The 15th Annual B2B Content Marketing Report is out, and Michelle J Raymond sits down with Robert Rose to unpack what it all means for the future of B2B marketing.
Today's episode is sponsored by Metricool. Make sure to register for a FREE Metricool account today. Use Code MICHELLE30 to try any Premium Plan FREE for 30 days. https://i.mtr.cool/NEDXVZ
Key moments in this episode:
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:52 Origins of the B2B Content Marketing Report
04:10 Current Trends and Challenges in B2B Marketing
05:32 The Identity Crisis in B2B Marketing
07:38 Encouraging Creativity and Differentiation
13:25 Practical Tips for Marketers
19:42 The Role of Technology in Marketing
26:30 Looking Ahead to 2025
30:23 Final Thoughts
Connect with Robert Rose on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robrose/
The Content Marketing Research is available here - https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/articles/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research/
ABOUT MICHELLE J RAYMOND
Michelle J Raymond is an international LinkedIn™️ B2B Growth Coach. To continue the conversation, connect with Michelle on LinkedIn™️ and let her know you are part of the community of podcast listeners.
Connect with Michelle J Raymond on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellejraymond/
B2B Growth Co offers LinkedIn™️ Training for teams to build personal and business brands and a LinkedIn™️ Profile Recharge service for Founders/CEOs.
Book a free intro call to learn more - https://calendly.com/michelle-j-raymond/book-an-intro-call-15mins
Social Media for B2B Growth Podcast is a fully accessible podcast. Audio, Video, Transcript and guest details are available on our podcast website - https://socialmediaforb2bgrowthpodcast.com/
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@MichelleJRaymond
#LinkedIn #ContentMarketing #B2BMarketing
00:00:17
Michelle J Raymond: G'day everyone.
00:00:18
It's coach Michelle J Raymond back again for another episode in our series that is
00:00:22
designed to help marketers get the most out of 2025 without having to figure it out
00:00:29
for themselves and today we're going to be talking about B2B content marketing trends.
00:00:34
There's a new report that's come out and so I've called back a friend of
00:00:38
the show, Robert Rose, welcome back.
00:00:40
Let's get into this.
00:00:42
Robert Rose: I love it.
00:00:43
I love it.
00:00:43
I'm so glad to be here.
00:00:45
Michelle J Raymond: I found it very interesting in our pre show chat that you and I are having
00:00:49
very similar experiences with our clients.
00:00:52
So before we get into that, how does the B2B content marketing benchmark,
00:00:57
budgets and trends report come together?
00:00:59
Robert Rose: It came together very early when we first started content marketing Institute,
00:01:04
when Joe and I were talking with our then very small team, talking about trying in the
00:01:10
way to track what was going on with content marketing and especially in the B2B world.
00:01:16
And it was all then a very brand new thing.
00:01:18
And then over the years, we've just changed and modified, updated and massaged
00:01:23
the questions and the surveys to keep track with everything that's going on.
00:01:28
For example, this year, of course, we have questions around artificial intelligence
00:01:32
and all of the things that are going on around automation and all of that.
00:01:36
And it's just been a nice place to be able to take the temperature of what's going
00:01:40
on in B2B marketing for the last 15 years.
00:01:44
Michelle J Raymond: It's kind of crazy because when I was flicking through the
00:01:47
report, there was lots of surprises for me and then some other parts where I was a
00:01:52
bit not surprised because it reflects the conversations that I'm having with marketers,
00:01:58
especially those in small marketing teams.
00:02:00
They are the ones that I think right now coming into the end of the year.
00:02:05
Possibly feeling a bit frustrated that they didn't tick everything off they wanted to
00:02:09
achieve, maybe feeling a bit overwhelmed.
00:02:11
The AI and tech, we're going to talk about that because I think that had a big impact.
00:02:16
I'm not sure whether that went for the positive or the negative.
00:02:20
So I'd love to go into that a little bit more.
00:04:10
What stood out to you in this report compared to some of those previous ones?
00:04:15
Robert Rose: I will tell you.
00:04:17
And it's what I actually, I wrote is in a long LinkedIn post and as well as in the
00:04:22
body of the report itself, which is the remarkability of this was in its unremarkability.
00:04:28
And this came up as we also just finished Content Marketing World as well, where what we're seeing
00:04:34
now is a trend of a flat line of mediocrity.
00:04:40
And what I mean there is that B2B marketers right now and this has
00:04:44
been true really since the pandemic.
00:04:47
We haven't seen any surprising ups or downs of this in the last four years, but
00:04:51
have basically said, Hey, we're creating content that we feel like is okay.
00:04:57
It's meeting our needs, Okay.
00:05:00
We're not terribly happy about it, and we're not terribly sad about it.
00:05:02
And so it was 50, I think 58 percent is the number of those that feel like they're
00:05:07
having success, some level of success.
00:05:10
So it's little more than half right that feel like that their content is good, right?
00:05:14
And then Another 50 percent half feel like that their overall success, like they're succeeding.
00:05:21
And so you take all these sort of very sort of average top of the bell curve
00:05:27
results together, which have been the same for the last 4,5,6,7 years.
00:05:33
And what I think it points to is the fact that we are now in a situation where B2B content
00:05:39
marketing, and you could actually apply this across the board, just B2B marketing full
00:05:44
stop, is in sort of an identity crisis, right?
00:05:47
We are in this situation where we have become more and more busy doing more
00:05:53
and more, you know, optimising the mundane, as I've been saying, right?
00:05:56
We are using technology to tweak one more search result, to tweak one more percentage point of
00:06:01
conversion rate, to change it from a lighter shade of blue to a deeper shade of blue, to see
00:06:06
if it gets one more click than we possibly can.
00:06:08
To look for that data in a silo that's not quite there and we can't have access to it because
00:06:13
this team says we can't have access to it.
00:06:15
Reorganising for the 10th time because the new CMO has come in and is now is reorganising us
00:06:20
into pods or to groups or to new teams or moving product marketing out of something where else?
00:06:27
The CMS isn't fully implemented.
00:06:29
The marketing automation system isn't fully implemented.
00:06:31
And we're in this sort of rinse and repeat cycle of mundane activities in marketing, and
00:06:37
we've reached this peak technology, button pushing, and we're not doing the innovative.
00:06:42
We're not doing the interesting and we're not doing anything.
00:06:45
So what we've successfully done is we've gotten marketing to be extremely efficient
00:06:51
and we've also simultaneously made it much less joyful and much less interesting.
00:06:56
Michelle J Raymond: It's been interesting for me to have conversations with experts.
00:07:00
And I had LinkedIn insider, Robin O Connell come a couple of weeks ago, and he was just
00:07:04
sharing that the term that LinkedIn use it based out of all their research is B 2
00:07:10
Boring, and the creativity has disappeared.
00:07:14
No level of risk taking and no emotions in any of the content that goes out.
00:07:20
You look at a post and it could be from one of your competitors and very few people are doing
00:07:25
anything that really stands out and it's fine.
00:07:28
It's okay.
00:07:28
It's not bad, like your research showed, there's nothing wrong with it, but is it working?
00:07:36
I would question that.
00:07:38
And I think that's the thing I'm hoping out of today's conversation that we
00:07:43
can inspire some of the marketers that are listening to say, you know what?
00:07:46
I'm really frustrated with how these things are happening.
00:07:49
I'm going to give something new a go.
00:07:51
It's time that I'm going to stand up and have my voice heard to say, this isn't working.
00:07:55
I want to try this.
00:07:56
And I'm hoping that we can, you know, encourage some listeners because I know that it's not
00:08:01
easy in corporate land to just, you know, make a, what feels like a monumental shift.
00:08:07
But the risk, I think, is definitely worth the reward.
00:08:12
Is there anything you want to add to this?
00:08:14
Robert Rose: Yeah.
00:08:15
I think you've said it very well.
00:08:16
And I think when we start looking at, and we can certainly look at some of the specifics that we
00:08:21
might speak to, but I think overall it's not that the marketers are less creative, let's be clear.
00:08:28
Whenever I go visit with a client or teach a class or anything like that, it's not
00:08:33
that they lack creativity or lack the desire to do some interesting things.
00:08:37
It's that they're in a space where there just is no bandwidth to be able to do those things, right.
00:08:44
And you're so right, it's like they work okay.
00:08:46
So in other words, it becomes easier and more efficient to just check a
00:08:51
box and get the ads out, get the blog post out, get the ebook out, check it.
00:08:56
And, and we've done it this way for the last 10 years.
00:08:59
We have this budget associated with that.
00:09:01
There's just no reason, because we're so afraid that, you know, the hammer's going to come
00:09:08
down, there's no reason to step out on a limb and do something weird or something strangely
00:09:13
creative or something that is completely brand new, because the risk reward is, we could fail.
00:09:20
And if we fail, then we've failed incrementally, not even failed spectacularly,
00:09:25
like we've just failed incrementally.
00:09:27
And therefore, we'll be out of a job or we'll be fired, or we won't get our
00:09:30
bonus or whatever the risk reward is.
00:09:33
So as leaders in the organisation, I think one of the key things they have to do is sort of open
00:09:39
up the box of creativity again to let it fly.
00:09:43
Let that creativity out of the box, if you want to create competitive advantage and be differentiated
00:09:48
out there because the incremental stuff is great.
00:09:51
It's fine.
00:09:51
We know that that has to get done, but we have to have room in our lives and in our team's lives and
00:09:59
in our business's lives to do interesting things.
00:10:02
Otherwise, why are we in business to begin with?
00:10:04
Michelle J Raymond: I think the million dollar word that you use there is differentiated.
00:10:08
I think that should be the word of 2025.
00:10:11
How you get there.
00:10:12
I'm not holding onto any one type of outcome that listeners should be using, but I do know
00:10:18
that if they don't find a way to differentiate themselves from their competition and
00:10:24
from all the other noise on the platforms, and in this case, we mostly, talk about
00:10:28
LinkedIn on this but it can be anywhere.
00:10:31
But I just wonder like, and in the research, what was the biggest challenge
00:10:37
for B2B marketers that you found?
00:10:39
Is it this resourcing issue where we're trying to do too much spread too thin and not doing
00:10:44
anything very well, but keeping up, or is it more the strategy that sits behind the content?
00:10:50
Robert Rose: You've got it, you've nailed it.
00:10:52
It's, it's one and two, from a self reported perspective, right?
00:10:56
When we ask, what's the bigger challenge that you're facing right now?
00:11:00
Lack of resources is number one.
00:11:02
But honestly, it's like, okay I I believe that a little bit, right?
00:11:07
You know, the lack of resources.
00:11:08
But, I have too much money and too much time on my hand said no marketing
00:11:12
person ever in the history of marketing.
00:11:13
Resources are always going to be an issue, right?
00:11:16
That's that just the way marketing is.
00:11:19
And so when I see the number one challenge being stated as lack of resources.
00:11:25
What that tells me is we have filled our marketers days with the wrong activities, right?
00:11:31
We're filling them with some kind of activities that aren't as productive or innovative or
00:11:36
interesting as we could and so then I go, okay What's the number two and then it's lack of
00:11:41
strategy which just bolsters that argument, right?
00:11:44
Because the number two is we don't have a clear objective or a clear strategy when it comes to
00:11:50
our content marketing in B2B, and that just comes from the yes, because what we're doing
00:11:56
is we're copying pasting from last year, right?
00:11:59
We're all we're doing is saying what were we supposed to do last year that we didn't get done?
00:12:03
And so that becomes this year's strategy is literally well here are the 14 things.
00:12:07
It's It's this weird, interesting trend that I see with so many companies where you
00:12:12
get into this fix it or maintenance mode.
00:12:15
And you say to yourself, you rationalise, the business rationalises to itself
00:12:19
and says, ah, we'll spend the third quarter getting out of this hole, right?
00:12:23
We'll get out of this hole of technology and the challenges with the implementation
00:12:27
of the CMS and the DAM system.
00:12:29
And we'll get the email thing up and running again.
00:12:31
And nobody can figure out the workflow for that.
00:12:34
And Asana isn't quite working right.
00:12:36
And all, all those kinds of things.
00:12:37
And we say, we'll use the 3rd quarter and then.
00:12:40
And then so we spend the 3rd quarter in that maintenance mode.
00:12:43
4th quarter comes around and we go great we've done that.
00:12:46
But so many other maintenance things have backed up in the meantime.
00:12:49
So now we have to spend the 4th quarter in a whole new set of maintenance mode.
00:12:53
And so we get to 2025 or the new year or whatever it is.
00:12:56
And it's like, there's just so many things backed up from the year previous that we didn't
00:13:01
get to now we have to spend 2025 doing that.
00:13:04
So all the growth programs And i'm using rock and roll quotes there for anybody who's not
00:13:09
watching video on this, but basically Any growth programs get put to the wayside because we're
00:13:14
too busy trying to figure out how to fix what we broke last year and that is this endless cycle.
00:13:21
So we just have to stop the cycle.
00:13:24
Michelle J Raymond: That's tricky.
00:13:25
I mean, You work with businesses as a Fractional CMO.
00:13:28
So you're getting in the weeds with them to try and figure this out.
00:13:32
If you were to walk into a business today that is listening to this podcast and we've
00:13:37
probably got marketers out there nodding their head going, I know, I hear you.
00:13:41
I'm trying.
00:13:42
Where do you think they can start with this?
00:13:44
You know, If it's chicken and egg, do we start with strategy first?
00:13:47
I tend to go that way, but do we have to free up some time?
00:13:51
I don't know which one is actually practically out there in the real world
00:13:56
going to make the biggest difference.
00:13:58
Robert Rose: As you know, very well, strategy and strategic objectives is the place to start
00:14:04
because without that, as I like to say, you know, a strategy without a plan is having a wishlist.
00:14:09
And a plan without a strategy is having a map with nowhere to go.
00:14:13
So you have to have a place to go.
00:14:15
You have to have a place that you're heading.
00:14:17
But the first tactical thing that I usually would recommend to most teams is we have to
00:14:23
start asking ourselves the hard questions of what I call starting a stopping list.
00:14:28
Like things we just have to stop doing.
00:14:31
And those things may have had every reason for us to do them.
00:14:35
A common one that I find is, we've got four newsletters.
00:14:39
Why do we have four newsletters?
00:14:41
Because so and so needed a newsletter then the product people wanted a newsletter
00:14:45
then somebody else wanted a newsletter.
00:14:47
That's great.
00:14:47
What's the difference between the four of them?
00:14:49
I don't know.
00:14:49
They're just four newsletters.
00:14:51
So you go, okay, What if we cut three of them and we combine those into one and we stop
00:14:58
worrying about how to maintain three other newsletters, what would we do with that time?
00:15:02
So starting that stopping list and not just replacing it with other things, right?
00:15:09
That are in maintenance mode saying, let's build ourselves some headroom so that we're
00:15:13
not 110 percent accounted for in our weekly activities and not fill it with anything.
00:15:20
It's easy to fill it with more busy work and just make a very conscious choice to not fill
00:15:25
that empty space with something so that we can take that strategic plan and actually go,
00:15:31
here's a bet we want to make in marketing.
00:15:34
Here's a new website, a new resource centre, a new LinkedIn strategy, a new social media
00:15:39
strategy, a new approach to how we're doing content with AI, whatever that thing is.
00:15:45
We want to make it a thing.
00:15:47
You know the most common question I get asked is by a CEO or a CMO is how do I make content
00:15:54
marketing strategy a thing in our business?
00:15:58
And my first response is make somebody responsible for it, right?
00:16:02
I don't care who makes somebody responsible for it, because when we walk around and we try
00:16:06
and make everybody responsible, a little bit responsible for this and a little bit responsible
00:16:10
for that, and do this in your side time, do this when you don't have anything else to do.
00:16:14
Of course, nothing happens because, of course, we never have that time.
00:16:17
But if you make somebody responsible for it, time, budget, effort, metrics, KPIs, now all of a
00:16:24
sudden it's a thing and people will get it done.
00:16:26
Michelle J Raymond: A very practical add on to what you've just shared is it's time to start
00:16:32
blocking time in your calendars and making this a priority so that you actually allocate
00:16:38
time out of your week, your month, your quarter to sit down and work on this kind of stuff,
00:16:44
because I feel like it's this, I'll get to that after I've had all my other meetings and
00:16:50
everybody's dragged me this way, that way.
00:16:52
I've, you know, produced what everybody else wanted.
00:16:55
There is no time physically set aside in a calendar.
00:16:58
And so it can be a really practical step to say this is when we will get together,
00:17:04
have it planned out for the whole year, and it becomes part of your process.
00:17:08
But I feel like if it's not there as an action item with a real amount of time allocated to
00:17:14
it, you are dreaming that it's going to happen.
00:17:16
How do I know this?
00:17:17
One, because partly it happens in my own business and I'm only, a business of
00:17:21
two, so I don't have teams to coordinate.
00:17:23
I don't have other departments to try and negotiate with.
00:17:27
But if I look back in corporate land, my calendar was jam packed from the time I
00:17:34
started to the time I went home and afterwards some days with back to back meetings.
00:17:39
In my case, I was in sales so it was customer visits back to the office back here, back there.
00:17:43
And I'm sure that marketers are going through the same thing because
00:17:47
everybody wants a piece of them.
00:17:49
And so make some time for yourself.
00:17:52
This is your permission slip out of this podcast to go and actually, put a priority
00:17:57
on this for your own self so that you can feel like you're achieving these things.
00:18:02
Robert Rose: Yeah, I'll give you one other very quick practical tip, which is a great place to
00:18:06
start, which is most companies that we deal with, the way they look at content is by container.
00:18:13
Instead of the content itself, the story that we want to tell or the thought leadership or
00:18:18
whatever the idea that we want to express is.
00:18:20
In other words, our first thing is to say, how are we going to get all these PDFs done?
00:18:26
How are we going to get all these landing pages done?
00:18:28
How are we going to get all these social posts done?
00:18:30
How are we going to get all these emails out the door?
00:18:33
And so you look at them as containers.
00:18:35
And so when we, as humans, we look at all those containers and we go, great, that's
00:18:40
the list of to dos, is the containers.
00:18:42
And we go, okay, the second list of to dos is what are all the ideas
00:18:46
that need to fill those containers.
00:18:48
And so we, and then it becomes overwhelmingly busy, right?
00:18:51
We become overwhelmingly busy trying to fill all those containers with interesting ideas.
00:18:55
Instead of just taking one part of that meeting that you just said, that one part where you
00:19:00
plan everything out and going, yeah, we have over the next six months, we do have 14 emails
00:19:06
we need to get out the door and three, white papers and two eBooks and this 14 landing
00:19:11
pages and this campaigns, content and all that.
00:19:15
What one idea could fill all of that?
00:19:17
Let's pick one idea.
00:19:18
Let's slow down and this is going to sound completely completely wrong.
00:19:24
But if you slow down the content creation process, I promise you, you will exponentially multiply
00:19:31
your production asset creation container process.
00:19:35
So slow down to speed up.
00:19:37
Michelle J Raymond: No pushback from me on that one.
00:19:39
It's a high five.
00:19:40
A ditto from me.
00:19:42
Now let's look at 2024.
00:19:45
We have to talk about marketing tech and what's happened because.
00:19:50
It feels like it's really been centre of attention, the world's biggest explosion
00:19:55
in this particular area when it comes to things that are impacting marketers.
00:19:59
And with all these new tools available, is it really helping marketers achieve their goals?
00:20:04
Is that what the report found when you were asking marketers?
00:20:08
Help or hindrance?
00:20:09
Where are we at?
00:20:11
Robert Rose: AI has sucked all the oxygen out of the room, right?
00:20:13
That is clear.
00:20:14
To the frustration of many of the other technology providers that are out there that
00:20:19
are providing very useful, very handy and very productive tools that have been around for years
00:20:26
they're off in the corner going Hi remember us.
00:20:28
We're actually the ones like doing good stuff you're trying to figure out how
00:20:32
to throw more AI spaghetti against the wall and get something useful out of it.
00:20:36
And so AI is the sexiest thing that nobody's doing.
00:20:39
It is experimental at best, and everybody is doing it on their own, right?
00:20:43
Either because of I.
00:20:45
T.
00:20:45
policies, legal policies, whatever it is, and larger organisations, smaller
00:20:50
organisations, just because we don't know how to organise it across the team.
00:20:54
So everybody goes off on their own and plays with ChatGPT plays with Claude plays with
00:20:58
some tool and then comes back and reports and says well here's how it either and
00:21:03
it's usually one of two extremes, right?
00:21:04
It's either this is how it's going to fundamentally change my life for the better,
00:21:08
which is probably not true, but okay.
00:21:10
And then the other one is, here's how it's completely useless and I can't absolutely
00:21:14
use it, which is also probably not true.
00:21:16
So a much more discerned approach to A.
00:21:21
I.
00:21:21
is needed.
00:21:22
Having said that, from a technology perspective, most of it is because what
00:21:27
we find is that it is seen as a challenge.
00:21:31
Mostly because we have become so specialised, right?
00:21:34
Marketing itself in a very similar way, I wrote about this a while back.
00:21:39
Not in a dissimilar way to medicine, like health care, how specialised and like, you know, when
00:21:43
was the last time you went to a general doctor?
00:21:45
You just don't go to the general doctor anymore, right?
00:21:47
You go to a specialist, and so marketing in a very similar way is becoming so specialised
00:21:53
around the idea of technology and how we manage things like web content, email automation,
00:21:58
social media content, analytics, data, first party data, second party data, media buying.
00:22:05
All of that is technology platform delivered, which is ultimately expert level systems.
00:22:11
And so what you end up with our marketing teams or marketing people who are good at Hootsuite
00:22:16
or they're good at HubSpot or they're good at Salesforce and bring them into another environment
00:22:22
and I don't know what I'm doing, right?.
00:22:23
And so that's a real challenge with technology is how specialised it has become
00:22:28
in marketing and how much specialisation we need to actually manage things.
00:22:32
The outcome of that is that we typically don't implement technology to its fullest extent.
00:22:38
And so that's what has to change is that we have to get good at the technology we
00:22:42
have before we start adding technology that we're not even good at yet.
00:22:46
Michelle J Raymond: I wonder if this is driven by this concept that seemed to be
00:22:50
out there and I fell into the same trap when I started my own business, that you
00:22:54
had to be everywhere on every platform.
00:22:56
You had to have a newsletter.
00:22:58
You had to have website, you know, up and running and SEO optimised.
00:23:02
And I started trying to do that myself in my own business and learned very, very
00:23:07
quickly that I was on a highway to nowhere.
00:23:12
I was going to burn myself out.
00:23:13
I absolutely hated it.
00:23:16
I was like, why am I on Instagram?
00:23:18
I've never used Instagram.
00:23:19
I don't enjoy being on Instagram, and Twitter at the time before it turned into X.
00:23:24
And I was I never liked these.
00:23:26
I like LinkedIn and I like, YouTube and podcasts.
00:23:29
Like, why am I trying to do everything?
00:23:31
Is there a certain compulsion out there that if you're not everywhere, there's
00:23:37
something wrong with your business?
00:23:39
Are we scared that we're going to miss out on something?
00:23:41
Robert Rose: Not to put too fine a point on it, my friend, but there are people like you and I out
00:23:45
there who are saying the exact opposite, right?
00:23:47
They are saying they're out there going, you got to be everywhere.
00:23:49
You got to be omni channel.
00:23:51
You have to be omnipresent.
00:23:52
You have to be on every platform.
00:23:54
You have to be doing things everywhere, all the time, everything all at once and out there.
00:23:58
Cough Gary Vee cough, right?
00:24:00
And so you've got these people who are out there giving, I think, bad advice for marketers
00:24:06
about where they're building their value.
00:24:09
What are they investing in?
00:24:11
What are they truly investing in?
00:24:13
I don't care how big your marketing team is you can't be everywhere.
00:24:17
I've seen the biggest companies on the planet can't be everywhere in a meaningful way, right?
00:24:23
In a meaningful way.
00:24:24
Sure.
00:24:25
You could be there at a copy and paste way, but as we've talked about before, even on this show.
00:24:30
Now, when it comes to social media and there's been a real resurgence, I would say
00:24:35
of organic social media in terms of efficacy in marketing, especially in B2B, but it
00:24:42
doesn't mean you can no longer just simply do things like take a headline put in an
00:24:48
abstract post and expect good results, right?
00:24:51
You have to deliver that value in the post.
00:24:53
You have to design that content for LinkedIn, for Instagram, for Facebook, for your website,
00:24:59
for that partner website, for the blog.
00:25:02
And content has to be designed in a very specific way.
00:25:04
And that just takes time.
00:25:06
And so picking your battles, picking where you want to play is such an important
00:25:11
piece of a marketing strategy these days, and you do not have to be everywhere.
00:25:16
Michelle J Raymond: That is your permission slip.
00:25:17
We've given people so many permission slips in this episode.
00:25:20
I think it's important because I think there is almost this, you know, you're
00:25:25
the marketing manager, thou shalt keep up with everything and be everywhere.
00:25:29
And I think about how much effort it takes me just to stay up to date with everything on LinkedIn.
00:25:35
I have my podcast on YouTube as well, but LinkedIn is my predominant platform.
00:25:38
That keeps me busy 24/7.
00:25:41
So I always have so much empathy for the marketers out there that are literally
00:25:45
trying to be experts across everything.
00:25:48
So yeah, slowing down to speed up I am definitely on board with.
00:26:16
As we come around to the end of this episode, which has been fabulous and given
00:26:20
so much practical and tactical advice to marketers that might be listening, but
00:26:26
one more question for you, which, you know, I love to round out the show with.
00:26:30
What is the best tip that you can give content marketers as they head into 2025 that you
00:26:36
think will make the biggest difference to them being successful and having some kind
00:26:41
of step change rather than this same old, same old that we've seen in previous years.
00:26:47
Robert Rose: Yeah, I'm going to give you two because they're related to each other, which
00:26:51
is one, what we were just talking about, which is I think there's a real renaissance
00:26:57
happening now, especially on places like LinkedIn and other third party websites.
00:27:02
This is B2B specific other third party places.
00:27:05
So your partners, influencers, people in this space where that have an audience that where
00:27:11
they're aggregating that audience and be judicious about the ones you pick, but designing
00:27:16
content experiences specifically for those.
00:27:19
I don't love the fact that LinkedIn is rented land and we have to put so much investment there, but
00:27:24
it's where things are now, it's where things are.
00:27:27
And there's so much success happening there if you do it well, but that means taking a much more
00:27:33
considered approach to LinkedIn and those third party sites than just literally saying, here's
00:27:37
a clever clickbait headline and an abstract and an image and, you know, and a link way to go.
00:27:42
You probably won't even link at all.
00:27:44
You probably won't link to your website at all.
00:27:46
Maybe you do so in the first comment, maybe you don't, whatever it is, but it's designing
00:27:50
value at the edges is what we call it.
00:27:52
The second is, okay, where does that leave owned media?
00:27:55
And I believe, I really do believe that 25 is going to be a bit of
00:27:59
a Renaissance for owned media.
00:28:01
We just saw this last week, Semrush acquired Search Engine Land.
00:28:06
They acquired Search Marketing Expo, which is an event and a website.
00:28:09
So clearly they're making a big bet on owned media for 25.
00:28:14
I believe that if you can create digital scarcity and you can create an awesome user experience.
00:28:19
Salesforce just launched their sales blazer community.
00:28:22
There's a whole bunch of examples of this, of new owned media thought leadership engagement
00:28:27
and education and all kinds of platforms.
00:28:30
I think 2025 is the time to invest again in something extraordinary.
00:28:35
Swing for the fences do something interesting on your owned media.
00:28:39
Forget your website as much but create something truly interesting where people your customers want
00:28:44
to spend time And you can build an audience there.
00:28:48
Michelle J Raymond: I love it.
00:28:48
And I think, differentiation is going to be key to success as far as, heading into that new year.
00:28:55
I think it's a word that's going to just keep coming up and up, and I hope that it does because
00:29:00
I think that's going to be more important than people getting stuck on which AI tool or you
00:29:05
know, what's going to be the latest hottest type of LinkedIn content and things like that.
00:29:10
What I think people should be mindful of going into 2025 with all of what we've just
00:29:15
spoken about, you need to understand the demographic shift that's happening on LinkedIn.
00:29:20
And so we're going into 65 percent of LinkedIn is Gen Z, right?
00:29:25
So fastest growing,
00:29:26
Robert Rose: That's amazing.
00:29:27
Michelle J Raymond: demographic on the platform, what they like, enjoy, consume, and
00:29:32
expect is very different to other generations.
00:29:35
They want to know what you stand for.
00:29:37
They want things that are different and relate and build community.
00:29:41
I think it's really important to be mindful of that.
00:29:44
I read some research from the Top Employers Institute around how Gen Z will be in
00:29:49
the workforce, and they're going to make up roughly 30 percent of the workforce.
00:29:54
So if you don't think that this is going to impact where you're at think
00:29:57
again, because that is exactly why LinkedIn's just introduced the video feed.
00:30:02
So be mindful of some of these things, but yeah, I really am planning and I've got
00:30:08
my fingers crossed for all of the listeners out there that this has inspired them.
00:30:12
It's certainly inspired me to find my way to differentiate myself.
00:30:16
Like I'm not immune to this.
00:30:17
I have to find my own way to do it as well.
00:30:20
So I'm looking forward to challenging myself to come up with those answers.
00:30:23
So Robert, I'm going to drop the details of the report so people can
00:30:27
dive into it and for themselves.
00:30:30
I really appreciate you coming back on the show and I hope you'll come
00:30:33
back again one time in the future.
00:30:35
Robert Rose: Anytime you want me, I'm here.
00:30:37
Michelle J Raymond: Excellent.
00:30:38
Until next week, listeners cheers.
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