Mark Schaefer coined the term content shock back in 2014. It is the notion that content consumption is staying relatively flat while the amount of content is increasing exponentially. For brands creating content, the competition for attention is as intense as ever. Sorting through the noise to find the most valuable content isn’t as easy as it was last year and requires a lot of curation.
Personally, this has led me to depend more on social networks (letting smart friends curate content for me) and paying close attention to emails that always teach me something. Sure, I’m solving this in an unscientific way, but my approach relies on social proof, curation, and paying attention to less things (goodbye shiny objects).
As we close out 2018 and prepare plans, budgets, and people for 2019, we’ve combed through a big list of great newsletters we subscribe to and whittled it down to seven. We strongly encourage you to add these to your inbox and would love to hear any of your favorites that aren’t included. Tweet your suggestions to us @Cheetah_Digital or add a comment to our LinkedIn or Facebook post.
The Full Monty by Scott Monty
Every Monday issue of The Full Monty is divided into 8 sections: Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Autonomous / Mobility, Communications / Marketing / Business Strategy, Retail Apocalypse, Platforms, Media, Regulatory / Security, Metrics / Measurement / Data, and Mental Nourishment. The best reads of the week from across many relevant topics curated by Scott Monty make it a newsletter that is loved by keynote speakers, best-selling authors, marketing leaders, and practitioners. Plus, I appreciate Scott’s affinity for bowties and Sherlock Holmes. Subscribe to The Full Monty
CopyBlogger
VentureBeat calls CopyBlogger “the bible of content marketing.” Brian Clark started the company in 2006 and has been creating valuable content since day one. Instead of a normal subscription, you become a free member and are immediately gifted writing courses, strategy resources, and helpful blog posts. While some resources require additional membership, the emails alone are worth the exchange of information. Become a free CopyBlogger member
Morning Brew
Every marketer should have a few non-marketing focused subscriptions in their inbox to broaden general business knowledge. Morning Brew was one of the favorites amongst our marketing team. Morning Brew covers important business news from Wall Street to Silicon Valley in 5 minutes or less. You can even buy swag on their site (I’ve been eyeing the mug stickers). Subscribe to Morning Brew
Really Good Emails
Another internal fan favorite, Really Good Emails, takes our burning desire for great examples and delivers hand-picked email examples to your inbox. Part marketing, part design, and a lot of personality. Every issue has a theme – emails with the best fonts, launch emails for new products, emails making the best use of emojis, etc. If you have anything to do with sending emails, this is going to be one of your favorite newsletters. Subscribe to Really Good Emails
Almost Timely
In the days of terribly cheesy marketing job titles, one marketer lurked silently in the shadows as marketing ninjas updated their Twitter bios. See, Christopher Penn is an actual ninja – a fifth degree black belt in ninjutsu. Much like he could obliterate me with any weapon or his bare hands, he’s put a stranglehold on data-driven marketing. Chris is one of the smartest people I know and he straddles the marketing and data science line creating insightful content and helping other marketers improve their analytical abilities and approaches. Almost Timely curates the content you need across a myriad of topics on a weekly basis. Definitely a must-add. Subscribe to Almost Timely
Total Annarchy
The best email newsletters tell great stories rather than just point to links of other great articles. Best-selling author Ann Handley’s newsletter greets new subscribers every issue and shares a story about what’s on her mind. Her writing sparkles and these stories are life lessons as much as they are guidance for marketers. A recent issue retold the story of Rudolph and what it means for marketers. Subscribe to Total Annarchy
From the Desk Austin Kleon
One of my colleagues has a clear favorite that is outside of the marketing sphere and he has wondered why I am not an Austin Kleon fan and subscriber. Austin sends 10 things he thinks are worth sharing weekly. It could be about art, writing, life, parenting, inspiration, or whatever moves him. 60,000+ readers can’t be wrong. Subscribe to From the Desk Austin Kleon
