marketingstrategy Archives

The 2026 Content Marketing Imperative: Know Your Audience

If you can understand who your shadow buyers are and what they need, you’ll get to a place where you truly know your audience.

Copy that resonates requires knowing your audience—intimately. How are you doing with that?

By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR – Strategic Communications, LLC

Audience understanding in content marketing is the practice of developing specific, research-grounded knowledge of who your target readers or customers are—their challenges, motivations, behaviors, and preferences—and using that knowledge to create content that resonates precisely rather than broadly. It is widely considered the foundational competency of effective content strategy: content that doesn’t know who it’s for cannot connect with anyone in particular.

Every day, without fail, two very different kinds of content appears in my inbox and on the various social media channels I follow.

One kind captures my attention and gets me to start reading, sometimes dragging me down a rabbit hole that I really wish I hadn’t been dragged down…

The other kind: meh. Generic, boilerplate, trite. Copy that literally any brand could have created. It’s not personal. It’s not specific. It doesn’t speak to me.

The difference between those two experiences has nothing to do with budget, production value, or even writing skill. It comes down to one thing: how well the brand actually knows its audience.

This is not a new principle.

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A Step-by-Step Process for Gen-AI Search Optimization

Preparing for the World of GenAI-Driven Search

As more and more consumers are turning to tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity instead of Google when they’re looking for answers to questions, or doing research, brands are taking notice.

Long-term reliance on Google search, and traditional approaches to search engine optimization (SEO), aren’t necessarily relevant in this rapidly changing search environment. Google search isn’t going away, but GenAI-driven search is having a growing impact.

What do you need to know, and do, to make sure your website doesn’t fall into oblivion?

Key Recommendations a One-Year Plan

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Risk Management and Adaptation in the GenAI-Search Era

AI Search Brings New Risks

The AI search landscape presents new risks that require proactive management strategies while maintaining resilience in traditional search channels.

Pankaj Kumar, founder of Naxisweb, warns about a fundamental shift affecting established content: “There’s no such thing as SEO being replaced, but it’s certainly getting widened in scope.”

Adapting to new search paradigms

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LinkedIn Newsletters: #9 and #10 of 10 Expert Best Practices for B2B Thought Leadership

With over 1.2 billion members as of January 2025, LinkedIn has evolved beyond networking to become a critical platform for B2B content distribution and thought leadership development. LinkedIn newsletters represent one of the most significant developments in B2B content distribution because they allow users to build their own audience within LinkedIn, offering professionals a direct channel to communicate with opted-in subscribers.

Here we synthesize expert insights from digital marketing specialists, CEOs, consultants, and content strategists who have successfully leveraged LinkedIn newsletters to achieve measurable business outcomes. Their collective experience provides a roadmap for organizations seeking to establish or optimize their LinkedIn newsletter strategy and is supported through our own work and experience.

Here are our final two tips and some key recommendations.
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LinkedIn Newsletters: #7 and #8 of 10 Expert Best Practices for B2B Thought Leadership

Here’s #7 and #8 of 10 recommendations. Continue reading “LinkedIn Newsletters: #7 and #8 of 10 Expert Best Practices for B2B Thought Leadership”

LinkedIn Newsletters: #6 of 10 Expert Best Practices for B2B Thought Leadership

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to share a roundup of input on how to create, manage, and effectively leverage LinkedIn newsletters to achieve marketing goals.

Here’s #6 of 10 recommendations. Continue reading “LinkedIn Newsletters: #6 of 10 Expert Best Practices for B2B Thought Leadership”

LinkedIn Newsletters: #5 of 10 Expert Best Practices for B2B Thought Leadership

In this post we synthesize expert insights from digital marketing specialists, CEOs, consultants, and content strategists who have successfully leveraged LinkedIn newsletters to achieve measurable business outcomes. Their collective experience provides a roadmap for organizations seeking to establish or optimize their LinkedIn newsletter strategy and is supported through our own work and experience.

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to share a roundup of input on how to create, manage, and effectively leverage LinkedIn newsletters to achieve marketing goals.

Here’s #5 of 10 recommendations. Continue reading “LinkedIn Newsletters: #5 of 10 Expert Best Practices for B2B Thought Leadership”

LinkedIn newsletters have emerged as a powerful tool for B2B professionals seeking to establish thought leadership and deepen audience engagement. Based on insights from 20+ verified marketing experts and industry leaders, this white paper presents actionable strategies for launching, optimizing, and leveraging LinkedIn newsletters to drive business results. Continue reading “Launching and Leveraging LinkedIn Newsletters: 10 Expert Best Practices for B2B Thought Leadership”