Quick Ways to Stay Caught Up on the Industry
Marketing moves fast. Our global economy coupled with digitally connected brands and consumers have caused news cycles to shrink dramatically. Stories unfold over minutes and hours instead of days. Miss a day of news, and you are out of the loop. So how can you stay in the know without spending hours browsing websites, blogs, and social media?
Three Ways to Make the News You Care About Come to You
There are many smart people out there doing the hard work of aggregating the most notable news stories, tips, and trends in marketing. There are three digital tools you can harness to benefit from these power users. My toolkit includes:
- Email News Digests
- Browser Extensions
- Search Alerts
You may prefer one of these approaches, or you can combine them to customize your news feed.
Email is Not Dead, But There Are Other Options
At first blush, it is easy to dismiss “old-fashioned” email, but it is still a great way to skim stories from various sources quickly. In addition, it is easy to subscribe and unsubscribe to free newsletters while you learn which has the best content for you. In some cases, you can control the frequency of emails.
More in-depth articles are available at provider websites, usually behind a paywall, but you can get by with just the free newsletter for now. Most also use podcasts, Twitter, or other channels to distribute their content if you prefer to go deeper there.
To keep email under control, create rules that allow you to route email newsletters into a “news” folder and choose whether or not to be notified when your favorite digests arrive.
While I recommend email newsletters first, you can supplement your reading with news aggregators and search. Here is how I gather news to share with students in my university courses.
Top Email Newsletters for Marketing and Advertising News
1, 2 and 3: AdAge Newsletters
AdAge is a mainstay in the world of advertising and marketing. From quick hits to deeper reporting, AdAge is at the top of my list. Try Wake Up Call for a daily news digest featuring up to 10 lead stories, Creativity Daily if you get a kick out of seeing the latest creative campaigns, or CMO Strategy if you are a strategy geek.
4. Marketing Brew
Millenials and Gen Z will particularly enjoy Marketing Brew by Morning Brew, an email newsletter started by college student Alex Lieberman that Business Insider recently bought out. Witty writing and short explainers make this a fun, easy read you will look forward to in your inbox.
Disclosure: If you use the friend links above to subscribe to Marketing Brew or Morning Brew, I might earn token gifts in the future, which is nice, but I only recommend them because they are both great reads. I don’t need another coffee mug or t-shirt, but the pint glasses or WFH makeover might be cool.
5. Social Media Geekout
Matt Navarra’s Social Media Geekout succinctly teases stories in one sentence, then links to the source for details. Navarra, a self-described social media consultant, and industry commentator, is very active on Twitter and follows Facebook closely for social media managers.
6. The Hustle
The Hustle packs a lot of information into their daily with short snippets for entrepreneurs and people going places. The Hustle’s recipe is news, education, and a daily dose of humor and viral cool at the end.
7 and 8. The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today and The Future of Everything
Nat Ives shares news of interest to Chief Marketing Officers in CMO Today. Here you will get the most significant marketing news with the first-rate reporting of a WSJ journalist. Check out sections titled Quotableand The Magic Number in each edition.
Meanwhile, WSJ’s Leigh Kramping shows you where marketing and business is headed with the weekly dispatch The Future of Everything.
9. Marketing Dive
The story behind the headlines and what it means for marketers is the aim of Marketing Dive. This newsletter also includes a round-up of news from industry-leading publications.
Bonus tip: Like what you get in the newsletters? College students (and others with a .edu email address) can get full access to Adage.com and wsj.com websites with a discount available through Student Beans.
Try a few different publications and see what interests you. Staying current will help you be more informed and ready to carry on a relevant conversation when networking with a potential mentor, interviewer, or prospective employer.
News Aggregators
10. Feedly Browser Extension
Feedly’s free version lets you choose up to 100 sources to follow. Then, organize those sources into up to three distinct topics and, voila, custom news. Stories update daily, and it is easy to see what you have already viewed. Best of all, you can find your curated news quickly when you pin the Feedly tab in your browser window.
11. Apple News
Many marketing types are Apple users. But, even if you don’t want to shell out the clams for Apple News, you can still customize what you see. Take a few minutes to edit Channels & Topics to show the ones what you care about most.
12. Google News
Not an Apple user? I know you use Google. Google’s News tab will show you stories relevant to what you have searched lately, but you can also type “marketing” in the search bar to narrow the focus to industry news instead of whatever you last searched for, like “pizza near me.”
Search Alerts
13. Google Alerts
Okay, so you probably don’t want to set an alert for the term marketing, but you can choose the companies, brands, and topics you are most interested in with Google Alerts. So whether you are an Apple fangirl or TikTok junkie, you will get the latest scoop on your interests. You choose when and how many alerts you want to receive and whether to have them delivered via email or RSS to your favorite reader.
Pro tip: Set alerts for companies and people you want to work for or with. A surefire way to impress is to learn about a prospective employer, client, or mentor. When appropriate, drop a note of congratulations or share news and stories of interest to people you know to show they are top of mind.
What is YOUR go to for marketing news? I am always on the lookout for a good read. If you have any publications you’d like to recommend, share them below.
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