How to level up your content calendar
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In this issue: This week in our marketing best practices, it's all about your content calendar. Unsurprisingly, not all calendars are created equal, so we're talking about best practices and examples you can use to inspire your campaign plan.
In our Better Communication feature, novelist David Foster Wallace discusses empathy and knowledge in his Kenyon College commencement speech. Alongside this important message, we can also take away some lessons about using humor, story, and allegory to move an audience.
Finally, we're touching on this week in marketing, including some interesting stories about using technology to adapt to customer expectations and something about ketchup.
All this, plus a featured tool to help you optimize your email campaigns.
Let's get started!
Mastering the Art of Content Calendars: A Guide for Busy Marketers
TL;DR: Looking to expand your brand adherents and keep the loyal customers you already have? A content calendar can help you achieve both by ensuring you have a regular flow of eye-catching material for your audience. You don’t have to do it alone; we break down some top content-calendar platforms here.
So What? In a world of omnichannel marketing, detailed customer segments, and sophisticated customers, ad hoc content will take a lot of work. A calendar is necessary to have a clear plan for your content's what, where, and how.
For the busy marketer looking for a way to map out their content campaigns, we're covering the best practices for planning and implementing a content calendar, including:
You'll find all this and real-life examples in the article.
"This is Water”: Inside One of the Greatest Commencement Speeches Ever
TL;DR: David Foster Wallace's '"This is Water" speech contains unexpected wisdom for marketers: Embrace empathy, genuine connections, and authenticity in campaigns. It's a valuable guide for marketers seeking a thoughtful approach.
So What? Through a combination of humor, reliability, and creating human connection, Wallace can get an audience to think outside of their normal process about the world around them for at least a moment
We often talk about storytelling as a powerful tool of effective speech, but Wallace takes that further by using several layered stories to help his audience see the world. Marketers can learn more about what it means to pull an audience outside of their own worldview by diving into our analysis of this speech.
Marketing Mixtape
We need ranch dressing, stat! Saying that Taylor Swift is a trendsetter isn't exactly a hot take. However, when her recent trip to a football game created a new condiment, we may have to re-assess the full extent of her powers.
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Following a visit to a Kansas City football game (and a photographed ketchup-and-ranch dipping sauce), Heinz immediately produced a "Ketchup and Seemingly Ranch" condiment (complete with a marketing campaign) within 24 hours.
A case study in post-pandemic adaptability. The pandemic changed how we do business for many companies in many industries, perhaps none more than banking.
In this MarTech article, you'll learn more about how Citizens Bank transformed its B2B and B2C outreach efforts from ad-driven digital engagement to content-focused engagement.
This is exactly what customers seek - content that targets their interests while providing real value (not just a sales pitch).
We probably didn't need a third CRM. Economic forecasts look good, but many enterprises seek ways to tighten budgets and maximize ROI. One of these approaches involves re-evaluating their marketing tech stacks.
The content and marketing boom and subsequent contraction are real. It's not surprising, then, that we're also seeing the potential contraction of software adoption.
Tap Into Seventh Sense to Optimize Performance for Your Content Calendar
Generally speaking, the best engagement from emails comes when you send them on Thursday morning, between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.
But... is that true for you?
Depending on how you build your calendar, you could get granular insights like the best time of day to push emails to your customers.
In the spirit of building a great content calendar, we wanted to point out a great email utility: Seventh Sense. This tool plugs into email and CRM platforms like HubSpot or Marketo to help you get analytics like exactly when to send emails.
Using AI, this platform helps busy marketers optimize their email campaigns so they are doing something other than throwing good content after bad into the void of non-engagement.
And when you're ready to reach these customers with great content, try the Media Shower platform.