Saddleback Leather Company a few days ago released a snarky “how to” video to reveal shortcuts and tricks to help knock-off manufacturers bypass quality, skimp on materials, and produce a richly inferior product — specifically, the Saddleback briefcase, which starts at $568. There’s so much to love about this funny 12-minute video featuring CEO and […]
Technology
The Funniest Mobile App Update: From Boring to Breakthrough Content
I’m writing this post because TalkTo updated its app yesterday and it made me laugh out loud. Yes, you read that right: I’m calling out a mobile update as inspired content, because it’s just that good. TalkTo has taken the notion of a pedestrian smartphone update to a new level: Creating compelling content in a […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]