Fast & Easy Friday: A Recap of the Week’s Top Articles & Insights

Here are the stories that grabbed our attention this week. We hope you find some inspiration before you head out to enjoy the weekend.

  • Volvo’s Live Ad Streams on CNN During Solar Eclipse: Full disclosure: I’m actually flying to Nebraska on Sunday to see the full solar eclipse in all its glory on Monday. So of course, this post was bound to capture my attention. It’s a cool case study on how a big brand is leveraging a trending event (newsjacking, anyone?) with CNN’s first-ever live advertising, which will appear on its live stream digital and social media coverage of the eclipse. The ads will harness the power of several influencers who will talk about the event from 2018 Volvo XC60s in different viewing locations. Apparently, live advertising is ready for its close-up (again). Ad Age attributes its resurgence to networks’ eagerness to draw the attention of people who frequently fast-forward through commercials or prefer to watch ad-free platforms.
  • When Content Marketing Best Practices… Aren’t: Best practices do a great job of lighting the way on a well-trod path to where others have found success. They’re great shortcuts when we don’t have the time or resources to cut through the brush on our own. But this post reminds us that it’s often better to use our own critical thinking abilities to determine when to book a cruise and when to lace up our hiking boots to reach our own best destination. In the end, you may decide that widely touted best practices are the most promising path to reaching your goals. This article helps you think through how to decide whether you really should use an editorial calendar, whether generating traffic really should be your top web priority, and more.
  • How Technology Is Revolutionizing B2B Events: As this post’s intro reminds us, in-person events still play a large role in the B2B marketing stack. Only email is more effective at accelerating the sales pipeline and driving revenue, according to a report from market research firm Demand Metric. (View the full post to see detailed stats for 2014 to 2017.) And now, it seems, technology is making these events more effective than ever. Sure, CRMs allow event producers to track and attribute deals, but they can also help you track lead quality and uncover insights to help you reshape your next event. Beacons and the Internet of Things are empowering organizations to evaluate the popularity of individual sessions and overall attendee flow. Read the full post for some inspiring examples.
  • 24 Experts Share How to Avoid Big Mistakes in Content Marketing: Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for an expert round-up. I particularly enjoy this one for its super-succinct words of wisdom. Each of the experts sums up his or her “how to fix it” advice in just a sentence or two. The easily scannable article includes expert advice for a wide range of B2B marketing issues, so you’re sure to find some gems that resonate with you. For those of us who’ve had to bite our tongues when a colleague suggests we create a “viral” anything, for example, Chad Pollitt’s answer is music to our ears: “Create content to be helpful.” Things will go viral or they won’t.
  • How Effective Is Content Marketing (As Shown Through Stats): If you or someone on your team still doubts the value of content marketing, do not pass Go. You need to read this post before clocking out for the weekend. So… I get it. When you hear a term as often as you hear about “content marketing,” it’s easy to want to write it off as another over-hyped fad. But you’d be making a big mistake. Did you know that content marketing costs 62% less to launch and maintain than any other form of marketing but generates about three times as many leads? Are you aware that the words “infographic” and “infographics” get searched on Google about 547,000 times per month? Dig into the article to learn even more reasons content marketing isn’t going to be eclipsed by a new marketing trend anytime soon. See what I did there?

Any exciting plans for watching the solar eclipse? Any big B2B marketing stories you think we should cover? Drop us a line in the comments section below!

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