actionable marketing guide

Dear ,

Wow I can’t believe that August is upon us.

I don’t know how you feel but my summer seems to be flying by.

Last weekend, my husband and I caught the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum before it left town.

While the wonderful Brooklyn Museum is less than a half hour away from our home by subway, it’s psychologically far for Manhattanites since you have to leave the island. But it's well worth the trip.

I was excited about the exhibit since The New Yorker and a number of my favorite knitting bloggers wrote about it including Mason Dixon Knitting.

Years before the feminist revolution, O’Keeffe set her own course. Even though she was married to the well-known photographer, Alfred Stieglitz, she maintained her own name.

As a marketer, the exhibit had several key lessons.

1. Attract visitors with big rock content
The O’Keeffe Exhibit was a major event for the museum. Translation: Attracted a bigger than average audience. The museum could charge a premium price for tickets and add targeted product to their shop. (I’d be curious to know whether the exhibit increased museum memberships, especially since Brooklyn has become very “hip”.)

2. Use content curation to expand your audience 
Major museum shows take time to plan.  Part of the success of a show is the curator’s ability to provide new insights for the audience. The museum's curators paired O’Keeffe’s paintings with her clothes and photographs of her by Stieglitz and other famous photographers. This attracted the fashion, sewing and photography communities In addition to those that love her art.

3. Appeal to different segments of your audience
Confined to black and white, O’Keeffe’s fashion style was distinctive. Her early hand made clothes revealed her expertise as a seamstress.  Before the imitation men’s suits with blouses and ties were popular in the 1970s and 1980s, O’Keefe had men’s tailors make her suits. Her reasoning: Choosing clothes to wear took away precious time from her craft.

It was interesting that many of attendees strutted their own fashion statements, often reflecting O’Keeffe’s simple, straight lines.

O’Keeffe Inspired Actionable Marketing Tips:

• Incorporate content curation into your content strategy. This isn’t a newsflash. It enables you to bring other voices into your content and keeps your older content top of mind.
  
  
• Analyze your potential audience to find related or broader segments you can add. In this case, curators appealed to the fashion, sewing and knitting worlds.
  
  
• Set time boundaries. This is the rationale for many countdown clocks and emails from ecommerce suppliers. While I wanted to see this exhibit, I didn’t make plans until I knew it was the last weeks.

I’ve been immersed in studying interactive content preparing for my Content Marketing World 2017 Workshop next month.

I’m really excited about this form of content marketing that’s exploding this year. Even Convince and Convert’s Jay Baer is planning to add more to his content offering.

I’ll let you in on a secret I’ve learned in the process:

• Many marketers and content technology suppliers aren’t doing interactive content right.

While early adopters gain results from being the hot new thing, it doesn’t mean that they reap on-going benefits from it.

If you don’t want to be left behind on interactive content marketing, please join me at Content Marketing World 2017 in Cleveland, September 5-8th.

I’d really appreciate it if you’d sign up for my workshop as well and let me know you're coming. I love meeting my readers IRL.

If you have any questions about interactive content, please drop me a line.

Happy Marketing
Heidi.

Heidi Cohen
Actionable Marketing Guide

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Top Marketing Books: Educate Yourself!As a marketer and professor, I’m often asked,“What are the top marketing books I need to read?”

I’m also asked, "What are the top marketing books I should recommend my boss or team read?"

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This week the Internet truly knocked me off my feet with these articles. Words fail to convey how touched I am.

• Entrepreneur

  I was totally surprised and humbled when my friend and colleague Andy Crestodina texted me to check out this Entrepreneur article: 11 Marketing Experts Whose Insights Could Change Your Business

  Here’s what Peter Daisyme wrote:

  Heidi Cohen is arguably one of the most well-rounded marketers working today. Her expertise is not limited to one domain. From textiles to financial services to entertainment, Cohen has honed her skills into her Actionable Marketing Guide, a blog providing insights on social media, mobile, branding, public relations, and small business.

  It’s a great list including my other colleagues Marcus Sheridan, Jay Baer and Mari Smith.
  

• iVisa Global Blogger Award

  To be honest I’d had never heard of iVisa Blogger Awards before. It’s an international assessment of blogs from around the world, not just a few blogs outside of the US.

  The 3 marketing blogs included Brian Solis, Becky MacKay and me. Wow!

  Check out this list to get a more rounded view of how people blog around the world.
  

• OptinMonster

  21 Content Marketing Mistakes the Experts Really Regret

  Sharon Hurley Hall took input on a question that every content marketing wants to know: What content marketing mistakes do you regret?

  Even better she’s tapped some of the best names in the business and they spill the beans.

  Print this puppy out and use it as a checklist of what not to do!

Do you serve the B2B market?

If so, please check out this monster article (https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/b2b-ecommerce-how-the-best-in-b2b-sales-succeed-online)  by my friend and colleague Aaron Orendorff.

His content is always worth your time. Orendorff came out of nowhere and took the content marketing world by storm. So much so that he’s introducing keynote speaker, Jay Acunzo, at Content Marketing World.

MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2017

MarketingProfs B2B forum is one of my favorite conferences of the year. Join me in Boston, October 3-5, 2017, for an exciting program and fun events. Register now with my promo code: AMPLIFY1717  to save $100.