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Content Marketing

Content Marketing in 2020

chrisbrogan · July 3, 2020 ·

Content Marketing 2020
Photo by Marc Fanelli-Isla on Unsplash

Content marketing gets a bad rap because a lot of it is so badly wrapped. What happens in the land of marketing and business (b2b marketing or B2C – it doesn’t matter) is that someone takes a good concept and sullies it with poor execution. A strong intention becomes a watered down effort to lure people into a sales funnel with search terms. While SEO is a useful part of earning attention, it’s not the soul of content marketing. Let’s talk about that.

Content Marketing Strategy is About Being Helpful

Attention spans in 2020 are shot. The COVID-19 pandemic and other world events pushed us into having to consume more than our share of news. It’s built an intention of shutting out too much information. But what types of content earn attention? Helpful material never goes out of style.

One way to help: brevity. People want the payload, not the fluff. Whether it’s business goals or personal pursuits, skip the backstory and cut out the fat.

Guide people by making all your content simple to scan, easy to read, and worth bookmarking for later. By this, I mean: use subtitles and bullets. Create transitions and straightforward messaging. Don’t make people work to consume what you create.

Content Types for Context Types

Video marketing is an undeniable part of 2020’s content marketing landscape. It’s useful for when we feel like being nurtured, or when people’s content needs also match a desire to lean back and simply absorb the material. But what if many of your target audience are in a car for long stretches (like truck drivers or suburban commuters)? Then a portion of your marketing methods would be better suited for audio. If not a full fledged podcast, then at least audio content you can invite the recipient to play while commuting. Remember that just because you might prefer text, the most effective way to reach people is the type to choose. Never let your preference guide this choice.

Use Different Types of Content But Tell the Same Story

While matching content to the customer journey, remember that it’s preferable to tell your story across a variety of marketing channels. If a prospective customer is evaluating your product, shoot an Instagram video showing why your product is the better choice for them. Follow it with an infographic comparison chart or the like. Remember that you can get quite varied in delivery methods. Make a Slideshare of “How to Convince Your Boss to Buy Our Product for You” and arm your internal allies with what you know. But be sure that you use an editorial calendar or content calendar (however you prefer to call it) so you have an eye towards optimizing earned attention.

Perform a Content Audit

It’s easy to mistake content marketing efforts and published material for being actually useful. But there’s so much at stake. All content is a reflection of your branding. If the content marketing your organization creates doesn’t serve both the consumer of that material and the sales team, it’s not content marketing. It’s just content.

A content audit investigates whether your organization’s marketing strategy and tactics align with its business objectives. If funny dance videos don’t make the phones ring, then who cares? But at the same time, if your company still pushes bland white papers circa 2000 because you’re “doing b2b marketing,” then you’re missing far too many opportunities. There are so many ways to reach more people and earn more customers. But it takes effort and it can’t be phoned in. It’s 2020. Let’s get you ready for the years ahead.

May I Help?

I offer consultation around business strategy and marketing as it applies to content marketing and much more. I’m quite available to help, should you want to talk that over and see how I can get your company’s content marketing to serve you better. Just drop me a line via this contact form and I’ll get right back to you. Or email me directly: [email protected] . Either way. I’m here to help.

Business Storytelling

chrisbrogan · June 27, 2020 ·

Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash

Business storytelling is the act of using story as a way to interact with others to convey business values and/or business information. I like to say that “story is the best unit of memory” (tweetable) and that’s because the goal of business storytelling is to help information stick, both internally among various teams and leadership, as well as externally in alignment with marketing, sales, customer service, and other parts of a company.

Stories to Tell

There are three types of business stories the way I teach it:

  • Mission stories – stories that help people understand and align with the mission of the organization. “We work to give every mother the tools she needs to raise compassionate athletes.”
  • Belonging stories – these are stories that inform people that they are in the right place, so to speak. “Moms of athletes don’t always agree, but they all want their kids to have what they need to thrive.”
  • Growth stories – part motivational talk and part “corrective” language, this helps employees stay aligned with the mission of the organization. “While we want you to sell as many coaching packages as possible, it’s important to work within the budgets and schedules of the mothers you’re supporting.”

One doesn’t have to be any kind of master storyteller to make this happen. Remember that the definition of story is simply “an account of people an events.” While I’ll show you some story structure as it applies to business storytelling, essentially the spirit of your work here is to learn that a story helps people remember important information better than most any other tool.

Business Storytelling Approach

The goal of every story you tell should be to convey information in a memorable (and maybe even repeatable) way. Because these are business stories, and the goal isn’t to become some kind of master storyteller of fairy tales or something, let me give you a few more details to consider:

  • Clarity – Business stories must be succinct and clear. There should never be a surprise. Instead, people need their information to be straightforward and understandable.
  • Brevity – The attention span of people these days is diminished from stress, from too much information, and from a shift in how we prefer to consume knowledge. Create brief stories. Snacks more than meals. And seek to be as brief as possible while staying clear.
  • Metaphors – To craft a compelling story, sometimes an easy tool is a metaphor. “Life is a stream. It flows in one direction and when we step out of the water, we can never get back in at the exact same moment.” That sort of thing is a metaphor.

The first two should be used all the time. The last is a tool you can use more as a condiment than a meal. (A metaphor.) “Think of metaphor as a condiment, not a meal.” <– that’s a tiny business story to remind you how to use metaphors in your writing. (Not much in the “account of people and events” department, but we’ll stretch the definition a little.)

Content Marketing Thrives on Compelling Stories

I’m working on a project with my friend Saul Colt. The goal is to help physical stores and galleries all across Canada to build online storefronts to enable these organizations to sell online. While brainstorming ways to earn more sign-ups for this project, I came up with two different ideas (stories) that complement the project and can be told as content marketing (in this case, on Instagram).

The project is called “shopHERE powered by Google” and because I want to encourage more people to sign up, I proposed storytelling elements that are a play on “shop here.” The first is built around regional business pride and uses the hashtag #myshopishere . The second is about women-run businesses and the uses the hashtag #shopHER (minus the e. Get it?) They’re meant to be quite relatable (as good stories are).

If I didn’t tell you much else about the campaign, can you imagine the kinds of photos people will take for ‘My shop is here?’ Pizza places. A favorite nail salon. Maybe a cool pawn shop would be part of it. And of course ‘Shop her’ is about empowering women owners, like an auto body shop, and an MMA gym, and so on.

The projects are content marketing designed to drive awareness and signups to the shopHERE powered by Google project, but the STORIES are about regional pride and woman-owned businesses. Make sense?

Storytellers Invite Their Listeners to be the Protagonist

The power of storytelling works best when it becomes a collaboration between the creator of the story and the consumer of that material. The reader or listener or viewer best experiences compelling storytelling when they are invited to tell the story from their perspective and participate in it themselves.

Star Wars has stuck with us better than many other media properties because the stories are bigger than the main characters. Even if you don’t want to be Luke or Leia, you can decide if you want to be an Imperial Tie fighter pilot or a rebel scout or someone else in the captivating stories that follow.

Story, as it turns out, works best when it is a collaboration.

In business, this can happen in branding. On the day I wrote this to you, Nike’s website has a tag line that says “Where All Athletes Belong.” They’re pushing inclusivity and this goes beyond a marketing strategy and instead pushes deep into the fabric of their brand stories overall. It matches.

Story Structure is a Powerful Starting Point

You’ve watched a TED talk before, I presume. Reserved to no more than 18 minutes (there are very few exceptions to this online), presenters are trained and drilled in how to craft stories that start with cores of data visualizations or case studies and add an emotional connection to the material. Sometimes these are funny. Other times, they make us see what we thought we fully understood in a new light. And even other times, we simply enjoy the experience and go along for the ride.

The structure of TED, the little details, how it all gets wrapped together into a compelling narrative is worth understanding for your future business communications as well. I recommend Talk Like TED by Carmine Gallo, a book that is every bit as useful today as the day it was published.

How to Get Started

With business storytelling, you might be thinking: “Okay, I don’t disagree with you, Chris, but I’m not sure what to do now with this information.” Fair enough. I’ll help.

  1. Write a story of what your product/service is and who it helps. The agile user story template works well for this: As a <type of user>, I want <some goal> so that <some reason>. Being able to answer this succinctly helps you see your business more clearly.
  2. Work on a few sentences around this: The type of people who buy from us are ___ . They like __ and they don’t want ___ . (This is a belonging story.)
  3. If you were hiring a new employee today and she will be working from home, what story does she need to know that sums up the culture of your organization? Are you sticklers for timeliness? Are you a very collaborative company? Are the rules cut and dry and there’s not really a lot of flexibility? (Remember, this isn’t always a bad things: franchises must follow the systems that are in place.)
  4. Write a few sentences around the ideal customer experience. “If everything went flawlessly, a customer would start on our website and click here. And then…”
  5. At a team meeting, host an exercise around “A meal we used to have at home.” Have people write down some details or a paragraph to explain something about food that inspires at least a little emotional attachment.

End Clearly and Strong

Another detail. For whatever reason, it seems that the art of ending a story is lost on the world. The best endings point to what might come next. In many ways, the best endings are beginnings. This piece ends with me offering help, which might lead to a beginning. Your stories might end in different ways. But “stopping” and “creating an ending” are vastly different efforts and exercises. You want to end clearly. Like this.

If You Want More Help

My core business at StoryLeader™ is dedicated to improving your success with expressing yourself within (and outside of) your organization. I help you convey your intentions, clearly express your business goals and values and needs. And I’m an expert at turning that terrifying blank page into something you can run with and complete on your own with confidence. Never hesitate to drop me a line either by email ([email protected]) or by just filling out my contact form.

If I Were Selling Real Estate Today

chrisbrogan · January 9, 2019 ·

The world of real estate has become a lot more software driven in recent years. Sure, ultimately, a buyer interacts with a person, but with the number of real estate apps out there, a lot of up front work happens before a real estate professional is contacted. That’s not necessarily bad, but for a lot of Realtors (and other professionals in other industries for that matter), a personable connection with a buyer matters immensely as well.

If I Were Selling Real Estate Today

For years, I’ve had the pleasure of keynoting various real estate events and speaking at industry conferences. In every interaction, I found a warm, smart, driven person looking for new tools to reach and serve their buyer. My book with Julien Smith, Trust Agents, seemed to resonate with the primary challenge of “how do you build business remotely on the web?” Since that book (over 9 years have passed), I can say that the use of digital tools to evaluate real estate has only grown.

If I were selling real estate today, I’d embrace these apps and I would have a website/blog where I could add some content that my buyers might want. What would I put on that site? Oh, I’m glad you asked.

A Real Estate Professional’s Content Marketing Checklist

  1. Sure, you want to post pictures and videos about the properties. That’s a given.
  2. Take the camera on your phone and shoot a “neighborhood walk through” video.
  3. Record an audio file where you talk people through how to evaluate a home. Tell them to keep this playing in the car when they’re out hunting around.
  4. Record another video where you list out what people need to bring to closing.
  5. Find community points of interest and interview people to show off the neighbors.
  6. Shoot an autobiographical video talking about your passions for serving people and your career so far.
  7. If you have other skills/talents, like interior design, give people a video of tips for how to spruce up their place. OR, make a video to show homeowners how to prep their house for sale.

Naturally, there are plenty more pieces of content I could recommend. This is a great starter set that will keep you busy for a few weeks.

How to Go About Making All This Content

I’m sure you might have seized up a little upon seeing that list of seven ideas. The thing is, you already have the tools to make this. You have a smart phone. This comes with a video recorder and a voice recorder built in. If you feel like you have to edit the videos a little, you can record lots of little clips and dump them all into either Windows Media Maker (PC) or iMovie (Mac) and trim off the edges a bit. I promise that none of it is rocket surgery. If you know how to cut/paste words in a document, it’s almost the same thing.

Practice. That’s what I most want to share with you. Just practice.

As for scheduling, pick a weekly schedule of creating and posting that will let you take a little time to make your content, edit it, and post it. It’s that simple (but not easy).

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Here Are The Two Types of Videos to Post

chrisbrogan · January 2, 2019 ·

We create videos with the goal of educating and entertaining people. Beyond that, we are all at the mercy of various algorithms in play on the platforms where we hope to share our ideas. In both cases, there are two types of videos that get attention.

The Two Types of Video to Post

  • Brief – Less than 3 minutes, maybe even less than 1.
  • Long – Ten minutes or more.

We either want the snack or the meal. It doesn’t matter which platform, though YouTube tends to promote long form much more than brief works. What matters is what your prospective audience is meant to do after watching the video.

Longer videos earn more camaraderie, trust, likability (if you are worthy of those emotions). Brief videos serve people looking to solve a specific problem.

It’s up to us to create both. It’s not our choice. We don’t pick the length. The platform and our target audience’s intent are what drive these choices.

Want to see an example?

Get my Newsletter!

If you like what I covered here, I invite you to grab my newsletter. It’s not the same as this blog post. It’s completely unique content that comes out on Sundays. I promise you that it’s the best of what I do every week.

Try me!





My Simple Live Video Setup for Mac

chrisbrogan · January 1, 2019 ·

In 2019, I intend to deliver quite a lot of video as part of my media making. This includes live video on YouTube as well as uploaded videos to other content platforms. If you want my simple live video setup for Mac, here’s what I’m using. (By the way, the only part that is Mac specific is the actual video making software.)

My Simple Live Video Setup for Mac

Software – I’m using Ecamm Live. I love this software because it allows me to use multiple cameras, multiple views, links to Facebook Live and YouTube Live AND lets me record a local copy of every video that I can upload to other places like LinkedIn after the fact. Ecamm Live is simple, super affordable, and works smoothly on a Mac. (Note: I’ve had past business dealings with this company and the owners are friends.)

Webcam – I took a chance and bought a no-name brand Chinese webcam and it has worked beautifully for me. I have used it for over a year and I’ve never had a problem. I also picked up this little mini tripod and this sits on my desk.

Microphone – I just picked up the Blue Yeti Nano in Shadow Gray (few other color choices). It’s a smaller and more condensed version of the regular Yeti. I’ve used Blue brand microphones for about ten or more years now and they never cause me an issue. I also picked up this boom stand to go with it. That is clamped onto the side of my desk and works wonders.

Lighting – I’m not super great with lighting, but I purchased two of these lights and also two light stands for those. To do it again, I might consider this kind of light instead.

And that’s my basic setup.

My Process

When I get ready to do a live video, I announce that I will be doing so on both Twitter and Facebook, and then I open up Ecamm Live. I turn on both lights, make sure my mic and camera are plugged into the USB slots on my Mac. I double check that I’ve got the software set to broadcast live to YouTube (and keep a local copy on my machine). I check that the mic is on and not muted. I check that I’m in the camera frame.

I review my notes (usually a list of bullet points I want to hit during the recording), and then I take a big drink of water. I double check that all alarms are off on any devices. I turn my phone to silent. I make sure the AC/heat won’t come on. I stick a “recording” sign on my door so neighbors don’t screw up my recording effort (I live in a factory building).

I then hit broadcast, and start talking.

Make This Your Year of Video

The setup I showed you up top isn’t expensive, particularly. Everything in it is attainable over time. But don’t let that stop you. Even if all you have is your smartphone or a point and shoot camera that shoots video, get started making video. It’s pretty important to create more material for that medium.

Want to See A Sample?

Here’s an example of me using this setup:

And if you get stuck, I’m always here to help.

By the way, consider grabbing my newsletter. It’s the best thing I do every week. I promise I’ll work hard to help you succeed.

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