Scott Aughtmon is the author of the book 51 Content Marketing Hacks. He is the person behind the popular infographic 21 Types of Content We Crave and has discovered some of the earliest known examples of content marketing. He is a marketing strategist, consultant, content marketer, and speaker. He’s been studying effective marketing, direct marketing, and business methods since 1999. After teaching marketing for UC Berkeley Extension, he saw a connection between direct response marketing and content marketing which led him to develop a form of marketing called “direct response content marketing”. Read more of Scott's insights on his site DirectResponseContentMarketing.com. Follow Scott on Twitter @rampbusinesses.
Have you ever had a good idea but didn’t have the time or energy to do anything with it?
That happened to John Krasinski back in 2013 when the actor had the idea for a news show focused on good news.
Fast forward to 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Stuck at home, John decided to bring his idea to life.
Can you imagine what it would be like to not just have an audience consume your content, but to crave it?
Well, if you apply what I am about to reveal to you, then your content could become much more craveable. (English majors: Please don’t hate me. According to Dictionary.com, Random House Dictionary 2016 edition, “craveable” is a word.)Continue Reading
J.I. Rodale, the founder of Rodale Inc., publisher of Prevention and several other magazines, was dead at the age of 72. What was even more shocking was where he died.
As a guest on The Dick Cavett Show, Rodale suffered a heart attack onstage as the host interviewed another guest. (Cavett and the guest were unaware until they commented to Rodale and he didn’t respond. The show never aired.)Continue Reading
I am about to share an incredible story about how a small furniture company’s in-house publication in the 1920s became a national magazine that is still recognized to this day. And within this story, you will discover five content creation lessons that can help you to dominate your industry.
What I am about to tell you might, at first, be shocking, but please hear me out. Because once you understand the full impact of this truth, it could change how you create content — and how positively it impacts your business.
You might think that one of the reasons your business isn’t more successful is because prospects and customers are rejecting you.
The fact is that this is probably not true. (Unless you have a generic or lousy product, then you’re right. They are rejecting you.) The real reason you’re not more successful could be something as simple as this: They don’t remember you.
Continue Reading
In his book, Winning the Story Wars, Jonah Sachs suggests something shocking: He says that those who tell (and live) the best stories will rule the future.
I am about to show you how one of the most cited financial works in the 20th century got its start as content marketing.
Not only that, I will show you how it became famous because it tapped into a powerful content tool that Sachs talks about: stories.Continue Reading
It wasn’t a discovery I was intending to make.
But there it was: the oldest example of content marketing known to exist.
And the best thing about this discovery was that it wasn’t just interesting from a historical viewpoint. It also reveals some important content marketing lessons that need to be applied today, more than ever before.Continue Reading
Universal business truth: Without a prospect, you don’t have a future
My wife and I started watching a new show on History Channel’s H2 network. It’s called, America’s Secret Slang.
Each episode features the origin of commonly used phrases in our country. It’s a really interesting and fun way to learn where some of the words we use every day came from.
On one episode, the origin of the word “prospect” was discussed. It originally meant “future,” as in “how your future will be.” During the gold rush days, the word came to mean that a particular piece of land had a future — it had potential.
As time went on, people who could potentially become customers became known as prospects, because they are a potential source of future income.
What all businesses need to understand is that if you don’t have new prospects, you don’t have a future.Continue Reading
How a little-known English professor became a literary legend
“The Hobbit” website
As unbelievable as it sounds, it all started with a blank piece of paper, a moment of sudden inspiration, and one sentence jotted down onto that paper.
It all happened one day in the early 1930s.
At this point in time, a little-known Oxford professor was in the middle of creating School Certificate papers when he came across the blank piece of paper and was hit with inspiration. Little did he know that that one sentence would change his life, and the literary world, forever.
What was the sentence? “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Continue Reading
On December 25, 1776, General George Washington quietly crossed the Delaware River with his troops. Their destination: Trenton, N.J.
The Hessian regiments were camped in and around the Trenton area. That night they were attacked by Washington and the American Continental Army. On December 26, 1776, the colonists had won their first major victory of the Revolutionary War.
The most surprising fact of the whole event?
The battle might have had a completely different outcome if it wasn’t for one thing: a poker game.Continue Reading
