About Align&Grow

Hi, I’m Ronda Pick – Content Strategist & Founder of PickPlus Marketing

I used to work as a global communications manager – I helped make communications more effective, consistent, and easier for you to understand.

Like wearing your favorite sports team’s jersey to a game. You don’t need to ask the girl in the seat next to you who she’s cheering for. Take one quick glance at her jersey, and it is crystal clear!

This is good content. Effective, consistent, and simple by design.

But making content more effective and consistent starts with business alignment.

I created thousands of content pieces – for websites, newsletters, news articles, and videos. But I didn’t create them alone – I worked collaboratively with people from more than a dozen countries.

Lots of decision-makers with varying business priorities and shifting timelines. Some days, progress felt painfully slow. Like running a marathon up a mountain wearing a weighted vest.

I could see what content performed best based on the marketing measurement reports and used that insight when shaping my annual marketing expense budget.

But how did our content and marketing activities tie to actual business results?

And was the content produced worth the business investment?

These questions kept repeating in my head, like a playlist on your phone with only two songs that’s stuck on repeat.

I thought to myself, “Shouldn’t it be simpler to answer these questions? Why is this so hard to figure out?”

As a content marketing enthusiast for many years, I already believed strategic content had the potential to transform customer experiences and business results. Yet I found myself struggling to connect the dots on how to get started implementing this approach.

Then it hit me.

I regularly read Robert Rose’s content strategy articles on the Content Marketing Institute’s website, and what he says resonates with my content brain.

I soon discovered that Robert taught a Content Marketing University masterclass, so I signed up. Best decision ever!

In that online course, Robert taught me about the three pillars of strategic content: communications, operations, and experiences. I also learned frameworks for aligning content to help support and drive business growth - including the power of story-based messaging.

Fireworks went off in my brain. I felt like I’d just won the lottery!

As a new corporate blog initiative started to take shape, I could confidently make the business case detailing why, how, and what business value we could expect that content investment to deliver.

Every week, the corporate blog published high-value content for customers. In no time, sales reps started noticing customers were emailing and calling them, anxious to learn more about new research results they’d learned about thanks to a recent blog article. Bam. Exactly the type of visible behavior change I was hoping the blog would provide.

Charting a new course

As I imagined the future, I wanted to find a way to spark content strategy goodness on a bigger scale. So, in 2019, I made the entrepreneurial leap and founded my content strategy consulting business. And I took Robert’s Content Marketing University masterclass again to continue my deep-dive journey into enterprise content strategy. I couldn’t get enough.

Fueling business growth

Today, I specialize in helping business leaders in the agricultural and manufacturing industries create content business strategies, including story-based messaging strategies designed to help build trust and fuel business growth.

This includes website messaging, video scripts, and sales enablement materials, to name a few. Trusted by folks at leading animal nutrition, animal health, and agricultural manufacturing equipment brands, as well as entrepreneurial-minded start-ups.

Growing your business is hard. Creating aligned content and messaging strategies makes it easier.

When I’m not cooking up content strategies and messaging to help business leaders spark growth, you’ll find me baking lemon loaf bread, reading content and marketing books, watching British murder mysteries and all things sci-fi – or taking coffee walks near Lake Mendota with my husband.

Thanks for stopping by and listening to my story. If you’re looking for inspiration and insights on content strategy and marketing for business growth, subscribe to my Align&Grow newsletter or say hi on ​LinkedIn​.

~ Ronda Pick