I’ll give you my thoughts a bit below, and in future posts, but check this out first.

This is for all of you who have reached out to me in the last month asking about how to create and share information with prospects and customers in a way that creates awareness, preference and — as this presentation contends — paying customers. This really hits the nail on the types of content to create and when to do it based on where people in your prospect pool are in the sales cycle. Really worth your time. Commit it to memory.

Cautionary Tale Ahead

As good as this deck is, however, what I’ve found in my experience, is that in trumpeting “Content Marketing” as the way and the light, marketers and their bosses get lulled into thinking … “Hey, if we get interns to blog and write a white paper our prayers will be answered.”

This is a career killer of ridiculous expectations unmet. Content marketing is or should be the linchpin in a much larger strategy.  (more on that next time). For the purposes of managing expectations from people in the C-suite, the corner office and even your own, I’ve seen content strategy succeed  or fail based on whether these five must-haves to succeed in content marketing were present.

1. Patience — If you’re ramping up a content strategy with the sole goal of generating revenue, you’re doing it wrong. This is a strategy, if executed well, that takes 3-6 months to develop and may not bare fruit for a several months after a campaign is launched. Content is a conversation. It is meant  to walk people through the way they buy a product or service and serves up information as it is needed to make decisions or help others in their company reach conclusions. If your entire marketing strategy is a single piece of content or a content carpet-bombing of the marketplace for the purpose of having sales-ready leads, you will disappoint yourself and others.

2. A large library of information (bought or created) that targets people based on who they are, the problems they are trying to solve and how they make decisions.

• Are people unaware of your company and why its products are what they need?
• Do they need to narrow selected companies down to a list of 5 for a presentation to compare apples to apples?
• Are they selling it up into the organization to bosses and bean counters?

The answer to all of the above is YES. You better have content that addresses all of these things and more before you set the world on fire with your white paper. Otherwise You’ll always be playing catch up to the needs of your prospects.

3. Deep  research to understand your universe of prospects, influencers and visionaries in your field. Start a content strategy at your own peril if you don’t know who you’re talking to and why.

4. A clear path to integrating content marketing into your sales/marketing go-to-market plans — Content is the conversation catalyst, accelerant and hopefully, the decider. It won’t deliver itself and it won’t build a relationship with a human being. Only you can do that.

5. A multi-dimentional content calendar that includes a strong blog, social evangelism and an asset creation strategy that is tied  to news, events, interesting discussions and other topical engagements occurring in your universe. Notice how a blog or whitepaper talking about your product  doesn’t fit this criteria? Good!

Oh, and 5a: A distribution and socialization strategy that uses all online and offline tools at your disposal that you can afford. How is your content being used as pay offs for these tactics:

• Social media engagement (company and external blogs, LinkedIn Groups, Twitter, etc.)
• Direct mail campaigns
• Email blasts
• Search Engine Optimization/Marketing efforts
• Paid online and offline advertising
• Events
• Earned media coverage

Content Marketing has a place in all of these inbound and outbound marketing tactics, which should be tightly woven into your larger, more theme-focused Go-to-Market strategy.

If there is one thing to takeaway from all of my words it is this: Content Marketing is absolutely vital for maintaining relevance in the marketplace. You need to incorporate it into your marketing efforts. That said, success will elude you unless you have an integrated plan, more than a modicum of patience and the persistence to keep developing the content the market needs — not just what you want to tell them.

Reach out if I can help.

Mark

If you know anything about me, you’ll know that for better or worse, I’ve had my fair share of jobs. Trust me, it’s nothing I’ve ever wanted to be known for, but it’s an unfortunate truth borne out of a bad economy, bad choices or the dreaded “bad fit.”

So what the hell does all of this have to do with my headline?

My ability to feed my family and/or avoid crashing on one of your couches for any extended period of time is almost entirely due to social media engagement and networking … with a dash of reasonable skill in the areas of marketing strategy, social media engagement & content creation. And thus … the tie in to my headline.

Social Media Club PDX is bringing Social Stallion Joshua Waldman to town to show you how to discover those hidden job nuggets using social media tools and ways to pay it forward in true “You-Tweet-my-Back, I’ll-Tweet-Yours” fashion. Here’s the title and some eloquent prose from my social chum @unclenate, Prez of @SocialMediaPDX:

“Job Searching With Social Media For Dummies” author Joshua Waldman

“For anyone looking for a first job, exploring a career change, or just setting up for future success, social media is a proven platform for facilitating connections, demonstrating passions and interests, and ultimately landing the job. Joshua Waldman, author of “Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies” enables you to harness the power of the Internet to research and identify job opportunities, and create a strategy for securing a position.”

Other nuggets include:

• creating effective online profiles and resumes to sell your strengths
• maintaining your online reputation (and ensuring that employers who Google you like what they find)
• understanding electronic etiquette
• using the power of personal branding
• building your brand online
• avoiding common pitfalls, such as jumping into filling out a social media profile without a strategy
• getting to know Twitter, the only real-time job board with literally thousands of jobs posted daily
• using social media sites to uncover opportunities in the “hidden job market” ahead of the competition

This is your chance to meet some really cool and connected people as well as escape the job or the people you hate — for three whole hours! Just sign up already!

DETAILS
January 18, 2012 at 6:00 PM | $25 Online, $45 @Door | Limit: 100

Collective Agency
322 NW 6th Ave
#200
Portland, OR 97209

REGISTER FOR SOBCon Now!

Here’s a “Director’s Cut” for a post of mine born on Feb. 16, 2011 at nonboxpdx. Viva la verbosity! -ME

Want to know what your company has in common with cultural powerhouses with iconic products  like Nike, Apple, Virgin Atlantic, Legos and Porsche?

As it turns out, not much.

That was my key takeaway from the latest book trumpeting design and deep customer analysis as the way to the promiseland of sustained revenue and consistently unleashing products that people crave.

Thankfully, former Business Week Seattle bureau chief Jay Greene uses Design is How it Works, as a platform for showing the uninspired that creating a product or a company that taps into the Id of people is as simple as embracing failure and financial losses, changing organizational processes to bring Design Thinking into every discipline in a company from the C-suite through R&D and on down through the ranks,  and doing deep ethnographic and psychographic research on probable users of your product before embarking on your next build.

Sound a bit daunting?

It is. which is why IDEO’s Tim Brown notes in the book, that when people tell him of their aspirations to be like Nike or Apple, he counters “You don’t have the nerve.” That is the greatest part of Greene’s book for me. The corporate moguls and design luminaries he interviews call a spade a spade. You can’t be Nike. You aren’t Steve Jobs or Jonathan Ive. You haven’t got the discipline, the reputation or, frankly, the balls.

The headline of this post is inspired by every client or boss who has uttered phrases like “We want to be known as the Apple of the (insert industry segment here).” Or…”Our products are best-of-breed innovations and we need to create the same experience and culture Nike does to drive demand and loyalty to their products”

Never mind that the industry segment is sewage treatment technology or the product is road salt. Make it pop, sucka! How many of you design professionals can relate to John Barratt, president and CEO of Teague in Seattle:

“I can’t tell you how many how many product briefs we get saying we want a product that’s as good or better than the iPhone,” he says. “That’s a five-alarm brief for me..those folks just don’t get it. An iPhone is not a product. It’s a manifestation of a culture.”

It’s that kind of no-bullshit take on the power of design to transform a company and an economy that makes Greene’s book so endearing, refreshing, and such a swift read.
For those of you who still think you’ve got what it takes to check your egos at the door, throw caution to the wind in the face of financial pressure, and actually find out what your customers want instead of what you can give them, here’s something you should know. Good design isn’t what you think it is.

• It’s not an emotive image with pithy text and a dope beat from a band named Mooseknuckle.
• It’s not a box made of hemp fiber in the shape of condor’s nest that was — be honest – an afterthought to hold your clever “Must-have” eco product.
• It’s not even the promise of a new piece of software that reports it will solve world hunger with a user interface you’re sure is so easy even a chimp can use it.

It’s how a product works in the hands of your customers. It may be easy to use or pleasing to look at, but if it doesn’t solve a pain it’s a waste of time and money. “If there’s no pet peeve, there’s no product,” says Alex Lee, president of OXO.

Thus, the title of the book absconds with the Steve Jobs quote: “It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

Whether that’s the tried-(or trite?)and-true of form following function, an evolution of tired phrases like “out of the box thinking”or new fangled concepts like Design Thinking permeating all disciplines to foster organizational creativity — the bottom line is you need to know your customers better than they know themselves. The only way to do that is to get your hands dirty and actually engage with them where they will put your product to use. The book gives some great examples of how and where to do that in the profiles on OXO, REI, Nike and Lego.

So, for me, the book is a call to get your head out of the freaking clouds or at least out of your own building.  It’s time to stop aspiring and start perspiring. There’s plenty of work to be done learning about what your customers need to cure their pet peeves. Build those products and they will come.

And, instead of leaving you with a cheesy movie line platitude, here’s a more actionable treat from Jay  Greene himself when I swapped a note asking for him to clarify design thinking and discuss ways all companies can infuse their operations with the principles of design thinking:

“Like industrial designers, design thinkers use creativity and empathy to help them craft something that has an emotional connection with customers. They prototype concepts and collaborate with colleagues to test theories and come up with novel approaches to new products. The difference is that design thinkers apply those concepts to businesses, such as software-as-a-service, that people don’t typically think of as being design-focused. They use anthropology, sociology and psychology to study customers in order to understand their unstated and unmet needs. They prototype strategies and experiences much the same way that companies model early versions of physical products. So if you’re looking for strategies for companies to implement to create iconic products, design thinking would be a great place to start.”

Here, here!

The Marlboro Man Prequel (mouse up to the top of the page after clickthrough for the full obituary)

Jack Norman Evertz (March 8, 1927 – July 27, 2009)

The words “They just don’t make ‘em like that anymore” come to mind when I think about my gramps. Part redneck, part roughneck and all man in an increasingly domesticated man’s world, Grampa Jack was quick with opinions and head-shaking dismay despite his lack of a high school diploma to back him up. Common sense ruled — in the shop, around the card table, on the porch and anywhere else he chose to plant his Size 12 Tony Lama boots. A simple wisdom left permanent marks, like these gems:

Grampa Jack on Stress:
“I just never could understand why you and your dad always worried to high hell about everything. More than half the time, it never turns out that way and the rest of the time it’s not nearly as bad as you think. And if it is ever that bad you’re too damn worn out from worrying to do anything about it.”

Grampa Jack on Women:
“Nothing’s harder on a man than an angry woman.”

Grampa Jack on Manhood:
“The world doesn’t owe you anything and it will knock you on your ass every chance it gets. Your job is to keep gettin’ up.” His favorite movie was Cool Hand Luke if that tells you anything.

He laughed at the pussification of the American male and would routinely harken back to his Golden Era of the’50s and ’60s where smokin’, drinkin’ and raisin’ hell were a man’s God-given right –  and anybody who said otherwise could go straight to hell.

Some of that tenacity and toughness no doubt makes you strong on the battlefield or in the bar room, but I had the hardest time convincing Grampa Jack that his Advanced Coursework in Manhood for his only grandson was losing the battle in the boardroom. “There’s ego, politics, turf wars, and hurt feelings that come into play. You have to be nice,” I told him.

“What the hell does nice have to do with business?” he asked. “And, did you say hurt feelings?”

Never did give him any good  answers on why brains had rapidly replaced balls for dominance in the American West, except to throw another cliche at him that got him to come around half way. “You get more bees with honey, Grampa.”

Well, with him cashing in his chips at the end of July to spend the rest of eternity with my Gramma Grace (a tough cookie in her own right), here are 5 things Grampa Jack taught me that make me a better man and a better marketer.

1. If you don’t mean it, don’t say it.

2. Shut up. You just might learn something. (Still working on this one)

3. If you make a mistake, own up to it. Then work like hell to fix it.

4. If you believe in what you’re doing, don’t back down.

5. A man is only as good as his word.

T-5. Outwork your co-workers. Outsmart your enemies.

R.I.P. Gramps. You were a helluva lot smarter than you gave yourself credit for.

A prelude to an actual point
Before I figure out where I’m going, I’d like to take a peek back to where I was the last time we crossed paths in this here wordslinger’s outpost OK…Done. Hmmm…All I can think of is: Who the hell pissed God off in June?

Michael Jackson - R.I.P.
Farrah Fawcett – R.I.P.
Ed McMahan - R.I.P.
Billy Mays – R.I.P.
Karl Malden – R.I.P.
My Job – R.I.P.

And July’s off to a grim start with Steve McNair and Arturo Gatti. All I can say is: Hang in there Patrick Swayze!

This recent foray into obitu-tainment and an air of professional vulnerability at the moment have made me take stock in a few things — as death and loss have a tendency to do.

Family – Seeing my kid swim for the first time and hanging out with my wife at a movie on a Tuesday afternoon were life-affirming ( Go See Public Enemies!) .

Remembering the world through the eyes of a child – Just watching my kid react to something and then ask “Why?” has re-educated me on the importance of not taking anything at face value. And the whole wonderment thing he’s got going  for the seemingly inconsequential…I want more of that, for sure! Check out this dispatch from Braden Kelly (www.twitter.com/innovate for you Tweeps) Innovation Through the Eyes of a Child. Get your inner child back via this recap with vids featuring Gever Tulley @ the TED Conference on Tinkering School. And for a longer leap into this idea, Watch Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture — Achieving Your Childhood Dreams video (76 min. of pure gold). Still blown away by the personal and professional lessons in his presentation/book.

Connections with people of like mind — I can’t believe how many people want to help me or need help themselves when it comes to marketing, social media strategy, sales lead generation, Green business communications or health care research. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the kindness and opportunities.

A strict,  bullshit-free diet — Seriously, just tell me what you have, what you want and why you think you need it. If I can help I will. With brevity, sincerity and transparency, people will likely be willing to join your parade by being followers, evangelists or customers.

The last life lesson re: avoiding b.s. is hard to do in an uberconnected, socially explosive and largely self-serving world. I don’t spend a lot of time on social psychology but one name that always sticks out is Abraham Maslow and his Theory of Human Motivation, aka Hierarchy of Needs. Sales guys and gals grinding it out day-to-day know this theory all too well. Marketers are trained these days to call them pain points and my guess is that sales reps have adopted the language out of sheer acquiescence borne from too many deer-in-the-headlights interactions with doe-eyed corporate do-gooders.

Putting the pain point out of its misery
Maybe in these dark times filled with grief, fear and  financial uncertainty  we should pick a new rallying point for how we engage people who don’t know us very well and probably don’t care. The video on David Meerman Scott’s recent blog post Times Change. B2B Fundamentals Do Not says it all (worth the 2 minutes, but basically…Who are you? What do you want and why should I care in both  GrumpyVision and BusyVision). Be concise. Be relevant. Be helpful. Or Be Gone. This isn’t about you convincing people you understand their pain with limp phrases like In this tough economy… or a  data point from a well-paid analyst that says 80 percent of their peers fear losing their jobs and are eating  Xanax by the handful.

Trust me, your prospects know money is tight, that  their job is harder than it was a year ago and that their bosses are way too interested in  showing  hotshot summer interns the ropes in marketing and sales departments all across the country.

Enough with trying to sympathize. Do something or sell something that assuages fear or boosts confidence.

The Maslow Mashup
Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy lives in the textbooks of many a marketing student but slowly leaks out of the brain over time due to stress, forced servitude and/or organizational compliance under the heading of “We’ve always done it this way so you will too.”

If your sales pitch to prospects doesn’t somehow tell a good story using at least one of these 5 needs, you need to talk to someone in your marketing department. If you’re in the marketing department and you have no idea what I’m writing about, then we need talk, tweet or telepathically connect.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Take note of the fact that if your product helps people breathe, eat, drink, have sex, sleep, stay chilled out, or poop you are likely going to make a very good first impression. Good for you!

If not, then you need to: Be Concise. Be Relevant. Or Be Helpful.

So let’s put the pain point to bed and try to be a little more reaffirming, huh? I vote for PuppyPoint: Warm fuzzy ways to trick the heart into buying something you know you’re going to have to clean up after, but just can’t resist.

I’ve been part of the problem for about 15 years now, but moving forward I’ll try to market and sell products, services, causes (myself!?!?) in  ways that help people keep their jobs, feed and spend more time with  their families, save or make money and have more sex. Before you think I’m on the road to door-to-door perversity, remember that even if your product isn’t Viagra or some jaw-dropping gadget, it is likely to have the capacity to help someone in some way to afford a new car, buy a nice place to sleep or grab just the right body spray to get the girl or boy. If you can make that connection with a level of relevance and sincerity in any industry from Agriculture to Zoology, then you’ve done your job.

Let me know what you’re doing out there to make a difference. And if you’re in sales or marketing and want to tell me “DUH!” then feel free to do that below. If you need me, though, I’m ready to help.

Cheers,

Mark

T.C.P.