☮️ Innovative demand gen; Brand building secrets
Here's a short round up of my favourite marketing reads from the past 2 weeks.
Hey!
Next week’s podcast episode is with Anthony Kennada, the current CMO of Hopin and the first person to really put ‘category creation’ on the map.
Until then, here are a couple of genuinely interesting marketing reads to get stuck into.
Cognism is changing how they generate demand (goodbye MQLs)
Alice de Courcy, CMO at fast-growing startup Cognism, recently posted about how they’re changing up demand generation.
“It is a mindset shift from pushing people into your funnel prematurely after a content download or something similar, and moving to generating more of the direct intent demand.”
In the below image, they’re transitioning from the majority left strategy, to the majority right strategy.
Marketing at Cognism will no longer focus on net new leads (i.e. MQLs).
Yes, that means ungating all content.
They will focus on creating quality content and the distribution of that content to engaged readers who need it.
Engaged readers will then be served product awareness adverts as their next ‘funnel’ stage.
Here is the original post.
Here is an 8-minute video where Alice explains her strategy.
P.S. This is the future of marketing.
The brand-building secret no one will tell you
“Whiteboard Fridays, started in 2007, is one of the digital marketing community’s most ubiquitous resources. Started by Rand Fishkin and now continued by others, it’s a treasure trove of digital marketing knowledge.
This is what used to happen in its original incarnation: Fishkin stands in front of a whiteboard that has been filled up with the ideas of that episode, and explains stuff. It was a dramatically successful format and brand, in time recording 20% – 30% higher engagement compared to other content on their blog.
But, and Fishkin has said this multiple times: For the first 2 years of Whiteboard Fridays, no one watched.
But he kept doing them. In the 10 years after Whiteboard Friday started, it was only not uploaded once. Once! That’s 50 posts a year for 10 years.”
Show up, sit down, and type
“Abbey Ryan has painted a new painting every day for 8 years.
Isaac Asimov published 400 books, by typing every day.
This is post #6000 on this blog.
Writer's block is a myth, a recent invention, a cultural malady.
More important than the output, though, is the act itself. The act of doing it every day. When you commit to a practice, you will certainly have days when you don't feel like it, when you believe it's not your best work, when the muse deserts you. But, when you keep your commitment, the muse returns. When you keep your commitment, the work happens.
It doesn't matter if anyone reads it, buys it, sponsors it or shares it. It matters that you show up.
Show up, sit down and type. (Or paint).”
This is Seth Godin’s 6000th blog post from 2015. Read it here.
Understanding why people buy $4000 shoes will change your marketing strategy
“I own a tourist hostel near the city airport. A major part of our clients are tourists during stop-overs, wanting to rest before the next-flight or visit the city old town. Our offer, in the beginning, was about clean rooms, in a friendly and calm atmosphere.
But then I realized that this was not what all that the customers wanted. They also desired the certainty that they would not be late for their next flight, something we were not fulfilling. Something
that neither we nor our competitors were conscious about.
We added a free transfer airport transfer to our standard offer, taking our guests in comfortable cars with the uttermost punctuality to their next flight. This increased our attractiveness to a point that we could increase the price more than enough to compensate for the costs associated with the “free” transfer.”
Have a great week you lovely people.
Ben ☮️
P.s. Did you get some value from this article? I give away everything for free, so if you think I deserve it, you can ‘buy me a beer’ right here (i.e. donate $5).