Sales' Secret Weapon

There's a time to groom and a time to go for it.

If you only groom prospects by sending them emails and posting cute pictures on social media, you'll wind up the dateless wonder on prom night.

Sales' secret weapon isn't so secret.

It's not even a weapon.

It's your phone.

Selling is all about engaging prospects in conversation. Social media can do that, but only in a shallow way.

If your outbound marketing doesn't spur lots of inbound phone calls, then you're just marketing. You're not selling.

So if you want to sell, pick up the phone for at least an hour a day and dial. You won't reach many prospects, so leave voicemail messages. Here's mine:

Hi, this is Bob James… 202.641.5131. Hope your day’s going better than mine. Look, I need money to pay for my art classes every Saturday… so I’m hoping you’ll hire my ad agency. Bob and David James… at BobandDavidJames.com.

Rinse, repeat.

You might also follow every call with an email or LinkedIn connection request.

If you need more guidance, read Dan Pink's remarkable book, To Sell is Human.

It's up to you to build your own pipeline. To do so, you must set aside at least an hour a day for outbound prospecting on the phone. Build your brand in the other hours.

5 Reasons Your Content Stinks

Only 6% of B2B marketers say they're "sophisticated" content marketers, according to Content Marketing Institute.

The rest worry their content stinks.

Content can stink for 5 reasons, says Alicia Esposito of Content4Demand:

Your copy stinks. Is your copy clear, concise and captivating? Or foggy, flowery and forgettable? I often see content marketing misfires mostly attributable to poor writing. The substance is great; how it's conveyed, anything but.

Your design stinks. Is your content engaging? Or merely an eyesore? Don't underestimate the importance layout, colors and images have in lead generation.

Your promotion stinks. You can’t just hit "publish" and expect leads. "Content needs to be supported by a multi-channel promotional strategy that includes email, social, digital advertising and other tactics," Esposito says.

Your choice of channels stinks. You also have to pick the right channels to amplify your content. Maybe your target audience prefers LinkedIn over Twitter, or your industry's trade magazine over The Wall Street Journal. "It’s not just about promoting your content to as many people as possible," Esposito says, "it’s about promoting your content to the right people."

Your UX stinks. Is your content swiftly and easily navigated? Or do you often send audiences down a rabbit hole? Don't let things like misleading images, hidden calls to action, and broken links frustrate prospects.

Before you rip and replace your content, figure out why it stinks.

"There are a lot of factors that influence your content’s results," Esposito says, "and there are a few questions you can ask to ensure you’ve covered all your bases before you go back to the drawing board."

How to Succeed at Blogging without Really Trying

Want to make your blog "a machine for lead generation?" It's easy, says Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group:

Craft Your Hook. "The average time someone spends on a post is a whopping 37 seconds," Brenner says. Create a strong opening, so they'll  spend at least that much time on your posts. "Try asking a question, leading with a beguiling fact or statistic, or just going all out, guns blazing at the beginning and present the reader’s problem and answer all within the first three sentences." A highly personal opening hooks readers, too.

Write Long-Form. Readers unwilling to spend more than 37 seconds on your post are tire-kickers. Write for the readers who are qualified leads. "They are more likely to take action after reading." Long-form posts generate nine times more leads than short-form posts.

Use Many CTAs. Pepper your posts with calls-to-action. Add links that direct readers to more resources. Remember: they may never get to your punchy closing.

Post on a Schedule. When you post regularly, you boost your Google rankings and give readers a reliable resource. "Your readers may even come to expect a new post, seeing it as something to look forward to while waiting for the bus or stopping by their favorite coffee shop for a work break," Brenner says. "Don’t rob people of their blog reading rituals because you post intermittently."

Use Visuals. Add more emotion to your posts with visual content―and not just photos, drawings, videos, and infographics, but illustrated CTAs. "Illustrations will help your readers know how they can take that all important next step to download content, sign up for your special offer, or in any other way become a lead."

Satisfy Readers. Your efforts are for naught, if your content doesn't inform readers and inspire them to read further. Be sure readers "are confident that when they need more information on your business’s niche subject, they know where to turn for more―your blog," Brenner says.

Never Trust Anyone under 30

With apologies to '60s activist Jack Weinberg, never trust anyone under 30.

With exceptions, they lack any sense of propriety―and all sense of history.

Case in point.

On behalf of content marketer Sally O'Dowd, one of these young invincibles―a hired social media expert, no doubt―posted the following comment on my blog today:

Adlof Hitlar has left a new comment on your post 4 Keys to Content Marketing for Events:

Thanks for the great information. I mostly follow sally O'Dowd's blogs. Her writings are really creative, follows an innovative and different style. She's my favorite.

Sally looks to be an extremely delightful and imaginative soul, judging from her two blogs.

She's either that, or, as her agent's comment suggests, an unrepentant anti-Semite with bad grammar.

When everything's a cartoon, everything goes.

Never trust anyone under 30.

Torment Tuesday

Call me a curmudgeon, but I've grown to loathe social media marketers who use weekday hashtags.

You know who you are.

Week upon week, you insist on reminding me it's:

• Motivation Monday
• Transformation Tuesday
• Win Wednesday
• Thankful Thursday
• Fearless Friday
• Social Saturday
• Fun Day Sunday

Your vapid diurnal emissions make every day feel like Munch Monday.

The word curmudgeon, by the way, originated in the 1500s; but its source is unknown.

According to Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary, the word is a corruption of the French coeur méchant, meaning "evil heart."

But according to other dictionaries, it's a mashup of the English cur, meaning "mutt," and the Gaelic muigean, meaning "grouch."

Ready to Work Two Jobs?

I often encounter folks who've opted, or been forced, to freelance.

A great many share something in common: they don't want to work two jobs.

Unfortunately, that's what you have to do to succeed.

Because it ain't easy to cultivate "1,000 true fans." Else, we'd all do it.

Editor Kevin Kelly first expressed the idea a decade ago:

You can define a "true fan" as anyone willing to send you $100 a year for your product. Provided your cost of goods is low, a freelancer can get by comfortably with only 1,000 true fans.

And the money need not arrive in lump sums; it can trickle in (fans can subscribe, say, at the price of $8.34 a month for 12 months).

However you're paid, the bar to success is low, Kelly says.

"To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans."

Besides keeping costs low, the challenge freelancers face is difficult enough to put most of them off.

To succeed, you have to cultivate 1,000 solid relationships―both financial ones (no one else can profit from your work) and professional ones (fans must like and trust you).

It's easy to attract 1,000 or more fair-weather fans (just ask Paul Reubens). But you need 1,000 diehards.

And, although digital platforms that enable relationships with diehards abound, nurturing those relationships could kill you.

"The truth is that cultivating a thousand true fans is time consuming, sometimes nerve racking, and not for everyone," Kelly says.

"Done well it can become another full-time job."

Covfefe

Blogger Josh Bernoff has discovered the meaning of the word "covfefe" in the president's famous and now-deleted Tweet.

"Here’s what the word 'covfefe' means: It means 'I am a crazy person,'" Bernoff says.

"This president is not a master manipulator of media. He is a wacko with little grasp of reality that says the first thing that comes into his mind. That is the meaning of 'covfefe.' It’s a variant of 'crazy.'"

Many critics of the president have reached a similar conclusion.

But do typos imply the writer is dotty? Or are they, as sociologists argue, joyful centerpieces of digital writing?

"Digital writing is inherently playful, first of all, because the medium, the computer, invites participants to 'fiddle,' and to invoke the frame of 'make-believe,'” says Brenda Danet. 

"When this frame is operating, participants understand and accept the meta-message 'this is play.'”

Digital writing's hallmarks, Danet says, are four: haste, ephemerality, interactivity, and freedom from the "tyranny" of paper. In essence, digital writing is just like kibitzing, a stream-of-conscious game people play. There, like lots of nonsense, typos are the rule.

So do typos ever matter?

They do, in my book, when they riddle public-facing communications, because they open you to ridicule.

Ridiculous people (and brands) aren't merely hacks: they're clowns. 

And clowns aren't trustworthy. 

Clowns can even be scary. 

Or covfefe, if you prefer.

The New New Rules of Marketing and PR

Either write something worth reading or
do something worth writing about.

— Benjamin Franklin

David Meerman Scott galvanized marketers a decade ago with The New Rules of Marketing and PR.

The book still makes everyone's list of "all-time favorites."

Scott's advice was premised on a sudden realization: gatekeepers had grown irrelevant.

If marketers only thought and acted like journalists, and exploited the popularity of websites and social media channels, their messages could "go direct" to customers.

Revolutionary thinking in the day.

But times change, the tragedy of the commons is inescapable, and rules wear out.

Content Shock is now Public Enemy Number 1.

The new new rules of marketing and PR are:

1. Don't create content. Create content customers want.
   
   
2. Don't create buzz. Create products that create buzz.

5 Keys to Content Marketing Success

Sadly, 6 in 10 content marketers can't measure success.

Measuring success requires that you establish goals and KPIs, says DMG's Gordon Plutsky:

Reach. How many people does our content touch? Measures include page views, social impressions, newsletter opens, etc.

Engagement. How many people read our content? Measures include clicks, PDF downloads, video views, etc.

Sharing. Do people share our content? Measures include shares on social networks, forwarding of links, forwarding of newsletters, etc.

Conversion. Do people raise a hand? Measures include list sign-ups, form completions, webinar sign-ups, sales inquiries, etc.

Revenue. Do people buy anything? To measure sales, you must code your inbound tactics and import the attributions to your CRM system—a process that defies even the most practiced marketers.

Feel daunted? View success as a "comprehensive strategic plan rather than a ream of numbers," Plutsky says.

Yours Truly

Tonight and every weekday night, Bob Bailey in the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account, America's fabulous free-lance insurance investigator...

— Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar

Serial proved crime pays—and that podcasting deserves every marketer's attention.

One in five Americans listens to a podcast every month, according to Pew Research, and broadcast-quality production has never been easier (or cheaper) since Tascam introduced MiniStudio Creator at The NAB Show last month.

"Time-shifted radio," podcasts attract loyal followers and forge rich connections.

Podcasting on a regular basis (as content marketing expert Mark Schaefer does) is a brilliant way to enrich a blog; and podcasting from live events will amplify any brand's presence.

The podcast-listening experience is unique in social channels: audio is intimate in a way video and images are not.

Content literally lodges in your head—the spot where brands want to be.

Marketers, furthermore, can enhance their podcasts with supplementary content and commentary, and track leads from specific podcasts by including custom URL callouts.

Still not sold? Consider three more facts:

• Podcast listeners spend an average of 4 hours a week listening to podcasts, according to Edison Research;
  
• 70% of podcast listeners are Millennials, according to Nielson; and
  
• Podcast listeners are twice as likely to follow your brand as the average social media user, according to Edison Research.

Breakout at Tiffany's

Will brands take stands?

Last week, Tiffany & Co. placed an anti-Trump ad in The New York Times. The ad broke the same day on social media.

Two days before the company ran its ad in the Times, Tiffany joined Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other brands to run a comparable ad in the paper.

I predict we'll see more brands take stands as Trump's extremism escalates and his standing in polls plummets.

Business and politics normally don't mix.

But "normal" is up for grabs.

POSTSCRIPT: In related news, Trump is now calling his daughter Tiffany by the name "Cat."



UPDATE: Patagonia has joined the list!

It's Offical: I am Not a Schmuck

The ever-vigilant voice inside my head has been silenced.

Ta-dah!

It turns out, I'm not a schmuck.

I'm a micro-influencer.

And I'm hot.

CMOs want me.

A "micro-influencer," according to word-of-mouth marketing agency Mavrck, is an everyday Joe who engages 500 to 5,000 followers around a topic.

CMOs want to curry favor with me, so I'll "co-develop" social media posts that steer conversations toward their products.

And in terms of ROI, micro-influencers like me are mightier than he-man size influencers. 

"Micro-influencers generally have the smallest reach, but also have the highest engaged reach," according to Mavrck. "More importantly, they’re generating authentic conversions among like-minded consumers, individuals with shared connections to the micro-influencer that are far more powerful than the superficial engagements and conversions you may get from a paid advertisement, blog or impersonal public endorsement."

Take that, Kanye West!

A CMO can incent me to co-develop posts by giving me the VIP treatment, showering me with gifts, discount coupons, or exclusive offers.

Every time I'm incented to act, on average, three of my followers become the CMO's customers, the company says.

"Micro-influencers are your best brand asset you didn’t even know about," Mavrck advises.

How about you?

Are you a micro-influencer?

Bloggers' Work Habits

Orbit Media asked 1,055 bloggers how they work. It found:

• Bloggers spend on average 3 hours to write a post (26% more time than a year earlier); only 1 in 3 spends less than 2 hours per post.

• 1 in 4 bloggers rely on an editor to improve their posts.

• The average post is 1,050 words long (19% longer than a year earlier).

• Nearly 50% of bloggers include lists in their posts; 15%, video.

• Most bloggers publish weekly; the number who publish daily is down by more than 50% from a year earlier.

• Over 95% of bloggers promote their posts on social media; a majority use email.

• 56% of bloggers routinely check their posts' traffic; 20% never do.

My work habits? Yours truly:

• Spends about 1.5 hours per post.

• Works without the benefit of an editor.

• Writes brief posts, 350 words or so.

• Loves to include lists and videos.

• Publishes 7 days a week.

• Uses social media to promote every post.

• Checks traffic, but not obsessively.

What are your work habits?

The Storytelling Trifecta

How often do you encounter content posing an idea, but nothing else?

An idea for a story isn't a story, says writing coach Larry Brooks, "unless you juice it with some combination of the Trifecta elements."

Each single element of the Trifecta "stands alone as a potential windfall;" all three combined are "pure gold."

Intrigue. "A story is often a proposition, a puzzle, a problem and a paradox," Brooks says. Intrigue arises "when you (the reader) find yourself hooked because you have to know what happens… or whodunnit… or what the underlying answers are." But intrigue need not depend on drama or mystery. "Sometimes intrigue is delivered by the writing itself. A story without all that much depth or challenge can be a lot of fun, simply because the writer is funny. Or scary. Or poetic. Or brilliant on some level that lends the otherwise mundane a certain relevance and resonance."

Emotional resonance. A story provokes a feeling, Brooks says. "It makes us cry. Laugh. It makes us angry. It frightens, it seduces, it confounds and compels. Every love story, every story about injustice and pain and children and reuniting with families and forgiveness—name your theme—is dipping into the well of emotional resonance for its power."

Vicarious experience. A story takes for a ride we'll remember. The juice of a story "isn’t so much the dramatic question or the plucking of your heart strings as much as the ride itself," Brooks says. "The places you’ll go, the things you’ll see, the characters you’ll encounter, the things you’ll experience." A story gives you "an E-ticket on the Slice of Life attraction."

Hope for the Reluctant Writer

Reluctance haunts writers.

Blogging proponents—celebrating only the competitive advantages you gain through this form of content marketing—rarely admit blogging is torturous.

It's much easier to sift though emails, sit in a meeting, or make a third cup of coffee.

Unless you're the president, self-doubt is inescapable.

What's the answer?

In What is Literature?, philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre asks the reluctant writer to imagine, "what would happen if everybody read what I wrote."

Stuff would happen. Stuff would happen even for the mediocre writer, if he aims for a target audience, Sartre says.

"The function of the writer is to act in such a way that nobody can be ignorant of the world and that nobody may say that he is innocent of what it’s all about."

And in one of his most-quoted lines, Sartre says, "Words are loaded pistols."

If you're a reluctant writer, begin to think of your task differently.

Think of your blog less like a magazine and more like a bulletin board.

Think of your target audience.

Think of your words as loaded pistols, and writing as putting the "bullet" in bulletin.

Ready.

Aim.

Fire.

Lunch Bunch

If you want your content consumed by one in three executives, serve it on Mondays and Fridays during lunch.

Grist asked top executives at 200 large companies when they're most likely to read, watch or listen to "thought leadership" content. 

More than one-third said 12 to 2 pm. More than two-thirds also said Mondays; and more than half, Fridays.

Executives' stated preferences don't jibe with most content marketers' belief that mobility means content is consumed "anytime, anywhere."

The survey shows it's actually consumed—by top executives, anyway—over lunch at a desk.

Lend Me Your Time

Content creators don't ask for much. They only want you to lend them your time.

It's unlikely you'll ever get it back, but, hey, what would you do with it anyway?

The Ancient Romans endured an era, known as the "Silver Age," that was not unlike our own.

The Republic had fallen, enlightened governors giving way to tyrannical emperors, and it was no longer safe to discuss many topics in public. Training in rhetoric—once the key to a career in politics—no longer had value, because public offices only went to emperors' cronies.

The Silver Age was the era of the "pointed style" in writing, which embraced careful wording and brevity. Writers of the era gave public readings, and were judged by their ability to win applause after every sentence.

The pointed style also embraced a conversational tone, and favored things like rhymes, puns, alliteration and storytelling.

The pointed style is the ideal one for our times—so much like those Ancient Romans'. We have to be on our guard—especially in the battle for customers' attention. 

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your time!

Where Should CMOs Invest in 2017?

How should a CMO invest her budget in 2017?

Forbes asked seven ad agency execs for recommendations. Their answers were:

Video. Video drives brand engagement and can boost conversion rates on landing pages by 80%.

Digital. "Customers in 2017 will be digital; be there," said Craig Cooke, CEO of Rhythm.

Employee engagement. Invest inside, and turn every employee into a sales evangelist.

Social. Social is the most organic way to market your business. But it takes work, so hire someone outside to do it.

Website. A content-rich website improves SEO, boosts traffic, and keeps audiences on your site, rather than some network.

PR. "The art of great storytelling through media isn’t going away," said Nicole Rodrigues, CEO, NRPR Group.

Content. "Content shock" makes quality content today's key differentiator.

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Forbes polled only traditional and digital agencies, omitting the experiential. So, I'll add:

Events. Done well, nothing―absolutely nothing―accelerates brands faster. My humble opinion? Move events to the top of your list.

Release the Kraken!

Every new technology will bite back.
The more powerful its gifts, the more powerfully it can be abused.                                                          

― Kevin Kelly

Futurist Brian Solis warned us: the stuff in the cloud is mighty.

Every day, millions of people share experiences on line, recycling others' content and creating their own.

"This content doesn’t self-destruct like SnapChat images," Solis says. "Shared experiences build upon one another, forming a collective repository in the cloud that’s indexable, searchable, and influential."

All those millions of blustery pre-election blog posts, Tweets, videos and memes were shared among the mortals, darkening their minds and eclipsing traditional media.

Who of us knew the Russians were seeding the cloud? But that's beside the point.

Zeus, the cloud gatherer, has released the Kraken.

Size Matters Not

Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?

― Yoda

Content marketers, make a New Year's resolution to ignore the idiots who tell you content length matters.

The thousands of snake-oil salesmen like James Scherer who promise, "Scientific research tells us how to write the perfect blog article," leaning on vendor data that "proves" long (1,600-word) posts yield higher rankings, greater sharing, and larger readership.

Baloney.

It's quality alone that counts.