{grow}: Recent Episodes
None
What happened at the first-ever conference developed for Gen Z? It's Gen Z exposed! Mark Schaefer and Sara WIlson report on this up close and personal connection with the new taste-makers.
The post Gen Z Exposed appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* The hierarchy of AI-generated content: Where humans thrive * My journey with nerves * What is the “gist” of you? Staying relevant as a creator
Protecting your content from AI use and misuse is a major copyright issue, but a rational perspective suggests benefits for a businesses that allows AI bots to scrape content.
The post Protecting Your Content From AI: A Contrarian View appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* ChatGPT Starter Pack: 10 Amazing Prompts to Improve Your Business Now
- When do you and ChatGPT cross the Milli Vanilli Line?
- How to Design an AI Marketing Strategy
- The biggest tech threat to creators is not ChatGPT
- Why a Focus on Subscribers, Not Web Traffic, Transformed My Strategy
One of the highlights of my career was meeting Walter Isaacson. There’s no better person who would know what it takes to become a genius.
So … I asked him and his answer was surprisingly simple.
The post How to Become a Genius appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments By: How to Become a Genius – Find Your Next Calling by How to Become a Genius – Find Your Next Calling Related Stories The hierarchy of AI-generated content: Where humans thrive * When do you and ChatGPT cross the Milli Vanilli Line? * The surprising impact of word of mouth marketing in a digital age * 5 Lessons from teaching personal branding classes for five years * ChatGPT Starter Pack: 10 Amazing Prompts to Improve Your Business Now
Standing out in the world is hard, but lessons from many years of personal branding classes can help you cut through the noise.
The post 5 Lessons from teaching personal branding classes for five years appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* When do you and ChatGPT cross the Milli Vanilli Line?
- The hierarchy of AI-generated content: Where humans thrive
- A Unified Theory of Content Success: Can anybody create effective content?
Can anybody achieve content success? There are so many ideas and frameworks out there, but are they actionable?
The post A Unified Theory of Content Success: Can anybody create effective content? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen.
Comments […] ????: ???????-?????????, ????????????, ???? ??????, ???? ... by ?????? ?????? ?????? ????????: ????? ?? ???-?????? ??????? ??????????? ???????? - Nachedeu * […] ???: ????????? ?? ???????, ??????????, ?? ???????, ????? ... by ??????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????? ????????: ???? ??? ??????? ??????? ??? ???? ??? - News Archyuk * […] ??: ????????????? ???? ????????? ??????????? ??????????? ... by ????????????: ?????????????????????? - Nipponese * […] ??? ????, ???, ?·???, ??·??, ????, ?? ??? ????, ... by ????????????????????????? - Mandarinian Related Stories What is the “gist” of you? Staying relevant as a creator * The hierarchy of AI-generated content: Where humans thrive * Master the Art of Business Narrative: A Game-Changer for Marketers
Don't be overwhelmed by AI. This ChatGPT starter pack is a simple and fun way to start using AI today to optimize business operations.
The post ChatGPT Starter Pack: 10 Amazing Prompts to Improve Your Business Now appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* When do you and ChatGPT cross the Milli Vanilli Line?
- How to Design an AI Marketing Strategy
- Master the Art of Business Narrative: A Game-Changer for Marketers
- My journey with nerves
- The hierarchy of AI-generated content: Where humans thrive
The author ignored digital marketing basics for too long and is recommitted to a focus on subscribers as a key business metric.
The post Why a Focus on Subscribers, Not Web Traffic, Transformed My Strategy appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Master the Art of Business Narrative: A Game-Changer for Marketers
- This is the Most Amazing Marketing Book. And I can prove it.
- The biggest tech threat to creators is not ChatGPT
Soon, we will all face a decision to cross the Milli Vanilli Line and give up a measure of authenticity to Artificial Intelligence
The post When do you and ChatGPT cross the Milli Vanilli Line? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* How to Design an AI Marketing Strategy
- The biggest tech threat to creators is not ChatGPT
- Grading 12 marketing predictions about the future
AI-generated content is swarming the media landscape. When the dust settles, there will be a distinct place for human content!
The post The hierarchy of AI-generated content: Where humans thrive appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen.
Comments By: The hierarchy of AI-generated content: Where humans thrive – One Degree by The hierarchy of AI-generated content: Where humans thrive – One Degree Related Stories What is the “gist” of you? Staying relevant as a creator * My journey with nerves * Diving into the bizarre and secret world of luxury brand marketing
An AI marketing strategy is probably in the cards for most businesses. But where do you start? Mark Schaefer provides helpful tips for large and small businesses.
The post How to Design an AI Marketing Strategy appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* When do you and ChatGPT cross the Milli Vanilli Line?
- ChatGPT versus Bard: Which AI Chatbot is Better for Marketing?
- This is the Most Amazing Marketing Book. And I can prove it.
A collection of thoughts about AI and marketing, LinkedIn scams, and marketing innovations from Mark Schaefer
The post A radical idea about AI and marketing appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Master the Art of Business Narrative: A Game-Changer for Marketers
- My journey with nerves
- Should you still pursue a career in marketing?
Business narrative is different from storytelling and using these fundamental techniques
The post Master the Art of Business Narrative: A Game-Changer for Marketers appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* My journey with nerves * Diving into the bizarre and secret world of luxury brand marketing * Whatever happened to Web3?
The Marketing Companion podcast is ten years old with 2 million downloads. What are the lessons from this durable show?
The post How to Make Your Podcast Last 10 Years appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments By: How to Make Your Podcast Last 10 Years – Find Your Next Calling by How to Make Your Podcast Last 10 Years – Find Your Next Calling Related Stories Master the Art of Business Narrative: A Game-Changer for Marketers * What is the “gist” of you? Staying relevant as a creator * My journey with nerves
Threads is supposed to be the Twitter killer but Mark Schaefer argues that it's on a perilous path that won't work without a boost from the kids!
The post Why Threads won’t work without Gen Z appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments By: Why Threads won’t work without Gen Z – Find Your Next Calling by Why Threads won’t work without Gen Z – Find Your Next Calling * By: Why Threads won’t work without Gen Z – Seoim News by Why Threads won’t work without Gen Z – Seoim News * […] ??? ??·??, ??, ?? ??? ???????, Facebook, ????, ?????, ... by ????? Z ???Threads ????? - Mandarinian Related Stories What is the ROI of a blue check mark? * Whatever happened to Web3? * This is the Most Amazing Marketing Book. And I can prove it.
Starting a speaking career can mean overcoming a journey with nerves. Two experts weigh in on overcoming the fear of public speaking!
The post My journey with nerves appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* What is the “gist” of you? Staying relevant as a creator * Diving into the bizarre and secret world of luxury brand marketing * Whatever happened to Web3?
Too many business leaders fall in love with a vision. But there is a time to abandon a strategy and listen to where the world wants to take you.
The post When it’s time to abandon a strategy and listen to the world appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Diving into the bizarre and secret world of luxury brand marketing
- Reflecting on the most rewarding marketing experience of my life
- The Most Amazing Content Marketing Miracle
It seemed impossible to coordinate 36 authors across 15 time zones but the result was more than a book. It was a content marketing miracle.
The post The Most Amazing Content Marketing Miracle appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* What is the “gist” of you? Staying relevant as a creator * Whatever happened to Web3? * Diving into the bizarre and secret world of luxury brand marketing
Feeling threatened by AI? There is only one way for creators to beat ChatGPT.
The post How to beat ChatGPT and the new wave of Content Shock appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* A profound discussion on the AI threat to creativity
- Should you still pursue a career in marketing?
- What is the “gist” of you? Staying relevant as a creator
I was saddened by the passing of Cormac McCarthy, who holds a special place in my life for three reasons: He was my favorite author He grew up in my […]
The post Three marketing lessons from America’s greatest writer appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* This is the Most Amazing Marketing Book. And I can prove it.
- What is the “gist” of you? Staying relevant as a creator
- Should you still pursue a career in marketing?
AI is disrupting many white collar careers but possibly none so much as marketing. This begs the question -- is it still a viable career? Should you pursue a career in marketing?
The post Should you still pursue a career in marketing? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* ChatGPT versus Bard: Which AI Chatbot is Better for Marketing?
- What the “Whole Self” Movement Means to Marketers
- Five biggest mistakes I’ve made as an entrepreneur
Web3 had all the headlines two years ago. This leaves us to consider: Whatever happened to Web3 and is there still a future in this technology?
The post Whatever happened to Web3? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* 12 Ways Brands are Flexing to Meet Gen Z on Their Terms * What is the “gist” of you? Staying relevant as a creator * Diving into the bizarre and secret world of luxury brand marketing
A death in the family prompts a moment of introspection for the author Mark Schaefer
The post A death in the family appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* This is the Most Amazing Marketing Book. And I can prove it.
- What is the “gist” of you? Staying relevant as a creator
- Five pitfalls of personal branding: When becoming known doesn’t work
When 36 marketing experts come together to write a book, some amazing happens. In fact, this might be the most amazing marketing book ever!
The post This is the Most Amazing Marketing Book. And I can prove it. appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Reflecting on the most rewarding marketing experience of my life
- Why leaked secret documents point to the future of social listening
- What is the ROI of a blue check mark?
I'm terrible at networking and there probably isn't any hope for me.
The post My fatal flaw: I’m allergic to networking appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* The overlooked relationship between status and marketing * Why Gen Z is hiding out in digital campfires * The art of self promotion
I am obsessed with cataloging the times I almost died. Here are the stories.
The post Five times I almost died appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* The overlooked relationship between status and marketing
- Could this be the golden age of freelance (and other timely observations)
- The creator economy is in hyperdrive. Is it time to climb aboard?
- 10 Unmissable lessons from Ann Handley’s new “Everybody Writes” book
- Why Gen Z is hiding out in digital campfires
Do you remember when Twitter was joyful? A remembrance.
The post In remembrance of Twitter. Let’s never forget appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Could this be the golden age of freelance (and other timely observations)
- The overlooked relationship between status and marketing
- Why Twitter is stuck (and will remain that way)
- Interpreting the 10 rules of growth as an entrepreneur
- Why Gen Z is hiding out in digital campfires
BeReal is a red-hot new app. Fiona Lucas reviews it from a personal and professional perspective.
The post BeReal: A practical guide for marketers and adults appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* The overlooked relationship between status and marketing
- The long ugly road of measurement and influencers
- The business case for personal branding in one photograph
Companies are outsourcing their creative at a furious pace. Is this the Age of Freelance? Plus other short observations on the marketing world.
The post Could this be the golden age of freelance (and other timely observations) appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* The creator economy is in hyperdrive. Is it time to climb aboard?
- Debating the 10 most relevant marketing trends
- The overlooked relationship between status and marketing
- Why Gen Z is hiding out in digital campfires
- 10 Unmissable lessons from Ann Handley’s new “Everybody Writes” book
Status and marketing go together but in some misunderstood. ways, according to Keith Jennings and Mark Schaefer in this new podcast episode.
The post The overlooked relationship between status and marketing appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* Why Gen Z is hiding out in digital campfires * Why are the Four Ps of Marketing still a big idea in the digital world? * The creator economy is in hyperdrive. Is it time to climb aboard? * Debating the 10 most relevant marketing trends * The art of self promotion
Everybody Writes by Ann Handley inspires us to be better through actionable and unique content ideas.
The post 10 Unmissable lessons from Ann Handley’s new “Everybody Writes” book appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* How to measure the emotional tone of your content
- When do content creators call it quits?
- Could this be the golden age of freelance (and other timely observations)
- Five things you need to change on your website right now
- The sexiest part of content marketing isn’t your content
Twitter is stuck and there is only one way to save it.
The post Why Twitter is stuck (and will remain that way) appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* In remembrance of Twitter. Let’s never forget
- The long ugly road of measurement and influencers
- Could this be the golden age of freelance (and other timely observations)
- The overlooked relationship between status and marketing
- Interpreting the 10 rules of growth as an entrepreneur
Three NFT case studies provide an interesting view of the potential applications for marketing.
The post Three significant NFT case studies for marketing appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen.
Comments […] post Three significant NFT case studies for marketing ... by Three significant NFT case studies for marketing - blockchainwebbag Related Stories Why Gen Z is hiding out in digital campfires * The overlooked relationship between status and marketing * Debating the 10 most relevant marketing trends * The Transformation is Happening: Consumers as Brand Creator * The creator economy is in hyperdrive. Is it time to climb aboard?
Observations on marketing ranging from GenZ to Trevor Noah!
The post Seven small observations on marketing right now appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* 10 Ideas about the Future of Content Marketing
- The business case for personal branding in one photograph
- Case study: Building a business community from the ground up
Discerning relevant marketing trends is important. Mark Schaefer and Dennis Yu take on the challenge!
The post Debating the 10 most relevant marketing trends appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* Why are the Four Ps of Marketing still a big idea in the digital world? * The art of self promotion * Values and marketing: Which leads which?
The road to measurement and influencers has been rocky. It's time to do better.
The post The long ugly road of measurement and influencers appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Case study: Building a business community from the ground up
- 7 Reasons why this is the most challenging time to be in marketing
- The art of self promotion
Did you know there are many ways to deliver a keynote speech? Let's look at the most successful ideas!
The post The six possible ways to deliver your keynote speech appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments By: The six possible ways to deliver your keynote speech | Writing for Your Life by The six possible ways to deliver your keynote speech | Writing for Your Life Related Stories Five Incredibly Useful Lessons From 200 Virtual Keynote Speeches * The art of self promotion * The business case for personal branding in one photograph
The Four Ps of marketing have changed drastically since their inception. Grow Community Member Robbie Fitzwater takes a fresh look at what they are now.
The post Why are the Four Ps of Marketing still a big idea in the digital world? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* Debating the 10 most relevant marketing trends * Marketing strategy in a world of crappy customer service * Values and marketing: Which leads which?
This is an unprecedented time of marketing opportunity. But is a programmer in control of new consumer behaviors?
The post When does the program become the programmer? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Is there a renaissance ahead for organic social media?
- Values and marketing: Which leads which?
- I hated customer research until I found Voice of Customer
Frank Prendergast shares how to use AI to create on-brand illustrations in their content marketing plan.
The post No more stock imagery. How to use AI to create illustrations for your content appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* The business case for personal branding in one photograph
- Five strategies to win the content marketing arms race
- 7 Reasons why this is the most challenging time to be in marketing
- 10 Ideas about the Future of Content Marketing
- Why are the Four Ps of Marketing still a big idea in the digital world?
The art of self promotion is subtle, important and destructive if turned too high. A discussion about balance.
The post The art of self promotion appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* Marketing consultant? Here are the juicy insider tips! * Case study: Building a business community from the ground up * Values and marketing: Which leads which?
These common website mistakes can be corrected in an hour.
The post Five things you need to change on your website right now appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Is there a renaissance ahead for organic social media?
- Five strategies to win the content marketing arms race
- 7 Reasons why this is the most challenging time to be in marketing
The business case for personal branding comes into chilling view as AI takes over content creation jobs.
The post The business case for personal branding in one photograph appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* 7 Reasons why this is the most challenging time to be in marketing
- The Transformation is Happening: Consumers as Brand Creator
- Marketing consultant? Here are the juicy insider tips!
Values and marketing seem to go hand-in-hand but can also evolve together in unexpected ways!
The post Values and marketing: Which leads which? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* Marketing strategy in a world of crappy customer service * The Transformation is Happening: Consumers as Brand Creator * Marketing consultant? Here are the juicy insider tips!
A few weeks ago my friend Carol DeVito told me that right now, the supply chain is marketing. That might sound unusual if you’re busy working on your content marketing […]
The post Welcome to the supply chain, your marketing strategy appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Five signs that new pandemic consumer trends are sticking around
- The Transformation is Happening: Consumers as Brand Creator
- Is there a renaissance ahead for organic social media?
- Five strategies to win the content marketing arms race
- Marketing strategy in a world of crappy customer service
Organic social media seems like yesterday's strategy but now might be the time to re-consider it.
The post Is there a renaissance ahead for organic social media? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Five strategies to win the content marketing arms race
- Five signs that new pandemic consumer trends are sticking around
- 7 Reasons why this is the most challenging time to be in marketing
These marketing employment trends didn't make sense. Let the debate begin!
The post The future of marketing employment appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* Case study: Building a business community from the ground up * Marketing strategy in a world of crappy customer service * The Transformation is Happening: Consumers as Brand Creator
The content marketing arms race might be your most important strategic consideration. It's time to revisit Content Shock.
The post Five strategies to win the content marketing arms race appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* 10 Ideas about the Future of Content Marketing
- Five signs that new pandemic consumer trends are sticking around
- Marketing consultant? Here are the juicy insider tips!
Marci Cornett shares how a wordsmith like herself fell in love with Voice of Customer research - and why you should too.
The post I hated customer research until I found Voice of Customer appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Five signs that new pandemic consumer trends are sticking around
- Five trends pointing your business to the metaverse
- Considering conversation as a marketing strategy
- The real reason people are quitting their jobs and what it means to marketing
- 7 Reasons why this is the most challenging time to be in marketing
The creepiness of personal branding might be holding you back but this is an essential business activity!
The post Dealing with the creepiness of personal branding appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Five Incredibly Useful Lessons From 200 Virtual Keynote Speeches
- Five signs that new pandemic consumer trends are sticking around
- The sexiest part of content marketing isn’t your content
Brand reputations are vulnerable in a world where customers are suffering through crappy customer service. The marketing implications are vast.
The post Marketing strategy in a world of crappy customer service appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* Marketing consultant? Here are the juicy insider tips! * The Transformation is Happening: Consumers as Brand Creator * Case study: Building a business community from the ground up * Hashing out a new marketing framework * Considering conversation as a marketing strategy
Virtual keynote speeches are not as easy as they look. These ideas will help!
The post Five Incredibly Useful Lessons From 200 Virtual Keynote Speeches appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Marketing strategy in a world of crappy customer service
- Five trends pointing your business to the metaverse
- Five signs that new pandemic consumer trends are sticking around
These five pandemic consumer trends show how marketing has changed forever
The post Five signs that new pandemic consumer trends are sticking around appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Five trends pointing your business to the metaverse
- Marketing consultant? Here are the juicy insider tips!
- Hashing out a new marketing framework
- Is this the biggest marketing megatrend of the decade?
- The Transformation is Happening: Consumers as Brand Creator
Learn how Web3 is changing consumers from buyers into a brand creator and co-owner.
The post The Transformation is Happening: Consumers as Brand Creator appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* How to connect to customers in the metaverse and beyond * Marketing consultant? Here are the juicy insider tips! * Case study: Building a business community from the ground up
Here is a fun and simple way to detect the emotional tone of your content.
The post How to measure the emotional tone of your content appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* When do content creators call it quits?
- Five life lessons from 40 years in the marketing world
- Are you getting buried by the stylized persona?
Five big ideas to make your headline drive content consumption and social sharing!
The post The sexiest part of content marketing isn’t your content appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* 10 Ideas about the Future of Content Marketing
- Should I become a content entrepreneur with a blog or a newsletter?
- I just built a content showroom
I’ve been writing and thinking a lot about what goes into building a business community — which I believe is a big part of the future of business. And when […]
The post Case study: Building a business community from the ground up appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* Marketing consultant? Here are the juicy insider tips! * Hashing out a new marketing framework * Is this the biggest marketing megatrend of the decade?
Speed, culture, and measurement are some of the reasons this is the most challenging time to be in marketing.
The post 7 Reasons why this is the most challenging time to be in marketing appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* 10 Ideas about the Future of Content Marketing
- Marketing consultant? Here are the juicy insider tips!
- Is this the biggest marketing megatrend of the decade?
The trend of ghosting will test your patience in a hiring process. What can be done about it?
The post Trying to fill a marketing job? Watch out for ghosting appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Marketing consultant? Here are the juicy insider tips!
- What is the best social media channel for my business?
- An important insight on leadership from Dana Malstaff
Mark and Amanda Russell explain the secrets of being a successful marketing consultant!
The post Marketing consultant? Here are the juicy insider tips! appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* Hashing out a new marketing framework * Is this the biggest marketing megatrend of the decade? * Five life lessons from 40 years in the marketing world
It's a struggle to determine the best social media channel. But maybe that's not the issue.
The post What is the best social media channel for my business? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* 10 Ideas about the Future of Content Marketing
- Is this the biggest marketing megatrend of the decade?
- New data-based strategies to win on TikTok
Entrepreneurial visionary Dana Malstaff delivers a leadership truth bomb.
The post An important insight on leadership from Dana Malstaff appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Is this the biggest marketing megatrend of the decade?
- Five life lessons from 40 years in the marketing world
- Addressing the discomfort of digital ageism
I was accused of digital ageism. But historic mentoring roles are being flipped.
The post Addressing the discomfort of digital ageism appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Five life lessons from 40 years in the marketing world
- Is this the biggest marketing megatrend of the decade?
- How to be relentlessly relevant
Keith Jennings and Mark Schaefer reveal a useful new marketing framework based on an economic theory.
The post Hashing out a new marketing framework appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* How to connect to customers in the metaverse and beyond * Considering conversation as a marketing strategy * The truth about marketing, persuasion, and sales
Web3, metaverse, content shock and the future of content marketing.
The post 10 Ideas about the Future of Content Marketing appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments […] 10 Ideas about the Future of Content Marketing […] by Top 10 Digital Marketing Articles of this Week: 27th May, 2022! - PageTraffic Buzz - SEO, Search Marketing, News, Events, Guide * By: 10 Ideas about the Future of Content Marketing | Writing for Your Life by 10 Ideas about the Future of Content Marketing | Writing for Your Life Related Stories Should I become a content entrepreneur with a blog or a newsletter? * Enter the bizarro world of the next generation consumer * How to connect to customers in the metaverse and beyond
A new marketing megatrend is showing up all around you. Can you see it?
The post Is this the biggest marketing megatrend of the decade? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments […] past week, Mark Schaefer published a post about a ... by 3 Things I Learned About Mental Health from My Social Media Community - Social Media Blog * […] past week, Mark Schaefer published a post about a ... by 3 Things I Learned About Mental Health from My Social Media Community Related Stories Enter the bizarro world of the next generation consumer * 10 Ideas about the Future of Content Marketing * Considering conversation as a marketing strategy
Social media genius Dennis Yu provides inside secrets on how to win at TikTok
The post New data-based strategies to win on TikTok appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* Considering conversation as a marketing strategy * Marketing ideas for the boring brand * How to connect to customers in the metaverse and beyond * The thunderous collision of civil activism and marketing * The truth about marketing, persuasion, and sales
The metaverse is coming fast. How should marketers respond?
The post Five trends pointing your business to the metaverse appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* How to connect to customers in the metaverse and beyond
- Enter the bizarro world of the next generation consumer
- Is your marketing getting a little better each year? That’s not enough.
This post contains Mark Schaefer's TED talk "How to be Relentlessly Relevant"
The post How to be relentlessly relevant appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Is your marketing getting a little better each year? That’s not enough.
- Five life lessons from 40 years in the marketing world
- My COVID experience. An update
- Seven daily habits to make you a more consistent content creator
- Five trends pointing your business to the metaverse
I'm crossing several milestones. Here are profound life lessons I've learned along the way.
The post Five life lessons from 40 years in the marketing world appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments By: Five life lessons from 40 years in the marketing world | Writing for Your Life by Five life lessons from 40 years in the marketing world | Writing for Your Life Related Stories Enter the bizarro world of the next generation consumer * Should I become a content entrepreneur with a blog or a newsletter? * The true power of Web3 and margays
The customer conversation may hold the future to marketing success.
The post Considering conversation as a marketing strategy appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* How to connect to customers in the metaverse and beyond * Marketing ideas for the boring brand * The truth about marketing, persuasion, and sales * The thunderous collision of civil activism and marketing * Highlights from the world’s best marketing event
Web3 user experience is off the tracks. Where's the steering wheel?
The post Web3 User experience is missing the steering wheel appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Should I become a content entrepreneur with a blog or a newsletter?
- How to connect to customers in the metaverse and beyond
- The true power of Web3 and margays
- Peering into the future at SXSW
- Marketing legend Sandy Carter riffs on Web3
Becoming a content entrepreneur is exciting but it doesn't start with a newsletter.
The post Should I become a content entrepreneur with a blog or a newsletter? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Enter the bizarro world of the next generation consumer
- How social media commitments can eat you alive
- Seven daily habits to make you a more consistent content creator
- Highlights from the world’s best marketing event
- I just built a content showroom
Mathew Sweezey predicts how we will connect to customers in the coming metaverse age.
The post How to connect to customers in the metaverse and beyond appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* Five trends pointing your business to the metaverse * Considering conversation as a marketing strategy * Should I become a content entrepreneur with a blog or a newsletter?
The Uprising may be the world's best marketing event. Decide for yourself.
The post Highlights from the world’s best marketing event appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments By: Highlights from the world’s best marketing event | Writing for Your Life by Highlights from the world’s best marketing event | Writing for Your Life * […] recorded this right before my recent Uprising marketing ... by How to connect to customers in the metaverse and beyond - Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow} Related Stories Enter the bizarro world of the next generation consumer * Five trends pointing your business to the metaverse * Should I become a content entrepreneur with a blog or a newsletter? * How to connect to customers in the metaverse and beyond * Five life lessons from 40 years in the marketing world
I have been a prolific content creator. But I have been more than steady. I have been effective.
I’ve created thousands of blog posts and podcast episodes but the problem is, after a few weeks they become buried. My very best content is difficult to find on my site unless you know exactly what you’re looking for.
I realized that my website is a massive warehouse simply over-stuffed with information. And all this great work is not getting into the hands of the people who need it most. What I needed was a sleek content showroom that could actually display content — even older content — in the most helpful way.
So, I built one.
The new home page for my blog is sort of like walking into a furniture store. You don’t need to see the whole warehouse. You just want to browse some rooms that are interesting and relevant to you right now.
The site is now live and I invite you to explore the new {grow} blog content showroom!
It’s like a Netflix experience.
- You can find the most current titles at the top.
- Then you can find some of the most popular blog posts that have trended over the past few years.
- Next, you can see the most popular categories on the blog like social media strategy, content marketing, and personal branding.
- Finally, you can sort through the latest episodes of The Marketing Companion podcast.
The category selections will be changing every week to expose some of my best work from past years.
What do you think?
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Discover his $RISE create community.
The post I just built a content showroom appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* How social media commitments can eat you alive
- How does content work in the world today?
- Marketing ideas for the boring brand
- Are you getting buried by the stylized persona?
- When do content creators call it quits?
I collected a few worthy observations too short for a blog post but deserving of your attention, so here they are.
The true power of Web3 Web3 is so so confusing. And nobody can really explain it well.
But here’s how I look at it, and I think this will make it simple for all of you getting Web3-dizzy like I am.
- Web1 was about establishing a voice. Anybody could create content and distribute it easily on the internet.
- Web2 was about the audience. Creators gained trusting and loyal fans and brands were eager to tap into this with sponsor and ad dollars.
- Web3 is gathering steam around a decentralized model where we will own our personal information, our experiences, and perhaps our own mini-economies. I have established a tokenized community called $RISE, for example.
This is where it gets complicated. Web3 has its own language (DAOs, NFTs, and eth!) and rules of the road.
But here is the essential truth: The true power of Web3 is about belonging. There is a furious race to build a new infrastructure to help people belong to your brand, NFT collective, or tokenized economy. And if they belong to your brand community, you don’t need SEO, ads, or lead nurturing campaigns anymore. You will have a customer collective.
That’s why this is the true power of Web3. Don’t be afraid of it. The future of marketing is emerging here.
Don’t be a popstar I recently heard an interview with comedian Ricky Gervais. In his early career, he tried to make it in his own rock band. He cut a few tracks, toured, and crashed. The journey lasted about a year.
“My mistake,” he said, “was trying to become a pop star. I should have tried to become a musician.”
I think this is a poignant lesson. I remember in my early days on social media, I was trying to become a “pop star,” which meant copying the other social media pop stars. It didn’t work.
My success only came when I decided to be a “musician,” meaning that I turned my attention to honing my craft of blogging and earning an audience, patiently, in my own way. A great lesson for anyone developing their personal brand.
Real books The other day I was in a bookstore. A real bookstore.
It was sad and overwhelming because I don’t have much time to read books for pleasure and I miss that. I blog, create speeches, host a podcast, and write books. So, I am constantly reading for business but not so much for fun.
A long time ago I wrote a post called “Creating content makes you dumb” because there is such a trade-off between creating content and consuming it. Somehow, I need to get back in the reading groove!
Selling and the personal brand A friend of mine started an email newsletter. I was looking forward to this since she is smart and has an exceptional perspective.
But half-way through the newsletter she hit me with a hard sales pitch. That lost me. I had to fight through the long pitch to get to the next bit of helpful content.
You and I are in a War For Attention. Every time you or your business hits me with an unwanted sales pitch, you lose a battle, and maybe the war if I unsubscribe.
It occurs to me that you can either build an effective personal brand or you can sell … you probably can’t do both. And the magic is, if you have a powerful personal brand, you don’t have to sell.
Random thought on a different kind of war I loved the ideas in Thomas Friedman’s seminal book from 2005, The World is Flat. A key idea from the book is that the world economy is so entangled and interdependent that we could never have another world war. Economic co-dependence assures a new world order, he wrote.
Looking at the situation in Ukraine (as I am writing this), a world war is certainly hanging in the balance, and this made me reconsider Friedman’s thesis. Was he wrong?
Ironically, I think a co-dependent economic structure helped set the stage for war. Perhaps Putin thought that the world depended so much on Russian oil, wheat, and basic metals that he could do as he pleased without interference?
An unexpected consequence of this horrific invasion is the impact on the world order. Since the early 1990s, the percentage of national budgets being spent on defense has gone down in almost every country in the world. The billions that had been spent on defense have been channeled into education, healthcare, and other civic benefits. The world seemed to be moving beyond the barbaric idea of invading other countries to gain power.
Due to the Russian invasion, we already see countries like Poland and Germany escalating their defense budgets. A sad implication of the war in Ukraine is a step away from funding education and human welfare in many countries.
And on a happier note … I don’t want to end this post on a downer. So let’s end it with a kitten.
I was bored and wanted to know what is considered the cutest animal in the world and the margay tops many lists. I did not know what a margay was. So here you go:
No need to thank me.
Those big eyes! Those stripes! And look at those PAWS!
The margay is a protected wild cat that lives in tropical forests in Central and South America.
Margays are the wizards of the treetops and are beautifully adapted to forest habitats. Their broad, soft feet and mobile toes allow them to hang from tree limbs by one hind foot, and flexible ankles can rotate the foot 180 degrees outward. In some areas, Margays hunt, sleep and even have their young in trees.
So there you go. Have yourself a margay day!
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Discover his $RISE creator community.
Image courtesy Unsplash.com
The post The true power of Web3 and margays appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* How to connect to customers in the metaverse and beyond
- Highlights from the world’s best marketing event
- Enter the bizarro world of the next generation consumer
- Five reasons why your marketing department needs personal branding
- Peering into the future at SXSW
On the new episode of The Marketing Companion, Jay Acunzo and I debate marketing strategies for the boring brand.
Is there a place for social media strategy, content marketing, and storytelling for a boring brand? What if you’re selling a commodity product?
Jay and I don’t always agree, which is what makes this discussion so revealing and fun!
You won’t want to miss this episode. Just click here:
Click on this link to listen to hear Episode 242 Other ways to enjoy our podcast
- Try this! “Alexa, play the latest episode of The Marketing Companion.”
- Click here to download the latest episode or subscribe on iTunes
- Listen to us on iHeart Radio
- Find us on Google Play
- Find the podcast on Stitcher
- Complete Marketing Companion Episode Guide
Please support our extraordinary sponsor. Our content is free because of their generosity.
Sendinblue, an all-in-one digital marketing platform, empowers small businesses through end-to-end digital marketing campaigns. Sendinblue allows you to create captivating and personalized email campaigns, custom landing pages, signup forms, automated workflows, transactional messaging, CRM, and more. Marketing Companion fans can click here to learn more about Sendinblue and sign up for a free trial!
Join the Party! 100 million emails sent every day, 300,000 users in 160 countries, 10 years of expertise, and $0 to get started on our free account! Use the MARKETINGCOMPANION promo code to get 50 percent off your first three months on our premium account!
Illustration courtesy of Unsplash.com
The post Marketing ideas for the boring brand appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* The truth about marketing, persuasion, and sales * The thunderous collision of civil activism and marketing * Influence marketing state of the nation. Is it healthy to be an influencer? * The unexposed relationship between content, creativity and money * How to create a million new social media jobs
Take a look at this demographic profile. This group of consumers:
- Prefers a physical retail experience over online shopping.
- Loves physical goods over experiences.
- Likes paying with cash.
- Is by far the least loyal to brands.
- Are less physically active than other generations.
What would you guess? Baby Boomers?
No, it’s Gen Z, and this demographic insight is coming from an interesting new report from GWI, an excellent source of market research.
Gen Z, our next generation consumer, will soon rule the world … and perhaps they already do. At 32 percent of the world population, they will represent the majority of the workforce by 2030. They are the first digitally-immersed generation and already have an outsized voice in taste, culture, and civil activism. They know they can change the world and they’re on the march.
Let’s take a deeper look at this report and some of these non-obvious trends.
Loving the mall Let’s start with the seemingly obvious: Gen Zs spend almost all of their time online, so surely they’d be most eager to shop online as well? Not true.
The next generation consumer may be digitally immersed – in fact, they spend more time on social media than any other generation, and they’re the first truly digitally native age group. But when it comes to their shopping experiences, they’re more likely to prefer physical settings.
One of the reasons is that they love to gather in places with friends to document their shopping experiences to take selfies.
Preference for products The fact millennials prefer purchasing experiences over products has become a well-known cliche, and for good reason, as the data show. The generation has given life to the experience economy, which is expected to reach $12 billion by 2023. But while millennials strive for memories over memorabilia, Gen Zs haven’t followed suit.
Gen Z, especially those younger than 20 years old (many of whom are still in school), are more likely than any other age group to say they would opt for products over experiences. They need physical products to display in their selfies, as an example.
Cash, please Gen Z is an impulse-buying generation and they don’t like credit.
Baby boomers are the least likely to want to pay with cash of all generations, a behavior that applies to all global regions. In fact, as age increases, a preference to pay with cash actually decreases.
Given Gen Z are well-acquainted with online shopping and mobile payment services, their interpretation of “cash” might not be physical per se, but funds that they can immediately access. In other words, these youngest consumers simply aren’t spending on traditional lines of credit.
Less loyal to brands Gen Zs may be more inclined than older consumers to shop in-store, but they’re also being introduced to a larger list of brands online. They’re the most likely generation to discover new brands on digital channels, from social media to ads on websites and apps, and they’ve become much less loyal to brands as a result. A CMO at a large retail brand told me he has research that shows essentially Gen Z has zero brand loyalty. They seem to be immune to discounts and reward programs.
Put simply, brands will have to turn their playbook upside down to hold onto Gen Zs as customers. A new type of marketing will have to emerge. I think the focus will be on real connection and “belonging” instead of “loyalty.”
Fasten your seatbelts I think these unexpected trends for the next generation consumer are just the beginning.
As I have written, we are entering an era of unintended consequences. It will take a decade or more to discern new behavior patterns forged from the pandemic.
One example is a decline in physical sports. Since live sports leagues were canceled during lockdowns, all this youthful energy was poured into online gaming. There has been a huge decline in active outdoor sports for Gen Z. Watch for a surge in eSports, professional streamers, and massive online tournaments driven by a generation of locked-down kids.
The most important lesson here is to not assume Gen Z will follow the same path as millennials. This is a complex generation forged from ubiquitous free technology, a dangerous and polarized world, and the consequences of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. They will seek refuge in safe online communities and organizations that embrace them on their own terms.
A friend of mine who is the CMO of a major retail company said, “Gen Z does not want to be categorized or labeled. I think we have to stop trying to understand Gen Z and simply accept them.”
Interesting times ahead, my friends.
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Discover his $RISE create community.
Image courtesy Unsplash.com
The post Enter the bizarro world of the next generation consumer appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Highlights from the world’s best marketing event
- How to connect to customers in the metaverse and beyond
- Five reasons why your marketing department needs personal branding
- Seven daily habits to make you a more consistent content creator
- How does branding work today? The answer might surprise you.
This month marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of KNOWN, a seminal book on the topic of personal branding.
When I consider my long career, I regard this book as my greatest contribution to the business world (so far!). Not many weeks go by that somebody doesn’t tell me how this book changed their life or that KNOWN is their favorite business book ever. KNOWN unravels the complexity of building your personal brand, and it works.
Despite the obvious business case to establish the presence, reputation, and authority to get your job done in this world, many people bristle at the idea of “personal branding” as a regular business activity. Today I’ll make a case why this is not only important as a personal activity, it is essential for nearly any corporate marketing department.
Here are five reasons why an emphasis on personal branding should be a pillar of your marketing efforts.
- “A brand is simply trust” This statement is a famous quote from Steve Jobs, and it is a simple and profound truth.
We live in a world that is starved for trust. Research from places like the Edelman Trust Barometer shows that trust in businesses, government, and the news media has fallen every year for more than a decade.
Who do people trust? People.
Founders.
Technical experts.
Business leaders.
Their friends and neighbors who work for your company.
How can you build trust in your company when nobody sees or believes your ads? The answer is simple. Elevate the awesome people in your company.
- Battling the bots I recently attended the powerful and inspiring SXSW conference in Austin. This is where the future happens and one of the most sobering talks was from AmyWebb, CEO of Future Today Institute, and her extraordinary report projecting the future.
One of the most chilling forecasts is an 80 percent probability of catastrophic impacts from AI-generated fake news and deep fakes.
Think about how misinformation spreads rapidly today. Consider that evil forces can create perfect videos of you and your company leaders saying anything they want you to say. How do you operate in a world where nobody knows what to believe? How can a company stand for truth when AI bots can spin out infinite amounts of harmful content?
There is only one strategy. Establish a trusted presence so people know where to go for the truth. In a world where truth is the exception, your company needs to establish a platform of trusted voices now, not after the problems occur.
- The beginning of community Boss Mom founder Dana Malstaff leading a discussion group at The Uprising
Community is the ultimate marketing achievement. If you have a true community of fans who will love you and defend you, you would no longer need SEO, Facebook ads, or trade shows.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic and I see a pattern that true community almost always begins with a personality — somebody who builds an audience because they are known.
- Boss Mom is a Facebook community with more than 70,000 members. But they are there because they believe in founder Dana Malstaff and her genuine and compassionate leadership.
- Glossier is the fastest-growing skincare/cosmetic brand in the world but it launched from a loyal blog community founded by Emily Weiss.
- The Spanx brand has loyal fans in part due to the inspiring hard work of founder Sara Blakely.
Community gathers around a leader.
- Personal branding in a post-SEO era Most companies become entrenched in marketing routines. If you’re doing the same marketing you did three years ago, it’s time to take a fresh look at the world.
Number one on my list of outdated activities is SEO. Don’t get me wrong. SEO can be critically important for many businesses, but I also see many small businesses plowing money into SEO because they have been sold some marketing package deal.
The fact is, the ability to benefit from SEO depends on a special set of circumstances, and increasingly SEO isn’t going to create a return. The other option is to create content that establishes authority through thought leadership. In this way, you can earn attention and an audience without depending on search engines and ads.
- The personal brand IS the brand On average, Merceded Benz spends $945 on advertising for every car they sell. Tesla spends no money on advertising. The difference is Elon Musk.
Elon Musk is not a perfect person. But he’s authentic. He’s a real human being that people can connect with and trust as the greatest entrepreneur of our generation.
Millions of people aspire to buy a Tesla some day because they love and admire Elon Musk. Who do you love at Mercedes Benz? At Verizon? At Procter & Gamble?
Great branding means building an emotional connection between what you do and your customers. For years, that emotion was created through advertising. That’s why we when we hear “Coca Cola” we think of polar bears instead of brown sugar water.
The new consumers don’t see ads in a streaming content economy. But they do establish parasocial emotional connections with their favorite leaders.
Personal branding. What’s next? It’s exciting for me to see so many companies waking up to the fact that effective executive personal brands can carry a company further than any other marketing activity.
Right now, I’m working with one of the biggest companies in the world to create a foundational personal branding plan for their executives. Their marketing activities are being rewired and reorganized to support executives on a path to becoming “known” in their industry and beyond. The personal brand IS their marketing of the future.
What do you believe? An ad? Claims at a tradeshow booth? A direct mail piece?
Or do you believe authentic, passionate humans sharing their unique insights in way that helps and serves their customers?
That’s what I thought.
To learn more about personal branding and how your company can move in this direction, here are three resources to consider:
- KNOWN is a beloved book that provides a foundational blueprint. Thousands of people have had success through this book.
- I teach a personal branding Master Class several times each year. This includes six classes over three weeks, a strategy guide, and two one-on-one coaching sessions with me. Click here to learn more.
- Finally, I am actively helping companies devise a personal branding strategy for their executive teams. Some of my clients have been so successful they have appeared in Harvard Business Review and have been invited to speak at elite industry events. Contact me if you would like to learn more.
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Discover his $RISE create community.
The post Five reasons why your marketing department needs personal branding appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Enter the bizarro world of the next generation consumer
- Five things I would do differently if I were starting over
- Highlights from the world’s best marketing event
- The true power of Web3 and margays
- Are you getting buried by the stylized persona?
Amanda Russell is at the epicenter of the swirling world of influence marketing. She is teaching the first college course on this subject as well as writing a seminal book on the topic. She is also an influencer herself. With the rapid growth of this channel, it’s a good time to check and see where the world is going.
While influencers have traditionally been used to promote the latest fashion or cosmetics products, they’re increasingly being used by brands, governments, and other large institutions to share important information and gain trust. A good example of this is Olivia Rodrigo, singer and Gen Z icon, who was invited to the White House last July to encourage her millions of followers to get vaccinated.
For brands looking to reach Gen Z, it’s absolutely essential to carefully consider the content they post and the type of influencer relationships they have. For a generation that’s still reeling from the fallout of the pandemic, brands should do what they can to create a healthier online space.
On this episode of the Marketing Companion, we review news and developments in the field, including a fascinating discussion about “Is it healthy to be an influencer?”
Amanda also makes an announcement about an innovative new study center she is leading!
You won’t want to miss this deep dive!
Click on this link to listen to hear Episode 241 Other ways to enjoy our podcast
- Try this! “Alexa, play the latest episode of The Marketing Companion.”
- Click here to download the latest episode or subscribe on iTunes
- Listen to us on iHeart Radio
- Find us on Google Play
- Find the podcast on Stitcher
- Complete Marketing Companion Episode Guide
Please support our extraordinary sponsor. Our content is free because of their generosity.
Sendinblue, an all-in-one digital marketing platform, empowers small businesses through end-to-end digital marketing campaigns. Sendinblue allows you to create captivating and personalized email campaigns, custom landing pages, signup forms, automated workflows, transactional messaging, CRM, and more. Marketing Companion fans can click here to learn more about Sendinblue and sign up for a free trial!
Join the Party! 100 million emails sent every day, 300,000 users in 160 countries, 10 years of expertise, and $0 to get started on our free account! Use the MARKETINGCOMPANION promo code to get 50 percent off your first three months on our premium account!
Illustration courtesy of Unsplash.com
The post Influence marketing state of the nation. Is it healthy to be an influencer? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen. Related Stories* The thunderous collision of civil activism and marketing * The truth about marketing, persuasion, and sales * Marketing legend Sandy Carter riffs on Web3
Today’s post is much different from my normal offering. I’m writing this from SXSW, an annual conference that is the epicenter of new ideas.
I thought it was more important to quickly share some rough notes rather than try to spend extra time on editing. SXSW is so massive it’s impossible to take in even a fraction of the content but here we go with some of the highlights of my annual visit:
Relentlessly Relevant There were no good pictures of me at this event. This one contains a mound of hair in the foreground. But is really nice hair.
I gave one of the opening keynote talks of the event. My fourth time speaking at this event. Not the best slot since people were still arriving, but I was grateful for the opportunity and I had a full house. I debuted a new speech called “How to be Relentlessly Relevant in a Chaotic World.” The main ideas:
- Due to the world changing in such rapid and unexpected ways, we need new strategies to remain relevant. After all, isn’t every brand journey simply about relentless relevance?
- Instead of re-invention, which can take a lot of time, I talked about a strategy to re-apply existing strengths to waves of emerging opportunities.
- I covered three ways to find emerging seams and 10 relevant new waves crashing through the world right now.
If you’d like me to give this speech to your company or event, you can learn more and connect with me here.
Founder lessons Entertaining talk from Patreon founder Jack Conte, who founded Patreon in his college dorm room. His talk centered on exploding entrepreneurial myths.
- Fascinating ideas about how through Web3, more and more artists have the ability to be brands and companies. So many new opportunities to monetize. Encouraged us to think more like businesses than artists.
- Almost every “rule” of starting a business is wrong. These are perpetuated by people selling rules.
- Number one life skill: Humility. Be ready to give up something you love if customers don’t want it.
Weird and wonderful branding This lived up to its session title. So weird. So wonderful.
Company called WeTransfer transfers large files. Decided to partner with MeowWolf to showcase their creators while files transferred and they”ve become a bit of a creative agency. To set the tone for this session, check out this video created for a travel service.
If you can’t see the video, watch on YouTube.
Key cultural tone of creativity right now: Unexpected, subversive, polarizing.
Disrupt the feed and open conversations. Appeal to curiosity. Content is weird and getting weirder during the pandemic. The opposite of creativity today is represented by emails celebrating International Women’s Day or Pride Week (agree!).
The best creativity is “accessible unknown.” If it’s too accessible it’s boring. If it’s too unknown it’s confusing.
Radical creativity starts with something familiar and takes it in a place that is non-linear. What if it was a different time, place, person?
How do you measure creative success? >> What do people remember? What is still relevant three weeks from now? Not sure I agree with that if it doesn’t sell what you’re supposed to sell. At that point, it’s not marketing, it’s art. Both are OK but let’s not confuse the two : )
Building a next-generation brand Doodles is a joyful collection of 10,000 NFTs co-founded by digital artist Burnt Toast and Web3 pioneers Evan Keast and Jordan Castro.
They have turned Doodles’ pastel and simple characters into an NFT community sensation.
Created more than $300 million in revenue. Most of this revenue comes from re-sales of the NFT art.
Created a “Doodle Bank” fund for the NFT owners — $3 million for community projects. Community votes on how to use it. Creative projects, travel to events, Ukraine relief. If a proposal has 1,500 votes the project is considered. The community voted to spend money on an activation at SXSW, a first.
Some Doodle community members collaborated to create a Doodle coffee brand. Some created an animated Doodles space launch which involved original art, music, animation.
“NFT culture is toxic and weird. We are trying to create a bridge from traditional entertainment to Web3. It gives people an opportunity to own a piece of the story.” – Evan Keast
NFTs are going mainstream but just early days. Collections are like an album drop. The art can move into movies, TV, merchandise, games. They want the community to have a stake in that.
Challenge: Balance demand without diluting the scarcity of the art. Owners can commercialize the art they own by licensing. Also, how do they keep media companies from buying up Doodles and commercializing in a mainstream channel?
Just an FYI, this Doodle is selling for about $25,000:
Three years from now this statement will either make me look like a genius or a fool: “A lot of this reminds me of Beanie Babies.”
Gen Z, Metaverse and the Future of Work Session with Esther O’Callaghan (founder of Hundo), Jay Richards (founder Imagen Insights).
Hundo is building a metaverse university and career center. Hundo is slang for 100%.
Creating new bridges for disadvantaged children and tech careers. Many entry-level jobs are disappearing due to AI and automation.
“Away from the noise like the rabbits and bored apes, if you look at the capabilities and values of Web3 and the metaverse, there are some very interesting ways to help young people learn in new ways and transform their futures. Let people own their data and leverage their data, for a start. It’s our generation’s responsibility to help pave the way with this technology and then get out of the way.” – O’Callaghan
Imagen is a career coaching site for Gen Z and provides market insights to major brands. They pay Gen Z for opinions and market insights.
Will your job be based in the Metaverse — 20 percent said yes.
Gen Z sees the Metaverse as a corporate entity right now (Meta) and are nervous and skeptical. But 53 percent are willing to buy goods off the metaverse.
Gen Z is very nervous about AI taking their jobs. Do not want machines replacing people.
Gen Z is an activist generation. They will cancel you in a heartbeat if you are counter to their values.
Does the metaverse break down barriers or erect new ones between generations, between technical knowledge, between people who can afford the VR technology? A new layer of privilege?
Gen Z can find safe communities for every niche interest. They have safe spaces for any interest that might be seen as nerdy by society. “You can go down deep dark holes of nerdiness.”
Future of space exploration There was a major space theme this year and I’m a NASA geek so could not miss attending at least one session! It was a great one featuring Ariel Exblaw, director of the MIT Space Exploration Initiative.
We are on the cusp of commercializing space in a massive way. Just as flight started with government and military applications and moved to commercial flights, that’s where we are with space. Space manufacturing labs, moon habitats, vacation trips are in the works.
A huge space-related eco-system is emerging to support this future.
MIT is sending a research mission to the moon to find water, possible habitat.
They are creating thumb-size “swarm robots” that will detect environmental issues in space and make repairs. Concurrently cool and terrifying.
Precedents will soon be set about property rights on the moon.
Some keys to successful space living:
- Community modules that make money instead of suck up money
- Robotic assembly and maintenance which take hazards away from humans. She had a video of self-assembling space buildings. Fascinating.
- Answers to long-term psychological stress
Humans will return to the moon in the 20s. Manned mission to Mars in the 30s or sooner. Several new missions are planned to find life on Mars and Europa.
MIT is building a Starfleet Academy (!) called Aurelia Institute to build starships of the future. This was announced for the first time at SXSW. I was their fourth follower on Twitter!
“Anthropocosomos” — Terrible name. Cool idea — Dawn of humanity in space. How do we become responsible stewards of space? We are already littering space with a cloud of dangerous debris. “A serious problem.” We need to start cleaning space! Profound legal and ethical issues.
As I listened to this talk I could not help but think about how evil persists everywhere and what evil looks like when we start to live in space.
The new creator economy
Maven co-founder Wes Kao gave a blockbuster speech on creator trends. (I am a Maven creator).
Three big ideas:
- Shift from content to community Knowledge influencers aren’t macro famous, but “famous to the family” (I’m in that category!) and are loved for their expertise. This creates new career opportunities because brands are seeking partnerships with these leaders and fans want their insights.
One trend is bi-directional education. Teaching used to be about passive content consumption. But if you have a community, you can engage in a bi-directional approach means the instructor leads, but students learn from each other.
If you have a community, it’s easier to create courses for these like-minded people and charge a lot more money because you’re known.
- Shift from hamster wheel to productized assets Creators usually can spend as much as 80 hours a week on content. Some may spend 40 hours on a 10-minute video. She gave an example of a 30-second video that took five hours to produce. Great content is NOT EASY!
Being a creator is not freedom. It’s hard to sustain and many creators are burning out and dreading the process. You’re on a hamster wheel.
One strategy is to consider productized assets — you can sell the same content multiple times:
- eBooks/books
- Templates
- Guides
- Video courses
- Email course
-
Cohort-based courses
-
Shift from hobby to career There are 50 million creators and they make an average of $17,000 per year. Problem is volume. You need a big audience or tons of subscribers to make a significant brand deal or to leverage subscriptions/Patreon.
For most creators, a better idea is to focus on a smaller core audience and meet unique needs they are willing to pay a lot for.
My view — I think this is a very positive and healthy view and I am a big Wes Kao fan. But ultimately a sustainable income needs scale, even by finding more students or creating more classes (kind of a hamster wheel?)
Biggest Tech trends
Amy Webb, CEO of Future Today Institute published 14 reports online for free.
She highlighted three foundational trend clusters:
- Artificial intelligence AI is permanently altering our perception of reality.
Image generation and image recognition are now pervasive and accurate.
We are very near AI general intelligence. Ai can make its own decisions, without humans in the loop. Indistinguishable from human intelligence. In fact, AI wrote this complete and accurate part of the research report in 3.9 seconds. She said this is a reason to “freak out.”
AI is moving forward through tons of data. And we’re providing the data through all these apps we use. AI can recognize you by your “heart print.” A laser can identify you through your heartbeat, through your clothes, 200 yards away. AI does not need your face to see you. You can even be recognized by your breathing pattern. Will we be under constant surveillance without some regulation? Will we wear heartbeat blockers?
We can design realistic synthetic digital humans indexed toward certain emotions. They can be especially warm, patient, and helpful. We can dial in emotions. They can respond to you, using these emotions, and answer you using all the data available in the world. The future of customer service. Also ethically problematic when you are dealing with non-real people and may not know it.
Should it be a law to disclose when you’re dealing with a non-human?
In three years, her institute shows an 80% probability of catastrophic impacts from AI-generated fake news and deep fakes.
- Metaverse, Web3 “We’re all chasing the shiny.” However, digital real estate and NFTs are not the long-term play here.
It is the next version of the internet but it will be based on our data from an “unthinkable number of factors.”
Digital experiences will be more human, more real, it will even include smells. We will use our bodies to be present and communicate more effectively in the metaverse. Our digital presence and identity will follow securely us around.
We will have high-fidelity metaverse humans. We will create multiple versions of ourselves, acting in different ways in different spaces (we already do this on Web2, i.e. how we show up on Facebook versus LinkedIn. We may have to “port” ourselves into various meta worlds.
We’ll be able to buy virtual shoes we will wear in the metaverse and have the real pair delivered to us at the same time.
Digital art will only be a thing if there is scarcity. And there is not much scarcity. The market is already saturated with NFTs. This is likely not art that will earn value. NFTs are a distraction, she said.
However, the infrastructure that enables NFTs will lead to huge breakthroughs in basic business structure.
There are already bad things happening on the Metaverse — people acting like aggressive cops, people being sexually aggressive. Who is policing the metaverse? Based on what cultural traditions?
Targeted dream incubation (like the Inception movie). It’s possible to influence dreams through altered experiences and sleep tracking. No thank you.
Optimistic scenario: more inclusivity, accessibility, transparency
Catastrophic scenario: digital marketing is dead because there is no true customer data. Everybody is made up. There is a huge digital divide between those who participate and those who do not.
- Synthetic biology Tech and biology are becoming one. We can design organisms to do what we want. We can program biological systems. In 10 years, we will be talking about this like we are talking about AI today.
We can program chickens to grow bigger and use less food without hormones and chemicals. We can even create synthetic, cultured chicken. It is already being manufactured in Singapore. Genetically not distinguishable. Singapore, which has no farmland could be a major exporter of chicken.
Machines can now literally print out DNA sequences.
Microsoft is working on DNA hard drives. They can retrieve data from organic DNA. This will lead to miniaturized data storage. Roswell has created a molecular microchip. This is an ‘incredible revolution.’
We can create fertilized eggs from the DNA of one human. China created edited babies. Those babies will pass along their edits. We are now living with enhanced humans.
RIsks — easily reproducing viruses, having your DNA hacked. People can make viruses specific to a human.
Her summary: “Have you ever noticed that every disaster movie starts with the government ignoring scientists? That is the basis of every catastrophic scenario. Ignoring science and letting catastrophes happen.
The problem I see, and perhaps the seed of inevitable catastrophe, is that ultimately EVERY government has to listen to science. Just takes one lone wolf to create problems.
NFT opportunity and skepticism There was a fierce debate all over SXSW about NFTs. Is it silly crypto crap or the future of business, games, social, and entertainment?
I went to a few sessions. It’s probably both.
Art aspect of NFTs is way over-hyped, but the underlying infrastructure is what is important.
Andy Yang of Forte explained that there is a vision of the future here. He was skeptical but is excited because:
- An incredible number of smart people are jumping into the space
- What we are seeing today might be silly, but it is a prototype of the future. It’s reinventing property rights and ownership.
- Revolution of economic organization — aggregating capital to go build something. Transformative.
- There is a backlash about Web2 companies like Facebook. Need a model built on trust.
- We are in a period or polarization. These Web3 micro-cultures give passionate people a safe place to belong.
- There is a GenZ energy behind it that is unstoppable. This explosion was fueled by the pandemic
There are so many scams and shallow people pimping NFTs that it is ruining the industry. Young people and gamers want authenticity and trust and they don’t know who to believe.
Another problem — there is such a gold rush in the space that people are putting out crap and people will be disillusioned. But eventually this will work out.
Very complicated economics. Money used to flow one way. Employer to employee or consumer to supplier. But now tokens are flowing in every way. We can’t begin to imagine the opportunities.
What was missing I’ve attended SXSW each year since 2010 so I am aware of patterns and themes. Here are some things that were missing:
Craziness — You can always count on wacky promotions and gimmicks as entrepreneurs and founders vie for attention. The whole tone of SXSW was subdued.
People — The last live event in 2019 attracted about 200,000 people. Honestly, it was overwhelming. I have not seen the official numbers but I would guess there is about one-third that number this year. The large contingents from Asia, Australia, and Europe that flock to the festival was notably missing.
Protests — SXSW is a hub of free-thinking and peaceful protests. There wasn’t even a Ukranian flag anywhere. Weird.
Brand activations — SXSW is known for its breath-taking and creative brand activations. Companies take over every open space with immersive experiences, art, and music. Almost nothing this year. Very muted.
Blogger lounge — The coolest hang-out at SXSW was always the blogger lounge. Gone. Have no idea why.
Social media sessions — There are four overlapping conferences here: Education, Interactive, Film, and Music. Interactive was basically founded around the emerging digital media scene 15 years ago but that was almost completely absent this year! With the exception of a TikTok session or two, there was barely a mention of Facebook, Instagram, and the like. Also, topics like influence marketing and brand content that were huge a few years ago were out. In: Metaverse, Web3, space exploration, Gen Z, creator economy, post-pandemic branding, and SO MANY talks about NFTs (and all of them were packed).
Those are my notes. How did I do?
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Discover his $RISE create community.
The post The good, the bad, and the NFTS. Peering into the future at SXSW appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Marketing legend Sandy Carter riffs on Web3
- Are you getting buried by the stylized persona?
- I launched a creator crypto token on Rally.io. Here’s what happened next.
I used to live in Texas. They have a saying there: “Never ask a person about the size of their ranch.”
Meaning, it’s impolite to compare material goods. We should respect people purely for who they are, not what they own or how much money they have, and that is a code I live by.
Except for today.
I was updating my spreadsheet tracking my book sales and realized that over 12 years, I’ve been making significant money from my books … against the odds. Actually making a living wage is so weird and rare for a business writer that it’s worth writing about!
Even though I’m uncomfortable with this topic, I’m going to break all precedent and talk about the size of my ranch (my income from nine books) because it’s an important, teachable lesson.
I’m not doing this to brag (although I am proud of my work) and I’m not doing this to sell you anything or make promises about how you can make a million dollars writing books. That is just sales bro silliness.
I am writing this post to de-stigmatize the idea of self-publishing your book. I want to break my own rules and share a little bit of my personal economics and success because the ONLY WAY I could have been financially successful as a writer was to self-publish. And I think it’s probably the same for you.
Today I’m going to cover 1) how I got to this place, and 2) 10 key steps I took to sell more by self-publishing my books.
Self-publishing my books Around 2010, this blog was taking off and I was approached by several New York publishers to write a book on the emerging topic of social media marketing. I proposed a small book to teach people the practical side of Twitter and it was rejected. I went ahead and self-published The Tao of Twitter on my own.
I suppose by self-publishing my books I was a pioneer 12 years ago. Not many mainstream books were being created outside of the traditional publishing institutions in those early days. I had no idea what I was doing, but it seemed like a fun experiment. Basically, my whole career is driven by experiments.
Through CreateSpace (which was later acquired by Amazon), I could print and deliver books for about $2 a piece. No inventory, no contracts. So at that low price, I just gave the books away. Hundreds of them. And as people started to fall in love with this funny little Twitter book, word spread.
As the book took off, I raised the price by a dollar each month until it was out there for about $11. The books sold and sold. Now in its fourth edition, Tao of Twitter is the best-selling book on Twitter ever.
Giving that little book a jumpstart was the key to my ultimate success. I focused on becoming known and developing my personal brand instead of making money. If I could earn a reputation and trust, the book sales and profits would follow some day. Keep in mind that I could have never given away books like that if I had gone through a traditional publisher.
In the first year, there were more than 10,000 copies of Tao in the world, which officially made it a “bestseller.” I have no way to know, but perhaps this was the most popular self-published book of that era.
Publishers come calling When I self-published Tao, I remained in talks with McGraw-Hill about another book concept. I had this vision of how marketing was about to change forever because power was shifting in the world. Through the internet and social media, creators could have their own voice, build their own audience. Business was about to be revolutionized by these emerging content creators … these influencers.
McGraw Hill noted the remarkable success of Tao of Twitter and took a HUGE risk on me by publishing the first book on influencer marketing — Return On Influence — in 2012, long before this became a mainstream idea. But I called this trend correctly and ROI became the number-one selling business book in the land thanks to a big PR push by the publisher.
With the success of this book, McGraw-Hill was eager for a follow-up book. But the cracks in the publishing world were already beginning to show …
Self-publishing my books I was so fortunate to experience the end of the best days of the publishing industry. By 2014, the internet was disrupting publishing, printing, distribution, and book stores at every turn. Publishers no longer had the money and resources for patience, audience development, and book promotion.
Book contracts were harder to come by and the pressure to generate sales was moving to the author. I had to wonder … if I was largely responsible for the sales of my books … why did I need a publisher? Why would I do all the work and give them all the money?
I published two more books through McGraw-Hill and had a front-row seat to view the collapse of an industry. I had five different editors in four years as people left the publishing business en masse.
It was time to go back to self-publishing.
Who needs a publisher? I’ve written extensively about
- The many benefits of self-publishing
- My writing process
- Marketing books on my own
… so I won’t go into those details here.
What I want to specifically address is how to monetize your book — without the backing of a publisher. I’m not a superstar like Malcolm Gladwell or Stephen King, but considering I am self-publishing my books, writing has become a very good source of passive income. I have made six figures on my books, each of the last few years.
Self-publishing my books is the only way this would have happened, as you will learn …
- The basic economics In my contract with McGraw-Hill, I received a royalty of about $1.50 per book. Depending on the format, I can now make as much as $12 per copy by self-publishing my books. Of course, when I self-publish I have to pay for the book design, cover, marketing, etc., but my break-even period for each book has been a couple of months.
I also have complete control over the price of the book. I can change the price by country. I can provide discounts and bundle my offerings. I could never do that through a publisher. On one of my books, McGraw-Hill had priced a book incorrectly. They told me Amazon would not let them change it! Can you believe that? I have more power over pricing than a 100-year-old publishing giant.
So right off the top, the per-unit benefit of self-publishing is enormous.
- Success is tied to your personal brand When I published my first book, I was relatively unknown. I had to give books away to get attention. My ability to sell books is directly proportional to the strength of my brand. Small audience, small book sales. Large audience, large book sales.
I can’t sell as many books as Malcolm Gladwell because I’m not Malcolm Gladwell. But I can do OK because I’ve been developing my personal brand for more than a decade. Your ability to monetize ANYTHING (books, courses, speaking, consulting) is tied to the strength of your brand.
Monetizing products takes tenacity and patience. There’s no shortcut. You can’t sell a lot of books without being known. This is by far the most important impact on book sales.
- Create something bold and beautiful Just because your book is self-published, it shouldn’t LOOK self-published. There are many great professionals out there to help you with design and editing. Your book is your legacy. Make sure it is worthy of your brand. Extra reading — My tortuous struggle with a book cover.
The look and feel of my books is exceptional. As good or better than something from a publisher.
Self-publishing also gives you creative freedom. When you open Marketing Rebellion, the first thing you see is a photo of a protester holding a sign that says “Respect Me!” I wanted to make a statement about changing consumer dynamics on the very first page. This is never done. You have no book in your library that has a photo on the first page (other than Marketing Rebellion of course!). I could only make this bold statement because I controlled my own project.
For Content Code, I had two companies pay me to sponsor the book. Again, an innovation that could never happen through a publisher.
- Book sales + speaking When a speaking client hires me, they might have a limited speaker budget, but there is often a separate budget for swag and gifts. Because I self-publish, I have the power to offer great discounts on books to my customers and still have a substantial profit margin. Conference attendees love getting books in gift bags!
If I were with a traditional publisher I would have almost no ability to make deals like this because of the low profits and red tape. The ability to add books to my speaking package increases my speaking revenue by about 20 percent.
Also, writing a book creates new material for paid speeches. One national conference has hired me three times to speak about the different books I’ve written.
-
Create an audiobook Narrating your book is tedious. But about one-third of my book sales come through the audio edition. I save a lot on production costs doing it myself, increasing book profits. Considering the audio editing, graphics, and everything, I can launch a completed work as an audiobook for less than $1,000 and that is where I receive the highest profit margins.
-
International sales Licensing my book sales to foreign publishers has become a significant source of book income. In fact, about one-third of my revenue in the last year came from translations of my books into Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Polish and other languages. Since I self-published my books, I have the ability to make these deals quickly (no legal red tape!) while the books are still popular.
-
Multi-year plan It’s almost impossible to make money from writing a business book. But you have a better chance if you become known over time and write several books. I didn’t start making significant money until my fifth book (The Content Code).
Every book does a little better than the last one. And when people buy my new books they often discover some of my older books. When I coach people about a book-writing strategy, I often encourage them to consider at least a three-book plan if they want to make money some day.
- University sales My books have been used as assigned texts in at least 70 universities, including Northwestern, Clemson, Boston College, and Indiana University. I never had a specific strategy around this. But I have put a lot of work into free class lectures to build trusting relationships with educators.
I have never spent the time to determine what percentage of my sales go through universities but a guess would be 5 percent.
- Quality is everything In my new book Cumulative Advantage, there is a two-page story about the Winklevoss twins. It took me two entire days to research and write this 1,000-word story. I remember telling my wife at dinner, “Nobody would ever believe the work I put into these books!”
It takes about two years to research and write a book and by the end of that process, I am completely wiped out.
I also spend a significant amount of money on editing, research, and design of the book. If you’re starting from scratch and just getting a paperback book into the world, you could probably use a lot of free resources and do it for less than $1,000. I spent more than $20,000 getting Cumulative Advantage ready for the world — Not counting my time!
The reason is simple. I will never let you down. I will earn your trust through my books because I want you to buy the next one. Self-publishing does not mean you have to sacrifice quality. Quite the opposite. It is in my control to make it as great as I can imagine. If you want to sell books over time, you need to earn trust by being insanely great.
- Promotion Once you finish writing the book, your work is only halfway done. It’s time to promote it. As I mentioned above, I’ve already written about that, and also my book. Cumulative Advantage has a useful chapter about creating a “sonic boom,” with a specific example about books.
Writing experience, personal brand, and promotions all tie together. The longer you work on your personal brand, the more success you will have with promotions and sales. The more books you write, the more this helps your personal brand. Writing a book makes you elite because it is really hard to do!
When my last book came out, I did 120 interviews in 10 weeks, and more than 200 overall in support of the book promotion. I was invited on to these shows because I was known. I was known because I worked more than a decade on my personal brand.
Final thoughts on self-publishing my books You might be surprised to know that I never had a dream to write a book. It never crossed my mind. But I’m glad I jumped in and tried it because I learned that I’m good at it and I enjoy it.
In the famous Jim Collins book Good to Great, the author provides his famous “flywheel” model. What is the core business activity that drives higher success for your business? To my surprise, it has become writing books.
A book is a new source of revenue, a new opportunity for vast awareness, and fuel for more speaking and consulting. I am creating unique value for the world, I am creating my legacy by self-publishing my books. I hope you’ll give it a try, too.
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Collect his creator token $RISE.
The post How I made six-figures self-publishing my books appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments By: How I Made Six-figures Self-publishing My Books | My Tech Manager by How I Made Six-figures Self-publishing My Books | My Tech Manager Related Stories The unexposed relationship between content, creativity and money * Seven daily habits to make you a more consistent content creator * Are you getting buried by the stylized persona?
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading a lot about persuasion. And this is what you probably already know — It’s nearly impossible to convince people of what they don’t want to believe!
Decades of work in psychology attest to this truth, as does most everything in our politics and most of our everyday experience. Think of your own conversations with your family or your colleagues. How often have you really persuaded someone to abandon a strongly held belief or preference?
Persuasion is by no means impossible or unimportant, and it’s worth considering how these truths apply to marketing. After all, we want people to switch to our products and services, right?
Fasten your seatbelts for one of the most interesting Marketing Companion debates ever. Keith Jennings and I turn the topic of persuasion upside down and explore what is real, what is true, and what is possible.
You DO NOT want to miss this show:
Click on this link to listen to hear Episode 240 Other ways to enjoy our podcast
- Try this! “Alexa, play the latest episode of The Marketing Companion.”
- Click here to download the latest episode or subscribe on iTunes
- Listen to us on iHeart Radio
- Find us on Google Play
- Find the podcast on Stitcher
- Complete Marketing Companion Episode Guide
Resources mentioned in this show: This article won’t change your mind by Julie Beck in The Atlantic
How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living By Rushmore Kidder
Mark’s personal branding Master Class
Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins
Please support our extraordinary sponsor. Our content is free because of their generosity.
Sendinblue, an all-in-one digital marketing platform, empowers small businesses through end-to-end digital marketing campaigns. Sendinblue allows you to create captivating and personalized email campaigns, custom landing pages, signup forms, automated workflows, transactional messaging, CRM, and more. Marketing Companion fans can click here to learn more about Sendinblue and sign up for a free trial!
Join the Party! 100 million emails sent every day, 300,000 users in 160 countries, 10 years of expertise, and $0 to get started on our free account! Use the MARKETINGCOMPANION promo code to get 50 percent off your first three months on our premium account!
Illustration courtesy of Unsplash.com
The post The truth about marketing, persuasion, and sales appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen.
Comments […] Tags: Keith Reynold Jennings, mark schaefer, marketing ... by The truth about marketing, persuasion, and sales - Dogeared Digital News Related Stories The underrated role of marketing habits * The thunderous collision of civil activism and marketing * Marketing legend Sandy Carter riffs on Web3
Like millions around the world, I can’t take my eyes off the news coming out of Ukraine. As I write this, the developments are heart-breaking and infuriating, but whatever hope is coming out of the war is being delivered by social media.
At the heart of this crisis, we are witnessing the most important and positive social media story in 10 years.
The first global star turn for social media was the Arab Spring 20 years ago. A wave of pro-democracy protests took place in the Middle East and North Africa beginning in 2010 and 2011, challenging some of the region’s entrenched authoritarian regimes.
The wave was enabled by social media and the world took notice. For the first time in history, ordinary people could instantaneously coordinate efforts across cities, nations, and even continents. Social media was creating dramatic social change.
The world watched in fascination as street-level stories from people on the scene flooded the news. Twitter landed on the cover of Time magazine for the first time.
And now Ukraine has elevated social media and citizen storytelling to the center of the news cycle once again.
Ukraine on our phones and in our hearts I’m trying to imagine how the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine would have been reported in a pre-social media world. A generation ago, these stories would have been filtered through stuffy ministries of foreign affairs and network TV reporters miles from the real action.
We wouldn’t be seeing the raw, heroic stories of citizen soldiers being reported through Ukrainian smartphones. The selfie-style images of Ukraine’s president urging his nation to fight will become iconic symbols of this decade.
Street-level stories on YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok are changing history.
In barely three days, Russia has become an international outcast, its economy is collapsing, and its leader is finding himself with fewer and fewer foreign friends. The actions against Moscow are happening in diverse, far-reaching ways that are remarkable examples of our hyper-connected world.
Through social media, large crowds in cities around the world have coordinated protests, aid efforts, and refugee relief. Russia’s ability to bank internationally has been curtailed. Its participation in major international sports is crumbling. Its planes are restricted over Europe. Its vodka is no longer welcome in many U.S. states. Even Switzerland, whose very name is shorthand for neutrality, is carefully turning its back on Vladimir Putin.
Much of this support is symbolic, but social media is also enabling change in important, tangible ways. Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, wrote to Elon Musk on Twitter to ask for Starlink stations to help support the country’s fractured internet service. Two days later the terminals arrived safely in Ukraine.
The world coalesced quickly around the Russian invasion almost entirely because of citizen stories. We don’t know the outcome or the ultimate toll on human suffering, but at least in this moment, we are witnessing an unprecedented near-global unity that will go down in history as the most important and positive social media story of our time.
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Discover his $RISE create community.
The post The most positive social media story in 10 years appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* The thunderous collision of civil activism and marketing
- A Case and Playbook for Brand Generosity
- How I made six-figures self-publishing my books
Too short to be a blog post, too important to ignore, here are five random observations from the world of marketing …
- The stylized persona My friend Minter Dial recently suggested to me that one of the biggest threats to the marketing field is the “stylized persona” — social media expectations that dictate how we should be, what we should say, and even how we look.
This is a wise observation. I am overwhelmed by the boring sameness on social media these days, especially people who are trying to be social media thought leaders. Few of the people who cry “authenticity!” are really authentic. They are all working to achieve this stylized persona. Nobody is really speaking the truth. Nobody disagrees with anything. Most content is rinse and repeat.
The early days of social media were marked by bold thought leaders who were a little bit crazy. It was sort of “Yellowstone” social media. They were adventurous, audacious, and above all, INTERESTING.
Where are the people with a spiky point of view? Who out there has the courage to be a non-conformist?
The world doesn’t need another Top 10 List of helpful content tips. We need you to say something important and original.
Perhaps an extreme example of this stylized persona is the standard “Instagram Look” that is emerging, driving up demand for plastic surgery at younger and younger ages. Everybody is even starting to LOOK the same!
Is social media driving the death of originality?
- The Metaverse is already here We all need to be immersing ourselves in new ideas and technologies that will be impacting marketing and nothing is buzzing more than the Metaverse.
While this seems like some far-off vision, in this video I contend that it is already here and there is an easy way to start to imagine how this might impact your business and customers …
- A COVID silver lining There is a lot to gripe about during a pandemic. But there is a silver lining.
COVID disrupted life-long habits and patterns. It made people re-consider their health, careers, and relationships. we are discovering, or re-discovering, our sources of joy and creating new priorities. I think there will be a surge of positive outcomes from that disruption!
85 percent of US consumers adopted new buying behaviors during the pandemic. This is a time when people are changing habits and are open to new products and services. It is an important time for new marketing opportunities.
- Creator community update A few weeks ago I chronicled my early experience launching a creator coin on the Rally.io platform. It has been quite the learning experience and my $RISE token is growing and providing steady community rewards. This week, more than $10,000 was distributed to my community.
I was invited to attend a small meeting this week Rally CMO Bremner Morris and a few other creators. We had a first-hand view of Rally’s strategy and an opportunity to provide our input about the platform.
Major takeaways:
Rally went through a tremendous transformation in late 2021, installing an entirely new leadership team and transitioning from building a functional global platform to a focus on creator success. There has been a tremendous surge in momentum due to an ambitious and focused team finally being in place.
Bremner articulated four 2022 strategy pillars:
- Supporting creator community growth by enabling better landing pages, functionality, and customization
- Increasing token utility by building templatized use cases that will create more community benefits
- Building an infrastructure that reduces the friction of onboarding new community members and their transactions
- Refining Rally positioning to make it less “techy,” friendlier, and accessible to people just learning about tokenized economies.
I left the meeting feeling extremely positive about Rally and confident that it will be beneficial to be an early adopter of this Web3 platform. You can learn a little about my $RISE token here (and get some free coins).
-
Department of Unintended Consequences I’ve written about how the unintended consequence of the pandemic will recreate our business world in so many crazy ways. One area ripe for innovation is the permanent shift to remote work. What happens when employees in a department are always alone and disconnected?
-
Will there be an emotional detachment from people and workspaces that will further diminish and sense of loyalty?
- Workplace friendships often lead to long-term alliances and collaborations. That may be lost.
- WIll people in the workplace be more likely to be promoted than remote employees who are far less known? Is this a new source of inequality, or will it amplify old ones?
- How do we compensate for the lack of innovation when we don’t have the random collision of people and ideas in the office?
- Are companies resourcing to coach, support, and enable remote work and address some of these issues? Is that a whole new career specialty?
The challenge for all of us is to not just take these pandemic changes at face value but to carefully think through the consequences for our businesses.
I am a person who feels deeply. It’s hard to watch helplessly as a dictator imposes his war machine on innocent families.
If you want to help Ukraine militarily, the National Bank of Ukraine has a special fund set up. Instructions for donations are here; you will need some background in how to do SWIFT transfers. It doesn’t take long, but it does take a wire transfer service.
If you want to help Ukraine non-militarily, the Red Cross and Red Crescent of Ukraine is in urgent need of donations for helping the injured.
Thank you.
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Discover his $RISE create community.
Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com
The post Are you getting buried by the stylized persona? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments […] Tags: content marketing, coronavirus, mark schaefer, ... by Are you getting buried by the stylized persona? - Dogeared Digital News Related Stories How social media commitments can eat you alive * Five things I would do differently if I were starting over * Pivoting my content strategy in an age of disruption
Social media can creep up on you.
I was talking to a friend the other day who has blogged for many years. Then a friend asked him to start a podcast. He had always wanted to try this and so he committed to a weekly show, although it wasn’t directly related to his business.
And oh yes, he is also doing a YouTube channel to support a hobby. And he’s been spending many hours following conversations on Clubhouse.
The only content channel that directly supports his business is the blog. But because of the time taken up by the new podcast and YouTube channel, he had fallen behind and wasn’t creating consistent content.
This is a common problem. If you’re not careful, fueling your social media habits can eat your business alive.
Focusing on business benefits Every time I write a book, somebody encourages me to start a Facebook Group on the topic. On the surface, this might seem like a good idea.
It is certainly flattering that somebody would want to continue the discussion about my ideas. But is that the best use of my time? WIll it create long-term business benefits?
If you’re running a business (like me), you can only be great in one or two places. And in this world, to stand out, you must be great. So every time you commit to a new project, it takes time and attention away from greatness someplace else.
Social media creeps up on you because on the surface, it’s free. It takes no money to start a blog or a Facebook Group. But every activity comes with a new demand on your time. Planning, preparation, creating, responding, updating technology. And that distracts you from your core goals. That’s why I don’t have a Facebook Group for any book. It might be fun, but it’s not strategic.
Shiny red balls The other social media challenge to your focus is a fear of missing out.
When Clubhouse soared into the spotlight, most of my counterparts in the marketing space piled on. I was in enough rooms to understand how it worked but I knew that I could not commit to any regular presence there. Showing up in Clubhouse means I’m not showing up someplace else.
When I create content, I have just one goal — I never want to let you down. Whether it is a blog post, a book or an episode of The Marketing Companion, I promise you it will be worth your time. It will be relevant, interesting, timely, and sometimes even entertaining.
I can’t keep that promise being in 10 different places, running a business, and being present for my family.
So, I have to make choices. In a way, staying focused on your audience presents a risk. Maybe I would have been the biggest Clubhouse star ever. I’ll never know. But I do know that I have done a good job on my blog and podcast.
Double down on relevance This is a good time for a social media house cleaning.
What are your one or two core activities that provide the most direct business benefit?
Does it make sense to double down on those efforts and push those other projects aside — even if they’re fun? Are you great everywhere you show up?
Don’t let the intoxicating idea of “free” or a fear of missing out distract you from using social media in the most efficient and effective way for your business. And that always requires focus and prioritization!
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.
Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com
The post How social media commitments can eat you alive appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments […] How social media commitments can eat you alive […] by Zmiana zachowa? online, mikromomenty i NFT [przegl?d blogosfery marketingowej #74] - questus * […] Tags: mark schaefer, social media strategy Posted in ... by How social media commitments can eat you alive - Dogeared Digital News Related Stories Stop blaming short attention spans! * Are you getting buried by the stylized persona? * Five things I would do differently if I were starting over
Web3 is a hot marketing topic. But what the heck is it? I recently saw a blog post titled “12 Web3 definitions.”
How clear can this be if it has 12 definitions? And yet, we need to be experimenting and exploring this evolution in how we connect to fans and customers.
I had a rare opportunity to talk to one of the pioneering leaders of this space, perhaps one of the most respected marketing pioneers period, Sandy Carter. Sandy is a former C-Suite executive with IBM and Amazon Web Services and now she is leading marketing for Unstoppable Domains,
Sandy is an energetic, passionate, and experienced leader who is now showing us the way on Web3. A special Marketing Companion episode with an extraordinary leader is ahead …
Click on this link to listen to hear Episode 239 Other ways to enjoy our podcast
- Try this! “Alexa, play the latest episode of The Marketing Companion.”
- Click here to download the latest episode or subscribe on iTunes
- Listen to us on iHeart Radio
- Find us on Google Play
- Find the podcast on Stitcher
- Complete Marketing Companion Episode Guide
Please support our extraordinary sponsor. Our content is free because of their generosity.
Sendinblue, an all-in-one digital marketing platform, empowers small businesses through end-to-end digital marketing campaigns. Sendinblue allows you to create captivating and personalized email campaigns, custom landing pages, signup forms, automated workflows, transactional messaging, CRM, and more. Marketing Companion fans can click here to learn more about Sendinblue and sign up for a free trial!
Join the Party! 100 million emails sent every day, 300,000 users in 160 countries, 10 years of expertise, and $0 to get started on our free account! Use the MARKETINGCOMPANION promo code to get 50 percent off your first three months on our premium account!
The post Marketing legend Sandy Carter riffs on Web3 appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen.
Comments […] Source link […] by Marketing legend Sandy Carter riffs on Web3 - Dogeared Digital News Related Stories The truth about marketing, persuasion, and sales * The unexposed relationship between content, creativity and money * The underrated role of marketing habits
I recently had lunch with an entrepreneur in the electronics industry. He is dominating his competition and gaining market share every month. Some of his competitors are even exiting the market.
But his success has nothing to do with excellent advertising, customer engagement, SEO, content, or even the fact that he has a product with superior features.
The reason he’s dominating his niche is because he has a stockpile of microchips to make his product and his competitors don’t. The key to his profound marketing success is the fact that he paid obsessive attention to his supply chain and prepared for shortages.
And that’s a lesson for today. Almost everything is marketing.
The Excel Master at your service Early in my marketing career, I worked for a giant B2B manufacturing company. The company’s success was built on efficient operation at a massive scale.
Although I was a global director of marketing, I spent much of my time camped out in the transportation department. No … it wasn’t because they brought in donuts every morning, although that was a bonus.
I knew that if we could efficiently deliver our product in a way that reduced inventory costs for my company and our customers, it would increase our profitability and provide a unique point of differentiation. So I knew EVERYTHING about transportation. I had more spreadsheets than the accounting department.
In one case, I was so successful with this strategy that I convinced our company to build a specially-designed truck to optimize loads. I never learned about that in my marketing classes!
In these two examples, I’ve shown how the most important part of a marketing strategy might be product availability or transportation costs. This is probably not how you normally think about your marketing job.
But this is your future.
Everything is in the marketing budget Increasingly, EVERYTHING is marketing when it comes to the online world because things like delivery, availability, and service can make or break your brand.
- If you miss a delivery date because your supply chain is a mess, customers will leave bad reviews. Your Purchasing Department is marketing.
- If you can’t find enough people to staff your customer service center and this creates upset people waiting 30 minutes to lodge a complaint, your brand is in jeopardy. Human Resources and your hiring practices are part of marketing.
- If your website is not lightning fast, people will leave and move on no matter how good your content or SEO is. Your IT Department is marketing.
This suggests an interesting new way to think about marketing. If other departments are not funded properly to meet or exceed customer needs, your marketing budget is meaningless. You’re being set up for failure.
Chief Experience Officer I’ve written quite a bit about the idea that the CMO title is moving to CXO — Chief Experience Officer. And it should. As I’m describing today, any part of your company that touches the buyer journey is part of marketing.
I’ve worked in enough big companies to know how lines are drawn and turfs are protected. But it seems to me that establishing a company culture where the customer experience comes first every day, in every way might be the best way to view a marketing budget. Get the job done everywhere. No turf when it comes to customers.
A marketing leader might not control the HR budget or supply chain strategy (yet) but whoever is at the top of your company needs to prioritize customer experience across the organization. Everything is marketing!
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.
The post Reconsidering the marketing budget when everything is marketing appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* The truth about marketing, persuasion, and sales
- Five things I would do differently if I were starting over
- The underrated role of marketing habits
I enjoy coaching people through their business and marketing problems. Often, I am meeting with somebody who is starting from scratch and it’s an opportunity to explore the best practices available and make an impact on the world. So much fun!
The other day I was working with an amazing entrepreneur who is really going for it. She is working hard and building content and credibility very quickly. At one point I said to her, “This is the exact advice I would be following myself if I were just starting out.”
This conversation made me reflect on where I am now and what I would change if I were starting over. I thought that would make an interesting blog post. So here we go — An open an honest assessment of what I would do differently if I were starting over today:
- Double down on the email newsletter In the earliest days of social media marketing, the first practical opportunity to create content was blogging. Creating videos or podcasts in 2008 was still complicated, requiring expensive gear and editing software.
I was in luck. I was a good writer and I enjoyed blogging, so I was in the right place at the right time.
But is that where I would start today?
The type of content you choose to produce is a complicated puzzle, but ultimately it gets down to this: What do you enjoy? I truly like writing, but if I were starting over, I would probably create an in-depth weekly newsletter compared to the blog I have now.
I’ve blogged for 13 years and I’ve developed an audience that expects free and useful content every week, in a blog post format, within certain topic areas. So I’ve sort of created some boundaries.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with a blog. It’s easy to share on social channels, builds SEO strength for your website, and the short format lends itself to quick production.
The format of a newsletter can be a little more artistic, in-depth, and personalized. It would also allow me to be more timely. When I write a blog post, I tend to favor content that can be evergreen and relevant for years, instead of focusing on what’s happening right now.
At this moment, I have a great blog audience and I don’t want to mess it up — so I’m sticking with the current format for now. But starting over, I would favor a newsletter with selected content then posted to a blog. Making a change to a new format is always a possibility but not my top priority right now.
- Focus on the email list When I was coaching my friend this week, I mentioned that her most valuable asset is her email list. Email connections are people who have opted-in to YOU. They’re open to your ideas and might even buy something from you someday.
By now, I have a pretty large email list, but in the early days, I was not as intentional and strategic about it as I should have been. My email list is 100 percent organic, meaning, I have never run a promotion, an ad, or a contest to build the list. I have never bought names or engaged in any other social media trickery to add addresses. And I never will.
I was five or six years into my “second career” before I realized how vitally important the email list is. If I were starting over, I would have been more intentional about that asset. I know that sounds old-fashioned, but your email list is about the only thing you can always count on in this world.
Social media connections are weak relational links. Your email list is an actionable audience.
- More intent on the personal brand I’ve written the best-selling book on personal branding (KNOWN) but this book was forged from the lessons of my years of failure. Like most people, I fumbled around trying to find the right combination of presence, content, and engagement to begin to build a brand.
Let me be clear. In many respects, I fell into my success.
The Mark Schaefer brand is not the result of a plan or vision. I eventually stumbled on the right formula through trial and error and was rewarded for my work. But I wasted years on that learning curve. I’ve had a great career but I would say my greatest contribution to the business world is the KNOWN book. You don’t have to be as clueless as I was. There is a proven, repeatable path.
If I had to do it over again, I would have embraced the idea of a personal brand much, much earlier in my career. I started my own business in 2008 — and can you believe it — I didn’t even have my face on the front of my website until 2016! True.
I didn’t want to be front and center. I resisted the idea of a personal brand. I had to be pulled into it! I definitely needed to embrace this earlier in my career. Ignoring this was a big mistake.
- More video If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know one of my mantras is “The Most Human Company Wins”
Here’s a good way to be the most human company. Show your face. Show your smile. Let them hear your voice and your passion. And the best way to do that is through video.
I have been self-conscious about creating videos. It feels like “look at me! look at me!” Just doesn’t fit with my personality.
I’ve become more intentional about my YouTube channel and I’ve peppered my website with videos now. But I should have started earlier. I don’t regret focusing on the blog, podcasts, and books. You can’t be great everywhere. But I should have created more videos, even if it was just once a month.
- Reaching out for help I’ve never had a mentor. I hate asking for help. I’m sort of a lone wolf. Probably a function of my upbringing.
Being self-reliant can be a strength, but overdone, it’s a liability and for me, it truly is a weakness.
The biggest change I would have made in my career is to seek help, align with mentors, and become more active in like-minded communities.
I’m getting a little better at this by the way. I was invited to a mastermind group last year and it’s a lot of fun. I just should have done it 30 years ago!
Starting over So those are the different paths I would take today. Overall, I think I’ve done a good job adjusting to opportunities and market changes as they present themselves. I’m on a path of continuous learning and improvement and I can definitely see where I should acted sooner on some opportunities.
I would be interested to learn from you — What would you have done differently in your career? Leave a comment below! We can learn together.
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.
The post Five things I would do differently if I were starting over appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments […] Tags: blogging, blogging best practices, careers, mark ... by Five things I would do differently if I were starting over - Dogeared Digital News Related Stories How to overcome your fear of being honest and open in your content * Seven daily habits to make you a more consistent content creator * How do you build a personal brand when your life is in chaos?
I’ve been in marketing for many years and I’ve seen such upheaval over the decades. But I can make a case that an all-time Top Five issue in our profession is the emerging collision of civil activism and marketing.
The reason is simple. In the not-to-distant past, a marketing strategy was forged through economic, competitive forces. But today, it’s undeniable that politicized trends of civil activism and the growing power of collective voices matter deeply to brands. Civil activism and marketing are colliding in an uncomfortable marriage.
It’s been building for years. Perhaps the epicenter of this change was the famous Nike partnership with the polarizing athlete Colin Kaepernick. A few years ago, how many people would have guessed that the most famous marketing case study in a decade resulted in Nike gear being burned in the streets by angry consumers? And … it was a tremendous success.
In this episode of The Marketing Companion, Brooke Sellas and I look at “woke” marketing from a historical perspective and bring it into today. It’s also a very personal episode as Brooke reports on what it’s like to be on the front lines of consumer backlash and I reveal the outfall of the one and only politicized stand I took on this blog.
This is a big discussion covering a big issue. You won’t want to miss it:
Click on this link to listen to hear Episode 238 Other ways to enjoy our podcast
- Try this! “Alexa, play the latest episode of The Marketing Companion.”
- Click here to download the latest episode or subscribe on iTunes
- Listen to us on iHeart Radio
- Find us on Google Play
- Find the podcast on Stitcher
- Complete Marketing Companion Episode Guide
The illustration for this post is a custom graphic that was made for the front pages of Mark Schaefer’s book “Marketing Rebellion.”
Please support our extraordinary sponsor. Our content is free because of their generosity.
Sendinblue, an all-in-one digital marketing platform, empowers small businesses through end-to-end digital marketing campaigns. Sendinblue allows you to create captivating and personalized email campaigns, custom landing pages, signup forms, automated workflows, transactional messaging, CRM, and more. Marketing Companion fans can click here to learn more about Sendinblue and sign up for a free trial!
Join the Party! 100 million emails sent every day, 300,000 users in 160 countries, 10 years of expertise, and $0 to get started on our free account! Use the MARKETINGCOMPANION promo code to get 50 percent off your first three months on our premium account!
The post The thunderous collision of civil activism and marketing appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen.
Comments By: The thunderous collision of civil activism and marketing | Crypto Exchange Journal by The thunderous collision of civil activism and marketing | Crypto Exchange Journal Related Stories The underrated role of marketing habits * The future of influencers and retail * Five things I would do differently if I were starting over
When my kids were little, I used to make a big, fun deal out of Groundhog Day (a weird American holiday).
I would make them giggle by telling them wild and fanciful tales of how we used to celebrate this day in “The Old Country” and even give them little gifts.
Over the years, my kids have kept this funny tradition up. On “Groundhog Day Eve” we send each other hilarious text messages about our made-up holiday celebrations as we prepare to drink “Hog Nog” around the “Hog Tree.”
This year the messages were so funny and crazy I thought I would share this Schaefer Family tradition with you. We could all use a little bit of laughter, right?
It all started with a text from my son that said:
CHECK YOUR EMAIL! IMPORTANT!!!! (email from my son)
IMPORTANT GROUNDHOG DAY NOTICE (RED ALERT)
Family,
As you know, Groundhog Day approaches.
HOWEVER THERE IS SOMETHING YOU NEED TO KNOW!
Groundhog’s Day this year falls on 2/2/22 and our COMPUTERS ARE NOT PREPARED TO HANDLE IT.
When the date rolls over at midnight tonight, every computer’s internal clock across the world will reset to 0, causing innumerable instances of unpredictable chaos.
Air traffic control will not be able to supervise flights, train schedules will get out of whack, modern life as we know it will grind to a halt.
I wish I were with you all, but unfortunately, I am currently stocking a grocery cart with bottled water, bandages, and iodine and trying to make it home before the rest of the world realizes this same inevitability and panic breaks out.
If the shit goes down, Dad’s property probably has the best chances for successful bowhunting, so I suggest we all meet there.
May peace be upon this weary world, and a great groundhog to you both.
(from me)
Of course, this has been all over the news and we are prepared. New water filtration is installed so we can simply suck our nourishment from the lake.
We drove back from Florida today and you should have seen the chaos on the highways. People are building tent cities everywhere. The National Guard presence was strong trying to keep order as people were fighting for the best spots to erect their Ground Hog Poles.
Fortunately, there was a sense of calm and unity around the holiday. Believe it or not, there were quite a few Groundhog Gowns in the encampments and of course the colored lights and singing.
I agree that my place is probably safe. In addition to water for the Hog Punch, I have plenty of cabbage and lightly peppered sausage for the Hog Rolls. Basically, I have a year’s worth. Or more.
OK we have started the festivities over here already. Some of the neighbors have come by since they are lacking cabbage.
In the spirit of the season,
Dad
(from my daughter) .. / .– .. .-.. .-.. / … . . / -.– — ..- / .– .. – …. / — -.– / -… — .– / .- -. -.. / .- / -.-. .- -. / — ..-. / -.. .. . – / If you all have been practicing your Morse Code weekly, you should get the above. I’ll be at my telegraph starting at 11:45PM this evening. May the hog save us all.
(from me)
So proud of you for keeping the Morse Code skills up all these years. I remember tapping out those messages on your knee when you were just a baby. My love language I guess. Who would have thought it would come in handy all these years later?
Hang on everyone. We’re in for a wild night.
Dad
(Text messages after midnight)
Daughter: How’s everyone doing? Still have power here.
Son: So far, so good.
Me: – … — . — … .-.-.- .. – . –
Daughter: Dad, you OK?
Me: Can’t talk now. Fighting off zombies.
Have a great day everyone. Hope you smiled : )
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.
The post The Groundhog Day Debacle (a little fun) appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Five things I would do differently if I were starting over
- How you can stumble into business success like Trader Joe’s
- In praise of working yourself sick
Trader Joe’s is an iconic American business. It’s cult-like. I know people who will drive far out of their way to visit these stores. They are so popular they are nearly on the level of a local tourist attraction!
Here is a typical comment from my friend Sunshine Woodyard:
I’m obsessed with Trader Joe’s, I picked where to buy a house based on proximity to one.
I need to back up here and mention that Trader Joe’s is a grocery store. Research consistently shows that people hate going to grocery stores. It’s ranked right above going to the dentist. So this is a truly legendary brand.
I was doing research to figure out how Trader Joe’s achieved this rare status. How did they completely break the mold and make people feel like they belong to a grocery store?
So I read the founder’s autobiography Becoming Trader Joe to figure this out. What was the grand vision and strategy that created this historic level of success and customer intimacy?
I found the answer. And oh my, was I disappointed.
But there’s a good lesson ahead …
The icon, the disappointment Trader Joe’s is a grocery chain that breaks almost every traditional retail convention. It’s hard to describe, so I asked some of my Facebook friends what they liked about it:
- Vast quick-cook ethnic options. There are entire Pinterest pages and blogs devoted to monthly finds, weekly meal planning using TJ ingredients and more! (Shannah Hayley)
- The size of their store is small enough that I don’t get lost and quickly finding the dozen products that I just can’t live without (Heather Heumann)
- Makes me feel like I can cook and hostess like a superstar (Catherine Mangan)
- They get great deals and pass the savings to customers. (Phil Mershon)
- Seems like every employee loves their job. If you ask where an item is, they’ll take you right over to it even if it’s across the store. They’ll also offer you ideas for new recipes (Tim Washer)
- I love TJ’s because of the selection of fun and interesting products you won’t find in a typical grocery store (Laura Poe)
- There is a simplicity to the place that is differentiating. I also love the spirit of discovery of new foods. (Frank Eliason)
- Trader Joe’s is the extension of my kitchen. (Karine Abbou)
- They gave me free flowers when I was having a particularly hard day (Carla Taylor)
- Good employer – salaries, benefits, etc. (Anne Saulovich)
- They hide stuffed animals and when you find them, you get a lollipop. My kids always looked forward to going with me because they had something to do (Crystal Tosh)
- Lots of good frozen prepared foods for us single folks who don’t always want to go to a lot of trouble to cook just for ourselves (Lynn Thompson)
- Shopping there, I feel smarter, healthier, more adventurous, and worldly. (Charlie Wollborg)
- The prepared food isn’t full of trash chemicals and additives. It’s much closer to European food standards (Laura Pence Atencio)
… and I could go on. You get the idea that they have a lot going on here!
I expected to read this book and learn of an inspirational business vision from a remarkable founder. But that was not the case at all. I was disappointed on every page. Just about everything that created this successful company was an accident or luck …
- Founder Joe Coulombe made a decision to pay his employees high wages and benefits to avoid unionization.
- He originally operated a small chain of conventional stores. He was forced to innovate only because a national chain was going to wipe him out of business.
- A local farmer had too many eggs. So he approached Joe about dumping his inventory and selling it at a low price. This led to a long-term strategy of seeking low-cost, excess food inventories for his store as a unique selling proposition.
- Joe had the idea of offering unique, branded products when a cheesemaker noted that a waste material of the process was a whey-based butter. He could obtain the off-grade butter in bulk for very little money and brand it as a specialty product.
- He took advantage of a legal loophole and offered unique wine sales.
The strategy refrain that Joe repeats throughout the book is, “I made the right decisions for the wrong reasons.”
Perhaps the biggest stroke of luck was a changing world. The founder attributed the success of his quirky store to the GI Bill which enabled millions of veterans to get a college education and larger jets which dropped the cost of travel to Europe. Why? His products appealed to higher-educated people and consumers were becoming more adventurous in their diet due to foreign travel. His products and marketing took advantage of this demographic shift.
In the founder’s words “I found disruptions in the market and drove a truck right through them.”
And that is a great lesson for business success today, especially in a pandemic …
Cumulative Advantage at work The weird success of Trader Joe’s is a perfect case study of how momentum works, as described by the research I highlighted in my book Cumulative Advantage.
A main idea in this book is that you don’t need a big college degree or a million dollars in the bank to create business momentum. Almost every successful business starts from something random, so success often stems from being aware of the opportunities being presented to you.
Like Joe. There was no strategy. He was driving his truck through opportunities as he met them.
In my book, I explain how:
- Nike started with an observation about making waffles at breakfast
- Zumba started when an aerobics instructor accidentally left his music at home
- Microsoft started because Bill Gates had access to early computer prototypes as a teenager
- Spanx started over frustration with underwear lines
- Twitter was on the brink of failure when an earthquake made it essential for communication
- My career took a new direction when I asked my boss if I could put an AOL subscription on my expense account, making me the first company employee with an internet account.
… and so on.
In fact, every successful person and business started through something random, a fact delightfully chronicled in the book The Click Moment by Frans Johansson.
While I was disappointed that my favorite grocery store stumbled into success through a continuous series of accidents, I should not have been surprised. Because that’s exactly how almost every great success occurs.
The lesson for you A key idea in Trader Joe’s success is that momentum comes from the intersection between some initial advantage (it could be a skill, a resource, an idea, or even a bit of luck!) and some shift in the world — a fracture in the status quo.
- Cheap eggs propelled store success during a recession.
- More educated and well-traveled consumers were ready for a small store with quirky food products.
- Paying employees well led to loyalty and higher customer engagement that created differentiation in the bland grocery world.
This is how strategy and success work now. Finding a way to be relentlessly relevant in a constantly changing world.
The good news is that the pandemic is the biggest fracture in the status quo in history. Literally, everything is being reimagined and reinvented …
- how we work, where we work, when we work
- how we exercise, play, travel, and entertain ourselves
- how we cook and feed our families
- how we learn, teach, and connect
… to name a few.
Like Trader Joe’s you too can stumble into success if you’re aware of how your strengths, resources, and talents match up with changes going on in the world today.
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.
The post How you can stumble into business success like Trader Joe’s appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Is your marketing getting a little better each year? That’s not enough.
- The underrated role of marketing habits
- Seven daily habits to make you a more consistent content creator
Each winter for the last few years I have worked myself sick.
Literally, sick.
I’ll give you an example. In the fourth quarter of 2020, I was fully booked when a client came to me and said, “We have money left in our budget for a special project. We’ll give you $40,000 but you have to get it done in the next six weeks.” This was going to require a crazy effort. I discussed the situation with my wife and decided to take the job.
More recently, I was once again fully booked for the fourth quarter. Another opportunity came in at the last minute that required me to give an insane number of workshops over a two-week period, including 32 hours of presentations over five days.
In both cases, I worked so hard that I became exhausted and sick. At the end of this year, I lost my voice for 10 days.
Conventional wisdom would say that this is a terrible way to live, and maybe even dangerous. Perhaps I’ve fallen into the “hustle” lifestyle that puts a premium on endless hours of work as a badge of honor?
But today I’m going to bust open that conventional wisdom and tell you why working myself sick was a rational decision. And, I would do it again.
The entrepreneurial truth I have a good friend who created a freelance consulting business several years ago. After a few months on the new gig, he asked me, “How do I create a consistent income flow?”
My answer was, “You probably can’t.”
Freelance consulting work and public speaking (my bread and butter) come in cycles. You have to take the work when you can.
In fact, if it doesn’t come in cycles, that means you have a consistent schedule, which means you have … a job. So why are you a freelancer in the first place? Just go get a job.
I have a few sources of passive income including books, online classes, and sponsorships. But any regular flow of money usually requires a regular flow of work and my choice at this time in my life is freedom. Sometimes I want to work, sometimes I want to play, but the one thing I never want again is any schedule requiring me to be in a certain meeting at a certain time, every week. That’s no different than having a regular job punching the clock.
So I make the trade-off. Sometimes work gets crazy. But most of the time, life is great. So I justify the short-term craziness for the long-term freedom.
Take it when you can I should mention that I am writing this post from a beautiful white beach in Florida. It looks like this.
I’ve been here for a month. I’m working one day a week throughout January, and today is my work day so I’m writing for you.
By working myself sick for a month, I enabled this month on a beach, which is pretty cool. It’s a harsh winter in America but I’m rested, and exercising in the sunshine every day instead of shoveling snow.
I should also mention that most of the rest of the year I only work four days a week and only take meetings three days a week. I make enough money responding to customer sprints to have a lot of freedom most other months.
I’m not writing this to brag. I’m writing this to provide perspective. Sometimes being an entrepreneur means you work like a dog. But if you’re focused on the long term and you have a positive trajectory, it’s worth it.
There’s a tremendous amount of social media pressure on people to achieve this unattainable dream of work-life balance. An independent observer of my schedule late last year might conclude that I have an unsustainable and unhealthy lifestyle. But I’m making a choice that favors the big picture. Sprints of hard work are part of being an entrepreneur or a freelancer. It doesn’t mean I’m unwell, although it might look that way over a few weeks each year.
Make your own choices I want to STRONGLY emphasize that I am not encouraging anybody to make my choices. It’s probably stupid for some people to work so hard they get sick.
But I’d like to encourage you to stay centered on your own path. Look at the big picture and your long-term health, wealth, happiness, and goals. Don’t be defined by social media truth bombs about “balance.”
It’s easy to look at a difficult week or month or even a year (thank you COVID) and feel guilty for not being a good enough … (fill in the blank).
But is your long-term trajectory correct? Is the short-term pain worth the long-term gain?
Be intellectually honest about your work and life, and carve your unique path. You only have one chance at life and you shouldn’t let it be determined by the opinions of social media friends and their views of success.
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He occasionally works himself sick. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.
The post In praise of working yourself sick appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Five things I would do differently if I were starting over
- Is your marketing getting a little better each year? That’s not enough.
- The Adam Grant Rant
I recently had an interesting question from an interviewer. Perhaps my answer can help you …
You’ve worked with many renowned global clients over the years. What are the most common mistakes you see marketers make when planning and/or executing their strategies?
In most companies, marketing is iterative. We try to do a little better each year with our SEO, digital ads, content, etc. But our customers have taken a quantum leap away from us. They have the accumulated knowledge of the human race in the palm of their hands and they expect something more from companies and marketers today.
If companies don’t take time to look up from their routine, entrenched marketing practices, they are going to become irrelevant soon.
It doesn’t require a crystal ball to realize that the field of marketing will be unrecognizable two years from now, compared to where we are today.
Customers don’t want to be bothered, spammed, interrupted, or annoyed. They are immersed in a streaming media environment now where ads are rare or blocked. Instead of manipulating people, marketers need to come alongside customers to help them make money, save money, have a happier, healthier, more entertaining life … or whatever our customers need our companies to do for them in their moment of need.
A quantum leap Staying in a routine trench of annual iteration is a path toward irrelevance. We need to embrace and master emerging ideas and customer needs, even if it seems like we’re not ready for it. Even if it seems terrifying.
We need to get out of that trench and take a quantum leap forward to keep up with customers and the culture. I think this requires these important activities:
-
Devote budget to experimentation Change can be excruciating, especially if you’re moving away from familiar dashboards and marketing routines. To ease the pain, set aside at least 5 to 10 percent of your budget to experiment with these new technologies and practices.
-
Drive a culture of change One great corporate leader I worked with set an annual performance goal for every employee — they had to show how they experimented with some new marketing idea every quarter of the year. They didn’t have to succeed, they didn’t have to show results — or even progress. But they had to experiment.
To create a true culture of change, the directive has to come from the top. There’s no such thing as a grassroots cultural change.
-
Double-down on personal growth Get out of the day-to-day, lift your head up and learn about the changes happening in the world. Devote part of your marketing time and resources to learning, not iterating. Read, watch, listen and begin to master the new marketing channels coming at us. One option to consider is the Uprising event where a small group of marketing thought leaders are devoted to exploring the future of marketing together.
-
Put aside metrics (WHAT????) You can keep up with marketing change and the pulse of culture, or you can measure. You probably can’t do both. That is a disturbing reality to me and my fellow measurement geeks!
I grew up in a slow-moving marketing world. It was easy and elegant to set one goal year after year and measure our steady progress on long-established dashboards.
But the fact is, if you wait to nail down measurement, you’ll miss opportunities due to the escalating rate of change in our world. This gets back to the idea of experimentation. Try new things, even if you can’t measure the results right away.
- Start now This very moment represents the slowest moment of change you will ever experience. The pace is just going to accelerate! So you really do not have a moment to lose. Even if you start your quantum leap future focus a few months ahead of competitors, it can make all the difference in the world.
Having a successful company and brand is an unending journey of being relevant. We can’t be relevant if we’re not embracing the new marketing realities emerging all around us.
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.
Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com
The post Is your marketing getting a little better each year? That’s not enough. appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* 15 Poplar Marketing Trends: Hot or Not?
- Five significant trends that point to marketing’s future
- Seven daily habits to make you a more consistent content creator
On the new episode of The Marketing Companion, Mathew Sweezey and I tackle 15 popular marketing trends in 45 minutes. Going into a new year, we each weigh in on the relative importance of:
- social media marketing
- content marketing
- email marketing
- blogs/newsletters
- live stream video
- podcasts
- Discord
- direct mail
- influencer marketing
- online customer service/customer experience
- Direct to Consumer
- crypto intersection with marketing + community
- data management
- AI integration
- Account-based marketing
Each of us rates the popular marketing trends from 1 (red hot) to 5 (not so hot) and I can pretty much guarantee you that you’re going to be shocked by some of these views. Mathew and I don’t always agree, but in every case, we flesh out an interesting and fresh perspective on these vital trends.
It’s fast-paced, it gets a little emotional, and it’s an unmissable episode:
Click on this link to listen to hear Episode 237 Other ways to enjoy our podcast
- Try this! “Alexa, play the latest episode of The Marketing Companion.”
- Click here to download the latest episode or subscribe on iTunes
- Listen to us on iHeart Radio
- Find us on Google Play
- Find the podcast on Stitcher
- Complete Marketing Companion Episode Guide
Please support our extraordinary sponsor. Our content is free because of their generosity.
Sendinblue, an all-in-one digital marketing platform, empowers small businesses through end-to-end digital marketing campaigns. Sendinblue allows you to create captivating and personalized email campaigns, custom landing pages, signup forms, automated workflows, transactional messaging, CRM, and more. Marketing Companion fans can click here to learn more about Sendinblue and sign up for a free trial!
Join the Party! 100 million emails sent every day, 300,000 users in 160 countries, 10 years of expertise, and $0 to get started on our free account! Use the MARKETINGCOMPANION promo code to get 50 percent off your first three months on our premium account!
Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com
The post 15 Popular Marketing Trends: Hot or Not? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Click the icon below to listen.
Comments […] post 15 Popular Marketing Trends: Hot or Not? appeared ... by 15 Popular Marketing Trends: Hot or Not? - Guildeline24 Related Stories How to create a million new social media jobs * Is your marketing getting a little better each year? That’s not enough. * Twisted reality creates room for marketing innovation
Improbably, I have launched a creator crypto token.
It has been a bit of a mess in the early going, but now that I’m sorting things out, I thought it is time to report on what I’m learning from this unique experience. Are the creator economies of Web3 our future? I don’t know. But here’s a bit of what I have learned so far …
(and if you make it to the end of the post, you can find a way to get your own creator crypto tokens!)
In the beginning, there was $RISE Earlier this year, I was invited to join a crypto-enabled platform for creators called Rally.io.
At first, I resisted the idea. I didn’t see how this concept fit with my vision of my future, or how I fit with the Rally.io vision of their future. So I turned it down. I’m very focused on making the world a better place for marketing and I needed to stay on my path.
But then I saw some people who I really respect climb aboard the Rally train. Hmmmm. What was I missing? Maybe this was an opportunity to be on the ground floor of the next evolution of the web economy. I’m all about learning and moving in new directions.
So I applied for the opportunity to launch a coin and I was accepted. I named my coin $RISE, as in RISE above the noise. That’s what I help people do. That’s my mission.
I didn’t know it at the time, but being accepted on the platform was a big deal. Tens of thousands of people were applying and less than 200 had been accepted at that point. I just kept stumbling forward. I was in the dark about all of this.
In fact, I was in the dark about everything …
Fumbling forward Rally.io was growing fast and like any start-up, some of the details were slipping through the cracks. I was one of those details.
I don’t know how this happened, but I received absolutely no onboarding training except for a link to a lengthy and overwhelming wiki with head-spinning terms like “streamlabs integration” and “token bonding curve.”
For a crypto baby, it was intimidating. I couldn’t make heads or tails about the basic economics of the thing. Within a few hours of the coin launch, people were swooping in and buying thousands of my coins. Wait … what was happening here?
I made SO MANY mistakes and I was so confused. Finally, I reached out to Joseph Jaffe, a friend who had launched a crypto creator token a year ago. Joseph speaks fluent crypto and after an hour on the phone with him I was approximately 10 percent less confused and 10 percent more confused. If you are upended by that math, you are meant to be.
Finally, I was connected to an hour-long private training session with a Rally executive. What a relief. At this point, I felt I knew enough basics to not be an idiot.
I need to add that since this initial oversight, Rally.io has been amazing in its support.
Whale watching Because I was new and stupid and my coin was cheap, speculators bought thousands of dollars of my coin. There are little or no fees on the platform for that kind of transaction, so there is no penalty for buying my coin and then selling it in bulk (and crashing the coin value) if it only goes up by a penny.
This was unnerving. Strangers were spending tens of thousands of dollars on my tokens, hoping for a quick and easy profit. While I had entered the space thinking “community,” most people spending heavily on Rally tokens are thinking “commodity.” The Mark Schaefer brand was being traded like pork bellies and oil futures.
At that point, I had an existential crisis. What the heck was I doing? I want no part of this stress.
Rally does have a method available to prevent these early bulk-buying behaviors. But I didn’t know about it because I had no onboarding.
After some early profit-taking, most of the threat of these big investors has diminished. Their power is dissipating as more people acquire my tokens and hold them. I’m smarter now and taking steps to protect my community from whale-fueled crashes in the future.
I’m still uneasy that my brand has been tokenized and traded in such a manner. But I’ve started to get clearer about the potential to help others through this opportunity.
Crazy rewards Every week, Rally.io was dumping thousands of dollars in my account for seemingly no reason. Yes, they were tokens. But they were worth real money. What the heck was going on? It took me awhile to understand this craziness.
To understand the seemingly upside-down economics of Rally.io, I’d like to tell you a story about Twitter.
A decade ago when Twitter was blowing up as the new darling of the social media scene, I saw an interview with founder Jack Dorsey. “How will you make money?” he was asked. “I don’t know,” he responded, “We probably won’t think about that for three years.”
As a business leader groomed in a Fortune 100 company, I thought this was the nuttiest thing I had ever heard. How do you found a company with no plan for profits?
But I eventually I understood the idea. Once you have a hot digital product, you will happily lose money to dominate a niche. Twitter did it. Amazon did it. And apparently, Rally.io aims to do it. There will probably be only one winner in any niche (there is only one Twitter, right?), so you do whatever it takes to be the ultimate victor. Once you have that audience, you can find ways to monetize.
Rally.io is not only losing money like Twitter to dominate its niche of the standard creator crypto token, it is actually giving money away to assure their foothold across the world.
Major investors like Andresson-Horowitz poured millions of dollars into Rally’s idea of becoming the standard crypto-based creator community. There are competitors. So Rally needs to dominate.
One half of all the money poured into Rally is being spent on rewarding people who acquire and hold creator coins. From the Rally.io website:
So if I grow my community, I get a cache of “reward coins” every Sunday that is distributed to everyone who holds my $RISE coin. For example, if you own 1 percent of my coins, you get 1 percent of the distribution. I’ve had as much as $20,000 distributed to my community in one week.
And those who reinvest the dividend back into the $RISE coin every week (very easy — takes 60 seconds), own more tokens, which are eligible for more of the next weekly reward.
This can’t last forever, but it in Rally documentation it projects that it will last in some form for eight years, which is a substantial amount of time to have these new creator crypto token economies bloom.
The next vision Now that I am immersed in this world, I’m beginning to embrace a vision of where this creator economy could go. In fact, I have not been this energized by a new idea in the last 10 years.
Right now if you visit the $RISE token site, you can see the basic metrics of the token and some cool discounts on my books, coaching sessions, and classes. Already, I’ve paid people for blog posts with the $RISE token, and fans have used the tokens to buy my books, classes, and podcast ads. Pretty cool.
But that is just step one.
I think there is an opportunity to use this gift to build something bold and new. To really help people RISE.
I’m being deliberate about a strategy — Having meetings, watching best practices, continuing to learn. The obvious first step is to use the tight and loyal Uprising community as a place to start and build. I’ll probably be able to take some first steps early in the coming months.
And here’s the cool part. I don’t have to do it all myself. I can leverage the brains and talents of a community. And maybe that will include you?
Want to come along for the ride? If you don’t already hold my coin, here is a way to get involved and learn along with me. I’m giving away 300 tokens. The first 100 {grow} fans can claim THREE of the $RISE creator crypto tokens. My way of saying “thanks” for reading this long article! Just click here:
I’M READY TO $RISE Note: I am not a financial advisor and the $RISE coin is primarily a token to support creators and participate in creator communities. Everything in this post is only my point of view and does not represent investment advice.
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.
The post I launched a creator crypto token on Rally.io. Here’s what happened next. appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Comments […] Read more about I launched a creator crypto token on ... by I Launched A Creator Crypto Token On Rally.io. Here’s What Happened Next. - United News Network Related Stories Is your marketing getting a little better each year? That’s not enough. * Adopting cryptocurrency as a marketing strategy * Three resources to stay relevant … and more
Adam Grant is a best-selling author, an expert on motivation and meaning, and Wharton’s top-rated professor for seven straight years. He hangs out with filmmaker J.J. Abrams and author Brene Brown. My hero Malcolm Gladwell is one of his best friends.
He is also a modern Twitter philosopher. His prodigious tweeting is legendary. I mean, my tweets are usually something like “Thanks” or “My plane is late,” while Adam is spouting business poetry like:
“Having fun isn’t the enemy of efficiency. It’s the fuel for finding flow.”
Wait. What? Are you making me THINK here, Adam? On a tweet?
So I enjoy following Adam and living vicariously through his exciting intellectual life but a tweet that went viral last week made me stop in my tracks. That was something to see. There I was, squarely on my tracks and I stopped.
Here is the tweet:
Dude.
You can only say this because you ALREADY HAVE a powerful personal brand.
Adam is a Tweeting Monster and he has a massive online presence:
- A top-rated podcast with A-List guests
- A monthly newsletter (more than 100,000 subscribers)
- A blog answering reader questions (such a good idea)
- A YouTube channel
- Four best-selling books
- Daily philosophical posts on Instagram (1 million followers)
It seems to me that Adam is spending an enormous amount of effort on something other than “investing in personal relationships.” If he stopped doing this important work building his online authority and reputation, and turned instead to “personal connections” he would quickly lose momentum. And he needs momentum. Almost all of us do.
Adam has spent years nurturing an effective personal brand, and it’s worked. It’s just not popular to say so. And that’s not right.
The necessity of the personal brand I learned the lessons of personal branding the hard way … when I didn’t have one.
When I was in the corporate world, I was the global director of eBusiness for a Fortune 100 company. I was the go-to guy in the world for eCommerce, digital marketing, and CRM.
But once I stepped out of the friendly confines of my company to start my own business in the “real world,” I instantly became the go-to guy … for nothing.
Nobody knew (or cared) about my old title, team, or accomplishments. Nobody ever saw the awards on my walls or annual bonus checks. In this online world, there is only one thing that matters. Either you’re known, or you’re not. The most powerful professional equity you own is your personal brand.
If you’re known in your industry, you’ll get more business opportunities, sell more books, and have a bigger payday at speaking engagements. You might even get to meet Malcolm Gladwell or Brene Brown.
Creating an effective personal brand does not mean you’ve sold your soul or turned into an inauthentic character. It simply means you’re establishing the presence, reputation, and authority to get your job done.
The ONLY REASON Adam can get Brene Brown on his podcast is because he is known due to his powerful personal brand. Fun fact … I tried to interview Brene for my last book and she turned me down. Adam’s brand is more powerful than mine. I have to keep working. Maybe next year Brene : )
Let’s be honest about personal branding Adam is clearly working hard on his personal brand. I’m willing to bet he’s got a social media team behind him to keep the beautiful and relevant content flowing every day.
So ironically, it’s inauthentic for Adam to claim he’s not mindfully, systematically, and aggressively building his personal brand. It’s a preposterous claim.
But somehow it’s become popular to dismiss this idea. His tweet was liked 5,500 times and retweeted 1,200 times. Isn’t that amazing? Are people even thinking about what he’s saying here? We are only seeing this tweet because he’s KNOWN, not because he has a personal relationship with us.**
** Adam, you are always welcome at my home so we can work on our personal relationship. We can sit by the lake and eat smoked meat. Unless you’re vegetarian. Then we will eat corn. Please bring Malcolm.
Please. Don’t listen to Adam this one time. Here’s the truth. In many careers, the strength of your personal brand is the difference between “meh” and spectacular success. Don’t avoid building a personal brand. Embrace it. Fight for it every day. Like Adam Grant.
I HATE the suggestion that working on a personal brand implies you’re “inauthentic.” Nothing is further from the truth. Trust me, in this world, people can sniff out a fake in 140 characters or less. Having an effective online presence means you need to be more of who you are at your best.
Personal relationships are important. Some of my favorite relationships are with people. But this does not mean you can’t work on your personal brand, too.
And by the way, Adam Grant is great. Just not this time. I recommend that you follow him and enjoy his beautiful and thought-provoking content, as I do.
Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He likes the idea of personal brands and would like to eat meat with Adam Grant. Mark does not have a million followers on Twitter but he is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.
Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.
Background graphic courtesy sketchepedia.
The post The Adam Grant Rant appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.
Related Stories* Five things I would do differently if I were starting over
- The unexposed relationship between content, creativity and money
- Short and interesting new observations about the marketing world