September 24, 2013 “Let me tell you a story…” is one of the most powerful phrases you hear. Yet while people relish this from Hollywood movies and best-selling authors, they often shun it in the board room. They shouldn’t. Some companies are slowly starting to understand the power of storytelling. Cisco uses it to strengthen its brand through The Network …
The Financial ROI of Brand Storytelling
August 6, 2013 At the Society for Marketing Professional Services annual conference a few weeks ago in Orlando, people who attended my session asked me how to get executive buy-in on storytelling. My response? Talk to them in their language: money. Successful organizations of all sizes (Fortune 100 to small and medium size) are drawing on storytelling to bring their brands to life …
“Free” Content Marketing?
I sign up for emails from lots of places. Some of them I stick with for years. Some last a matter of days. I was dumb struck by one I received today from a writer I’ve followed for many years. The gist of his email was that content marketing is overhyped. That is doesn’t achieve anything because all content marketing …
Why Content Marketing and Human Resources Should be Friends
“Great stories happen to those who can tell them.” – Ira Glass Last week Colorado Biz Magazine published an article I wrote about storytelling and why it always needs to start on the inside of a company, rather than through marketing to the outside audiences. I think as a writer, it’s conversations like the one that his article prompted, and others …
Is Your Content Marketing Scaleable?
One of the biggest struggles between sales and marketing stems from understanding what sales needs to turn a prospect into a customer and what marketing has the bandwidth to produce. It’s a battle that repeats itself regardless of company size or industry focus. To help remove some of the animosity from the relationship, it helps to have everyone on the …
The 50/50 Split Between External and Internal Branding
Last week I wrote a blog post for the Content Marketing Institute about Why Brand Storytelling Must Start With Human Resources. Based on the responses I’ve received, this definitely hit a chord. A colleague of mine is a CMO for a multi-billion dollar technology company, and we talked about the piece. Interestingly, with this of a global size firm, I assumed …
Compensation’s Role in Sales and Marketing Alignment
Up to 90% of collateral created by marketing is never used by sales. Fifty percent of B2B sales staff misses their quota. Forty percent of sales people lose their job every year. Some of these stats come from not having the right type of sales person in place. And clearly, we need to do a better job of integrating sales …
Want to Know What Sales Thinks? Just Ask.
January 4, 2014 I had a woman call me today from a SaaS company asking if I could help her with a problem with which she struggled. The story isn’t new. We’ve all experienced it. Marketing was creating tools that sales never used. That part wasn’t surprising. But the funny part (as in odd, not “ha ha”) came from how …
The Aura of Authenticity
Photo :: Jay Baer, Convince & Convert (left) moderates the morning keynote panel “Are We Getting Better or Just Busier,” with Mario Sundar (LinkedIn), Chris Brogan (Human Business Works) and Mark Schaefer (Schaefer Marketing Solutions). I spent the early part of last week at the Social Media Marketing World conference in San Diego, one of my favorite cities. The marketing hype was no lie, it …
3 Things Surfing Taught Me About Content Marketing
For the last couple of years, I’ve been mesmerized with surfing. I love watching people who are great at it. Pictures and videos make it look incredibly easy. And you can’t beat the weather or the scenery. Since I live in Colorado, it’s not like I can walk out my back door and be at the beach. But I’ve been …