The Long Game

Influencer marketing has been vastly misunderstood.  It’s not just celebrity accounts with tons of fake followers.  It’s your customers, your employees, and your peers who are influential experts in your industry. These influencers have followers who are primed to hear your message.  In an era of declining organic reach, collaborating with influencers gives you access to high-value content and gre...

Is building a B2B audience as challenging as it seems? Dave Gerhardt knows from experience that it takes engagement, valuable content, and authentic connection to build a B2B audience. As former CMO at Privy and Chief Brand Officer at Drift, he now helps B2B marketers through his consultancy, DGMG, and his new book, Founder Brand. He talked to us about the importance of building an audience, how t...

What makes a great LinkedIn post? One that keeps someone reading and makes them want to hit the follow button.  First, you have to have a great idea. Something that resonates with people or gets them thinking.  Second, you have to have a great delivery. That can be in a well-written text post, video, or graphic.  A powerful idea can occasionally do well even if the delivery is lacking, but the com...

Whether you’re a fiction writer or a content marketer, your goal as a storyteller is to capture and keep your audience’s attention.  And the best way to do that is by telling a story your audience can connect with on a personal level.  Matthew Dicks , an internationally bestselling author and an expert storyteller.  Also a record 55-time Moth StorySLAM and 7-time GrandSLAM champion, Matthew has pe...

The old framework of the buyer’s journey is broken.  Customers expect more access than ever to educational, engaging content at every stage of their decision-making.  Ashley Faus believes it’s time to reframe the buyer’s journey as the content marketing playground where customers can learn, engage, and interact with content on their own terms—building trust and affinity that lasts a lifetime.  As...

Any marketing claim you make that doesn’t have some form of evidence is a weak statement.  Unsupported claims just lead to undifferentiated content, a lack of trust, and low conversions.  But proof on your web pages and in your content does the opposite. It builds credibility and gives people a reason to believe in your brand.  One piece of content that offers social proof, acts as conversion copy...

Watch a video clip and find key takeaways here Content creation is a tricky business. You have to know what your clients want, when to say yes to new projects, and how to find the writers you need.  For Brad Smith, creating and producing top of the line content is his bread and butter. Brad is the CEO of Wordable , co-founder of uSERP , and founder and CEO of Codeless , all of which are aimed at p...

A sustainable freelance career requires you to balance stability with growth. Think of that balance like a barbell.  Half of your time should be spent on your retainer clients that bring you a guaranteed income. The other half should be spent on riskier projects where you charge higher initial rates or negotiate a stake in its performance.  The steady work is how you pay the rent, but the risks ar...

This episode is part of our Kitchen Side series, where we pull back the curtain and share the behind the scenes conversations we have at our agency. We included Tommy Walker in this discussion to help us outline the difference between an audience, a community, and a customer.  Together, we discuss ways to define your audience, nurture relationships, and leverage community in order to build your au...

How can brands build trust with an increasingly cynical audience?  Margot Bloomstein believes you can win over any audience by creating consistent, high-quality content. But in order to cut through the noise, you need to build a clear content strategy and be vulnerable.  As the principal of Appropriate, Inc. , a Boston-based brand and content strategy consultancy, a speaker, and an author, Margot...

In loving memory of Onita Simmonds.  How do a grandmother’s life lessons apply to business? Ross Simmonds translates the life lessons he learned as a kid into core values that help his business and team members grow.  As the Founder and CEO of the content marketing agency Foundation , Ross focuses on developing others, staying curious, and driving results for his clients.  He talked to us about wh...

Growth and productivity should not come at the expense of health and happiness. Rand Fishkin learned that the hard way with his first startup, Moz. When it came time to start SparkToro , he knew that he wanted to build a business differently.  SparkToro is an audience research software tool that lets you discover the behaviors, demographics, and sources of influence for any online group. Startup h...

Many modern companies claim to have an in-house media company, but they don’t. Being a media company is more than expanding content beyond a blog, or even adding a podcast and courses. That’s still just content marketing.  When you build an in-house media company, you’re expanding into different content formats, but more importantly you’re looking at how they all work together. You’re looking to r...

Struggling to reach your target audience? You’re not alone. While the execution may be challenging, the secret is simple: listen to your customers. Emily Marsh joined us on The Long Game podcast to share her go-to marketing techniques to engage prospects. As a content manager and podcast producer at Iconosquare , an all-in-one analytics and management platform for social media marketers, building...

The episode begins at 4:12 if you want to skip ahead, but first I'd I’d like to announce our Office Hours speaker line-up and topics for March 16th. Office Hours is our bi-monthly event where we get the best speakers and experts in content, SEO, and marketing to give 20 min practical talks for our audience. Michael Keenan, Co-Founder, Peak Freelance The Freelance Writing Trends of 2022 (And How To...

What can a career in SEO teach you about building relationships? Jeremy Moser believes that building genuine relationships with your industry peers and colleagues lays the foundation for trust, business partnerships, and growth.  As the co-founder and CEO at uSERP , Jeremy helps high-growth SaaS brands gain visibility and traction through digital PR and SEO.  He talked to us about the differences...

Are you making content because it’s meaningful or because the platforms demand that you keep feeding them more?  Algorithms can hold us hostage. Soon we fall into a cycle of writing stuff because we’re stuck in a production cycle, not because it needs to be written.  There’s a moral dilemma for content marketers. The platforms we use to create and promote our work are addictive for the users and c...

It’s our 50th episode! What a milestone.  To celebrate, we’re giving away lifetime access to our Content Strategy Frameworks course to 2 winners. Congratulations Abass Sahrawi and Emma Fanning! We can’t thank you enough for listening.  Now for this week’s episode. Finding career success is about more than just making more money. It’s about finding a career path where you’re motivated to put in har...

Rates and reviews really help our podcast reach new audiences. Can you leave us a review on whichever podcast platform you’re using? If you do, let us know at info@beomniscient.com or tweet at us and we’ll enter you to win lifetime access to Content Strategy Frameworks course, valued at $997.  What can a career in PR teach you about event marketing? Rebecca Miller believes that it builds the found...

Real quick ask. Can you leave us a review on whichever podcast platform you’re using? If you do, let us know at info@beomniscient.com or tweet at us and we’ll enter you to win lifetime access to Content Strategy Frameworks course, valued at $997.  Rates and reviews help us grow and attract new guests, so we’d really appreciate it. With the pandemic forcing many businesses to shut down in-person co...

Real quick ask. Can you leave us a review on whatever podcast platform you’re using? If you do, let us know at info@beomniscient.com or tweet at us and we’ll enter you to win lifetime access to our Content Strategy Frameworks course , valued at $997. Rates and reviews help us grow and attract new guests, so we would really appreciate it. The word “content” is no longer sufficient for what it encap...

Good copywriting is about persuasion, not manipulation. It’s getting someone to do something that’s in their best interest through writing. And it’s the “best interest” part that’s important.  Effective website copy moves people from Point A—where they are now—to Point B, where things will be better for them.  SaaS Consultant & Copywriter Josh Garofalo has spent several years learning what does an...

The ease of publishing content online means anyone can become a content creator with the click of a mouse.  So how do companies make their content stand out in the endless sea of ad campaigns and marketing tactics?  Sam Chapman is a content strategist, brand builder, and storyteller. As Content Director at Aprimo , he heads up brand experience and creative direction, and mapping content strategy t...

Marketing agencies are a dime a dozen, but Tyler Hakes wanted to build Optimist differently.  Tyler found himself often frustrated that companies and agencies often play a game of telephone, never actually speaking with the people who were creating content on their behalf. That’s why Optimist functions as a collective of high-level freelancers of varying specialties, who come together to take cont...

Many people think of testing and optimization as selecting one tactic and then seeing if it has a positive or negative impact. But that’s just validating ideas, and not the best way to maximize outcomes or profit.  In fact, that approach has a less than 10% success rate in terms of winning experiments. According to Andrew Anderson , Head of Website Optimization Programs at ZenBusiness , the better...