How the Content Marketing Institute Markets

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On this episode of Social Business Engine you’re going to meet Cathy McPhillips, Vice President of Marketing at the Content Marketing Institute. CMI has successfully positioned itself as the premier resource for marketers who want to learn about content marketing.

Cathy reveals a key metric in their marketing that enables the company to convert by a factor of 10 on their most coveted offering, the annual Content Marketing World conference. Bernie has spoken at the event 7 times and it ranks as one of his favorite weeks out of the year. You’ll want to check it out.

Cathy is in a unique position at CMI because she is able to filter all of the company’s marketing strategy for CMW through her own lens as a marketer. In most scenarios, applying a personal lens to marketing is a bad idea. In Cathy’s case, however, she IS representative of the target audience for CMW. Her career experiences and expertise in content marketing make for a fantastic conversation. Be sure to listen.

This episode is sponsored by SAP. Download the ungated case study titled, “Savvy Social Selling the SAP Way.” You’ll learn how SAP sales reps fill their sales pipeline with deals that are 560% larger on average when using social selling techniques. Download the case study without a form to fill out. It’s ungated.

Why Marketing to Marketers is What the Content Marketing Institute Does Best

CMI creates resources for marketers that are the benchmark standard for anything relating to content marketing. They are the top cited resource for companies across the globe and they strive to connect to CMOs through a variety of different strategies.

Cathy and her team realize the challenges that CMI faces when trying to market to people who do content marketing for a living. A CMO’s schedule is stretched more thinly than ever before and individuals have limited time to check email, watch a webinar, or listen to a podcast. The team at the Content Marketing Institute understands their audience and their concerns fully, and having that understanding allows them to create world-renowned resources. You don’t want to miss hearing Cathy tell Bernie about the latest and greatest strategies CMI has up its sleeve.

How CMI Identifies Who Are 10x More Likely to Attend Content Marketing World

Content Marketing World is CMI’s biggest event every calendar year. What started as a simple conference with 600 attendees has grown into a massive gathering of content marketing professionals. The event covers the entire content marketing process, from content creation to analytics and measuring ROI. It’s the largest event of its kind on the planet and attracts professionals from across the world. Cathy expects over 6,000 attendees for the 2018 conference in September, and the event shows no signs of slowing down.

How does Cathy know just how many people to expect, even before registrations are submitted? She explains to Bernie that people who take 3 or more actions within the CMI website (i.e. subscribing to an email, watching a webinar, etc.), are 10x more likely to attend the CMW event in person. By using an omnichannel marketing approach CMI is able to put content in front of people in a variety of ways and then capture their attention and convert it into registration dollars.

Cathy shares insider secrets relevant to Content Marketing World 2018 that you don’t want to miss. Be sure to listen.

An Old School Idea That Has Secured Over 27,000 Qualified Subscribers for the Content Marketing Institute

The Content Marketing Institute also uses metrics and data analysis for business practices outside of the CMW sector. In an interesting turn of the conversation, Bernie and Cathy discuss how the CMI team publishes a quarterly, printed magazine entitled Chief Content Officer. This magazine is yet another example of CMI’s fantastic omnichannel marketing approach.

Cathy knows that it’s simultaneously harder and easier to market to professional content marketers. That’s why she and her team aren’t afraid to pursue every avenue of content delivery. Even though some may argue that print is outdated, the CCO publication has resulted in over 27,000 qualified subscribers for CMI. In other words, it has built an amazingly robust audience database of people that are intimately engaged with the best materials CMI releases every quarter.

When professional marketers disconnect from technology, they’re still connected to CMI and content marketing through the CCO magazine. It brings the brand to life and is an ingenious way of sharing the latest information on the content marketing industry.

Featured on This Episode

• Connect with Cathy on Linkedin
• Follow Cathy on Twitter: @CMcPhillips
• Read Cathy’s bio on the CMI website
• The Content Marketing Institute website
• The Content Marketing World event website
• Like Content Marketing Institute on Facebook
• Follow the CMI on Twitter: @CMIContent

Outline of This Episode

• [0:31] Bernie introduces his guest for this episode, Cathy McPhillips, VP of Marketing at CMI
• [2:42] Cathy shares the background story behind the CMI
• [4:33] The CMI’s annual event is Content Marketing World – how exactly is it marketed?
• [9:59] An old-school idea that secured 27,000 qualified subscribers for CMI
• [14:55] Why marketing to marketers is what CMI does best
• [17:59] Cathy reveals insights into Content Marketing World 2018
• [21:21] How Cathy organizes all of her VP of Marketing tasks to promote CMW
• [23:11] Bernie’s summary of his conversation with Cathy

Resources & People Mentioned

Be sure to download the case study – Social Business Journal Volume 11. It weaves together the narrative of social selling success factors at SAP, our sponsor for this episode. It’s available for download, ungated here.

• CMI’s quarterly printed magazine, “Chief Content Officer”
• Grab your copy of “Savvy Social Selling the SAP Way”

• The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

Connect With Bernie and Social Business Engine

• https://www.facebook.com/socialbusinessengine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://twitter.com/sbengine

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This podcast originally appeared on Social Business Engine

Download Social Business Journal Volume 11 – The case study where SAP tells all about their secrets to social selling success…Not a secret anymore. Their global enterprise software sales team is achieving billions in sales pipeline. Download the ungated case study – no form to fill out – just click to open the case study in your browser – go to https://Vengreso.com/sap and learn the secrets to sales success at SAP through social selling strategies.

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