Elevator Pitches Revamped, Content Marketing Nirvana, Good Grammar

The Strategist picks the day’s most interesting stories for the content aficionados who love the backstory and reading between the lines. Here are the gems you need to kickstart your Tuesday:

Your Elevator Pitch Stinks. Here’s How to Fix It (Inc.)

Don’t bombard your partners, customers, and prospects with a paragraph-long sales pitch — tell a compelling narrative instead.

Sales and customer acquisition tactics are beginning to look a lot like journalism. Start with a hook, and once you engage your audience, reel them in. Provide a service instead of selling. While this article isn’t directly about branded content, the implications are powerful. Stop being salesy, and focus on engaging through storytelling instead.

Content Marketing Nirvana (Search Engine Watch)

Content marketing is all about blogging, right? Wrong. Before diving headfirst into your whitepapers, infographics, and pages of storytelling, make sure that you have a solid strategy.

Writer Andrew Delamarter recommends that you start with a keyword list, give your content a push, and market to your heart’s galore. There’s even a checklist at the end of this post to keep your goals on track.

Good Grammar Should Be Everyone’s Business (Harvard Business Review)

National grammar day was yesterday! If you didn’t know, don’t worry — it’s not too late to celebrate, especially if you’re a content marketer or editor.

Grammarly CEO Brand Hoover conducted a study of 100 LinkedIn profiles of native English-speakers in the consumer packaged goods industry. The verdict? People with fewer grammatical errors achieved higher positions and demonstrated a correlation with more promotions. Grammar means business. Good writing can give serious clout to your company’s brand image.

Image courtesy of RaeAllen/flickr