content marketing trends Archives

Should You Ungate Your Content?

An excerpt from Everybody Writes 2: Your New and Improved Go-To Guide to Ridiculously Good Content. Get a copy; you’ll love it. * * * Last week I walked by a storefront. From the outside, I liked the vibe of the place. The products on the shelves looked… promising. As I stepped just inside the door, a foot-tall robot jumped out of nowhere: “HI WANT TO CHAT? I’M HERE TO HELP YOU FIND YOUR WAY.” I kicked him aside. I browsed the aisles. Something caught my eye. As I reached out to look closer, a salesperson slid directly in front of me. “TONY,” his name tag read. He had a tattoo of an onion on his neck. “Not so fast, sister,” TONY said. “You want to touch it? Look closer? See if it’s right for you? Give me your email address first.” His neck veins bulged. The onion pulsed. Before […]

It’s Time to Challenge Our Content Marketing Assumptions

I originally wrote this post as an open letter to Content Marketing that began: “Congratulations on making it another year…” But that sounds somber and a scooch melodramatic, doesn’t it? Maybe. But the end of an old year and the start of a new always make me a little somber—and that’s been especially true this year. Maybe it’s because the recent past has felt more warped and wounded than many. Or maybe it’s more personal than that. Maybe it’s just because my beloved little dog Abby is showing early signs of senility. She just asked to go outside for the 8th or 9th time today and as I type this she is barking her head off at some goblin or shadow or (more likely) tree branch that threatens our happy home. Which is both sad and hilarious. Isn’t aging for us all? Abby knows that it’s probably a tree

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