Is It Time to Reimagine Marketing? Insights and Takeaways from #CMW2021
Even prior to the onset of the pandemic, change was a near-constant theme in the marketing world, as we (marketers) struggled to keep up with the next social platform, next big idea and the ever-increasing demand for more (of everything). In my opinion, if there was one new undercurrent in at least this group of presenters and marketing attendees, it’s that the marketing landscape, and how we operate within our organizations, is ripe for change. If there’s any silver lining to COVID-19, it’s that it’s given us all time to take one or more steps back, and that introspection has led us to challenge even some of the most commonly-accepted marketing practices that we’ve just been too busy to challenge before.
On the other side of the coin, the pandemic has fundamentally and, in many cases, forever changed the behaviors of the people we are desperately trying to reach, persuade and delight through all of our marketing efforts. So, not only have we fallen into bad habits over time (that are much harder to get rid of than other bad habits because executive teams often hyper-focus on metrics around these habits), but it’s become much more difficult to reach prospects, retain existing customers and compete with the deluge of noise from the other marketers who are doing the same things we are.
The light at the end of the tunnel here is that there’s never been a better time for a reset, partly because of the introspection we’ve done, but also because of the forced level-setting by the pandemic. It affected us all in some ways, and I’d venture to say it changed all of our perspectives in one way or another. So what can we and should we do differently as marketers (and as human beings, because those two things are far more correlated than they’re not, at least for the marketers who are most successful) to evolve our marketing to be more helpful, more relevant, more impactful and, if at all possible, to not feel like marketing at all?
Let’s dive in!
1.????More is No Longer More
All marketing requires content, and all good marketing requires good content – that’s one constant in our world that we can hold onto, as it’s unlikely to change. In the same vein, it’s a simple fact that, in general, you need a certain amount of traffic to generate the quality leads on which to build your business. 10 years ago, when content marketing was in its infancy, its proponents were shouting from the rooftops that Content was King, and that led to…you guessed it…the never-ending deluge of content that consumers (i.e., human beings) are drowned in every minute of every day.
It’s now been well-documented, but these sort of trends, in which organizations and marketing teams feel they must jump on the bandwagon or get left behind (and in trying to differentiate, do the exact same thing as everyone else), are where the phrase “Marketers Ruin Everything” come from. To be entirely fair, it’s a very human thing to want to grab onto the “next big thing,” and the reason these trends eventually become overwhelming and wither is because, for a time, they are truly innovative. When I first became interested in, and eventually, swept up in the promise of content marketing, it was essentially heresy (the executive response to “build an audience, be helpful, and it will drive clients to you” was, invariably “get really red and tell marketers to do more direct mail”). Now, it’s the table stakes.
As a lifelong content marketing acolyte, I will always love and support the power of great content, but today, great content, even first-rate, best-in-class content, is not enough. And marketing departments everywhere are being crushed under the sheer weight of more, more, more. More blog posts, more eBooks, more social posts, more emails, more campaigns - more, more, more. In a recent survey , 80% of marketers feel they’re overloaded and understaffed, with 71% feeling burnt out. Those are really high numbers! We already have too much to do, and more is hitting our plates every day – it’s simply not sustainable.
Thus, the theme of Less is More at this year’s event is such a breath of fresh air. We’re not alone – every other marketing team is going through this, and we have to fight it. Why does it matter? According to a variety of different studies , a shocking 60-70 percent of deliverables go completely unused. In his session, Michael Brenner opined that this number is so high because of how many assets are requested by executives as a tactic outside of a set strategy.
Yes, it’s difficult to say "No" in these circumstances, but it’s incumbent on us to do so, and work as hard as we can to change the focus from volume to quality – executives like to see big numbers from the marketing team and we like providing them, but wouldn’t it actually be more impactful if we hyper-focused one the one or two areas where we (and our organizations) can actually win? Again, easier said than done.
We’re talking about a fundamental philosophical shift for most marketing teams, that would look something like this:
The key is in being able to focus in on the areas that are going to provide the most value. And it’s not just about driving more growth, which is almost always the goal (and the one thing underpinnning whatever North Star Metric we’ve chosen). It’s also about helping the marketing team to be less of a factory where more and more widgets are coming down the line every day - which is going to lead to burnout if it hasn’t already – and the creative, interesting and fun place it can be, and truly what pulled so many of us into it in the first place.
?It also forces us to be a bit more creative in optimizing what we already have as opposed to creating something new. Creating new content takes time and effort, but it also allows us to bypass important distribution opportunities for our most important “big rocks.” Bernie Borges tells us that a meaty piece of content like a n hour-long interview should spawn at least 8 unique pieces of content. Drew Davis, author of Brandscaping: Unleashing the Power of Partnerships, puts it this way:
“Our most creative work doesn’t happen during business as usual. Original ideas require your focused attention working toward a clear outcome to overcome a unique challenge when the stakes are high.”
We need to take a moment to step back and re-shape what marketing is going to be within our organizations, including helping everyone else, executive team included, understand what it is not.
Drew’s recommendation? In addition to always starting any new project with the end in mind (answering the question, what’s the one single most important goal, and is this how we’re planning to reach it), it’s that, to launch any new initiative, you should commit to sunsetting two others. While easier said than done, it’s an example of the type of commitment we’ll likely need to have to get to a place where we can truly focus our efforts.
In addition to a laser-focused strategy and a commitment to saying “No” (with reference to sticking to the strategy), one critical component here is doing a better job of marketing our marketing within our organizations. Internal education will be a key to success, as the better our organizations understand what we’re trying to do and why we’re trying to do it, the more likely we are to given the time and ability to focus (sans distractions) to reach our goals.
The answer here is likely not to send more data dumps to stakeholders within the organization – they’re already drowning in it the same way we are – it’s to create a structured and repeatable approach designed to inform and educate. We’re marketers, and we can make anything interesting – let’s not sell ourselves short in shining a light on our own very important work!?
2.????Your Product is What You Help Your Customers Do and Be
Being customer-centric is incredibly hard (we know that most organizations are “customer-centric” in terms of how it views itself, but few truly grasp and execute on the concept), but it’s also never been more important. Given the number of sessions and the level of commentary on this at Content Marketing World 2021, organizations everywhere are struggling with delivering messages that are customer-driven (showing that they understand the customer’s pain points and how the solution can really and truly help) instead of just a list of how great the platform works, how many new features have been launched, and how it’s so much better than the other likely identical competitor offering.
In building great marketing for the future, it’s clear that, for most organizations, what they think of their product is not actually their product. Your product is not the thing that you’ve created or even how it functions – the actual product is what it allows your customers to do and to be. I love the reframing of this from the traditional conversation around “benefits not features,” because that didn’t go quite far enough. In other words, it’s too easy for marketing teams to twist benefits around to still be ostensibly about features.
In the ideal scenario, the customer is truly the hero of your story (not a new concept, and one that sounds great but is very difficult to achieve in practice) because what they become is the product you’re selling/delivering. Ann Handley, CEO of MarketingProfs.com, and storyteller extraordinaire, used the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer story, which was actually written by Robert L. May, a marketer working for Montgomery Ward (who knew?), to illustrate the difference. The story is iconic for many reasons, one of which we’ll get into in a moment, but the key from Ann’s perspective is that Rudolph isn’t the hero of the story.
Robert May, the original content marketer, actually made Santa the hero of the story, and Rudolph is the product. Santa had a problem, and it was a big issue, as he needed to get toys and presents to all of the good boys and girls, and that’s something only he could do. However, the fog presented a challenge, and he needed a product (Rudolph) that could help him solve a problem at that moment. It’s not only a great way to show the power of the right story using one we know so well; it also simplifies the often over-complicated process of creating user or customer-centered product messaging. Here’s the framework she provided, taken from the Rudolph story:
[CREDIT: Ann Handley, MarketingProfs.com]
I took a crack at it in my capacity as head of content for Dice, and it really does work! That's one the reasons storytelling gets a bad rap, or is at the very least overlooked. Marketers tell everyone to "become a better storyteller," but people don't know what it means and most have no idea how to do it. These types of tools are so valuable to show marketers that they can actually create better positioning and messages if they put in a bit of work.
Besides a great story, one key here is building customer journeys the right way and using them as the foundation of all marketing efforts.
?One good way to put it is moving from self-centered to user-centered marketing. Not just about understanding the customer (personas), but understanding what they need right now. This is another area where a really good customer journey map can help. I loved this graphic outlining the role journey maps can play, as they’re used in so many different ways and so often conflated with personas (or used as validation of what you’re already doing as opposed to outlining what you should be doing):
[CREDIT: @JennyLMagic, @AskMarcio, Content Marketing World 2021]
The key is what matters right now, as it gets more specific than a persona can. What problem are you solving at each step in the process? As John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing states,
“The thing that’s changed the most about marketing is how people choose to become customers. Marketing today is less about creating demand, and more about organizing behavior. It’s about helping them do what they want to do, not what we want them to do.”
This is his Marketing Hourglass graphic, presented as a replacement for the funnel. Whether or not you agree that the funnel (first created in 1898 and first connected with AIDA in 1924) is perhaps an outdated concept, it’s hard to argue with the key stages he’s noted in truly guiding customers through their desired actions. In addition, I like how he’s designated which area is generally responsible for each action.
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[CREDIT: John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing, Content Marketing World 2021]
In this way, all of the content we create as a marketing team becomes more than a tactic – it’s actually the voice of strategy (another John Jantsch gem). And it always comes back how we understand the customer and their challenges, and how our product makes them a better version of themselves:
?“The #1 factor contributing to success of content strategy is truly understanding and connecting with audience values, interests and pain points (and not just making assumptions) – and it’s not even close (that sits at 50%, and the next closest is 25%, clear roles and responsibilities for content creators).” – Jill Roberson
3.????You Can’t Force Your Attention Anymore; You Have to Be Invited In
Customers are aggressively avoiding communications from brands, and marketers have responded by increasing the number of messages we are sending to them by 40% in 2021 (Source: Jay Baer). So, there’s a disconnect…
User-generated content has always been on the periphery, but before it was positioned as more of a nice-to-have. What experts like Jay Baer are saying now is that it’s actually (if not now, then soon) the only way to get in front of your prospects in an authentic way. The following slide represents how customers currently rank the relevance of a message based on where it’s coming from:
I think most of us innately know this by now, but it’s still disheartening to see how little our customers and potential customers actually trust us. We spend a lot of time trying to change customer behaviors with messages from our brand without getting much traction – what would happen if we resigned ourselves to the fact that our brand messaging will likely always be the least relevant, and better use these other avenues to our advantage?
All that said, it certainly doesn’t mean that brand messaging is dead. Today, email is still the biggest driver of conversions, social media and newsletters are key quality traffic drivers (and likely always will be) and we have a lot to say that we would still want to say using our new and improved brand voice. So, it’s not that we wouldn’t focus as much on brand-level messages – just that we might need to look at doing it differently.
According to Jill Roberson, part of the change needs to come in re-focusing efforts on touching the everyday emotions we all feel: “It takes one tenth of a second to form an impression – we need to be smart and succinct - there’s very little room for error, that’s not enough time for someone to think logically, but it is enough time for them to have an emotional reaction.” And that’s not just because we know emotional content drives engagement; it also drives impact across the customer journey:
If I had one key takeaway in terms of how to get and keep attention in the landscape today, it’s personalization of content and experiences are now simply the price of admission if we want to get peoples’ attention.
?As Roberson puts it,
“70% of the customer’s journey is based on how the customer feels they are being treated across touch points. So you must choose people over product – ask what their motivation was to start their engagement with you? To do this, use personalization to close the empathy gap – demonstrate an understanding of specific needs and wants with EVERY piece of content.”?
So how do we do that? Aligning the customer journey to our touchpoints, integrating content into every stage and stop on the journey, and delivering that content based on behavior triggers - easier said than done, of course, but more important now than ever. As mentiond, of all the presentations I attended on customer journey, John Jantsch’s was my favorite, as he offered a different perspective than the traditional “drive more traffic, get more leads” approach to marketing:
“What are we doing to intentionally doing to guide and move people through these behaviors? They need to come to the conclusion that you are the only logical choice to solve their problem. We have to guide customers through each stage of the journey to lead them to your solution. Teach people how to do more, and how to do more with you”
The follow-up slides to his Marketing Hourglass concept provide valuable insight into what each section of the hourglass is designed to do, and which different pieces of content and/or experiences fall into each category (I won't share them here, as I hope you'll reach out to him to learn more!). The first three stages, Know, Like and Trust, fall under Marketing’s purview, and are all stages that create relationships. The next two stages, Try and Buy, are what he terms the bridge to long-term success – these are generally under the Sales Team’s purview, although Marketing will have jobs to do in creating some of the assets outlined. The final two stages, Repeat and Refer, fall under the purview of Service although, again, Marketing has a role to play in creating the assets and experiences the service team has at their disposal:
I'm looking forward to buying and reading John's book (The Ultimate Marketing Engine), as I'm sure these are in there - the graphics he provided show the specific content, assets and experiences that span each stage. At first glance, it looks like a lot, but I believe if we compare what's he's provided to our list (what we do today), we would find that we are probably doing "more." To the point earlier, are we doing the right things, and if not, what can we stop doing to introduce some of these concepts that provide a better fit within the true customer journey.
4.????Non-Performative DEI is a Strategic Imperative (and a Growth Engine)
While not news to most marketers, it seems that DEI is finally being looked at as a strategic imperative for organizations of all sizes, types and ilks. In 2020, organizations could still, in some cases, get away with performative DEI, meaning putting up a social post or blog post in support of a key date or milestone (or weighing in on an event) without doing anything else. Basically, trying to take advantage of diversity, equity and inclusion trends without actually supporting it.
In 2021, saying and doing nothing will be a negative for your brand, but it’s almost worse if you do the bare minimum and earn the label of being performative. So, how can marketers help organizations do the right thing (elevate DEI) in the right way, and actually drive revenue in the process? Many DEI efforts to this point have been focused on hiring and other internal Human Resources-related efforts, and it’s time to approach it from a marketing perspective. That means creating marketing efforts that represent the diverse communities that your company serves.
Black, Asian and Latinx people today alone have buying power of $3.2 trillion, and that includes $14 billion in consumer packaged goods sales (Source: Michelle Ngome). If you add Indigenous peoples, that number balloons to $5 trillion. A staggering ninety-two percent of the population growth in the past 15 years in the United States have been driven by communities of color. And that’s only going to increase - according to Pew Research Center, the post-Millennial/Gen Z demographic is the most ethnically diverse generation in the history of the United States. Perhaps most important, 75% of Gen Z consumers say they’ll boycott companies that discriminate based on race and/or sexuality in their advertising. So, there’s incredible opportunity here.?
Ask, what gaps in the market can your company or organization identify that will allow you to better serve these communities? Instead of doing exactly what your competitors are doing, find the blue ocean; what do we have to offer that nobody else can offer? Today, there are still many DEI-related gaps in many different markets, and this is one way to drive real change, as decision-makers find it a lot more difficult to say ”No” when there’s a revenue growth possibility.
?Once you’ve identified those gaps (or,?better yet, that one gap), and created and socialized your business case it’s time to, you guessed it, market. Beyond the basics of segmentation and the ability to personalize messages to those segments, the most critical elements are likely to be how well you articulate your brand’s mission, vision and values, and how your voice and tone come across to your audiences.
There’s enough out there, and has been enough out there, that organizations and leaders know full well that DEI is both the right thing to do and that it can also drive growth. As Tequia Burt from LinkedIn states,
“Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion is simply good business.”
A GRAND OPPORTUNITY AWAITS!
I love this event for many reasons, but there’s one that outstrips them all: re-invigoration. I imagine most marketers feel like I do by the end of September; a dried-out husk of their former selves due to the never-ending stream of new projects. Don’t get me wrong, I love being busy and it’s much better than the alternative. But that busyness has to mean something, and there are few things more likely to take the air out of our team members’ balloons than if they feel like every piece of work they’re undertaking isn’t having an impact based on the greater organizational strategy.
What I heard at Content Marketing World 2021 was a collective deep breath after 18 months in the pandemic, and preparation for the revolution against more, more, more. At our best, in-house marketers have a seat at the table and we are able to strategically impact the business. At our worst, we are order-takers from all of the “clients” in the business, and no skilled marketer will stay for long in an environment like that. The executive team holds some responsibility here, but we as marketers have a responsibility to push back as well.
Being in this group of marketers, hearing that most of us are facing the same challenges, and feeling the sense of enthusiasm here; these things don’t come across as a negative and, in fact, they inspire me (and hopefully all of us) to be the drivers of change in what we can control.
We (marketers) touch more areas of the business than almost any other function, and we also own the most research and insights about our audiences than any other function. It’s incumbent upon us, then, to help our organizations build, articulate and make good upon a future-ready valuable proposition (i.e. customer-centered solution). In 2022 and beyond, that doesn’t mean more content and it might not even mean more budget and resources – it means being smarter and more efficient, creating better, more relevant content, squeezing every drop of juice out of every content lemon and, most of all, saying “No” more than we say “Yes.”