You probably recognize Michael Brenner from … well … pretty much everywhere.
He’s the CEO of the Marketing Insider Group, has had an extremely successful career as a speaker and as a marketing strategist and consultant and even as an author.
He’s a really sharp guy and it was really fun to get a chance to chat with him. We talked about his best-selling book, his experience building a content marketing program from scratch and what people are still getting wrong about what content marketing is and what it isn’t.
Interview Highlights
3:00 – Michael talks about the data-driven difference between successful content marketers and unsuccessful content marketers and why buy-in is so critical when it comes to your content marketing strategy.
6:54 – Michael talks about the biggest challenge in implementing a content marketing strategy with clients and how to move past the common “but that’s MY job” objection when working with content marketers.
8:25 – Michael shares the story of how a webinar turned into a best-selling book about content marketing ROI.
13:07 – A fun Google experiment that helped Michael illustrate the misconception a lot of people have about marketing and how we need to resist the tendency to talk about ourselves in our marketing.
14:53 – “If we simply stop doing the stuff that doesn’t provide measurable impact, then we’ve improved ROI.”
17:15 – Michael digs into the core elements of a healthy content marketing culture and why it’s important to have a purpose that extends beyond what your company does.
23:43 – Who really determines and defines culture within an organization.
25:15 – #wiiftc and the common traits among the most empathetic (and successful) companies, the core purpose of marketing today, and why sales and marketing alignment is absolutely critical.
[Join us in Minneapolis for a live panel discussion about how to improve the sales-marketing alignment]
32:06 – While robots writing content for us are still a long way off, Michael talks about some ways AI will make a big impact on marketing in the near future.
35:23 – Michael digs into the biggest misconceptions people still have when it comes to content marketing and how they somehow haven’t changed in several years.
41:50 – Michael credits Ann Handley with the best advice he’s ever received and shares his own wisdom: “When we make the things that we do about other people, they’re counterintuitively more effective.”
This blog is part of the ongoing Brandpoint Interview Series where we talk with marketing professionals about their career, unique perspectives on the industry and some key advice they’ve learned along the way.
