That Old Black Magic

Whoever Americans elect as president next week, I hope she has a witch as her top aide, as does South Korea's president. We're going to need that old black magic to get well.

Writers need black magic, too; and editors are its source.

In his new memoir, The Accidental Life, Terry McDonell quotes Norman Cousins, the longtime editor of Saturday Review, on the art of editing:

Nothing is more ephemeral than words. Moving them from the mind of a writer to the mind of a reader is one of the most elusive and difficult undertakings ever to challenge the human intelligence. This is what being an editor is all about.

Editors are advisers, coaches, cheerleaders, therapists, parents, midwives and—as Cousins implies—sorcerers.

They're also missionaries, as Robin Lloyd, contributing editor for Scientific American, says:

My motivation as an editor is clear, compelling communication for the reader. Delivering that is my first job. Readers are looking at every word for an excuse to bail out—to stop reading a story. My job is to prevent that and to keep them reading this story by focusing on clarity, pacing, logic, arc, and sparkling prose.

Above all, editors are match-makers, pairing willing writers with willing audiences.

That means an editor must be conversant in many fields; sense which topics are ripe for coverage; and know which ideas, words and phrases will keep readers reading.

No mean feat.

If Your Event isn't Eventful, It's Just Another Meeting

The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth.

— Warren Buffett

Bundled tips. Distilled solutions. Condensed books. Expert panels. Industry roundups.

Sound like your conference?

You're preparing attendees for the last war. But they need to wage tomorrow's.

"Traditional conferences focus on finding solutions to yesterday’s problems," says conference designer Jeff Hurt.

Smart attendees (that's redundant; stupid people skip conferences) don't need more packaged information; they need results (remember, the word event comes from the Latin for result.)

"People no longer come to your meetings to get information," says planner Holly Duckworth. "They come to make sense of the deluge of information they already have."

If you're not transporting attendees to a future world, helping them adapt to new realities, and equipping them to thrive, you're not offering results.

To put it another way, if your event isn't eventful, it's just another meeting.

My 5 All-Time Favorite Books on Marketing

You witness it every day: the fundamentals elude many a marketer's grasp.

But imbibing the fundamentals is fun. And easy.

Just make a pact with yourself to (re)read these five mind-blowing game-changers in the next few months.

You'll thank yourself.

Your boss will thank you, too.

Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy's 1963 romp is a blueprint for sound marketing. In keeping with its title, the book begins, "As a child I lived in Lewis Carroll’s house in Guildford. My father, whom I adored, was a Gaelic-speaking highlander, a classical scholar, and a bigoted agnostic. One day he discovered that I had started going to church secretly."

Positioning. Revolutionaries in 1981, Al Ries and Jack Trout were the first marketers to recognize content glut was our biggest challenge. The book opens with the statement, "Today, communication itself is the problem. We have become the world's first overcommunicated society."

Influence. In Orwell's year, 1984, Robert Cialdini mashed business and psychology to create every marketer's playbook. Cialdini has just augmented his classic with a new book, Pre-Suasion. You might read this book, too.

Maximarketing. Stan Rapp and Tom Collins ushered in the age of personalization in 1986. The technology has changed, but the principles they cite haven't. When Maximarketing was published, David Ogilvy said, “Everyone in advertising must read this book.”

New Rules of Marketing and PR. David Meerman Scott blundered onto a path for marketing his employer's products and turned his journey into a 2007 book. Marketing hasn't been the same since. Scott didn't invent content marketing, but he was the first marketer to recognize its primacy. "Put out great content, and you’re great," he said. "Put out crappy, and you’re crappy."

NOTE: I have encountered a sixth ground-breaker that belongs on the list, Experiential Marketing. 

At the Zoo

Are mammoth trade shows dropping like flies?

That's what AmEx predicts in its new 84-page report, 2017 Global Meetings and Events Forecast.

Companies' event marketing spend won't change next year, but where that money's spent will, according to the report.

Event marketers' spend will increase by 1% in 2017, while their participation in big North American trade shows will decrease by 20% (the average event marketer will participate in 8 of those shows next year, down from 10).

Event marketers will spend the money they would have spent on those big events on small, content-rich ones, instead.

Presaging next year's downturn, four flagship shows recently shuttered: ASAE's Springtime, CTIA's Super Mobility Week, FMI's Connect, and NCTA's INTX.

Which big fossils will be next to sing a swan song?

Event-industry journalist Michael Hart recently observed that, right now, tortoise-like associations are exceedingly vulnerable to their hare-like counterparts, the for-profit organizers, as more money chases fewer events.

While associations dither, "Nimble players can swoop in and launch a competing 'pop-up,' worrying little about legacy issues and more about profits," Hart wrote.

It's time for associations to give up the ostrich-act and take the bull by the horns. There's simply no time to monkey around.

Learn to ape your for-profit competitors!

E-mail: The Marketer's Trump Card

While e-mail marketers wish everyone had OCECD (Obsessive-Compulsive Email Checking Disorder), consumers indeed check their emails avidly, according to a new study by Mapp Digital.

Nearly all consumers (98%) check emails 3 times a day, the study shows; and over one-fourth (28%) check them 4 to 10 times.

That activity makes e-mail the marketer's trump card—particularly with Millennials—says Mapp Digital's CEO.

"The survey results suggest that this group of consumers are engaging with fewer brands on a more intimate level," says Mike Biwer.

"Millennials and Gen Y are strong audiences for email marketers, but now more than ever, the email marketing experience needs to cater to what they want and how they want it."

The study also shows smartphones are a driving force.

Eight of 10 Millennials (83%) check their emails on smartphones; and 7 of 10 consumers in every age group do so.