Better Marketing Writer Update, February 2021

Oh hi hello, it's been a while! Updates and call for article submissions/topics

Hey y’all,

I hope you are doing well and staying healthy. I’m writing to say hello, share some updates, and talk about a few topics we’re interested in covering. I’ll try to make this a more regular (monthly?) thing, but no promises!

First, updates:

• The Better Marketing Slack community launched! If you’re not already in it, consider joining - it’s a neat place to be able to connect with other writers. I’ve been using the #bm-editorial-chat channel in Slack to suggest article topics and things I think we should write about. More info on the Slack group here.

• I’ve started doing a Featured Writer section of the weekly newsletter. If you’re interested in being featured, send me an email and we can chat about it.

• We’re publishing less in the Medium Meta category—that’s articles that are about writing on Medium. This isn’t a hard rejection on all Medium Meta articles, but we’re taking a more selective approach (we’ve covered a lot of ground already). The survey we sent in November had quite a few responses—both from readers and writers—along the lines of “please stop publishing so many ‘how I made [insert dollar amount] from writing [insert number of articles]’ articles!!". Message received!

• We’re looking for new writers! I am especially open to receiving pitches from BIPOC writers, writers from underrepresented groups, and Gen Z-ers with some marketing experience. If you have a friend, colleague, or Instagram-savvy niece who might be interested, please refer them to our submissions page.

Second, call for article submissions! Here’s some guidance on topics and articles we’d be particularly interested in exploring:

• Tutorials and educational content for marketing tools, products, and platforms. Is there something that you use every day that you love and that has made your work life easier or better? A tool that you are the #1 fan of? Write about it! This could be an introduction to your favorite design app, SEO tool, email newsletter provider, social media monitoring product, writing platform, etc. Think big (like Mailchimp) or smaller (like EmailOctopus)—I’d especially love to highlight some smaller products or tools that you think are underrated and could be useful to others.

• Real, tangible, “I could use this at work tomorrow” marketing advice. Someone in our Slack commented recently: “I come to Better Marketing because it relates to my actual job”. I’d like to lean into this as a guiding idea for our editorial philosophy. In practice, I think this means less 50+ Seth Godin Quotes That Will Inspire You, more Here’s What I Learned From My Product Hunt Launch. (No disrespect to Seth Godin!). I think this recent series we’re running, Steal This Campaign, does a great job of this. It’s fun, not too serious, easy to follow, energizing to read. What ideas do you have? What expertise can you share?

• I’m interested in exploring the topic of marketing and mental health. An article from this month - 4 Ways To Overcome Your Nerves When Filming a YouTube Video - got me thinking about this. Are there issues around anxiety that are specific to the marketing field? And, thinking in the other direction, if you're a marketing professional and you're marketing to an anxious audience—how do you do that in a way that's empathetic and not opportunistic?

• Creative content that breaks the format of a “normal” article. If you’re good at illustrations, why not try a whole article in cartoon-strip form? Or create an audio version of your work? Write a really long, in-depth tutorial with an extensive Table of Contents—or maybe a super-short piece. Article quality and professionalism is a priority, but that still leaves room for experimentation.

• More about TikTok from people who should be giving advice about TikTok. I’m not saying that you have to be under 25 to take on this topic… but if your first time downloading the app is to write an article about it, this probably isn’t for you. I’m interested in hearing more about specific strategies, tutorials, breakdowns (ex. how to utilize the Duets feature in your marketing campaign).

• Holiday-related content. Mostly looking at the editorial calendar for upcoming holidays, but I’m not against planning ahead. (If you’ve got a creative Halloween marketing campaign idea that you want to share, go for it.)

• Shorter marketing-news related articles. We’re experimenting with balancing our more evergreen content with more timely articles about updates, trends, product releases, etc. This is a somewhat different strategy from what we’ve done in the past, and I think it fits into our mission of being a useful, informative daily read for marketers. What’s the new thing that marketing professionals need to know about today?

If any of the above sparks an article idea, or if you have another idea for an article (or even a series of articles!) that you’d be interested in writing, please feel don’t hesitate to reach out—I’d love to chat about it.

Cheers,

Brittany