What about a goal?

I was gob-smacked the other day when a new client CEO asked us to focus the meeting on strategy. He then  proceeded to detail tactics for the next hour. I didn’t want embarrass him in front of his team, but it wasn’t just the strategy-tactics confusion; he hadn’t shared the big picture with them, but had with us. We knew the end game and the agreed strategies to get there, but they didn’t, so strategy wasn’t going to be blinding anyone that day.  Read more

Yet we see these mistakes every day. 

You can come up with the smartest headlines and subheads; you can craft terrific content and polish it with the skills of a master wordsmith; you can target the distribution of your content with exquisite specificity … you can do all of this but you’ll fail to reach your audience if you haven’t taken care of the 3 biggest turn-offs.  Read more

The Deluge is already here. 

You’ve read about the flood of mediocre content coming your way, created by people who used to do SEO and link building and more, and now claim to be content marketers.   Read more

The Yacks are Back. 

‘Could you put your yacks on the job?’ a client asked once. Thinking of hairy, horned, Himalayan bovines, I was puzzled, until it clicked that those ones have no ‘c’. He was talking about ‘the ones who yack’ – my telemarketers – and five years later we’re still using them - but very differently.  Read more

…and not be left by the roadside. 

You wouldn’t jump into the car and head North with no destination, map or GPS, so how is heading into the unknown of content creation and distribution any different?  Read more

Great content is like great cooking. 

We all know that content is all that matters and content marketing is the only way to market. Its a bit like MasterChef and My Kitchen Rules: they're novel ways to make cooking popular, but how different are the basics? You still have to create a great meal: you just have to do it in limited time in a highly competitive environment. Isn't that just like marketing? We'll show you how to create content quickly - and make it good enough to win over the toughest judges.  Read more

The new rules. 

Back in the 90’s there was a book called the ‘The New Rules’ which was all about dating. I thought it was a bit corny at the time but it was very popular; it became a cult and was even updated recently. Content marketing is a lot like dating – you’re using your content to engage others, so it pays to know the rules and, unlike the book, they’re not all written down.   Read more

Don't spray and pray. 

When I first started in marketing, some marketers used the 'spray & pray' technique, which meant chucking anything out there, hoping some might hit the right target and stick. It wasn’t a method I advocated then and don’t now: it’s a bit like trying to get a spray tan in a gale. The result won’t be effective – or pretty.  Read more

Sales people who talk too much can kill the sale, but techies who can't talk at all or who blurt out 'facts' at inconvenient times can too. Discover how I learned from bitter experience (I was the former) why selling is a skill that both sales and technical teams need - and why we developed Soft Skills for Techies.   Read more

A New Year, a New Set of Rules from Big Brother. 

Google has been carefully tweaking its search algorithms with updates such as Panda and Penguin to penalise sites that engage in keyword stuffing and fake link building. For Google, it’s all about improving the quality of search results so it will continue to devalue derivative and filler website copy in favour of original content of real value.  Read more