• The “Game of Thrones” premiere slayed (in a good way). The HBO NOW app had over 300k new subscribers in just 2 days.
• Trying to rideshare at any airport is typically an uber pain (😉). To combat that, Lyft is piloting a new way to pair riders with drivers.
• Facebook is about to make a major shift with the news feed. It starts with an “S.”

If marketing funnels functioned like real-life funnels, our jobs would be a lot easier.

Think about it.

We draft our sales funnels anticipating that customers will follow them from discovery to purchase. Unfortunately, the buyer’s journey isn’t always that linear. Research shows that 70% of buyers conduct over half their research online before making an offline purchase.

It’s important to recognize that your customers are going to follow a messy journey to your product or service.

Your content marketing efforts have to account for that ‘messy journey.’

So, how do you do it?

Produce more content that is relevant to your buyer’s journey. That might sound like a no-brainer, but there’s been a noticeable shift in brands producing content just to produce content. In turn, buyer’s continue to find less relevancy in the content itself and move on.

The folks at CMI did a bang-up job laying out the buyer’s journey and the thought process behind it.

Loosening of the status quo > Committing to change > Exploring possible solutions > Committing to a solution > Justifying the decision > Making the selection.

Takeaway: It’s easy to get caught up in sheer volume when it comes to content. Don’t do that. Focus on mapping out a content strategy that speaks to your buyer’s journey and is relevant enough to facilitate a purchase decision.

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Beats by Dre begins its takeover. Their newest ad spot features a slew of pro athletes that most marketers wouldn’t know what to do with. You gotta watch it. Bonus points if you recognize them all.