WORKWEEK

Sure, there’s a lot changing in the content marketing world––but there’s also a lot staying the same. In fact, this LinkedIn post from Stewart Hillhouse caught my attention this week––primarily for reminding me of what I was first hired to do when I transitioned from journalist to content marketer, which was:

• To be the face of the team, reporting on news and stories to our audience (often via video). 
• To be the orchestrator of content operations & production across freelancers and internal folks (and perhaps now AI, too). 
• To be the campaign manager, working to align the internal teams on the stories, why they were important, to which audiences, and how we could get it in front of them. 

A lot of content marketers still do focus on those things since they’ve always been fundamentals of the role. 

Anyway, another thing that isn’t changing is that our audiences want to learn. For most content marketers, especially those in B2B, your audience is looking to you for help with doing their job better. Whether they are looking for new tools and software, a differentiated strategy, best practices, etc. 

Education has long been a backbone of content marketing (and even better if you can make it entertaining). 

It’s no wonder then that webinars still work wonders. They drive more leads than ebooks or research often do––and in a shorter amount of time with arguably less work on the content marketer. And, those leads are often warmer due to some of the principles within the psychology of persuasion including liking and reciprocity. 

So, let’s look at two webinars I’ve seen promoted recently that I think are worth your eyes––mostly because I think each is 100% achievable for any organization before the end of the year and can yield wonders for your content strategy. 

Fermat’s two-day webinar

Aaron Orendorff (who if you don’t follow, you should) has run webinars like this for years. At Fermat, and before that at Common Thread Collective. He probably even did it over at Shopify Plus when I wasn’t paying attention. 

He brings together dozens of his target audience’s business idols––both influencers as well as operators working within well-respected brands––to host a learning event people would probably pay for, but don’t have to. 

The genius is in the caliber of names that he pulls in––and the built-in distribution and marketing that those names bring by promoting their presence on that webinar.

It makes for a great webinar, helps build and reinforce community, and gives you endless thought leadership blog and social media content for the rest of the year. 

Klaviyo’s 30 Tips in 30 Minutes 

One downside to a panel with 20+ people is that it can be overwhelming. Another way to approach this is what Klaviyo did with Grace Clarke. 

Grace is an ecommerce influencer, expert, and consultant to some of the fastest growing brands. She has cache in the industry, and is simply good friends with many of the best operators in the space. 

So, Klaviyo partnered with her to put together a succinct webinar (i.e. 30 minutes) that pulled together the best of the best insights and advice from admirable ecommerce brands––including ones that don’t often share their secrets. 

With this, Klaviyo reinforces its ability to pull together the best and brightest, offer access to its audience, and load up on thought leadership content it can use in various formats leading up to BFCM.

One host makes this a bit easier for teams, and again, more succinct for an audience––which is a great thing when folks are strapped and you want to build trust. 

Wrapping it up 

I’m a firm believer in less is more content marketing, and you could easily turn a webinar strategy into your entire content strategy if you wanted (here’s exactly how). 

But don’t put all your eggs in that basket just yet. Pull together a webinar like this before the end of the year to see how it works for your company and industry.