Specialists go deep. Generalists go wide. Both are valuable.
Continue reading “How to Write About Anything: The Generalist Content Creator’s Advantage”
The right publishing frequency is the one you can sustain indefinitely—not the most ambitious schedule you can manage for a month.
Continue reading “The Long Game: Why Consistent Content Beats Viral Every Time”
By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR · Strategic Communications, LLC
A case study is a detailed, evidence-based account of how a specific client or customer achieved a measurable outcome using a product, service, or approach. Case studies are told in narrative form to help prospective buyers understand what results are possible and how they might be achieved in their own context. A well-written case study is one of the most persuasive content formats available to B2B marketers because it combines social proof (‘someone like me has done this’) with specificity (‘here’s exactly what happened and what it produced’).
I’ve written a lot of case studies over the years for clients across industries, in formats ranging from one-page snapshots to 3,000-word deep dives. Over that time I’ve read even more: the ones clients show me as examples of what they want, the ones competitors publish, the ones that show up as thought leadership assets in B2B sales cycles.
Continue reading “How to Write a Case Study That Actually Converts”
Fifteen years ago I interviewed a half-dozen experts about LinkedIn Groups. Here’s how their advice has aged.Continue reading “LinkedIn Groups in 2026: What My 2011 Article Got Right — And What Changed”
By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR · Strategic Communications, LLC
Content marketing metrics are the quantitative and qualitative measures used to evaluate whether a content program is achieving its intended business objectives. They include audience growth, lead generation, search visibility, and revenue attribution. The distinction between meaningful metrics and vanity metrics is critical: vanity metrics (page views, social media likes, follower counts) may look impressive but reveal little about business impact, while meaningful metrics connect content activity directly to outcomes that matter to the organization.
Every content marketer I’ve worked with has felt the pull of the vanity metric. The blog post that got 2,000 views. The LinkedIn post with 150 likes. The social media following that crossed a round number.
Continue reading “The Content Marketing Metrics That Actually Matter (And the Ones to Ignore)”
By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR · Strategic Communications, LLC
Summer content strategy is the practice of adapting a content marketing program to account for predictable seasonal shifts in audience attention, engagement, and buying behavior that occur between Memorial Day and Labor Day—while using the slower period strategically to build content assets that drive results in the high-engagement months that follow.
For most B2B marketers, summer presents a genuine planning challenge: audiences are distracted, decision-makers are harder to reach, and content that performs well the rest of the year often underperforms between June and August.
I’ve managed content programs through enough summer cycles to know that the worst response to the seasonal slowdown is to keep doing what you’re doing and expect different results.
Continue reading “Summer Content Strategy: Staying Visible When Audiences Check Out”
There is often tension between marketing and sales in many organizations. But why? Shouldn’t these two functions be closely aligned to most effectively achieve the revenue and ROI goals of the organization? What causes this tension, why is alignment important, and what steps can you take to bring these two important organizational functions closer together? Continue reading “The Importance of Aligning Marketing and Sales”
Much of my work over the years has been with “service brands”—brands that are not tied to a particular product, but to the delivery of some type of service—educational services, healthcare services, energy services, engineering services, consulting services, etc.
Developing and maintaining a strong brand for a service is, in my opinion, significantly more challenging than developing and maintaining a strong brand for a product. Why? Continue reading “Tackling the Special Challenges of Building and Sustaining Strong Service Brands”
by Linda Pophal
All marketers know how important it is to understand their target audience so they can effectively craft messages and select communication channels that will most appeal to them and move them to some desired action. Continue reading “Using Google Search Can Help You Save on Market Research Costs: Here’s How”
