The Animalz Content Marketing Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Ash Read, Editorial Director at Buffer, talks through: how to compete in an industry saturated by content marketing; finding your unique differentiator; the power of brand and vision in content; how to create and update “topical” content; and the content strategy he used to grow his side project’s traffic from 0 to 130,000 monthly pageviews.

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Hosts

• Ash Read is the Editorial Director at Buffer, and the founder of modern homeware directory, Living Cozy.
• Ryan Law is the Director of Marketing for Animalz, an agency that delivers high-quality content marketing to enterprise companies, startups, and VC firms.

Mentioned in the Episode

• Ash's side project, Living Cozy
• Webinar, How to Manage Big Blogs (feat. Buffer, Zapier & Amplitude)
• Breaking Brand, a Buffer podcast series
• The Animalz article about "content whales," Here’s How to Handle a Wildly Successful Article That Makes the Rest of Your Content Look Bad

Connect

• Connect with Ash on Twitter and LinkedIn
• Connect with Ryan on Twitter and LinkedIn

Blake Emal, Chief Marketing Officer at Copy.ai, explains how AI can help small content teams, how to get great at Twitter marketing, and why Copy.ai encourages its team to embrace side projects.

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Hosts

• Blake Emal is the Chief Marketing Officer at Copy.ai, and the founder of Float, an online course creator for Notion.
• Ryan Law is the Director of Marketing for Animalz, an agency that delivers high-quality content marketing to enterprise companies, startups, and VC firms.

Mentioned in the Episode

• GPT-3 is the Sparring Partner You Didn’t Know You Needed

Connect

• Connect with Blake on Twitter and LinkedIn
• Connect with Ryan on Twitter and LinkedIn

As a company whose entire reason for existence is creating the world’s best content marketing, we spend a LOT of time thinking about quality:

• What does it really mean to create something quality?
• How can we consistently create quality, despite the fact that we work with hundreds of customers, in dozens of industries, each with their own, idiosyncratic tastes and preferences?
• How can we stay ahead of changing trends, technology and expectations?

In today’s episode, I dive deep into the quality rabbit hole with Animalz CEO Devin.

We share the foundational, six principle benchmark we use to safeguard quality at Animalz; we talk through a strategic framework for adapting content to the expectations of other people; and we explore how the defining characteristics of “quality content” change over time.
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• Follow Devin on Twitter
• Follow Ryan on Twitter

In today’s episode, Ryan chats with Animalz team members Cassie and Stephanie about Education Technology, an industry undergoing a gold-rush style boom in the wake of COVID-19.

We talk through the different business models used in EdTech, and the supporting role of content in each;  we discuss the biggest opportunities facing EdTech companies as they launch go-to-market strategies in the wake of coronavirus; and we dig into practical advice for creating killer content marketing for audiences of academics and industry experts.

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• Follow Cassie on Twitter
• Follow Stephanie on Twitter

In today’s episode, Ryan talks with Andrew Montalenti, Founder and Chief Product Officer at content analytics platform Parse.ly.

We use Andrew’s experience working with some of the world’s largest publishers—the likes of WIRED, The Wall Street Journal, and Medium—to explore the changing face of content marketing. We talk through “platform-risk” and the growing need to diversify marketing channels; we dig deep into content attribution and analysis; and we share “publication”-inspired strategies that B2B and B2C brands can apply to their own content marketing.

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Show Links

• Explore Parse.ly
• Follow Andrew on Twitter
• Read more about Library vs Publication

In today’s episode, Ryan chats to Emily Byford, Content Marketing Manager at SaaStock.

We discuss SaaStock’s pivot from one of the premiere in-person SaaS conferences to an entirely online event in the wake of COVID-19; we dig deep into category creation, by way of Emily’s work at would-be category king Akkroo, and explore the role content plays in conceiving, evangelising and owning an emergent category; and we wrap-up by discussing the differences between agency content marketing, and working in-house at a startup.

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Show Links

• SaaStock Remote, June 10th - 11th (Get 20% off with discount code ANIMALZ-20)
• Follow Emily on Twitter
• Emily's reflections on category creation

The Degreed 2020 marketing plan is changing, and fast. With their original plans out the window, learn how their team is adapting their marketing strategy to keep growth trending up and to the right. Degreed's head of content and comms Sarah Danzl and managing editor Bella Lazzareschi joined us to talk about the importance of a diversified marketing plan, the role of PR during a crisis and how the best marketing is empathic.

In this episode, Jimmy and Ryan talk about our new product: on-demand consulting for your content team. We explain what it is, who it's for and why now. We also talk through some of the behind-the-scenes of putting this together. Enjoy!

Are you rethinking your content strategy right now? So is Joei Chan, content director at the e-learning company 360Learning. She was hired to lead content just a few weeks before the Covid-19 crisis and is now launching a new content program right in the midst of it. In this episode, Devin and I interview her about the experience, plans, goals, resources and constraints.

In an environment where acquisition of new customers is very challenging for most business, retention is extremely important. In this episode, Jimmy and Devin talk about what we're doing to retain our customers, and what our customers are doing to retain their customers.