Robert is the founder and chief strategy officer of The Content Advisory, the education and consulting group for The Content Marketing Institute. Robert has worked with more than 500 companies, including 15 of the Fortune 100. He’s provided content marketing and strategy advice for global brands such as Capital One, NASA, Dell, McCormick Spices, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Robert’s third book – Killing Marketing, with co-author Joe Pulizzi has been called the “book that rewrites the rules of marketing.” His second book – Experiences: The Seventh Era of Marketing is a top seller and has been called a “treatise, and a call to arms for marketers to lead business innovation in the 21st century.” Robert’s first book, Managing Content Marketing, spent two weeks as a top 10 marketing book on Amazon.com and is generally considered to be the “owners manual” of the content marketing process. You can follow him on Twitter @Robert_Rose.
A trope in content and marketing circles says: “AI won’t replace you, but someone using AI will.”
It’s stupid. Pointless. And entirely based on fear.
Now, to be clear. Though I think the trope is stupid, it doesn’t mean AI won’t replace you. However, if it does, it’s not because of the reasoning in that trope. A truer version would be: “AI shouldn’t replace you, but some short-sighted, misguided person will think someone using AI can.”Continue Reading
Deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.
It’s marketing’s guiding principle. But, at global companies, an added challenge enters the mix – delivering it in the right language for the customer. Together, they create what may be the most pressing issue for their customer service content strategy.Continue Reading
I recently thought of this old joke.
Two hikers walk around a bend in the trail and come face to face with an angry bear. One hiker drops to his knee, fetches his running shoes from his backpack, and laces them up. The other hiker says, “There is no way you’ll outrun that bear.” The kneeling hiker stands up: “I don’t have to be faster than the bear. I only have to be faster than you.”
I’ve noticed a fascinating trend where marketing teams lace up their running shoes to out-innovate their peers within their companies. But in the long run, they don’t outrun the bear.Continue Reading
B2B marketing teams face an increasingly complex challenge. When asking for more money and resources for activities that generate demand, they often hear, “We don’t have the budget for that.”
Instead, teams get plenty of resources and budget to nurture leads, get them to salespeople, and develop content that speaks to solving X, Y, or Z challenges. But they don’t get resources to create content and programs to generate awareness and demand for what solving X, Y, or Z means.Continue Reading
We ordered Domino’s pizza last weekend.
I know, I know. But hang with me for a moment.
Do you know the scene in the movie Reality Bites where they order Domino’s pizza and Lelaina, played by Winona Ryder, asks, “Do they take checks?”
The last time I ordered Domino’s, that movie was a year old. That’s right. It’s been 28 years.Continue Reading
Did you read the open letter from The Future of Life Institute?
That call to pause AI experiments more powerful than GPT-4 emerged a couple of weeks ago, and more than 6,000 academics and business leaders have signed it.
This fascinating read offers a takeaway that has nothing to do with AI. The letter demonstrates how a well-meaning and even learned team of communicators can sabotage their message.Continue Reading
Visibility.
I often hear that word when I ask what’s wrong with an organization’s marketing and content operations.
Think about how ideas get transformed into marketing messages, integrated into content assets, and disseminated onto channels. That process usually starts with a small team – or even one person. Next, a leader somewhere in the company establishes a set of overall themes or campaigns to communicate value. Then, those priorities make their way to the edges of the organization, where they are transformed into content (with varying degrees of efficiency).
At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
One of my favorite motivational speeches happened, of all places, at the Oscars in 2014. The words shared by Matthew McConaughey in his three-minute acceptance speech for best actor can teach you so much.
He spoke of the three things he needs each day – something to look up to, something to look forward to, and someone to chase.Continue Reading
Comedian David Mitchell once offered this truth on the British game show Would I Lie To You?:
One of the codes I live my life by is that my appearance should be in no way noteworthy. But then again, not so unnoteworthy to be in itself noteworthy.
David explained with the example of a person wearing a gray tie that’s so colorless, so unnoteworthy, that the person who wears it becomes noteworthy because of it.
I thought of this code last week after someone sent me an Inc. article that pitted “content” (and people who focus on content regardless of process) against processes (and the people who follow them).
I’ll explain how that ties to Mitchell’s life code. But first, rant ahead.Continue Reading
I see a common challenge in B2B marketing – teams seeking more budget and resources for demand-generation programs.
“Now, wait a minute,” you might say. “It seems like demand gen for leads is the only thing we do.”
To be clear, I mean true demand generation, not mid-funnel, inbound lead gen, nurturing, or sales enablement. Those are “demand identification” tactics where marketing teams promote content to buyers already researching solutions. You try attracting prospects who realize change is needed but have not determined the best options.Continue Reading
