Media

Humor and B2B Marketing: A Love Story

Business-to-business companies often can’t find a way to fold humor and storytelling into their marketing, because what they sell isn’t… well, funny. Or they think it’s not much of a story. Here’s how one company challenges that assumption. If I were Cisco Systems trying to show how the role of information technology (IT) is changing, I could commission a research-based whitepaper detailing new consumption models brought about by cloud, security, mobility, and programmable networks. I might talk about how that is creating new markets and business models, transforming communication and knowledge sharing, and significantly changing the role of IT. Or… I could tell you a story featuring a real chief information officer sharing in clear, simple language about how she’s using technology to sell more beer to the people who want to buy it. And toss in a few bits of humor and playful improv to give it warmth and […]

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Marketing Needs a Built-in, Shockproof, Sh*t Detector

The subtitle of this post is: “What QR Codes Kill Kittens really communicates.” Because: “The most essential gift for a good marketer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector.” Hemingway is the author of that quote, although he said “writer” instead of “marketer.” But I think it applies equally well to marketing, because we have a responsibility to serve our customers first, and not our CEOs or bosses or clients. We need to call them on their shit, in other words. But hold up: Those are the people who sign our paychecks. The buck stops literally with them. Who are we to argue? Actually, we have every right. And a kind of duty. Why: For a business to be successful, your customers have to love your products, certainly. And for marketing to do its job, you have to make your customers love your marketing, too. Eww. Who loves being marketed to?

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9 Qualities of Good Writing

👉 👉 👉  New newsletter! Get a letter from me to you in your inbox, every two weeks! Sign up for free right here. There are two kinds of people: Those who think they can write, and those who think they can’t. And, very often, both are wrong. The truth is, most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We are all capable of producing good writing. Or, at least, better writing. Why does good writing matter? Isn’t the best content marketing very often something short, snappy, and non-text? Like Skype’s Born Friends video, Lowe’s Vines, or Chipotle’s haunting video commentary? Sometimes, yes. But here I’m not just talking about content in a marketing context. I’m talking about content, period. Text is the backbone of the Web, and it’s often the backbone of any content you watch or listen to, as well. That Born Friends video started with a story

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‘Content’ Isn’t Just ‘Marketing’

“Content” isn’t just things we think of as “marketing.” A great example is Virgin’s new pre-flight safety briefing, which my friend DJ Waldow Skyped from on board a Virgin flight to share with me last week. If you haven’t seen it, check it out here: There’s much to love about this video. I detailed why I think it’s brilliant (and what companies of any size can learn from it, over at LinkedIn, in 4 Things Your Business Can Learn from a ‘Boring’ Pre-Flight Safety Briefing. (Check it out, and please subscribe to my updates there if you like what you see!) But over here, I wanted to highlight one key takeaway from the Virgin music video safety briefing. Notice Content Moments Everywhere For all of us, it’s important to notice content moments everywhere. Or, as the image on this page suggests (to me, anyway!): Content blooms everywhere. Even in unexpected

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The First Tweets of 16 B2B Brands (and a Few Familiar Faces)

What was your first tweet? As Twitter began trading on the New York Stock Exchange last week, I couldn’t help but consider how far this small, simple, fledgling network has come. Once mocked for being stupid and insipid, and plagued by its own persistent identity crisis, Twitter has nonetheless become a prominent and important part of our culture. I just find to use another word other than “part” to describe Twitter in that last sentence. Because what is Twitter, exactly? Is it a news network? A social platform that connects us to friends, brands, celebrities? A discussion forum? I guess the answer is Yes. (That’s the thing: What’s dumb-brilliant about Twitter is that it defies categorization. What is Twitter? It’s what you think it is.) Twitter was founded in March of 2006. I started on Twitter in September 2007, when Jeremiah Owyang suggested that I should represent MarketingProfs there. (Eventually,

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Lessons from Skype: Your Story Is about People (Not Your Technology)

Whether you sell technology or toasters, your marketing should always be about people. In other words, your customers should be at the heart of your content, not your products. Your product might be as revolutionary as an escalator to the moon, but your story isn’t about that: It’s not about what you do or what you sell, it’s what you do for others. How does your product help people? How does it shoulder their burdens? How does it ease their pain? How does your product live in the world? That’s a subtle shift. But focusing on how your business connects with people makes a huge difference in your content. It makes the customer—not your product—the hero of your story. In the business-to-business space, especially, it also gives puts flesh and blood on the dry bones of a “solution.” That’s why I really like this new video from Skype, which tells

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Why Innovative Content Marketing Is About to Explode in Denmark (and Why You Should Care)

I’ve just returned from an 8-day trip to Europe, the last few days of which I spent in Denmark, where I spoke at the country’s first-ever content marketing conference. I felt warmly welcomed there—in part because I spent time with some truly warm and wonderful people. (That’s always the key to a great trip, isn’t it?) But I also felt welcomed for business reasons: The business culture seems so ideally suited to embracing content as a cornerstone of marketing, and I came away from both the event and the country feeling like there was a kind of perfect content marketing storm brewing there. Why should you care, if you aren’t Danish or don’t do business there? Because there’s a lot that modern marketers can learn from the Danish mindset. Sometime very soon, I think, this small Northern European country of 5.5 million will be creating and leading some truly innovative

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This Is Why B2B Companies Need to Hire Brand Journalists

The key to being a thought leader is to… well, lead. The news broke at about 8 AM Eastern today that the world’s third-largest software company, Oracle, had acquired Compendium, a content management company. At the time, I was part of a panel for a UK audience with Brightcove—in other words, I was pretty much sealed off from social media and news headlines. So I first heard the news when Jesse Noyes of Kapost emailed me at 9 AM for commentary on the acquisition, for a piece Kapost was putting together. Jesse also took the opportunity to let me know that his boss, Kapost CEO Toby Murdock, had already formulated and published his early thoughts on the move. Jesse‘s email read as follows: “Don’t know if you already saw the news, but Oracle announced today it’s buying Compendium. Toby has already shared his view on what this means for the

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A Simple Content Marketing Org Chart

I’m allergic to complexity, at least when it comes to content. So when I tried to find a simple org chart to help organizations visualize their own content team, I couldn’t find anything quite simple enough. I didn’t major in PowerPoint, so I drew one with a Sharpie instead. (Also, my artistic “skills” reinforce my need to keep my day job. Ha.) Here it is: A Simple Content Marketing Org Chart from Ann Handley   Right now, you are probably thinking two things:  Ann should stick to writing;  There are six heads in this org chart… Holy Toldeo! Does that mean we need to add six people to payroll? NOPE. Rather, these are roles not staff positions. Each role might be filled by one person or perhaps by a dozen, depending on the size and complexity of your own organization. That chart is based on a conversation I had with

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