Helicopter to Work

Given the hubbub that surrounded my joining HubSpot, I thought I'd share my observations after clocking a week on the mothership of inbound marketing. Dig it:

1. Lean forward meetings. CMO Mike Volpe was "kind enough" to load up my schedule with 25 meetings over my first few days. When I saw my calendar I feared it was going to be a brutal start: hours of sitting in semi-silence with semi-strangers. But that's not how it played out. Meetings start on time, end a little early, and participants tend to lean forward, actively engaged throughout the session. Conversation is animated, regardless of the subject matter. There's something very ... very ... "alive"  even in meetings, which in most companies is where productivity goes to die.

2. Disorientingly empowered employees. I'm still sort of reeling from realizing how much authority individual contributors have over decision-making. Never once in the 25 tell-me-what-you-do-and-what-you-want-from-me meetings did anyone say, "I'll have to check with [executive] to see if we can do that." Not once. The authority to deliver an enthusiastic yes or a (data-supported) no extends to all levels -- and all levels seem aware of their authority. I raised this point to a colleague who said something to the effect of, "We value evidence over eminence." (This point is reinforced in the above image, which is a visualization of who influences whom at HubSpot.) 

3. Rampant humility. I confess that I've always found HubSpot's "we're humble" boasts to be, by definition, ironic. (After all, isn't boasting of humility itself a brag?) A large part of me feared I'd quickly discover the culture would be filled with cocky people who were smart enough to feign humility. Not the case. When the head of funnel says in a meeting, "I am concerned that too few people are complaining about me," you know that self-awareness, if not outright humility, has taken root.

4. Manners. "Thank you" is said ... a lot. Walking from one meeting to the next, I counted three separate people thanking a colleague.

10 Rocking Content Marketing Products from Joe Chernov

Embedded is the presentation – 10 Rocking Products for Advanced Content Marketers – that I delivered at Content Marketing World 2013. The session itself was a bit foreign to me – it was the first time I presented not as a “practitioner” (case study style), but rather as an industry observer (analyst style).

While this presentation is in no way intended to be the definitive list of content marketing tools, I do very much believe in the companies profiled. They include:

Creation / Curation

Percolate

LookBookHQ

Uberflip

Contently 

Distribution / Amplification

Little Bird

Influitive

Addvocate

PaperShare

Analytics

Optimizely

TrackMaven

In post-session conversations, the companies I was asked about most often were TrackMaven and Little Bird, leaving me to wonder if these solutions address a pain-intensive problem, or if I “sold” them more emphatically – possibly because articulated a personal use-case for each.

Content Marketing Rocks! 36 Tips from Rock Star Brands & Marketers from TopRank® Online Marketing

  How many rock-and-roll puns can you squeeze into a presentation? Odds are, not more than Joe Pulizzi ("The Dick Clark of Content Marketing") and Lee Odden (the guy I never, ever want to compete against ... again) managed to jam into their sure-to-be-a-hit presentation: "36 Content Marketers Who Rock". 

The rock theme is not arbitrary. The deck was published to help promote this year's Content Marketing World (#CMWorld) event in Cleveland, home to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

As I've said on Pulizzi's own blog, I have grown a bit weary of "ego trap" marketing - persuading people with ample followings to contribute to your content, so their networks will later amplify the distribution. But that's because most ego traps have become obvious and lazy. There's little unique about the sources, topics or even packaging. And, unless you have a book to hawk, there's little incentive for the contributor.

But the Pulizzi/Odden collaboration is unusually well done. It includes lots of "new" voices (new to me anyway). The input is, for the most part, fresh and interesting (to me, strategist/columnist Scott Abel's tell-it-like-it-is, jail-house wisdom stole the show when he copped to the reality that we aren't in the "content marketing" business, but rather the "people manipulation" game).  The design is thematically consistent with many of the other (awesome) materials the event's creative lead, Joe Kalinowski, has been producing.

But most of all, it's useful -- something author/speaker Jay Baer advocates in his his best-selling title, Youtility. You see, all contributors are also presenting at Content Marketing World, and each of their profiles in the deck includes details on their session.

So clever.

When content marketing firm Beutler Ink announced that data visualization A-lister Leslie Bradshaw joined its advisory board, they didn't issue a press release (that nobody but content farms would "read"). Instead they did exactly what they do: presented it visually, shared it socially, and characterized it playfully.  In the firm's own words: 

"Some things are meant to go together: milk & cookies, peanut butter & jelly, and now Leslie Bradshaw & Beutler Ink. Our President and Founder William Beutler and Leslie have been friends and colleagues for nearly 7 years. They've worked together for dozens of clients and on hundreds of projects. We are ecstatic to make the partnership more official by welcoming Leslie as our company adviser."

See the complete App Store vs Google Play Comparison Chart

Blogging this because I never want to lose it: Buffer's Culture Deck. (My goodness would I have to take a hard look in the mirror if I worked there.)

I was treated to a preview copy of Rebecca Lieb’s latest research for Altimeter Group. The final report, “Organizing for Content: Models to Incorporate Content Strategy and Content Marketing in the Enterprise,” was published today. It is filled with sensible organizational models, colorful quotes and plenty of “wow” stats. Below I’ve included some of the data and quotes that jumped out at me.

Quality research and writing aside, what is most valuable about this report is that it’s actionable. It’s short on theory (which is a good thing), and long on utility. If you are looking to organize around content – that is, figure out how to staff a marketing department to operationalize the production, distribution and measurement of content – then this is the report for you.

One nitpick: Missing is the notion of demand generation. Of the many functions with which content marketing needs to align, demand generation is arguably foremost. A few months back, I asked prominent demand / content / inbound marketer Maria Pergolino (then of Marketo, now at Apttus), “Why are so many marketers with your skill set being snatched up to run marketing at growth companies?” She answered, “Because we know how to make them more money.” In the Venn diagram of marketing, content and demand intersect, and that intersection might just be the lushest terrain in today’s marketing landscape.

Other than the absence of demand generation, the report, like everything Rebecca produces, is right-on. Insightful, well articulated, and, most of all, useful. Give it a spin.

Oh and here are the stats and quotes that made me take notice:

Red Bull tweets 200x/day

Of the 27 brands interviewed by Altimeter Group, only nine have made explicit content hires (e.g., “content” or “editor” in title)

The average organization manages 178 social media properties

Hire a journalist,” a tactic many organizations adopted with the rise of blogging, now is in no way sufficient to address more technical requirements involving higher knowledge of technology, production, design, and user experience. (Rebecca Lieb, Altimeter)

"Over half of my organization is responsible for content.” (Marissa Tarleton, Executive Director, Marketing, Dell)

John,

The graphic is yours to use however you wish. That's why we created it, so it could be shared broadly. Thank you very much for your interest and if you want the file itself, email me at jchernov AT me DOT com

Last year I was part of the small team at Eloqua that developed the “modern marketing” positioning. The thinking is self-evident: emerging terms like “inbound marketing” and “content marketing” were gaining in popularity, and modern marketing could be a concept for the company to own. But “owning” a concept has two components: (1) is it “ownable,” and (2) is it worth owning.

Given the significant volume of content the company has produced on the subject, it’s reasonable to conclude that Eloqua succeeded in owning the modern marketing position (and, to be fair, the more approachable term and playful logo have added the desired element of levity to the brand). But the larger question remains: is there sufficient organic interest in “modern marketing” for it to be considered a trend, a category, a … thing?

I used Google Trends to look at search volume for three terms: modern marketing (blue), inbound marketing (red), content marketing (yellow). I also marked the blue line with the approximate date of the launch of Eloqua’s logo and positioning at Dreamforce.

So?

I recently read a Huffington Post article that cited research estimating that 100 million sharks are killed annually. Most of the slaughter is the result of “finning,” a cruel and wasteful practice in which hunters slice off the living shark’s fin(s), causing the lame fish to drown or be eaten by other predators. The fins are sold for shark fin soup.

The article stuck with me. I thought about it for days. It occurred to me that it’s nearly impossible to appreciate a number as large as 100 million without context. It somehow had to be made visual if people were going to wrap their heads around the enormity of the figure.

So I sent a Facebook message to Robin Richards, the head of design firm ripetungi and one of the world’s premier infographic designers. I shared my idea for a graphic that did one thing: exposed the outrageous ratio of the number of people sharks kill to the number of sharks people kill. We riffed on a few ideas, Robin mocked up some comps, which we refined together. Then he did what he always does: he nailed it.

Now this deserves a biscuit.

I received an email from Crate & Barrel this morning. The message contained an unexpected subject line -- "Puppy & Love" -- and peculiar copy about adopting a pet. Odder still is that unlike most retailers, the call to action didn't ask me to "shop" or "buy." Instead, it invited me to "explore the story" of an adopted pet's journey.

So I clicked through to the landing page, which, rather than cataloguing home furnishings, presented for-purchase items in the context of the adopted pet's new home. The page contained a tidbit about the adoptee/adopter duo. It even included a link to download the "Petfinder Mobile" app, where people can search shelters for animals that need a home.

Storytelling. Surprises. Compassion. Helpfulness. Crate & Barrel hit all the right notes in their Puppy & Love campaign.