Keeping up with industry news is a challenge. Here's a run-down on some of my favorite sources.
In the fast-changing world of digital marketing and advertising, one of the biggest challenges is just keeping up. Like the MarTech world with myriad solutions coming out everyday, it's simply duanting to stay on top of news, the evolving digital platforms and all of the overall trends coming at us.
So how do you do it? Which channels and which publishers do you pay attention to?
Let's start by stating there are multiple ways to do this - from attending the right industry conferences, monitoring your Twitter or LinkedIn feed, or listening to your favorite podcast. But I'm going to focus on the most effective and efficient way to keep up: subscribing to and consuming the right industry newsletters.
Back in the day, these publications were printed and published on a weekly basis - and some, like AdWeek and AdAge, still are. But of course we have moved into a cycle of daily (or more) email blasts. The trick here, is to determine which ones to pay attention to as you can become quickly overwhelmed with too many in your inbox.
Below is a run-down of the key types of publications you should subscibe to, with a bit of a description around each. While I'm a bit of a news junkie and subcribe to several here, I would recommend consuming at least one from each category I'm highlighting: Industry News, Speciality News, and General News.
Industry News
There are really four options here that I like.
MediaPost is my go-to source for daily digital marketing and advertising news. Two elements stand out with MediaPost. First, they offer different sub-categories which you can subscribe to. These include MediaDailyNews, MarketingDaily, MAD Agency Daily, Search Marketing Daily, Digital News Daily, AI&IoT Daily, among others. Best of all, these are all free to your inbox (they do offer a premium subscription service, but I've found the free subs to be just fine). Second, each newsletter is presented in straightforward format with headline/description that makes it easily consumable in under a minute.
AdWeek is one of the established giants
in the industry and is a leading source for marketing and media professionals. I think it's worth subscribing to their Advertising & Agency Daily newsletter, which gives me updates on agency leadership changes, new campaigns and advertising trends.
Digiday is also on this list, and is probably the publisher I've subscribed to the longest. Their Digiday Daily gives a run-down similar to MediaPost. However, they recently reformatted their newsletter, and I have to say, it's less user-friendly today. Between MediaPost and Adweek, you're already covered.
AdAge rounds out the list.
Their AdAge Wake Up Call is one of the first in the inbox and gives a brief run-down of key advertising and marketing news. I'm not a big fan of the strung-together text, though, and prefer the easy and readable layout of the MediaPost newsletters.
Specialty News
There are a few publishers that offer deep-dive insights on a few key topics that I follow.
The first, and by far the best, is Marketing Insider Group. Their focus is squarely on Content Marketing. The daily newsletter gives highly relevant and actionable tips on varous dimensions of content marketing. For example, a recent entry was '5 Ways to Improve the ROI of Your Content Marketing'. Really compelling stuff. I especially like that they highlight a single topic each day, versus trying to cover several in a more superficial way. I find their thought leadership to be best of breed. It's truly an impressive feat to publish topical content like this on a daily basis.
The second specialty news comes from the Wall Street Journal. The specific newsletter I subscribe to is Artificial Intelligence Daily, which gives a comprehensive run-down of all AI-related news. The run-down is industry specific, such as how AI is impacting manufacturing, health care, or marketing. It is a broader look at AI and the issues, concerns, and challenges in this new space. It's presented in an easily scannable format and can be consumed in less than a minute.
General News
Of course, there are gazillions of general newsletters out there from every major news outlet. My favorite is the recently-emerged news publisher from Axios. One of the first newsetters in my inbox, Axios AM provides the news you need to know to start your day. Presented in a 'Top Ten' format, it's easily scannable, with key points and take-aways for each topic. Each 'Top Ten' topic allows you to go deeper and invites you to share out to your network. Again, by far the best general news source I've found.
Obviously there are a ton of options out there. What are your favorite go-to sources?
Feel free to leave it in the comments section below or reach out to me directly. Would love to here your suggestions.
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