🔥 2022 in review: 186 marketing questions answered by 23 marketing leaders

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”

Ask the proper question first. Solve the problem after. 

Law students learn that in law school, Doctors in Med-school, Accountants in business school, etc. 

It works the same way for marketers.

 

Never stop asking marketing questions

In 2023, marketing is about to evolve in an unprecedented way. 

Barely have we seen so many fundamental shifts occurring at the same time: web 3, blockchain, NFTs, community, creator economy, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence to name just a few.  

Whether we, as marketers, like it or not, the technologies behind what seems to be mainly “fancy words” has reached maturity and are here to stay.

All this is clearly daunting for marketers.

And a lot of us are tempted to bury our heads in the sand and think

“Meh. All this is not for me. It’s good for big companies. It won’t affect my job for years”. 

That would be a mistake. 

Marketers need to stay on track with what’s going on in their field, keep pace in identifying quickly new trends, and understand how they will impact their job.

And the best and simplest way to do that is … to never stop asking questions.

That’s the "why" behind my Marketing Leaders show. 

In 2022, I've been lucky enough to ask 27 outstanding American and French marketing leaders 203 marketing questions. 

Here are the main categories those marketing questions have been regrouped. 

• Marketing definitions & fundamentals
• Marketing strategy
• Content strategy
• Content marketing & media
• Marketing jobs & skills
• Marketing trends
• Marketing per industry

And as my treat to you to end this year, you’ll find all their answers here.

 

Marketing definitions & fundamentals

39 questions especially answered by Joe Pulizzi, Carla Johnson, Marcus Sheridan, Paul Roetzer, Mark Schaefer, Adelle Revella, Isabelle Defay, John Jantsch, Pam Didner, Rand Fishkin, Devin Bramhall, Marcus Collins, and Brian Piper.

1. What is marketing?
2. Working in the business of trust as a teacher: is that marketing?
3. Digital marketing: tactics or strategy?
4. What is innovation?
5. What is B2B marketing?
6. What is content strategy?
7. What is a content entrepreneur?
8. What is ostrich marketing and how to avoid it?
9. What is the content saturation index and how to overcome it?
10. What is AI?
11. What is Generated-AI?
12. What is Web 3?
13. Why web 3?
14. What is a buyer persona?
15. What is an “ideal customer”?
16. Customer’s journey or customer hourglass?
17. What does “audience first'' mean?
18. Audience v/s community v/s customer?
19. What is a minimum viable audience?
20. How do buyer personas happen to become a marketing tool?
21. What is Account-Based-Marketing?
22. What is customer care?
23. Content marketing & SEO: Which difference?
24. Content marketing strategy or content strategy?
25. Content strategy and content marketing strategy: What’s the difference?
26. Business goals v/s marketing objectives?
27. Is the marketing funnel dead - or just too complicated to be useful?
28. Difference between word-of-mouth marketing and influencer marketing?
29. What are the most important marketing metrics?
30. The dumbest recommendation in the history of marketing?
31. I’m a B2B company, can content marketing work in my industry?
32. How do you get your team to get on board with content marketing?
33. Advertising or cultural product?
34. Should marketers still care about brand image?
35. Is there still a difference today between marketing and digital marketing?
36. What's the difference between innovation and creativity?
37. Tactics and strategy: how to find the right balance?
38. From web 2 marketing to web 3 marketing?
39. What’s the connection between blockchain, NFT, and marketing?

 

Marketing Strategy

20 questions were answered especially by John Jantsch, Carla Johson, Brooke Sellas, Marcus Sheridan, and Isabelle Defay.

41. Is marketing a scalable process?

42. Why do most entrepreneurs often prioritize marketing tactics over marketing strategy (and how can we fix that)?

43. How to find your differentiating factor and be innovative, even without being Steve Jobs?

44. How to create something buyers don't even know they need?

45. How customer care can help you grow your business?

46. What is the best marketing software for customer care management

47. Which percentage of your marketing budget should be allocated to customer care?

48. Building a community on Facebook: ok or risky?

49. What is social penetration theory?

50. The real secret behind innovation?

51. Why is innovation at the core of any efficient strategy in 2022?

52. What are the main steps to being innovative?

53. Which is the best resource to be innovative: a Hollywood movie or AHREF?

54. Great pitch = great design?

55. How do we "relate" to others' great innovation?

56. Good innovators = good marketers = good entrepreneurs?

57. How can marketing & sales teams work together?

58. Which metrics should we use to know if the sales and marketing teams are (finally!) on the same page?

59. Main steps to launch an Account-Based-Marketing campaign?

60. How much does an ABM campaign cost?

 

Content Strategy

86 questions were answered by Andy Crestodina, Pam Didner, Devin Bramhall, Tamsen Webster, Eli Schwartz, Melanie Deziel, Robert Rose, Adelle Revella, Rand Fishkin, Michael Brenner, Ahava Leibtag, Laurent Bourelly, Isabelle Defay, Cyrille Franck, Joe Pulizzi, Marcus Sheridan, Mark Schaefer and Marcus Collins.

61. What are the 5 questions any website should always answer?

62. Channel, platform, and findability: what's the difference?

63. Minimum Viable Audience, how do we come up with a number?

64. Should you build your content house on Clubhouse?

65. What role SEO should still play in the growth of a business? The Airbnb example

66. Are personas still efficient for relevant audience research?

67. To start with content marketing, quality or quantity?

68. Slow content as a solution to the lack of attention?

69. How do we stop running the “content marathon” while remaining relevant in our niche?

70. Video or podcast?

71. Why customer reviews shouldn't be that hard to address?

72. How to deal with bad customer reviews?

73. How to create content at scale?

74. How to deal with content overload?

75. What is the one question any content creator should ask himself?

76. Storytelling for small businesses: is that really worth it?

77. Storytelling and content marketing: how do they work together?

78. Can you do content marketing without doing any SEO?

79. YouTube, Viméo or wistia ?

80. Essential social media and SEO tools for content marketers?

81. Content marketing v/s SEO: and the winner is…?

82. Sharing and being generous: a good content strategy?

83. Publish every week: content marketing myth or reality?

84. Get leads through your content fast: doable?

85. Is guest posting in Famous media truly efficient?

86. Which content type is the most efficient?

87. Original research content: where do you find the data?

88. How to use bots & AI in your customer care management?

89. Difference between SEO and content marketing in 2022?

90. Bootstrapping your content strategy: by what should you start with?

91. To grow your blog fast: 1 outstanding piece of content+lots of backlinks?

92. Top criteria to evaluate a great content strategy?

93. Content strategist: Do it all by yourself or delegate?

94. Content marketing in B2B for boring industries?

95. How to start from scratch a B2B content marketing?

96. How do we cope with the inevitable decrease in traffic sent by Google to websites today?

97. How to determine your ideal customer (without using personas)?

98. How to identify your ideal customers’ main questions?

99. Which content type for each step of the customer’s hourglass?

100. Content Hub, power page, topic cluster: the one and only good content/SEO strategy in 2022?

101. Designing a content strategy: main steps?

102. SEO & content marketing: how do they work together?

103. Topic clusters and pillar pages: a good mix between SEO & content strategy?

104. Relevance of persona to determine your audience?

105. Building your personas not for individuals - but for a community?

106. Content audit: yes or no?

107. Content audit when you don’t even have a website?

108. Content type, content format, content ideas? What should we call it?

109. Involving your company team members in the content creation process?

110. Creating content when you’re not a good writer?

111. Is gated content still effective in a content strategy?

112. What does a day in the life of an entrepreneur/content strategist look like?

113. How to recruit great writers?

114. What are Google's main ranking factors in 2022?

115. How to rank #1 in Google: main steps?

116. What is the best content format for Google in 2022?

117. What are the best tools for French SEO?

118. Topical mesh: the French topic cluster?

119. How to find and select non-branded keywords?

120. How to determine which topic and which persona to start with?

121. Is it really possible to create a content strategy without SEO tools like SEMrush, Moz, or Ahref?

122. Isn't product content the easiest and most obvious way to start a content strategy?

123. In 2022, Isn't personal branding an essential component of any content strategy?

124. How do you get on board the team to collaborate in the content creation process?

125. How to set up goals and KPIs in a content strategy?

126. Should being invited to guest-speak at a major industry event be one of your marketing goals?

127. Should being invited to guest-speak at a major industry event be one of your marketing goals?

128. What are the best techniques to promote content in 2022?

129. How to create an effective documented content strategy?

130. The 6 questions you need to answer prior to applying to become a TEDx speaker?

131. What does "product-led SEO" mean?

132. Is that true that not every business should do SEO?

133. User intent instead of keywords: really?

134. How to determine search intent in a few easy steps?

135. SEO and personal branding: how to find the right mix?

136. Is Translating content from English to French a good SEO strategy?

137. Are content audits still relevant for SEO?

138. What is the impact of artificial intelligence on the creation of visual content?

139. How does AI impact content marketing and SEO?

140. Which SEO and content marketing platforms are using AI?

141. Difference between market research and buyer personas?

142. Can you build buyer personas from a subscriber list?

143. Main steps to design a content strategy?

144. Create content for who: your future customers or your influencers?

145. Create content for your own media - or for social media?

146. Main pillars to develop a top-notch newsletter?

 

Content Marketing & Media

8 questions were answered by Melanie Deziel, Robert Rose, and Cyrille Franck.

147. Which relationship between brands and media in 2022?

148. Brands should be turned into media: still accurate in 2022?

149. Why is the media industry collapsing?

150. Substack: danger or opportunity for traditional media?

151. Why brands should acquire a media company?

152. Is native advertising still an opportunity for media in 2022?

153. How do you make the switch from journalist to content marketer?

154. Brands turned into media, media turned into agencies, so? What's up in 2022?

 

Marketing jobs & skills

15 questions were answered by Andy Crestodina, Devin Bramhall, Joe Pulizzi, Tamsen Webster, Brooke Sellas, Cyrille Franck, Brian W. Piper, and Paul Roetzer.

155. Do marketers suck at understanding people?

156. The 1 skill CMO should get to launch a content program?

157. Should entrepreneurs train in SEO?

158. Will Google University, one day, teach SEO?

159. Being a social media manager in 2022?

160. Chief marketing officer or chief content officer?

161. Content strategist, Director of Content, Chief content officer, content marketer: what should we call it?

162. Is written content still king in 2022?

163. If AI is replacing us, what are we, as marketers, still useful for?

164. 15 steps for smart marketers to ingrate AI into their daily job

165. How to start AI marketing?

166. Will AI replace marketing jobs?

167. Which specific skills should marketers develop to integrate AI successfully into their job?

168. How will AI have impacted our daily lives 20 years from now?

169. How should marketers start with web 3?

 

Marketing trends

12 questions were answered by Mark Schaefer, Marcus Collins, Andy Crestodina, Brian W. Piper, Isabelle Defay, Melanie Deziel, Paul Roetzer, and Cyrille Franck.

170. Obvious marketing trends to anticipate in a post covid world?

171. Audio content: here to stay?

172. Virtual reality: buzzword or true trend?

173. State of content marketing in 2022?

174. Managing an internet agency in 2022 in the US?

175. Fundraising for digital marketing agencies?

176. What's the state of inbound marketing in France?

177. Which brands are the best experimenting with web 3 right now?

178. Which brands are using AI the most?

179. Different types of entrepreneurs & companies using AI?

180. AI, Web 3, NFT, and Metaverse: fancy trend or business reality?

181. Which content types are the most popular in France in 2022?

 

Marketing per industry

5 questions were answered by Paul Roetzer, Brian W. Piper, Devin Bramhall, and Marcus Sheridan.

182. How do law firms use AI to improve their law practice?

183. Seriously, is Web 3 for SMBs?

184. Content marketing for B2B Saas platform?

185. How to market a restaurant?

186. What industries have a major problem with trust?

 

That's it for marketing questions in 2022!

A huge huge thanks to all the marketing Leaders from America and France who grant me some time to answer those questions. 

Let me know in the comments which marketing questions you would have for 2023! Let's rock 2023 with loads of marketing questions from Marketing Leaders!!

Happy new year everyone!!!