Marcus Sheridan Carrie Hane Tim Washer Laura Creekmore
Rebecca Lieb Jay Acunzo Andrea Fryrear Mark Schaefer Amanda Todorovich
Tom Webster Michele Linn Carlos Abler Jeannine Rossignol

4. A MESSAGE FROM YOUR CONTENT CAPTAIN
Wouldn’t it be nice if content marketing were as smooth as a transatlantic flight?
While the once wild ride of content marketing has certainly reached cruising altitude, there’s still some turbulence from time
to time. According to the latest joint CMI and MarketingProfs research, a full 89% of B2B marketers use content marketing,
while 86% of B2C marketers have purchased a ticket to the content skies. It’s certainly wonderful to watch it all take off.
Does that mean it’s time to kick back, relax, and turn on autopilot? Not even close. In the same study we found that 59% of
B2B marketers say it’s unclear what successful or effective content marketing looks like at their organization. And in the B2C
world, just 52% agree that their leadership teams give them ample time to produce content marketing results.
Put down that tiny packet of peanuts Maverick, it seems we’re not quite out of flight school.
While the value and practice of content marketing have been largely adopted and recognized at scale, the methods for
finding success elude many B2B and B2C marketers alike. If we wish for content marketing to succeed as an industry, we
must evangelize planning, strategy, and commit to taking the time it takes to get it right.
In the following pages we offer tips from top experts on how to prioritize planning and strategy, and ensure your content
journey is safe and enjoyable.
Buckle up. There’s bound to be a bit of turbulence.
Joe Pulizzi
Founder, Content Marketing Institute & Content Marketing World

5. Are you ready to start –
or continue – your expedition?
Join these speakers and many more at Content Marketing World 2017 this
September. We’re ready to provide you with all you need for a successful
journey. Register for CMWorld using the code TOPRANK100 for
$100 off main event and all-access passes.
Content Marketing Institute is the leading global content marketing education and training organization, teaching enterprise brands
how to attract and retain customers through compelling, multichannel storytelling. CMI’s Content Marketing World event, the largest
content marketing-focused event, is held every September in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and the Intelligent Content Conference event is
held every spring. CMI publishes the bi-monthly magazine Chief Content Officer, and provides strategic consulting and content
marketing research for some of the best-known brands in the world. Watch this video to learn more about CMI, a UBM company. To
view all research and to subscribe to our emails, visit www.contentmarketinginstitute.com.

6. “Sure, you have a story YOU want to
tell, but are you guessing about
whether your audience will care to
hear it?”
- @buyerpersona

7. STORIES BUYERS WANT TO HEAR
Sure, you have a story YOU want to tell, but are you guessing about
whether your audience will care to hear it? Before you begin, you
need to know your BUYER’S story. You need an efficient way to focus
on the useful aspects of your buyer’s story. You need …
1. Buyer personas that reveal your buyer’s mindset about the
decision you want to influence. It’s not enough to profile your
buyer – you need insights about how, when and why they make
the decision you want to influence.
2. Your buyer’s story to be based on in-depth interviews with real
buyers. Don’t settle for fictional personas based on internal or
customer perceptions.
3. To build a buyer-focused content strategy by meeting with your
solution’s subject matter experts to build story themes that
concisely address what your buyers want to hear. Don’t skip this
step or nothing will change.
Adele Revella
CEO, Buyer Persona Institute
@buyerpersona
Dream Travel Destination
My favorite place to go on
vacation is home! I’ve traveled
all over the world for so many
decades, and now I live on a
fantastic island in the Puget
Sound – San Juan Island. I
can’t think of any place I’d
rather be.

8. FIND SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS
Most content doesn't start with the Sales team, which is a crying
shame. Why? Because they are the subject matter experts. They are
the ones with their ears to the ground. They are the ones most aware
of the questions/concerns prospects are most commonly asking.
Thus, if the content doesn't come from Sales, then it's likely never
going to reach its potential nor be integrated into the sales process as
it should.
Most content marketers don't understand how to turn "The Elephant in
the Room" into a core strength. What I mean by that is the fact that
every company, product, and service has it's problems, drawbacks, or
"none-fit" issues. Most marketers never address these things-- thus
turning the issue into the elephant in the room. But the smart ones
take the elephant, bring it to the front door, and say, "This is our
elephant. We love it."
Most content marketers have never taken the time to answer this key
question: What are the top 7 reasons why someone would *not* buy
from us (assuming they know we exist)? Once this is answered, the
question then becomes, "How many of these 7 issues have we
addressed *well* on our website and in our content marketing
efforts?"
Marcus Sheridan
President, The Sales Lion
@TheSalesLion
Dream Travel Destination
It's really not where I'm going,
but who I'm going with. If my
wife and 4 kids are there, it's a
paradise.
And if deep-sea fishing is also
there, then it's heaven!

9. THINK LESS, NOT MORE
Content marketers don’t always start with a customer need. Better to
start with the customer journey and map content to each step rather
than starting with what the company wants to sell.
They tend to think quantity instead of quality. Think less, not more,
content. Encourage collaboration between departments and take
advantage of technology for easier workflow.
Along with that, content marketers don’t necessarily plan for content
reuse. They need to consider an intelligent content approach. Content
that is structured to optimize performance with technology. It is
structurally rich, semantically categorized, automatically discoverable,
reusable, reconfigurable, and adaptable. The results include better
user experiences, easier storytelling, and more efficient content
management.
Carrie Hane
Principal Strategist, Tanzen
@carriehd
Dream Travel Destination
Italy. Tuscany and the Amalfi
Coast specifically. All the
movies and photos I see make it
look a bit like heaven on earth. I
can picture myself in a
convertible driving along the
coast, with a scarf on my head
and big sunglasses, a la Audrey
Hepburn.

10. “Tell stories about shifts in economies
or markets that led to reinventing the
industry.”
- @timwasher

11. UNLOCK DEEPER STORYTELLING
Encourage employees to share photos and short blog posts about
their hobbies, cooking classes, hiking trips, etc. Publish these to the
company’s “Who We Are” page. This honors employees, and creates
rapport and trust between the company and blog readers.
One of the main reasons people are hesitant to contribute content is
because they don’t know what to write about. Remove that obstacle
by providing a specific story concept, and invite employees and
customers to submit a blog post or photo with caption., e.g. “What I
did this summer.”
Stories about history are fascinating. Create a series of stories
remotely connected to your industry (but not about your company).
Profile inventors and reveal their moment of inspiration.
Tell stories about shifts in economies or markets that led to
reinventing the industry.
Tim Washer
Creative Director, Cisco Systems
@timwasher
Dream Travel Destination
Gruene, TX. Float down the
Guadalupe River, chicken-fried
steak at the Gristmill, a
converted 1878 cotton gin
overlooking the water, and boot-
scootin' to live country music at
Gruene Hall.

12. ASK WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE NEEDS
Begin with the end in mind. Set your goals down, and write up your
concrete strategy from audience understanding, to business goals, to
tactics, to measurement strategy. Put it on a timeline, and then follow
through and adjust accordingly.
First, as always: Ask what your audience needs, and create the
message second. In developing your message, ask yourself, what do
you want people to know? More organizations should spend time on
message development. We jump very quickly to execution — creating
content — but we’d be way more effective if we spent more time on
audience and the overall message.
Your world is omnichannel and you must be, too. I don’t care what
business you’re in; if you don’t have a strategy that enables you to
communicate on any platform, you’re toast. Don’t imagine you can get
by with email alone, or just a website, or without seriously analyzing
all the ways your customers use media today.
If this is you, you’re asking for it, and someone will be by shortly to eat
your lunch.
Laura Creekmore
President, Creek Content
@LauraCreekmore
Dream Travel Destination
Top of my travel-bucket list:
India. So much rich history...so
little time!

13. Rebecca Lieb
Principal, Conglomotron LLC
@lieblink
Dream Travel Destination
Anywhere I haven't already
been! I'm excited to run content
workshops in Shanghai this
winter, my first real visit to
China. Also high on my list are
India, Australia and New
Zealand.
DOCUMENT YOUR STRATEGY
Sadly, strategy still tops the list. My research, together with that of
CMI, still demonstrates that most marketers are flying blind,
committing content marketing without first documenting a content
strategy.
That leads straight into #2: metrics and KPIs. Without understanding
what you want to achieve and how you'll measure progress toward
that goal, it's all just scattershot content.
#3 is being more experimental. Strategy isn't hewn in stone, it can
provide margins for learning what's new and next in content
marketing, so have fun with it!
“Without understanding what you want to
achieve and how you'll measure progress
toward that goal, it's all just scattershot
content.”

14. “Figure out what makes you, your
team, and your customers unique.”
- @jayacunzo

15. THINK MORE
Number 1: Think for yourself more.
Number 2: Think for yourself more.
Number 3: Think for yourself more.
There's enough clickbaity, list-ified, secret-selling malarkey out there
to fill the galaxy. Figure out what makes you, your team, and your
customers unique -- obsess more over your CONTEXT instead of
everyone else's advice-filled CONTENT -- and execute against that.
You'll be surprised at how easily you stand out from the average noise
just by being an exception from it.
Jay Acunzo
Host, Unthinkable Podcast
@jayacunzo
Dream Travel Destination
The scene: Rome. A tiny family-
owned restaurant sitting along
the River Tiber.
The characters: A wide-eyed,
college-aged, extremely broke
Jay, and five friends of equal
state of mind and wallet.
“Figure out what makes you, your team,
and your customers unique.”

16. ADOPT A MORE AGILE APPROACH
Adopt a more agile approach to content strategy, which, to be clear,
doesn't mean changing it everyday on a whim. It means strategically
revisiting strategies at regular intervals and objectively evaluating their
performance with an eye towards continuous improvement. Getting to
this kind of place takes time and effort, but it lets your content team
run in closer sync with the audience and business objectives instead
of blindly executing against a six-month strategy.
Take a look at your publication cadence and content mix and try to
determine if it's really the best fit for your audience. If you're
publishing a blog post Monday through Friday because you think that
you should, but your audience would prefer two longer written pieces
and one video, you're not meeting their needs as well as you could.
The flip side of #2 is to really consider your content resources during
planning. Be considerate of their workloads. Don’t destroy their
passion for content with unrelenting production demands and
unreasonable expectations.
Andrea Fryrear
Chief Content Officer, Fox
Content Ltd.
@AndreaFryrear
Andrea’s Dream Travel
Destination
Hands down Rome, largely
because its history and
architecture are totally unique.
But also because pasta. And
wine. And cannoli.

17. BE ORIGINAL
"Look up." Don't be so wedded to a content schedule that you miss
opportunities to comment on relevant news and shifts occurring in
your industry.
Ignore SEO. Well, not ALL the time, but consider how SEO can be
holding you back. Content goes viral because it’s unique. If you're
only aiming at popular keywords, by definition you're optimizing to an
average, not necessarily creating something that is entirely bold and
new.
Challenge yourself to create content that only YOU can create. To
stand out, you must be original, and to be original, you need to have
the courage to bring your own story into the narrative.
Mark Schaefer
Executive Director, Schaefer
Marketing Solutions
@markwschaefer
Dream Travel Destination
I've been to 60 countries so I've
seen a lot, but one that is hard
to get to is Nepal. It's a colorful
and exotic place with such a
rugged landscape!

18. “Look at content data every day and
tweak based on the analytics.”
- @amandatodo

19. ADAPT TO YOUR AUDIENCE
Mine and mind your data.
Dig into the analytics of your content performance. Listen to what your
customers are telling you with their behavior and interaction with your
content.
Make sure you’ve got a persona that you’re creating for… who are
they? What’s their name? What are their interests? What devices are
they using to engage with your content?
Adapt and be fluid with your content scheduling. Scheduling months
out isn’t always a great idea. Optimize to the current news
environment. Look at the data every day and tweak/adjust/optimize
based on the analytics. Do not “set it and forget it.”
Amanda Todorovich
Director, Content Marketing,
Cleveland Clinic
@amandatodo
Dream Travel Destination
Hawaii. I’ve never been there,
and my family wants to go. We
love beautiful beaches, and
spending time in tropical
weather. I have this memory of
my daughter when she was like
2 years old asking us to go to
“Who-why-ee” that always
makes me smile.

20. ENTERTAIN & CHALLENGE
I don’t know about three things content marketers *aren’t* doing—but
I will give my three criteria for anything I put out: it has to entertain, it
has to challenge, and it has to come from genuine subject matter
expertise (not content marketing expertise).
If I can hit all three, it meets my ultimate goal: content I am proud of.
Tom Webster
Vice President, Strategy &
Marketing, Edison Research
@webby2001
Dream Travel Destination
Cleveland. Definitely Cleveland.
CMW falls on my birthday every
year, so it’s become Party City
Ohio to me.
“[Content] has to entertain, it has to
challenge, and it has to come from genuine
subject matter expertise (not content
marketing expertise).”

21. FROM ”MEH” TO MEANINFUL
Shut down: One thing marketers don’t excel at is being quiet . . . truly
quiet. Marketers who actively turn off social, email and all other
distractions to think and create will have a distinct advantage over
their “always on” peers who are most certainly busy, but who may or
may not be productive with meaningful work.
Think about how what they create makes people feel: To quote my
friend and fellow CMW speaker, Andrea Fryrear, “Our job is not to
create content. Our job is to change the world of the people who
consume it.” If marketers can truly get into this mindset, the content
they create can be transformed from “meh” to truly meaningful.
Say no – or not now: The last thing I think marketers need to do a
better job with is prioritization. Make deliberate decisions about the
few things you will focus on, and work on them until they are complete
(or at least until they are ready to pass off to the next person). Don’t
feel the need to prioritize new ideas; rather, decide if they need to
take priority or if they should be put in the “parking lot” for now.
Michele Linn
VP of Content, Content
Marketing Institute
@michelelinn
Dream Travel Destination
If I had to choose something
from my bucket list, it would be
one of those overwater
bungalows in Tahiti. I adore the
ocean, and I’d love to wake up
in those surroundings. island in
the Puget Sound – San Juan
Island. I can’t think of any place
I’d rather be.

22. “More content producers should
strive to produce the best thing that
exists.”
- @Carlos_Abler

23. EMBRACE SALES ENABLEMENT
The content marketer should make content they KNOW their clearly
defined target audience will actually WANT.
You wouldn’t think I would have to recommend such a perfectly
obvious thing. Unfortunately, hordes of content producers still
operating as if simply pushing content into channels is an end in itself.
There is more ‘nontent’ than ‘content’ out there. Until that stops, we’ll
need to reiterate that relevance is king. Content isn’t king. Relevance
is. Content is just a means to an end to relevance. Or it’s nontent.
Identify the content that will answer the needs of their audience, and
then benchmark their content concept against that most competitive
content in that category they can find, and then surpass it. Too many
content initiatives are benchmarking to some ‘meh’ common
denominator. More content producers should strive to produce the
best thing that exists. For that, due diligence to investigate the
landscape of existing content would help.
Every content marketer in the world should do a mirror affirmation
saying “Relevance is King, I will not produce nontent”.
Carlos Abler
Leader, Content Marketing
Strategy, Global
eTransformation – 3M
@Carlos_Abler
Dream Travel Destination
The Rif mountains of Morocco,
where I would join a musical
trance brotherhood, so I can
whirl away into ecstasy until
there is nothing left of me.

24. KEEP SALES IN MIND
Sales Enablement. We spend the majority of our time as marketers
thinking about the customer, their needs and how our product/service
will help them. We use our content to start great conversations with
customers. But if we don’t plan for how sales will use the content
when we turn the customer over to them, there will be a huge
disconnect. A disconnect that could result in a lost opportunity, or
worse a lost customer for life.
We need to know our sales team, their selling process and ensure
we’ve developed content that also meets their needs.
I’m so passionate about this topic, it is the focus of my session at
CMWorld!
Jeannine
Rossignol
Vice President, Marketing &
Communications, Xerox
@j9rossignol
Dream Travel Destination
My dream travel destination is
Egypt to see the Great
Pyramids of Giza. They are an
amazing, inspiring
accomplishment from an
ancient world.

25. And now, a word from your captain
CARE TO SHARE YOUR
IN-FLIGHT EXPERIENCE?
Click any of the icons below to share the in-flight guide on your favorite social network.

26. And now, a word from your captain
WHAT’S NEXT?
The joyride doesn’t have to end here. Sign up for our
exclusive CMI Airlines Perks Rewards Program** today, and
you’ll receive a ticket to our next In-flight Content Guide,
“Creating a Memorable Content Experience.”
This piece will feature even more amazing advice from
thought leaders and brands on how to cruise through the
content skies like Maverick and Goose.
Due to legal restrictions, we will not be be serving peanuts,
pretzels, or alcoholic beverages during next week’s flight
experience. Just ToFu, BoFu, and a bit more ToFu content to
round out the flight.
*There is absolutely, positively no such thing as CMI Airlines Perks Rewards, but
we WILL send you amazing content advice (and only when you want it) if you
sign up for our newsletter!