Category Archives: Thought Leadership

Ad agencies and marketers continue to live in a parallel universe…

09 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by in Advertising, B2B Marketing, Branding, Marketing, Social Media, Thought Leadership

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Research released this week by ThinkTV claimed “people working for advertising agencies are out of touch, childless, share-housing, farmers’ market-loving, workaholic gym junkies, who overestimate the impact of social media and the internet on normal Australians.”

Me thinks it’s a pretty accurate persona, to use the modern vernacular.

Of course, the consequence of the frame of reference from which agency types view the world, is how it influences their creative and media decisions in quite biased and dangerous ways.

I was on the end of this type of thinking when talking with a marketer in charge of selling “enterprise solutions” for a telco. In layman’s terms this means she flogs large phone systems to big companies through consultative selling. The reason she was asking my advice was the fact her sales were tanking and she couldn’t get leads from her digital marketing in LinkedIn and banner ads on other sites. True dear reader.

I was showing her some interactive 3D mail examples from US telcos that worked really well to generate qualified leads, particularly when supported with telephone follow-up. She stared at me bug-eyed and said “mail and telephone for B2B marketing are just not on my radar, everything’s digital these days and the agency would never go for it“.

I was taken aback, because as she spoke, I saw something flapping outside her window.

Everything’s just digital these days

The real problem with this advertising agency parallel universe is that it’s not new. The industry has lived in it for decades and not learned from its mistakes. I remember a survey in the 1980’s that demonstrated how out of touch the people who worked in advertising agencies really were.

One revelation was that agency people assumed everyone leased cars and bought their groceries on their fuel card in Shell Shops and 7/Eleven stores. Why go to Woolies?

I also had a marketing assistant at that time, who eventually became a partner in an ad agency (must have been the training). She lived in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and abjectly refused to travel west of George Street in the city. “the only time I go west is to get to the polo and then someone drives me“, she proudly exclaimed.

So here is the latest parallel universe of Adland – it goes part of the way to explaining the massive amounts of money being wasted in digital marketing channels.

The key is as follows – view the charts and weep:

  • Adland = Yellow
  • Adland’s estimate of public use = Dark blue
  • The public’s real use = Light blue

This article in yesterday’s press let the facts speak for themselves. For example, when asked to estimate how many people watch Netflix weekly, Adland said 80%. Yet apparently only 28% of “normal” people use Netflix weekly.

Gotta go now and do my weekly mentoring of young agency talent. Where’s my Tardis?

The myths and lies of the fake sharing economy…

08 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by in Digital, Digital marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Thought Leadership

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The headline for this post could easily have been any of the following:

“Stop all the lying you marketing bastards” OR

“Happy birthday to the sharing economy now 200,000 years old” OR

“Change hands please and describe your business accurately”

As you all know, we marketers love our buzzwords. The “sharing economy” is one of the most popular from recent times. It’s used in seminars, in articles by “thought leaders” and anywhere someone out of their depth is trying to make an impression.

To set the scene, let’s briefly review the definition of “sharing”

sharing = “use, occupy or enjoy (something) jointly with another or other”

AND

sharing = “give a portion of (something) to another or others”

There is no definition of sharing in any dictionary on the planet that says sharing involves a commercial transaction, where one party charges another party for services.

The sharing economy is one of the oldest on the planet. It’s been around since the arrival of humans. I suspect cavemen (and cavewomen) shared their caves and food with people other than their family. Maybe even passed a rock among themselves to use as a tool?

All of us have shared things throughout our lives and will until we die – food, drinks, seats, newspapers, spare beds, car pooling, stationery, lawn mowers, chores and much more.

At no time in this “sharing process” do we ask for payment. The reason is simple. You cannot call it sharing if you charge for the service. Because by definition, it’s not sharing, it’s a commercial transaction. You are conducting business if you charge for services – you are not sharing.

So please, all you marketing wannabes, just tell the truth.

A Bed & Breakfast (BnB) service is a commercial business, so just putting the word “Air” in front of it doesn’t suddenly make the service free, in terms of sharing.

Airbnb is a room booking service. Uber is a taxi booking service. And both companies do their damnedest to avoid paying tax in any of the countries in which they operate, as do most of the people who deliver their services.

Airbnb actively advertises on radio for pensioners to supplement their pensions by becoming an “Airbnb host”. It offers no advice to the poor pensioners on how the extra income will affect their pensions. They may lose their pensions by becoming a host. That’s not much of a sharing, nor caring, way to do business.

Meanwhile, Uber is losing $Billions annually and is plagued by all sorts of management problems and legal action. And when you read its business strategy, (it’s not a sharing strategy) the future is about driverless cars, so where’s that leave current drivers funding its “growth”? I suppose the reason is, Uber’s sharing model, sorry I meant business model, relies on financial transactions, rather than sharing, for its survival.

So given there is absolutely no sharing involved in the fake sharing economy, maybe a correct name for this new service category could be “the make a quick buck while avoiding tax economy“?

It’s certainly more accurate. And it’s not teaching our children that lying is an acceptable business practice, so it’s much more ethical.

Have to go now. I can hear my bride calling. I think she wants to share my wallet. So I guess there is payment involved in sharing after all…

How low can marketers go…

07 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by in Branding, Content Marketing, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Media, Social Media, social selling, Thought Leadership

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As those who work in the marketing industry know, it is in dire need of good publicity. What’s the adage about a cobbler’s shoes always in need of repair?

We’re ranked at the bottom of the list of the most trusted professions, if we make the list at all. And the recent outing of long-suspected shonky media buying agencies, has only served to confirm what the general public perceive. I’ll have more on the media buying dishonesty soon.

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One of the reasons I’ve not posted here for a couple of months, is that I’ve been tutoring on advertising to 150 university students – in the first and final years of their degrees. To put it in perspective, I’ve read and marked 350+ assignments and presentations submitted by enthusiastic young people wanting a career in our industry.

It gave me some time to reflect and I’m a tad concerned for their future, as I’m not sure how valuable their degrees will be if they want an honest career. Here’s why:

In 1994 I ran my first e-marketing seminar, including some guest speakers from different organisations. Little did I realise at the time, how indicative it was of the industry that was to evolve to the ‘digital marketing’ one we know today.

There was a presentation from a new joint venture called NineMSN. It was between Microsoft and the owners of a television network. A lady whom I knew from the marketing industry was suddenly their e-marketing expert, despite having no expertise. Mind you, nobody had any expertise. The presentation was slick and full of graphics, charts and outlandish predictions about the information superhighway – remember those buzzwords?

Because the industry was still in gestation, the audience of marketers was extremely sceptical towards her claims – much like today’s worried marketers and business owners are about social media and content marketing.

witelie

Trust me I work in digital marketing…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The most powerful presentation came from an email supplier who used a whiteboard to draw a diagram of how the internet worked and how computers connected to each other. He explained what it meant and the potential for what it meant. The audience lapped it up.

And the rest as they say, is history. A whole industry was spawned. The “how to be an instant digital marketing expert” industry. Anyone can be one – just use some digi-buzzwords, imply secret knowledge, claim all things that always worked no longer do and you’re away. Even better if you publish a book denouncing all things common sense and praising unproven new marketing secrets.

Or better still, just announce “I am a digital marketing expert” and you automatically are. No qualifications necessary. For a typical example of this faux expert, you need look no further than the latest digital flavour of the month – the alleged Content Marketing experts. They give charlatans integrity.

expert

 

 

 

 

 

If it is so easy to get away with deceit to succeed, why should anyone bother with a marketing, advertising, public relations or communications degree? If all you need to do to fake expertise is Google “world’s best <insert subject> advertisement” and copy it for your brand or client, why study at all? If you can manufacture phony credentials by paying a slave in Asia or the subcontinent, to ghost write a book for you, so you can claim to be a “thought leader” why get a degree?

The digital era has sunk the marketing industry to a new low. I’ve never known marketers to be as cynical about agencies, suppliers and alleged expertise as they have in the first fifteen years of this century.

cynicism

 

 

 

 

But I live in hope, as I suspect the digital tide is turning. There is a growing chorus of intelligent voices calling out the cyber hustlers for what they are. Marketers are realising you need to use lots of media channels and continually test lots of media channels to succeed. Those who dumped proven channels for solely digital ones, are doing U-turns and going back to their roots.

They’ve realised the various digital media are not all they’re claimed to be – results are revealing the truth. If only Australia Post had maintained its investment in direct mail, as this channel is killing it for serious marketers. And of course television is still the dominant media by massive figures.

So maybe knowing about marketing strategy, branding, the time-proven principles of creating outstanding advertising, media planning and all that tertiary-trained knowledge, gained at university, will be worth investing in for a marketing career?

It better be. I’m having a ball hanging out on campus and learning from tomorrow’s ad legends – they are enthusiastic about their future careers and I’d love them to have a worthwhile industry in which to work.

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But they have to study first. Where’s that homework file…

 

 

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Let’s connect: https://au.linkedin.com/in/malcolmauld

Why most shared content has no impact on your brand…

14 Tuesday Jun 2016

Posted by in Branding, Content Marketing, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Media, Remarketing, Thought Leadership, Viral marketing

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Any marketer, advertising agent, researcher or social scientist worth their salt, knows for any marketing content to resonate with, let alone influence, the typical punter, it must be consumed numerous times in a short space of time. Seeing something just once, rarely makes a serious impression (though it is rated as such in media terms – an impression that is).

Unless the message is designed as a direct response message, giving prospects all the information they need to ‘act now’, most marketing messages hardly penetrate our grey matter if only seen once.

Just look at the way we learn at school – through repetition. A message has to be repeatedly consumed for it to eventually make it through our distracted craniums and finally embed itself into our conscience. This is called learning. It’s a rare human indeed, who can read or view something only once and then remember the content.

raked-classroom1937

Information retention comes through repetition not from glancing at content

So what does this mean in the world of digital chewing gum for the brain? This is the world where the people mostly share content in social channels, which requires less than a metaphorical chew to consume. The receivers of said content quickly scan it, dismiss it, then start to chew on the next piece of content, ad infinitum.

digital chewing gum

The majority of content shared by consumers is mostly images, video, memes, jokes, fundraising appeals and personal stories. People rarely share words or phrases, particularly lots of words like those populating ebooks, whitepapers, brochures and the like. Of course people communicate back and forth using words, but it’s not sharing in the content marketing sense.

The act of sharing has less to do with the content being shared and more to do with narcissism. “Look at me, I’m sharing this before anyone else” or “look at me I’m sharing something – how many likes did it get?” or “look at me, I liked something”.

The average adult attention span is now roughly 8 seconds (just less than a goldfish) and ASS Times keep getting shorter and shorter – less than 1 second for many image-based channels like Instagram. So the ability for any snack-size marketing content to resonate at all in the memory of consumers, is nigh impossible. Did you like that piece of digi-jargon – “snack-size”?

attention span

And what about all that thought leadership content floating in cyberspace? At best, much of it remains in the ‘download folder’ of computers, because we’re too busy to print it or consume it in any depth. It’s why good quality email messages to opt-in subscriber lists, along with blogs, are still the best performing content online.

Ironically the content marketing failure is being driven by the content itself and FOMO. I’ve talked about the infobesity problem before. The average punter is waterboarded with content from friends, strangers, government, institutions and brands every second of the day. Add to this deluge, the modern dilemma of FOMO forcing consumers to have minimal engagement with content, and you can see why brands gain almost zero benefit.

Consumers know there’s loads more content coming down the digital pipe and they don’t want to miss it. So they quickly and disengagingly ‘like’ something, or ignore it, before moving to the next set of pixels.

content hipster

Hipster training to consume marketing content…

Just as we chew gum without thinking and then spit it out, it’s the same with content. We consume it without thinking and with almost zero emotional engagement. We swipe, pause, swipe – in a constant process to churn through the non-stop current of content. And the pause is usually shorter than the time it takes to spell ‘pause’. And even if consumers do take a few seconds to read or view your content once, will it really make a lasting impression?

Hmmm that reminds me, I’d better check my emails. Oh look there’s a dog…

dog

P.S. Please feel free to share this content with as many as you like:)

How the Connection Paradox and your A.S.S. Time ruin content marketing performance…

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by in BIG DATA, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Social Media, social selling, Thought Leadership

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A few years ago I coined the term “The Connection Paradox“. It refers to the conundrum whereby the more people you are connected to on social media, the less of their posts you see.

It is simple maths – the more connections you have, the more posts will be sent to you. But given there are still only 24 hours in the day, you have less time in which to see each post, so you miss most of them. Unless of course you have no life.

The truth is, just as most articles and classified ads in newspapers were never read, but they “reached” the audience, the majority of social posts and marketing content never gets seen, let alone read – even though it reaches your newsfeed.

Apparently, the maximum organic posts a FB user gets from their connections is between 3% and 6%, depending upon which expert you ask. So users miss the vast majority of posts unless they invest hours searching and scrolling. And now with Facebook and Instagram only serving posts based on user behaviour with previous posts, well it’s time to cue the banjo music.

deliverance

The posts you get are related to previous posts – creates strange relations…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both LinkedIn and Facebook batch updates for users. When you click on the updates button, the updates automatically download so fast you suffer a virtual waterboarding, as you cannot cope with the inundation of posts being digitally jammed down your throat.

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Batching posts causes virtual waterboarding when you download them.

 

Picture1

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most updates disappear below the fold, never to be seen. Worse still if you are reading them on a mobile device – you have to scroll even further to find what was just downloaded. While you’re doing that, another batch builds ready to waterboard you again at the tap of a button.

This led me to coin another term – Your A.S.S. Time. In case you’re wondering, I can generate the buzzwords as good as any of the cyber-hustlers.

Your A.S.S. Time is your Average Social Screen Time. On Instagram for example, it’s often less than one second. For LinkedIn it’s maybe 15 seconds before you move on. Thanks to scrolling technology on smart devices, people’s A.S.S. Time gets less and less, as more and more content is consciously ignored.

People have no choice – we are becoming time-poor, infobesity-ridden carbon-based life forms hooked by the dopamine effect of the next thing to appear on a screen.

Consequently the majority of content from content marketing, never ever gets seen, let alone read.

So this creates another paradox…

If you believe the content marketers, to practice influencer marketing, you must generate lots of followers and do lots of content marketing.

Following the obvious thread – if you have lots of followers and they are also posting, because they want to be thought leaders and do content marketing too, then by definition – nobody’s being influenced – because none of the content gets consumed, as we’re too busy creating thought leading marketing content for our influencer marketing.

And there’s still only 24 hours in the day to create and consume content.

Maybe “content marketing” should be renamed circumlocutious marketing?

Sadly the way we’re heading digitally, I suspect the whole marketing industry might get renamed the “mediocrity industry” – but that’s another blog…

More than ever before, customers want to be sold too…

28 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by in Advertising, B2B Marketing, Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Remarketing, Sales, Social Media, social selling, Thought Leadership

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There is some serious B.S. being peddled claiming human DNA has miraculously changed in the last few years. The peddlers (known as content marketers) claim people don’t want to be sold anything anymore. They claim businesses that try to sell things to their customers and prospects will fail.

I’m not kidding, such absurd claims are being made at marketing seminars – if it wasn’t so sad it would be hilarious.

The claim of course, is complete rubbish and without supporting evidence.

hot_steamin_manure-500x375

content marketers shoveling content

The plain fact is this – people love to be sold to by good salespeople. And when they have a great sales experience they rave about it and call it “excellent customer service”. They tell friends at social functions and on social media. Some marketers even label them advocates.

Great sales technique doesn’t make the customer uncomfortable. It doesn’t sound “salesy” – to use an emerging piece of jargon. A good sales person is highly regarded by customers. And we all have our favourites, whether they be at our local cafe, clothing store, pub, hairdresser, mechanic, IT supplier, butcher, baker or grocer.

But when it comes to lousy salespeople or poor sales messages, people share a universal dislike. Since the beginning of time, people have disliked them – it is not a new sentiment just because of the internet or claims by content marketers.

How many times have you threatened to take your business elsewhere because a salesperson wasn’t available to serve you? We all love salespeople.

So to push a self-interest content marketing barrow and state all a marketer has to do is publish more and more non-sales information and the world will flock to your door, is pure fantasy. The content marketers may be smoking the wacky tobacky, but the punters aren’t having a bar of it.

wacky tobacky

Are content marketers smoking the wacky tobacky?

The common thread among modern consumers is they are time-poor and suffer from severe infobesity – much of this caused by useless content marketing messages that don’t give people a reason to act, or consider a brand. Content for content’s sake. Yet the last thing people want in their busy lives is more content.

Human beings are the laziest species on the planet – we always seek the path of least resistance. One of the key reasons apps are so popular for example, is their ease of use. So marketers have to make it as easy as possible for people to buy – which is why giving punters incentives, offers, propositions and reasons to “buy now” are key to getting sales.

To quote my old boss, David Ogilvy, “you cannot bore people into buying“. Yet content marketers are adamant you can. Waste more of people’s valuable time and you’re guaranteed to sell them more, they preach to the gullible.

Let’s examine some facts shall we:

The single biggest innovation in online shopping was an in-your-face sales tool. It was invented by Amazon – and customers love it! They call it customer service, because that’s what great selling is all about – serving customers and prospects well. The technique is now used on all major transaction websites.

Here’s an example with which you are all familiar – you visit Amazon and click on a book you are considering buying. The site then tells you “customers who bought this item also bought…”

Amazon

Look out, Amazon is daring to “sell things”…

Even “Facebook with a necktie” (known as LinkedIn) uses this technique. When you view a person’s profile, you are prompted with a message “People also viewed” and there is a list of people’s mug shots linking to their profiles. This is a sales technique as old as retail selling – suggesting alternatives to get customers to buy at least one option. It’s a sales tool, not a non-sales tool.

Companies have always published non-sales information, it is not a new invention. And they made the information available at every point possible along the “customer journey”. Sorry, I had to drop the journey buzzword at least once. Some of you ancient marketers will remember such non-sales content as brochures, websites, booklets, newsletters, educational videos, signage, on-pack instructions, seminars, user manuals – the list goes on.

This is all designed to assist customers and prospects to make buying decisions, or as after sales service. Why would the punters want more ‘information’?

Yet the content marketers are claiming the whole world has changed just because people can do some online research before buying. This is stretching credibility beyond truth. Just because a marketer can reach a prospective customer in more places than ever before, does not automatically translate into “don’t sell to consumers, just post information as much as possible“.

used content marketing

wanna read content rather than buy a product?

By all means, help build your brand by publishing relevant content that cost-effectively drives people to a sale, or keeps them coming back after they’ve bought. But make it easy for the punters to buy – they are already inundated with infobesity and can’t be bothered doing all the work themselves.

So please, you self-interested content marketers, stop the lying about content marketing and making fake claims all a brand has to do to succeed, is publish non-sales content. It’s dishonest. Brands have always published non-sales content, as well as sales content – and it’s the sales content that has the biggest impact on the business and always will.

I’m going on a customer journey to get a drink of water from the kitchen. Better check some influencers to see what non-sales content they have, so I can make my buying decision – do I get cold water from the fridge, just run water from the tap, or maybe drink sparkling water from a bottle? After all, I want to ensure my water-drinking customer experience journey is the best it can be…

Those two marketers walk into a bar and laugh at influencer marketing…

18 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by in Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing Automation, Social Media, Thought Leadership

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It’s become a popular word – “influencer”. And now the term “influencer marketing” has entered the marketing vernacular, in case you need a new buzzword for a meeting.

It’s not really a new term though. In my school days when I was well behaved, a mother thanked me for being such a positive influence on her son. Then a few weeks later, a teacher called me out for being a disruptive influence in the class – it’s no wonder I’m cynical.

Influencer marketing is the process of contriving authenticity and false expertise by publishing content – most of which is not original – to grow a “following” online.

There are all sorts of tricks and guides to grow your alleged influence and the beauty is, you don’t need any real subject knowledge or track record of success in your field. You just need the ability to connect to people online and use marketing automation tools to publish content – mostly reworked from other alleged influencers, or borrowed from real experts (and usually without credit).

You can even outsource to content farms on the subcontinent or South America to create your expertise. If you’re a shrewd promoter, it’s not difficult to position yourself as an alleged expert.

Influencer marketers abide by what I call the Dory Principle of Marketing – “just keep bluffing, just keep bluffing – bluff, bluff, bluff.”

dory_just_keep_swimming

The Dory Principle of Marketing – just keep bluffing, repeat infinitum…

There’s rarely original thought published by these influencers. The real sad part is the volume of young marketers believing much of what is being peddled as expertise.

Some alleged “influencer marketing experts” have synthesized words to brand themselves with ridiculous titles such as Linkfluencer, or Social Influencer, as if this somehow casts magical wisdom upon their being – change hands please.

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With thanks to The Marketoonist

That’s not to say there aren’t some genuine experts using content to educate and further their reputation. But they do so with legitimate credentials and history of success, rather than trying to punch above their weight using implied knowledge and sheer volume of content.

Recently a British marketer Dan Bond, published his list of alternate marketing influencers (as against those who practice influencer marketing). This humble blog you’re reading is on the list, with some rather esteemed company.

All the writers have a bit of mongrel in them and are refreshingly honest, which is why I read their stuff as much as I can. Check out their blogs here.

And avagoodweegend…

Should all alleged Content Marketers be sacked on sight?

13 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in Advertising, BIG DATA, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Media, Sales, SEM & SEO, Social Media, Thought Leadership

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Your headline is one of the most important parts of your content. It attracts the reader to continue to read/watch/listen.

Of course I don’t believe all content marketers should really be sacked – it’s merely a figure of speech – but hopefully, given the current trend in animosity towards content marketing, the headline will attract readers:)

Like many, I’m concerned about marketers being duped by the latest new-new thing in marketing – another label for something that’s decades old. This time it’s content marketing and if you follow Gartner’s Hype Cycles, it seems content marketing is on its way out as we read – making room for the next bright shiny digital object. Mind you Gartner predicted there’d be no mail by 2000.

Gartner Hype Cycle

Content Marketing heading into the abyss…in the trough of disillusionment

Creating content is not new to marketing. In fact, creating content has been in our culture since mankind stood upright. Think cave paintings to record content and communicate to others.

Check out this image from a 17th century book:

1742

The headline reads “Contents“. OMG dear reader – physical evidence of content creation in publications.

As you well know, the majority of books (including ebooks), magazines documents et al, begin by listing the content you will find in the publication. Who’d have thought hey?

So why do alleged marketers claim the creation of content is new? Whose interest are they really serving?

I can only go from my humble experience, as like most marketers I’ve been creating and curating (to us a digi-term) content since nappies. More than 30 years ago when a Marketing Manager of TNT I wrote a weekly editorial article in the Daily Mirror – an afternoon newspaper in NSW. The column was called Property Protection and gave tips on home security to readers. Accompanying the column was an ad from TNT Alarm Systems – one of the brands I managed.

So the reader saw the content in two parts – the paid content in the ad and the editorial content. The editorial wasn’t earned content – I wrote it free of charge as an “industry expert”.

Let’s move forward to 2015 and rewrite what I just wrote, but using “digital content marketing language“.

I published content in the Daily Mirror, alongside the paid media. Interestingly it wasn’t earned media because I published it free of charge. It wasn’t owned media, as Rupert owned the paper. And it wasn’t paid media because that was the ad below it.

It was thought leadership delivered as native advertising, as part of my content marketing strategy. WOW, WOW & WOW!!!

Not only was it all that – but the UX (user experience for the digitally challenged) was omni-channel wonderfulness, as the reader was able to turn the page using their finger and read both the paid ad and the native advertising in an integrated format, without having to leave the platform. Unf***gbelievable. The content was consistently presented on the user interface – that’s the page, in case you’re wondering.

You get the picture.

Yet despite all the evidence, a whole content marketing industry is booming.

There’s even a private company called The Content Marketing Institute. It’s nothing of the sort – an institute that is – but don’t you wish you’d invented that money-making-machine? Call yourself an institute and you gain faux credibility and get the gullible to part with money. Hats off to the founders for getting away with it – brilliantly I might add.

Interestingly, my mate Drayton Bird recently wrote that the founder of said “institute” believes content marketing is a fad and will only last another couple years. But hey, they’ve made their money.

So here’s today’s first lesson – if you think creating content for marketing purposes is new, you need to go back to marketing college or leave the industry – you obviously know little about marketing.

Lesson number two – if you think consumers have miraculously changed their DNA and don’t consume paid ads, you are deluded and need to go back to marketing college or leave the industry – see above.

Lesson three – if you think the future is about brands telling stories without any proposition to entice you to buy (short or long term) see lesson one.

Here are some insights from an earlier post:

Amazing Insight 1: Customers don’t really care about brands

Amazing Insight 2: Customers don’t want relationships with brands

Amazing Insight 3: Customers don’t want to engage with brands

Amazing Insight 4: Customers don’t want to join a conversation with a brand

Amazing Insight 5: Customers get pissed off if you irritate them with irrelevant content marketing about your brand

But maybe I’m preaching to an empty church?

empty church

I should jump on the content marketing bandwagon and open a content creation and curation company.

But I cannot call it a content marketing agency, as there is no such thing – it’s a commercial impossibility.

It’s against the law of natural commerce to call yourself a content marketing agency. An agency is named because it earns commission from publishers for placing paid media as their agent. This is why they are called advertising agencies.

Given the entire purpose of the content marketers is to create content that isn’t for paid media – only for earned and owned media – then by its very nature, a content marketing agency cannot exist.

There are no paid media commissions involved. So there aren’t any agents – which means there are no agencies. Simple really.

So any alleged content marketing expert calling their business a “content marketing agency” should therefore be sacked on sight for fraudulent misrepresentation – oops…

 

P.S. I’m running a content marketing seminar in Brisbane in two weeks. If you’re interested you’ll need to register today by clicking here.

Is your digital marketing leaving cigarette burn marks on your customers…

02 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by in B2B Marketing, Branding, Content Marketing, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing Automation, Thought Leadership

≈ 7 Comments

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Depending upon what you read, almost two thirds of all activity on the internet is computer generated. Bots, crawlers, scrapers, autoresponders and marketing automation dominate the internet. Human connectivity is in the minority.

Given our love affair with social media, this is pretty scary stuff. As marketers lean on computers and data points to trigger activity, more and more marketing messages come from machines than humans.

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computers create more content than humans…

One current trend is remarketing or retargeting – depending upon your preference for buzzwords. And the result is not always positive.

Burning customers didn’t start with the internet though. The first instance of the “cigarette burn” problem in marketing came with the proliferation of telemarketing. The problem of unsolicited calls into homes became so bad, governments around the world created ‘do not call‘ registers, so the public could opt-in to opt-out of getting telemarketing calls.

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Then came the ‘do not mail‘ registers so people could opt-in to opt-out of getting mail. And thanks to marketers and online scam-merchants abusing the email channel, spam laws were created to protect consumers.

“It’s a sad reflection on the industry that anti-marketing laws were passed, because marketers abused the personal media channels vital for connection with the people who make them money – customers.”

One of the problems with personal channels and personalised messaging on websites, is the way marketers measure success. We only measure one half of the activity – those people who respond. We never measure those people who don’t respond – the majority of people who get the message. So you may unwittingly be leaving lots of little cigarette burns on your customers.

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Are you leaving cigarette burns on your prospects and customers?

Your intent is to make a positive statement about your brand. Your measurement says you are successful because it only measures results from your point of view, not the customers. But what are you doing to the majority who have no interest in your content marketing?

Here are some insights to help you when creating your content:

Amazing Insight 1: Customers don’t really care about brands

Amazing Insight 2: Customers don’t want relationships with brands

Amazing Insight 3: Customers don’t want to engage with brands

Amazing Insight 4: Customers don’t want to join a conversation with a brand

Amazing Insight 5: Customers get pissed off if you irritate them with irrelevant content marketing about your brand

Yet given every brand is now a publisher, customers are being burnt more than ever before with an oversupply of content designed to help the brand’s search results, or trying to position the brand’s alleged thought leadership in the false belief consumers will be seduced by the charms of the content.

LinkedIn has become the ash tray of B2B marketing

Sadly LinkedIn appears to be a constant stream of smouldering cigarette butts leaving burns on the collective memory of customers and prospects: regular approaches by fake accounts trying to connect; people asking to connect who then immediately flog their wares to you; lists of secrets to success; personal posts with no relevance to business; saccharine, glib motivational posts which depress rather than inspire; content, content and more content – you cannot avoid wincing each time you log-on.

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Sadly, LinkedIn is becoming the ashtray for content marketer’s cigarette burns

The social selling industry is addicted to leaving burn marks on prospects, with its belief you need to smother people in self-serving content, rather than invite them to respond or buy.

I recently had one bloke in the UK send me a direct message on LinkedIn to promote his thought leadership whitepaper. He didn’t even have the courtesy to invite me to connect with him. He assumed I would be more interested in his content marketing, than connecting. This constant mediocrity driven by the new social salesperson is becoming depressing.

Social selling is a confusing paradox

If you believe the hype, you no longer need to do any selling to succeed in B2B marketing. All you have to do is provide content and your prospects will automatically buy as result of your amazing thought leadership.

If the Social Selling B.S. is true and there’s no longer any selling, why isn’t it called Social Content or Social Mediocrity or Social Business Development? Why is it called Social Selling if there’s no selling involved? Hmmm?

Me thinks there’s another digital scam afoot – driven by trend blindness and people who don’t like being accountable, or just aren’t very good at selling.

I think that’s enough content for today – I have to go earn a living…

Leading legendary lamb leg Linkfluencer looks like losing the lot…

29 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Advertising, BIG DATA, Content Marketing, Digital, Digital marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Thought Leadership

≈ 11 Comments

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Like many of you, I am always stunned at the audacity of the digital industry’s loose use of the truth, particularly when it comes to the sweeping generalisations used to manufacture credibility.

The early social media ‘experts’ were excellent at faking the truth on things like the speed of internet uptake versus existing media. It was Gisle Hannemyr who revealed the truth about internet adoption rates in his famous essay “The Internet as Hyperbole“.

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Internet uptake lagged behind TV and radio…

One area consistently full of untruths, is the statistics used to support the use of online search, in consumer buying behaviour.

A quick history lesson – prior to the internet, the Yellow Pages invited the public to “Let your fingers do the walking“. And when you wanted to buy a big-ticket item, you sought information from friends and colleagues, read reviews in media, walked around different shops and asked ‘experts’ who worked in the stores, or even invited them to your home to explain or demonstrate their wares.

In other words, humans searched for information about goods and services before they bought stuff – a very sophisticated apex primate behaviour.

yellow pages

Today, people still buy using the same habits of searching for information. But as the laziest species on the planet, humans will always travel the path of least resistance for personal gain. So now, in addition to asking others and visiting stores, people also use search engines, websites, reviews and social media to gather information before buying – online or offline.

So there’s nothing new to see here folks. Habits haven’t changed – just the technology available to behave as we’ve always behaved.

nothing to see here

Human habits haven’t changed…

Which is why this week, I was dismayed to see the following headline in a piece of ‘content‘ which was ‘curated‘ in the form a FREE Whitepaper, by a well known brand flogging marketing automation and content marketing. The company claimed:

93% of buying cycles start with an online search, and 88% of clicks come from organic search

To put it bluntly – what utter bollocks.

The truth is entirely the opposite of this claim. It’s more like 96% of all buying decisions never, ever, involve the internet, let alone search engines or organic search terms. And the punters don’t need content to help them make all their buying decisions.

Think about what you buy in a typical week. Let’s start with groceries – there are dozens of buying decisions involved with the weekly grocery purchase. In fact, your weekly grocery shopping involves the largest number (and percentage) of your weekly buying decisions.

Consider your weekly purchases – tinned food, snacks, drinks, pasta, rice, dairy, biscuits, cleaning products, personal grooming, health care, blah, blah. And then there’s your fresh food – fruit, vegetables, eggs, meat, deli-items and more. Dozens of buying decisions, most of which are made in-store, or in some case in-online-store – but almost exclusively without search engine support.

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Groceries account for the majority of weekly buying decisions…

People also make other buying decisions for things like petrol, newspapers, gifts, flowers, school things, household items, etc. But rarely on a weekly basis, do we make lots of considered purchases – apart from dining out. The majority of our buying decisions are automatic or made at point of sale.

Certainly when we have a considered purchase, like new clothes, furniture, a holiday, or car, we will undertake research and likely use search engines as part of the process. But to claim (without any supporting facts) 93% of all buying cycles start with search engines, is at least dishonest, and is grossly distorting the facts. Or maybe they’re just lousy researchers?

These falsehoods are driving the content marketing boom. Apparently humans have stopped all previous behaviour and now only use search engines and websites or Apps to gain knowledge about brands – so you’d better stop advertising, and start publishing like there’s no tomorrow.

This is obvious when you visit your local supermarkets. As you know the aisles are chock-full of shoppers frantically searching websites for content before they dare purchase anything.

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#helpmechooseyoghurt

Shoppers stand around with phones in hand, uploading images of products like yoghurt tubs, as the first step in their buying cycle. They post messages to their ‘friends’ such as “help me decide – should I buy the low fat apricot or the sugar-free strawberry? Like my Instagram or Facebook page, so I know what to buy” #whichyoghurtjourney #luvyoghurt #helpmechooseyoghurt #lowfat #sugarfree

I’d better go warn the green-grocer and tell him he’s about to go out of business. He hasn’t any whitepapers demonstrating his thought leadership on corn cobs. Not to mention the tomatoes – surely he can run a simple webinar to add value to his customer’s tomato buying-cycle journey? The silly bugger just has handwritten signs outside his store and at point of sale – signs like “organic navel oranges $3.99/kg“. How will they work in a non-sales, content-dominated world?

And I feel sorry for my local butcher – he’s so silly, he tries to sell things instead of just publishing secret sausage content. Yes folks, he sells for a living – how quaintly old fashioned. Hasn’t he heard the social selling mantra “selling is dead“? You no longer have to sell – just publish and all will be well.

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He’s not a Leading Legendary Lamb Leg Linkfluencer…

Here’s how stupid he is. Today he has a sign outside his shop; “Legs of lamb only $19.99/kg – save $5/kg”. What is he thinking? Nobody will buy his lamb legs – he’s not supporting them with any video or ebook on the benefits of eating lamb. He has no content to position him as a leading legendary lamb leg Linkfluencer. The poor sod, he’s going to lose the lot.

And the local baker hasn’t even got a website – she relies on the location of her store, the quality of her pies and pastries, as well as word-of-mouth to make a living. What kind of fool is she?

All this talk of food has made me hungry. I might pick up a couple of meat pies for lunch. Shame the baker won’t be there to chat – she’s made so much money she’s holidaying in Europe.

Just imagine if she had the time to do content marketing…