Out of His Skull

It’s not so easy writing about nothing.

                                                                         — Patti Smith

Recently I met Noah Scalin, who launched his career as a fine artist by creating a skull every day for a year.

"Creativity is a practice," Scalin said. His advice:

Pick something—anything—and make one every day for a year.

Scanlin's is the best advice on creativity I've heard.

Authors—bloggers, marketers and thought leaders—fret constantly over "finding their voice," "discovering their brand essence," and "achieving authority."

None recognizes "author" and "authority" share the same Latin root, auctor.

In Ancient Rome, an auctor originated. (In contrast, an artifex (artisan) labored to realize the vision of an auctor; he had less clout as a consequence.)

Want to find your voice? Discover your brand essence? Be an authority?

Originate. Something. Every. Day.

2,000 Maniacs!

Math classes mold our young minds to believe numbers.

Politicians exploit that.

• In 1950, Senator Joe McCarthy sparked a nationwide witch hunt by claiming 205 commies worked for the US State Department.
  
  
• In 2014, Representative Michele Bachman propelled cuts in food stamps for 850,000 US households by claiming 70 percent of the funds went into the pockets of Washington bureaucrats.
  
  
• In 2016, Member of Parliament Boris Johnson triggered Brexit by claiming EU membership cost the UK £50 million every day.

You might sway mobs with it, but does "proofiness" work in marketing copy?

No! says the late copywriter and filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis.

Lewis' legions of axioms included his "Rule of Statistical Deficiency:"

Readers respond less to cold-blooded statistics than they do to warm-blooded examples.

In On the Art of Writing Copy, he urged marketers to avoid statements like:

75% of the children affected might be saved.

Marketers should write instead:

We lost Jimmy today. His parents knew his pitifully short days were numbered. They never lost hope... until the end. But Mary, Karen, and Billy are still alive. We're fighting for their lives.

Fine for fundraisers. But what about B2B marketers?

Statistics are still deficient.

The following leaves you chilly:

71% of HR directors say our LMS is a very useful tool to enhance employee learning.

But doesn't this warm your blood?

We asked HR leaders from 10 companies if our LMS boosts enterprise learning. Execs from Acme, Spacely, Soylent, Wonka, Sirius, Clampett Oil, and Burns Industries said yes. Our clients experience the difference.

NOTE: Herschell Gordon Lewis departed this life September 26 at the age of 90. He wrote more than 20 books on marketing and produced over 40 films.

Social Selling ≠ Black Hat Selling

A fool with a tool still remains a fool.

— R. Buckminster Fuller

In a fool's hands, "social selling" becomes antisocial.

The reason?

On social networks, you should serve, not sell. (Serving puts customers' goal in the forefront; selling puts yours.)

If you can't grasp the difference, steer clear of social selling.

It will rapidly turn you into a black hat.

"There are no other areas of a seller’s life where the circles in the Venn Diagram of 'apps I use for work' and 'apps I use for fun' overlap," says Peter Ostrow on SiriusDecisions.

The overlap is a dark and dangerous pitfall.

Ostrow offers three rules for side-stepping it:

Social Selling = Listening. "The best way to grow long-term sales effectiveness via social is to develop a keen sense for what is being said in your particular corner of the market—and how influencers are saying it," Ostrow says. Follow subject matter experts on Twitter and connect to them on LinkedIn.

Social Selling = Contributing. Use half your posts to curate the best content the SMEs publish. "Your buyers will respect you far more as a helpful source of knowledge if you actually help them become smarter and do their jobs more effectively—as opposed to just selling your stuff in a disguised, purportedly indirect fashion that everyone sees through anyway."

Social Selling = Collaborating. Don't think, do. Dive into the conversations. Share ideas. Serve.

Goodly Predicts Corporate Magazines Will Make a Comeback

WASHINGTON, DC, October 2, 2017—Corporate magazines will make a roaring comeback in 2017, according to a prediction by Goodly.

The blog bases its prediction on an unflagging belief marketing obeys the law of eternal recurrence.

“Corporate America is on the verge of once more of embracing the print magazine," says Bob James, owner and chief storyteller.

Although entire in-house departments and outside design studios were dedicated to their production during much of the 20th century, corporate magazines fell from grace in the late 1980s.

"The time is right for their inevitable comeback," James says. "The universe can only stand so much digitalization before it lashes out in ink and paper."

In October's edition of Chief Content Officer, Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute, likens the brand-building power of print magazines to live events.

"We are in the experiences business," Pulizzi says. "We create those experiences through valuable, consistent content. While most of your competitors are focusing on digital experiences only, savvy brands see the opportunities offline."

Pulizzi notes that winning brands Red Bull, LEGO, Dell and Marriott all have splashy corporate magazines.

About Goodly

With 1,500 pageviews a week and climbing, Goodly is devoted to helping professionals express ideas precisely. Guest posts are welcome.

–30–

Road Rage

Travelogues are all the rage among itchy-footed Millennials, so travel marketers are heading there.

Brett Tollman says his company, The Travel Corporation, will turn to travelogues to break from the pack of tour operators.

The company will rely also on social media influencers to tell those tales.

All told, the company hopes to romance 16.2 million Millennials in 2016.

To that end, one of its brands, Contiki Travel, rolled out Roadtrip 2016 on YouTube in May.

Although peers remain the top source of recommendations, Tollman thinks meandering Millennials will start to shop for destinations based on branded mobile channels—provided the storytelling there is good.

The travelogues on those channels, if compelling, will not only pique Millennials' interest, but build loyalty to the sponsoring tour operators.