Herdwick Shepherd Tips the Model

Q: Social media gurus talk in praise of the tribe. But who stands up for the herd?

A: James Rebanks, the "Herdwick Shepherd."

A self-proclaimed Luddite, Rebanks is a British farmer and author of the best-selling memoir The Shepherd's Life.

With 75,000 followers, he's also a Twitter phenomenon.

Writing for The Atlantic, Rebanks calls Tweeting about sheep "an act of resistance and defiance, a way of shouting to the sometimes disinterested world that you’re stubborn, proud, and not giving in."

What goes here?

Sheep have long symbolized the very opposite of "resistance and defiance."

"Fortunately, the world is not built solely to serve good natured herd animals their little happiness," the free-spirited philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said.

"I define 'sheepwalking' as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a braindead job," Seth Godin says.

Intentionally or not, Rebanks has flipped the model.

Or should I say, tipped?

Suddenly sheep are superbly chic.

SPEAKING OF TIPPED: Ann Ramsey tipped me off to the Herdwick Shepherd.

7 Rules to Rock Your Content

Scale your brand's voice… 

Master the social networks…

Ignite likes and shares…  

And pocket more money than you ever thought possible!

No kidding.

Content will rock your bottom line.

But, you ask… How? 

How do I rock my content?

It's easy.

Follow these 7 rules.

They come courtesy of maxi-marketer William Claude Fields...

1. A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for. 

Is your goal to grab millions of eyeballs? Stuff your stuff with keywords.

2. If you can’t dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit. 

Great content takes hard work. Why bother?

3. You can fool some of the people some of the time—and that’s enough to make a decent living.

Every platform delivers a different audience, so repackage every piece of content you create. But don't spend a lot time at it. 

4. Start every day off with a smile and get it over with. 

Cheery content's contagious, so publish drivel daily before 9 am. Then head to the beach and relax.

5. I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally. 

Don't discriminate: treat all audiences with the same low level of respect. Pretend you're United Airlines.

6. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it. 

Fail fast, fail forward.

7. A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.

Take the 6 rules above. 

Rinse. 

Repeat.

And have a happy April 1, my rich friend.

Chili Pepper Burns

Mary Boone co-authored today's post. She is considered a leading authority on the design of meetings to incorporate engagement.

Bob:

For as long as I've been involved in event promotion, I've been stymied by the ubiquitous chili pepper brochure.

From time immemorial, every event planner who's ever held an event of any size anywhere in the American Southwest, it seems, has illustrated the cover of her promotional brochure with a chili pepper.

I understand why a B2C event planner might use the tactic.

But why—when attendees are time-starved, budget-conscious and results-driven—do B2B event planners persist in the belief that destination matters? That destination influences prospective attendees' decision to attend a B2B event, or prefer one event over another?

The answer: DMOs.

Destination Marketing Organizations (in quainter times called "Convention and Visitors Bureaus") have brainwashed two generations of B2B event producers.

And not for the better.

In the drive to "put heads in beds," DMOs have propagated the myth that B2B events are just a form of tourism.


Their sway over B2B event planners has cost the planners dearly—in attendance, income and career.

That's why I insist chili pepper burns.

Mary:

I don’t think the answer to this situation is to dismantle DMOs. I think the answer is to raise awareness and educate.


Imagine this. An event planner is putting together an event. She is trying to figure out, among a million other details, where to hold it.


What if she knows the “Flo” (think Progressive insurance) of DMO professionals? She calls Flo. “Flo, I need to hold this event somewhere and I’m not sure where.”


Flo: “Tell me more about the objectives of the event. What’s your organization trying to achieve? What type of environment is going to support those objectives? Tell me more about the culture of your organization…”


Then, after a great conversation, Flo says, “You know, I’d love to be able to say that Chili Pepper, Texas, has the perfect venue for you, but this one time I have to admit that Vancouver, B.C., might be better.”


Shock and awe. So this time Flo doesn’t get the business, but guess who our planner is going to call every time she needs help?


If DMOs are educated to be consultative, client-centric, and business-focused in their interactions with planners, they can be deeply essential to the process of strategically selecting a location that matches the needs of both the event and the business.

6 Simple Tips for Presenting Benefits that Convert

"Copywriting can be fatally disconnected from the real world of buying and selling," says Brad Shorr in Convince & Convert.

To bridge the gap, B2B marketers need to converse with salespeople, because "they are in the trenches, actually talking to customers and prospects and hearing firsthand what motivates them to buy and what keeps them from buying," Shorr says.

But how do you turn the conversations into copy that converts? Shorr offers six tips:

Lead with "application" benefits. First things, first. Nothing else matters if the product offered doesn't fill buyers' needs.

Hit buyers over the head. When you're reaching more than one audience, call out the high-value benefit applicable to each segment. Here, subheads and design can help.

Let customers do the talking. Testimonials, "if they are employed systematically and not arbitrarily," speak volumes. Using a benefit-bearing subhead to introduce a testimonial will clarify it.

Track. Track website form and phone leads back to their marketing sources, to learn which benefit statements convert the most buyers, and favor those statements in the future.

Get personal. "Don’t underestimate the power of personal benefits, even in B2B," Shorr says. Find out what they are by interviewing buyers. Prompt them to choose or rank personal benefits from a list.

Avoid temptations to pile on benefits. Avoid at all cost the "laundry list of benefits." Lists only convert buyers into skeptics.

5 Ways to Combat Design Fixation

Marketers who default to an old fix for a new problem are guilty of "design fixation."

It's one reason so much marketing looks copy-cat.

Design fixation—also known as the Einstellung Effect—refers to our tendency to rely blindly on old solutions, and insist our first idea is always the best.

Fortunately, novices are more susceptible to design fixation than old hands, studies show.

How can you free yourself?

Jami Oetting, writing for Hubspot, suggests five antidotes:

• Immerse yourself in new subjects. Escape your marketing bubble and reach for far-afield ideas. Learn a little about voles, snow-sports, fire protection, Washington Irving, and Czarist Russia.

• Work with others. Diversity in experiences, expertise and cultural background and can stimulate fresh thinking.

• Review previous solutions. Peer reviews will expose biases and flaws faster than anything. They force you to look at your ideas with iron-cold eyes.

• Analyze and brainstorm. Generating more ideas helps assure an innovative one will emerge.

• Test. Gather feedback from focus groups and A/B experiments.

2,200 Steps to Killer Content

Do the content marketers in your organization sit in cubicles all day?

They should know better.

Big ideas don't come from sitting.

As Nietzsche said, “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”

Writers have always understood walks are not trips around the block, but treks through idea-land.

Aristotle, Kant, Rousseau, Blake, Dickens, Woolf, Hemingway—all were avid walkers.

"The moment my legs begin to move,” Thoreau said, “my thoughts begin to flow.”

Why does walking work?

Because we don’t have to think hard when we do it.

Our minds are free to wander—and unleash a parade of images.

"Writing and walking are extremely similar feats," Ferris Jabr says in The New Yorker.

"When we choose a path through a city or forest, our brain must survey the surrounding environment, construct a mental map of the world, settle on a way forward, and translate that plan into a series of footsteps.

"Likewise, writing forces the brain to review its own landscape, plot a course through that mental terrain, and transcribe the resulting trail of thoughts by guiding the hands.

"Walking organizes the world around us; writing organizes our thoughts."

Two Stanford researchers have, in fact, shown that walking boosts creativity by 60%.

So, here are the steps to killer content.

Go outdoors.

Walk a mile.

Come back.

Kill it.

The Future of B2B Content Marketing

Videos are the future of B2B content marketing.

Seven in 10 B2B marketers already use them, according to Demand Metric.

That's little wonder, when one in two people watch marketing videos on line every day, as Liz Alton reports in Sales and Marketing Daily Advisor.

Videos' matchless power comes from their "immediacy and intimacy," Alton says.

She describes five kinds of videos B2B marketers use:

Explainer. Explainer videos are "short, focused videos that give an elevator pitch of what products and services you offer." They're often produced in whiteboard style.

Case studies. Case studies give customers "an inside look at your work," Alton says. They can be testimonials or project reviews that prove you deliver results.

How-to. How-to videos address FAQs you receive. Depending on the complexity of the topic, they can provide quick tips or in-depth guidance.

Real-time. Meerkat and Periscope let you connect with customers in the moment. "Companies are using the tools for live Q&As, to report in from events and trade shows, and to respond to industry news," Alton says.

Culture. Culture videos let you showcase staff, illustrate workflows, or give a glimpse of your systems in action. Many customers crave this “behind the scenes” look, Alton says.

But wait, there's more...

Besides boosting your brand, marketing videos attract more customers to your website, thanks to Google, says Swati Joshi in The Huffington Post.

"The fact that Google owns YouTube plays a role in video’s increased popularity," she says.

"Google has been constantly adjusting its algorithm to give its users a meaningful experience while searching. To satisfy user intent, they show a variety of results, and not just exact keyword matches. As a result, search results now prominently feature videos among top results."

Micro Ads: Small is the New Big

Micro ads deliver macro results, according to a new study by IPG Media Lab.

When viewed on smartphones, micro ads—videos 5 to 15 seconds in length—yield better brand recall, preference and purchase intent than longer ads, the study found.

Micro ads also yield better results among Millennials than viewers of other ages.

Micro ads enjoy an advantage because they're bite-sized, the researchers say.

The ads enjoy an advantage when viewed on smartphones because they seem to dominate the tiny screens.

Millennials dig micro ads because they grew up with smartphones. They find micro ads more enjoyable and of higher quality than viewers of other ages.

The study also found micro ads work better when viewers are out and about, rather than home; and when the ads have voiceovers.

For a micro ad to drive more than just brand awareness, its minimum length should be 15 seconds, according to the study. 

A micro ad shorter than that is simply too micro.

Short and Easy

"It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like ‘What about lunch?’"                               

― A.A. Milne

Most often, your purpose in publishing is to inform and persuade. Why mask your meaning with long, difficult words?

Why say your product "will provide seamless multi-user functionality," when you mean it "supports up to 15 users?"

Why sound like some abstruse academic or dodgy bureaucrat?

"Bad writers, and especially scientific, political and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, " George Orwell says in "Politics and the English Language."

Latin and Greek words are grand, but their use in business is dreadful.

Just look at this balderdash from Accenture:

Insurers will need to open up to their ecosystem partners, sharing not only customer data, but customers themselves. To encourage and support such ecosystems, IT architectures will need to evolve, ensuring flexibility and interoperability with external partners and providers. A key challenge will be to orchestrate innovation and legacy evolutions while simultaneously managing security threats and changing IT processes to roll out and manage new products and services faster and cheaper.

Acccenture means:

Insurance companies need to upgrade their IT systems so suppliers can use their customer data. But they can't let the changes interrupt routine business.

This morning's lesson: short and easy.

Now, what about lunch?

Love Story

I remember little of my first formal date, except that I took the girl to see the schmaltzy blockbuster, Love Story.

The film's tagline perfectly states what every B2B marketer wants skeptical buyers to believe.

Love means never having to say you're sorry… you bought from us.

That's why B2B marketers adore case studies.

They're the ideal way to spread customers' love.

You're nuts if you're not dishing them out repeatedly.

Case studies are like movie reviews, except your customers are the stars and every movie's a love story.

And buyers can't get enough of them, because people love to compare themselves to others.

Here are seven case-study do's and don'ts. Keep them near and dear:

• Case studies adhere to a classic construct—a three-point story arc: problem, solution, results. Don't stray from that. 

• Make your customer the headliner. Keep you company off the marquee.

• Interview your customer in a knowledgable, but laid-back manner. Don't put her on edge with tough questions, or prompt her to say things she wouldn't say naturally.

• Use a lot of customer quotes for color and credibility.

• Illustrate your case studies with photographs and charts.

• Ask your customer to sign a release.

• Besides publishing the case study on your website, create a PDF version customers (and your salespeople) can download and share.

Travel's Romance with Video

Travel brands will increasingly lean on video to seduce mobile-carrying customers, according to Skift.

As evidence, the newsletter cites the 25-minute reverie French Kiss, recently produced by Marriott.

"Instead of selling hotel rooms and airplane seats as commodities, brands are learning to tell stories using video that create an emotional connection with a specific audience," Skift says.

Leading the field, Marriott runs a full-scale, in-house studio that produces original shorts.

Technicians

Bill Bernbach, named by AdAge the most influential adman of the 20th century, had a beef with technicians.

Before quitting Grey to start his own agency in the late 1940s, Bernbach sent a one-page letter to his colleague that creatives, to this day, love to reproduce.

Bernbach told them he worried Grey, by ceding the agency to technicians, would "follow history instead of making it."

"There are a lot of great technicians in advertising," he wrote. "And unfortunately they talk the best game. They know all the rules. They can tell you that people in an ad will get you greater readership. They can tell you that a sentence should be this short or that long. They can tell you that body copy should be broken up for easier reading. They can give you fact after fact after fact."

Bernbach admitted technicians can help—a bit.

"Superior technical skill will make a good ad better. But the danger is a preoccupation with technical skill or the mistaking of technical skill for creative ability."

Bernbach pled with Grey to shun "routinized men who have a formula for advertising." His parting advice became his eventual battle cry—and a mantra of creatives everywhere.

"If we are to advance we must emerge as a distinctive personality. We must develop our own philosophy and not have the advertising philosophy of others imposed on us.

"Let us blaze new trails. Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art, and good writing can be good selling."

What's in a Name?

Your name speaks volumes about your brand's personality.

Brand names can be descriptive ("Toys 'R' Us"), abstract ("Aloxi") or evocative ("Uber").

Rational brand names ("IBM") appeal to our inner accountant. 

But brand names can also pack emotional punch—positive or negative—as wordsmith Nancy Friedman says.

Friedman lumps emotionally charged names into six categories:

Old words. The right Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman or Norse word "makes us feel warm and welcomed," Friedman says. "Kindle" is an example. "Many successful brand names draw on this old-word resonance to soften a new idea."

Sense words. "Sight, sound, smell, touch and taste are direct routes to an emotional response," Friedman says. "Bevel," for example, names a brand of men's shaving supplies.

Nature words. A name plucked from nature "inspires and soothes, challenges and restores." "Sequoia" names a venture capital firm.

Art words. The language of the arts "can remind us of pleasurable, even transcendent experiences." "Allegra" is a prime example.

Adventure words. Pirate a word from an adventure tale and you'll stir feelings of excitement and exoticism. "Mandalay Bay" is an example.

Personal names. Real and fictional people's names can evoke "friendliness and reassurance." "Lynda" names an e-learning company.

Consider your band name carefully, but don't tear out your hair over the choice.

Remember the words of W.C. Fields: “It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.”

Other People’s Audiences

Gary Slack provided today's post. He is chief experience officer of Slack and Company, LLC, a leading global B2B marketing strategy and services provider based in Chicago.

"OPA" is often what a Greek restaurant waiter will shout when lighting up a plate of saganaki.

For me these days, OPA means "Other People's Audiences."

I've borrowed the term a bit from Jeffrey Hayzlett, who talks about using OPM (Other People's Money) to do really efficient marketing.

As much as we encourage clients to create their own media platforms—and publish great original content on them—the reality is most B2B marketers will reach and influence far greater numbers of customers, prospects and influencers by tapping and leveraging OPA.

In fact, too many B2B marketers, in our opinion, have it backward.

While they should be investing in and experimenting with their own media platforms, they often are over-investing time and money here and under-investing in getting their messages across through OPA.

What do I mean by Other People's Audiences? It includes:

• Guest columns or posts in widely followed external blogs
• Commentary posted on discussion boards at relevant B2B news and media sites
• Commentary posted on online B2B community sites and LinkedIn Groups
• Quotes folded into news and feature stories
• Media interviews
• External speaking engagements, panels

If some of the above bullets sound like PR, it's intended.

How do you identify the right OPA? It's really pretty easy—or at least straightforward.

You investigate and audit where large numbers of the people you want to reach, influence and motivate—at any stage of the buy cycle—are congregating and spending their time both online and offline.

Actually, it's pretty classic media pathway and channel analysis —the stuff you should be doing anyway in building integrated marketing communications (IMC) plans.

Some B2B marketers have built huge audiences for their own media. Adobe is one. Even so, they still tap OPA big time.

But most B2B marketers aren't where Adobe is, and they should consider redoubling their efforts to better tap OPA.

And have some delicious saganaki while at it!

Customer Retention: Not My Job

B2B marketers spend 60% of their budgets to land customers, but only 30% to keep them, according to a recent study by Demand Metric.

The imbalance shouldn't surprise you.

It costs more to attract new customers.

But you might be surprised to learn more than half (55%) of B2B marketers spend little to nothing to keep customers.

And three in four think keeping customers "is not my job" (instead, it's the job of sales or customer support).

The disconnect handicaps all B2B companies, no matter the business model.

For those with “subscription” business models, the value of a customer is realized in installments, so profits depend on keeping customers.

In others, that value is realized after multiple, independent and relatively small purchases, so profits also depend on keeping customers.

HAT TIP: Kudos to Ann Ramsey for suggesting this post.

Going Native Nothing New

There is nothing new under the sun.

Not even new media.

NBC has replaced ads on some of its shows with content sponsored by American Express, AdAge reports.

The content comprises extra scenes with stars from the shows, with the credit card issuer mentioned before and after each segment.

Other networks plan the same move.

"Many TV networks are cutting back on commercials to appeal to younger viewers who are used to watching shows ad-free on Netflix—and to appease marketers who are concerned their messages are getting ignored amid the clutter," AdAge says.

Before CLIOs are handed out, it's worth remembering broadcasters weaved "native ads" into TV shows 70 years ago (and into radio shows earlier still).

Containers of the Past

For nearly 200 years, Americans used stoneware to keep perishable food. It was, in fact, the predominant houseware of the 19th century.

The ceramic containers were heavy and expensive to ship, so stoneware potteries cropped up everywhere to serve local markets.

But after 1913, when refrigerators were introduced, the once-ubiquitous potteries sputtered and failed.

You could say, refrigerators had a chilling effect on the stoneware business.

Today's refrigerator is, of course, the smartphone, as this week's Mobile World Congress makes clear.

And, as the event makes clear, the business without a mobile strategy today is the stoneware pottery of tomorrow.

As ad agency exec Rishad Tobaccowala says, "The future doe not fit in the containers of the past."

What's your mobile strategy?

Creativity Carries a Big Stick

“You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club,” Jack London once said.

Creative problem-solving is a free-for-all, as creative problem-solvers know.

It's toilsome work that British psychologist Graham Wallas said, in his 1926 book The Art of Thought, unfolds in four stages:

Preparation. The problem-solver acts like a hunter/gatherer, finding and grabbing materials she can use to construct new ideas.

Incubation. The problem-solver takes an indefinite time out. "The period of abstention may be spent either in conscious mental work on other problems, or in a relaxation from all conscious mental work," Wallas says.

Illumination. The problem-solver arrives at the eureka moment. That moment, Wallas says, is "the culmination of a successful train of association, which may have lasted for an appreciable time, and which has probably been preceded by a series of tentative and unsuccessful trains."

Verification. The problem-solver hunkers down to serious work "in which the results of the inspiration are verified and the consequences deduced."

The four-fold process may be serial, but creative problem-solving isn't, Wallas says.

Creative problem-solving proceeds like music, with wandering and overlapping parts.

"In the daily stream of thought these four different stages constantly overlap each other as we explore different problems. Even in exploring the same problem, the mind may be unconsciously incubating on one aspect of it, while it is consciously employed in preparing for or verifying another aspect."

Where Do You Draw the Line?

Admirable work only results when creatives draw the line, Seth Godin says in his recent post, "Milton Glaser's Rule:"

"There are few illustrators who have a more recognizable look (and a longer productive career) than Milton Glaser," Godin says. 

"Here's the thing: When he started out, he wasn't THE Milton Glaser. He was some guy hoping for work.

"The rule, then, is that you can't give the client what he wants. You have to give the client work that you want your name on. Work that's part of the arc. Work that reflects your vision, your contribution and your hand.

"That makes it really difficult at first. Almost impossible. But if you ignore this rule because the pressure is on, it will never get easier."

Agency exec Bill Kircher (my former boss) used to spout similar adages when the pressure was on. I'll sum them up in a rule I'll call "Kircher's Law:"

Whenever an agency bows to a client's creative direction, the probability of later incrimination approaches 100%.

Although creatives are quick to cite their duty to themselves, the truth is, every professional shares the right to draw the line.

Remember the film The King's Speech? 

Early in the story, the therapist draws the line with a haughty Queen Elizabeth: "Sorry, this is my game, played on my turf, by my rules."

But with prerogative comes accountability. You can't have your kingly cake and eat it, too. 

Do you:

• Respect everyone, coworkers and clients alike?
• Arrive on site ready to work?
• Tackle chores that need to be done to stay in business?
• Avoid short cuts and excuses?
• Learn from mistakes?
• Consider how your decisions affect the company, not just your department or career?
• Speak truthfully and with the passion of an owner?

Do you—where do you—draw the line?

Content Marketing and the Agony of Defeat

We have met the enemy and he is us.

Digital agency Sticky Content asked 283 marketers what's defeating their content efforts.

Their answers are no surprise:

• 37% said they have no strategy

• 33% said management dings content

• 46% said demands change after content has been created

• 66% said their organizations waste a quarter of all content; 15% said, half

Is your organization lumbering toward self-defeat? If so, ask:

• Is management serious, or not, about content? Are they merely entranced by this year's "shiny object?" If they're in earnest, then what's our strategy?

• Do reviewers understand what to approve? Message? Accuracy? Style? The reason the content exists? What are the ground-rules?

• Does management trust the content creators? If not, why not? Do they rewrite the lawyers' briefs and the developers' code, too?

• Does management care about waste? One way to boost marketing's ROI isn't to create more content, but to publish and promote what's been created.

• Can I improve things? Or is our situation impossible? (Remember what Napoleon said: "Impossible is a word found only in the dictionary of fools.")