Time-Tested and Golden Words of advice by 40 Content Marketing Influencers
Published by Sadia
Why Content Marketing?
Gary V. said, “Content is king, but marketing is queen and runs the household.”
Content marketing is growing dramatically in 2019. The motive behind creating and marketing content is not just to attract the audience and capture their attention. In fact, it is all about how you provide them with valuable information and help them by providing solutions to their problems.
Customers are a vital source to run a business smartly and their word-of-mouth propels your growth like the fuel does to an engine.
Your audience craves a pool of knowledge that’s actually helpful to them and they desperately wait to share it. So, content is the most conducive way to educate, inspire, and entertain them with relevant information.
How Content marketing builds your business?
Content marketing nourishes your brand and allows you to stay visible and accessible to your audience. That’s a win-win situation for both you and your audience; you provide them with creative and the most valuable content and in turn, they (indirectly or directly) increase your brand awareness by sharing your content or engaging with it.
To win the hearts of your audience, you need to ensure that your brand logo, product, and content should resonate with your brand’s vision and voice; which later hones your brand identity.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning have contributed a lot towards the invention of content curation which has added a new perspective to content marketing. New marketing trends and techniques have also simultaneously added a wow-factor for the audience that loves visual and interactive content.
To get more ROI and sustain profitability, contemporary content marketing strategies are the most stable approach for marketers to reach their goals and give directions to their vision to become real.
Social platforms allow you to go deep into the rabbit hole, profoundly drill out the target audience, engage & retain them, and understand the buying persona to streamline your marketing strategies and sales processes.
We have curated a list of 40 Content Marketing experts whose opinions will definitely help you develop the most striving content marketing strategies.
40 Content Marketing experts
Michael Brenner
“If great content is the hero, then banners are the villain.”
Micheal is one of the best-recognized writer, speaker, and content marketing<span style=”font-weight: 400;”> strategist. He is the CEO of Marketing inside groups and he has also worked for global brands like AP Nielsen.
He is the co-author of “The Content Formula”, “Digital Marketing Growth Hacks”<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>, and published more than 1000 articles. His work has been appreciated by The Economist, The Guardian, and an Entrepreneur Magazine. He has been mentioned as Top Business Speaker by The Huffington Post and a top CMO influencer by Forbes in 2017.
Sujan Patel
“Create audio and video testimonials for more personal touch. They are more effective than text.”
Patel is the co-founder of web profits and mailshake with over fourteen+ years of experience in digital marketing. Sujan has helped many companies raise up their sales and generate more leads and traffic.
Cassandra Jowett
“It’s no longer enough to create great content and hope your buyers will find it at the right time in the purchasing process. B2B marketers must refactor the buyer’s journey to make real-time recommendations about which content and information their buyers need to consume next, and provide Netflix-like content experiences that enable buyers to binge on content and fast-track through the purchasing process.”
She is the Director of Integrated Marketing at PathFactory, the B2B marketing technology company with the world’s first Content Insight & Activation Platform, and has also received awards as a marketing leader.
Pratik Dholakiya
“If I focus on the topics that are not fresh, I share some ideas which are new.”
Pratik is the founder of Growfusely.
It is a content marketing agency specializing in content & data-driven SEO. His focus of work lies in content strategy, creation, distribution, and SEO consulting.
He has over 10 years of experience in digital marketing and has offered products or services to a different group of customers.
Melissa Lafsky
“The fundamentals of [brand] voice comes down to a personality—prioritising a set of traits that comprise an identity, and then communicating in a way that expresses and prioritizes those traits.”
Melissa is another great writer, digital storyteller, and strategic advisor. She started her career as a writer and then entered into a digital journalism world, writing for media brands like the Huffington Post and also the founding editor of the New York Times and Newsweek.
She has media and interactive story development experience of over 15 years as a storyteller and thought leader. She helps all individuals, companies, and organizations to increase empathy and established a personal relationship with teams, customers, and communities.
Oli Gardner
“Give away your content and make it epic.”
Oli is the co-founder of Unbounce and has seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet.
His mission is to entertain, educate, and inspire the audiences and marketers by using data-informed copywriting, design, interaction, and psychology to create an exceptional experience.
Neil Patel
“All content is not created equal. Some content will go viral, generating tons of hot traffic to your blog, while other content will be lost in the archives. If you want more of the first kind, you’ve got to put your readers first.”
Neil is one of the successful selling authors in New York. He suffered through financial hardship while creating a career, but now he is recognized as an entrepreneur in the list of top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 30.
He is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and KISSmetrics and has helped many companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP, and Viacom grow their revenue.
He has also been awarded Congressional Recognition from the United States House of Representatives.
He is determined to help his clients grow their businesses with unique marketing strategies and gain more ROI.
Ian Cleary
“I think nowadays, you need to do inbound and outbound–it’s crucial to do both.”
Ian has been in the technology industry for over 15 years as a speaker and passionate content marketer. He is the founder of RazorSocial where he provides practical and strategic advice to B2B companies.
He was listed as the 25th most influential person in social media globally and the 38th most influential content marketer. He also contributes his content to VentureBeat, Entrepreneur.com, Huffington Post, and many other leading online publications.
He is a renowned speaker and has been a part of the top marketing conferences around the world in Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, and MarTech niches.
Shane Barker
“I strongly recommend that you, as a marketer, always formulate a well-planned content marketing strategy for brand promotions. A documented strategy can help you unleash the true potential of your marketing initiatives.”
Shane is one of the youngest digital consultants and specialized in sales funnels, targeted traffic, and website conversions.
He is the CEO and Co-Founder of Content Solutions, a content marketing agency that creates content that inspires and coverts. He is an active member of Sacramento startup culture, donating time and resources to help different companies grow their revenue with his digital marketing expertise.
Rand Fishkin
“SEO is no longer just a job title, it has become part of everyone’s job description.”
Rand has a decade of experience in marketing. After working for 17 years at a company he co-founded, he thought of starting a new company in the area of influencer and audience intelligence.
He is the co-founder of Moz, and after leaving it, he announced his new company named SparkToro, which helps the marketers understand how to find and reach the target audience.
He is an author of Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World (2018). He dedicates his professional life to helping others improve their marketing strategies through his blogs and books.
Heather Pemberton Levy
“Stories have the power to engage prospects with an emotional hook that endears them to a brand more successfully than standard marketing copy.”
Heather leads content marketing strategies globally and is a vice president, Content Publishing at Gartner. She manages a global team that creates content for different businesses in the form of articles, infographics, and videos, etc. based on Gartner’s proprietary insights.
She is the founder of Story Comes First and has developed content marketing programs for many B2B and B2C companies.
She is the author of Brand, Meet Story: How to Create Engaging Content to Win Business and Influence Your Audience (Routledge, Sept 2016) and has produced hundreds of articles for business media which includes Harvard Business School Press, WSJ, and FT.
Skyler Moss
“ContentMarketing 2022 will be “content selling”, predicts”
Skyler is a digital leader and a master of user-generated content for over a decade. He played a dominant role in HCSS where he was responsible for driving leads, building brand awareness, and supporting the rest of the company in their goals and helped generate over 60% revenue growth through content marketing.
Currently, he is leading the Digital & Content Strategy for Randstad USA, a global staffing & solutions provider. He has won some of the biggest awards in marketing:
- In 2017, MarketingSherpa Best In Show Award
- In 2016, Gold Stevie for the Marketing Campaign of the year
- Plus 13 other awards that culminated in Dan Briscoe, VP of Marketing at HCSS
For creating quality content, he has applied his fishing principles into current work which led to wildly successful campaigns, praising fans, and hardcore results. He teaches the entrepreneur about the marketing tactics with an excellent example “All about the fish”.
Matt Heinz
“ContentMarketing 2022: Blogs won’t be as big. Real-time, short-form content will be.”
Matt Heinz is the President and Founder of Heinz Marketing with 20 years of experience in marketing and sales from a variety of organizations.
He is a dynamic speaker, author, nationally recognized and award-winning blogger. His main focus is to provide quality products, increased sales revenue and growth, and measurable outcomes to the customers and employees.
He has helped organizations such as Amazon, Seagate, Morgan Stanley, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and many others with their specialized traits.
Neal Schaffer
“Focus on the customer and what content they need to be inspired about”
Neal is one of the most identified people known for his multiple roles as a leader, speaker, author, university educator, social media agency owner, and media strategy consultant.
Now, he is teaching social media marketing at both Rutgers University Business School and the Irish Management Institute. He has helped dozens of companies, large and small, with their social media, including Fortune 500 enterprises.
In 2015, he launched two new ventures: the Social Media Center of Excellence and Social Tools Summit. He decided to take all his experience in consulting, coaching, speaking, training corporate clients to raise and teach a community on best practices in using social media for business.
Andrew Davis
“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.”
Andrew is one of the best-selling authors and the second most influential marketer globally. He is recognized as one of the industry’s “Jaw-Dropping Marketing Speakers”. His enthusiasm and magnetic words inspire and empower people to act on any marketing related situation.
He has produced amazing content for NBC and his work has also appeared in the New York Times, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal and etc.
Robert Rose
“Marketing is telling the world you’re a rock star. Content Marketing is showing the world you are one.”
Robert facilitates the marketers by helping them write and promote their stories more effectively.
He has more than 15 years of experience as a keynote speaker and has helped businesses of all sizes develop successful Web and content marketing strategies.
He is the founder and chief strategy officer for The Content Advisory. For the last five years, Robert has worked with more than 500 companies, including 15 of the Fortune 100.
Joe Pulizzi
“When you’re creating content and you’re getting feedback from the audience it allows you to hone your vision, as well as embed your vision ultimately with whatever it is that you’re creating.”
Joe Pulizzi is an entrepreneur, speaker, author, podcaster, and lover of all things orange.
He’s the founder of Content Marketing Institute (CMI), a leading content marketing educational resource for enterprise brands, recognized as the active growing business media company by Inc. magazine in 2014 and 2015.
Ann Handley
“Is your content answering a specific question? Then make sure that question is in your content somewhere.”
Ann Handley is a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, keynote speaker, and the world’s first Chief Content Office who inspires marketers to create marketing magic that gets real-world results.
She is the most influential lady in Social Media mentioned by Forbes and recognized by ForbesWoman as one of the top 20 women bloggers.
Ann is the co-founder of ClickZ.com, which is one of the first sources of digital marketing news and commentary.
Ardath Albee
“People need to learn how to write again. That’s one of the reasons we have such bad content marketing.”
She is a CEO & B2B marketing strategist for the consulting firm Marketing Interactions, Inc.; and worked for companies such as Cisco, Adobe, and Teradata.
She has spent 30 years in business management and marketing operations and helped marketers to create a persona-driven digital content marketing strategy with compelling content platforms.
Ardath is the author of Digital Relevance: Developing Marketing Content and Strategies that Drive Results and eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale and also listed among the top 50 Most Influential People in Sales and Lead Management.
Jay Baer
“Content is fire. Social media is gasoline.” @jaybaer
Convince & Convert founder Jay Baer is an organized and respected person in the digital market era.
In his 25 years of experience, he has helped multiple brands like Caterpillar, Nike, Allstate, The United Nations, and 32 of the FORTUNE 500 companies to improve their social media and content marketing.
He was the New York Times best-selling author of five books including Hug Your Haters and was recently inducted into the professional speaking hall of fame.
Bert van Loon
His motto: “I believe #ContentMarketing is to today, what advertising was to the 60s! Mad Men become Meaningful Men!”
Bert is the Co-Founder of Content Marketing Fast Forward. He has more than 20 decades of experience in the publishing industry. He is a keynote speaker and author of the Agile Content Marketing Roadmap.
He worked in an international alliance across Europe and managing director of a publishing group in Belgium. After some time he preferred concept, strategy, and projects to corporate management and launched Independent Strategy and concept practice in 1997.
Lee Odden
“Content is the reason search began in the first place.”
Lee Odden is the CEO and co-founder of TopRank Marketing. He is a lead business marketing strategist who provides content oversight and customer-centric digital marketing solution.
Odden and his team have provided digital marketing consulting for some of the leading B2B and B2C companies. He worked on projects with companies like Toro, Supervalu, and the U.S. Veterans Administration.
He is the author of Optimize and has been blogging for over 13 years. He is an active public speaker delivering over 200 presentations and workshops all over the world.
Rebecca Lieb
Rebecca Lieb is a founding partner of the research advisory firm Kaleido Insights.
She is a keynote speaker, author, and columnist. She has served as a strategic advisor and corporate trainer to a wide range of brands such as Facebook, Home Depot, Nestlé, Anthem, Adobe, and many more.
She worked with many of the world’s leading brands on digital marketing innovation. Clients range from start-up to non-profits to Fortune 100 brands and regulated industries, including Facebook, Nestlé, Adobe
David Beebe
“Content marketing is like a first date. If you only talk about yourself, there won’t be a second one.”
David was the first-ever VP, Global Creative and Content Marketing at Marriott Intl., where he led a global team of over 120 people responsible for content marketing for 30 brands.
He was EP of over fifty original productions including webisodes, documentaries, and brand films and by Ad Age as a Top 40 “forward thinker, risk-taker, and rainmaker in marketing,”
Beebe spent seven years at Disney/ABC, as VP, Digital Content Studio. Today, Beebe produces brand films, builds content studios, and a real-time brand command center.
Daniel Roth
“If your content isn’t driving the conversation, you’re doing it wrong.”
Daniel Roth is the executive editor of LinkedIn, based out of LinkedIn’s NYC offices in the Empire State Building. He was also the editor of Fortune.com and a longtime senior writer and editor at Fortune.
Seth Godin
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but about the stories, you tell.”
Seth Godin is an author, entrepreneur, speaker, marketing expert, and most of all a teacher. He is also recognized as a world-renowned blogger.
He founded two companies, Squidoo and Yoyodyne. These were one-off Internet-based direct marketing firms, with revolutionary ideas on how companies should reach their target audiences.
In 2013 he was enlisted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. He has written 18 best-selling books. Seth is sometimes also known as ‘the ultimate entrepreneur for the information age’.
Ursula Ringham
“If you want to succeed at influencer marketing, you have to be in it to win it. You have to commit.”
Ursula is an author, speaker, and blogger. She is the head of global influencer marketing at SAP. She is an initial adopter in utilizing the latest technologies to create awareness and to build a community about SAP products to small and midmarket businesses.
Dorie Clark
“Sometimes you have to experiment with a lot of ideas and see which one sticks. If you’re unsure, let the market decide.”
Dorie is a marketing strategy consultant and professional speaker. She worked with various clients including Google, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, Yale University, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.
She is genuine, thoughtful, smart, and generous with her advice. She is also a regular commentator on Canada’s CTV and was selected one of Inc. magazine’s “100 Great Leadership Speakers for Your Next Conference.”
She writes regularly for the Harvard Business Review. She is the author of three books “Entrepreneurial You”, Reinventing You, and Stand Out.
Gini Dietrich
“Content is the center of everything that we do because, without it, there’s nothing to share.”
Gini is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, a Chicago-based integrated marketing communication firm. She is an author, lead blogger of Spin Sucks, co-author of Marketing in the Round, and co-host of Inside PR and the founder of Spin Sucks Pro.
Dan Knowlton
“As marketers, we are constantly pushing out messages that we want to push out, not what our customers want to hear.”
Dan is a young Marketing influencer and keynote speaker. Co-founder @KPSDigitalMktng with @lloydy37
Dan started the KPS Digital Marketing to use digital and social marketing strategies and tactics to help the clients to generate more lead and sales.
He worked with incredible brands including Fifa, Nestle, Boston Consulting Group, and Dan, winning awards and ranked as #12 Most Influential Digital Marketers on Twitter in the world.
Chad Pollitt
“SEO is not something you do anymore, it’s what happens when you do everything else right.”
Chad is the Co-founder of Relevance, the world’s leading website dedicated to content promotion, news, and insights. He is also a member of the Advisory Board for native advertising platforms, inPowered and AdHive.
Over 16 years, he has been creating profitable online campaigns for the World’s most recognizable brands. Chad is acknowledged as a top 20 CMO influencer and authored “51 Things Your Mother Taught You About Inbound Marketing.”
He is a regular contributor to industry media outlets, including The Huffington Post, Social Media Today, and Guardian.
Tamara McCleary
“Content marketing is a long term relationship, not a one night stand.”
Tamara is a globally recognized expert on branding and social business. She is the CEO and founder of Thulium.
She gives workshops on conscious business, social media, women’s empowerment, marketing to millennials, etc. She has expertise in B2B and B2C marketing, social influence, and technology.
She was listed as Top 50 Social Influencers of 2015 to 2018 by Onalytica. Her focus is to help the clients towards the ROI of social media, driving smart Social through proprietary data analytics.
John Rampton
“Content marketing is one of the effective ways to promote your business online- but only when it is done right.”
John is enthusiastic and eager for marketing businesses. He is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and startup concern. He is the founder of the online payment company Due.
He has frequently spoken all around the world and instructed many entrepreneurs on how to grow their small ideas to billion-dollar businesses. He loves helping people to build products and services at any scale to success online.
He was rated no. 2 in Entrepreneur magazine’s Top 50 Online Influencers in the World.
Trish Bertuzzi
“The customer doesn’t care about features- they care about solving their problems.”
Trish is a thinker, an author, and passionate about the things which are entirely related to web and social prospecting.
She is the founder of the Bridge group, where she plays a dynamic role. She feels fascinated to help B2B technology companies, sales, and marketing leaders to create effective inside sales teams, make valuable decisions, and implemented strategies.
She has worked with over 400 B2B companies to grow their business share, and optimize their SSDR, AE, AM, and CSM efforts.
Marcus Sheridan
“Address the questions of your clients and prospects or someone else will.”
Marcus is an energetic, dynamic, and clear thinking speaker. He has the ability to excite, engage, retain, inspire, and motivate the customers in the area of sales, marketing, and leadership.
He is the founder and president of The Sales Lion, which recently merged with IMPACT in 2018. Mashable rated his book, “They Ask, You Answer,” the “#1 Marketing Book” to read in 2017, listed by Fober as one of “11 Marketing Books Every CMO Should Read.” He himself was titled “Web Marketing Guru” by the New York Times.
Eric Wittlake
“Brand perception often isn’t worth the cost of measuring piece by piece. Use overall impact.”
Eric is an Industry Analyst. He has focused on demand generation for high growth B2B companies include IBM, Brocade, Imation Intel, and many others.
He helped clients develop the programs to reach out, help agencies to create and grow unique service offerings like media strategies, planning, and other digital marketing aspects over the last 15 years.
Today as the head of the Babcock & Jenkins media practice, he focuses on media strategy, planning, and management for integrated B2B marketing programs as well as overall communication strategies for clients.
Brian D Evans
“Anything worth pursuing takes time, so be patient.”
Brian is the founder of BDE Ventures and Influencive. His online advertising and marketing agency made the Inc. 500 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies and 25th fastest Marketing Agency in America. He has been building and advising startups for over a decade.
On Inc. Magazine Brian was called one of the most influential millennial entrepreneurs and ranked in the top 4% of business journalists in the world.
Shelly Kramer
“Today, your best bet is to compete on customers experience.”
Shelly is the CEO and founder of V3 Broadsuite, president of Broadsuite Media Group, founder and Principal Analyst at Futurum a research and analysis company.
A serial entrepreneur with a technology-centric focus, she has worked with some of the world’s largest brands to lead them into the digital space, embrace disruption & the reality of the connected customers, and help navigate the process of Digital Transformation.
She has been recognized as an influential expert on Digital Transformation (ranked# 13 among the Top 100), the IoT (ranked# 66 among the Top 100), Cloud (ranked# 38 among the Top100), and Big Data (ranked# 42 among the Top 100). She has also been recognized for expertise as one of the top influencers in B2B Marketing, as well as a top Social Selling influencer.
She has been named by Forbes as one of the Top 50 Social Media Influencers and identified as one of the 150 Most Influential Women on Twitter. She has also been recognized by Forbes as one of the 30 Women Entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter and 12th in the list of the World’s Top Tweeters.
Melanie Deziel
“Every brand has a story to tell but the best brand stories aren’t about what you sell.”
Melanie is an award-winning branded-content creator, consultant, and speaker. She was the first editor of branded content at The New York Times and work as a consultant in the Board of the Native Ad Institute.
She’s the founder of StoryFuel and writes a column for Inc. She developed the first master’s course in content marketing for Fairleigh Dickinson University.
She was one of the founders of The Huffington Post’s brand storytelling team and the former director of creative strategy for Time Inc., working on brand content programs across all 35+ publications.
Brian Clark
“Content marketing is educating people enough to do business with you.”
Brian is a serial entrepreneur, writer, and CEO of Rainmaker Digital.
He is the founder of Copyblogger. He has been developing businesses with online content marketing and built three successful offline businesses before moving to a completely online business model.
The outcome of that progress is Rainmaker Digital. In the last 20 years, he has started 10 businesses. He provides complete digital marketing solutions ranging from digital marketing strategy to persuasive content creation, plus development, design, and technology implementation.
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