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I was inspired to write this piece having observed for many years how traditional marketers and advertisers struggle sometimes to understand the potential, and really, the inevitability of content marketing. It was also a really cool story about a great boxing legend.
I really love the analogy and approach to this topic, David. Maybe I'm biased because I've taken several years of Taekwondo and American Kickboxing (and just began a foray into Oom Yung Doe). I thought I used to switch it up, but now when I walk through the motions, I realize that I hadn't.
Reminds me of our bias toward things that reaffirm what we believe. When we seek those ideas and people that "make us feel good" instead of ones that challenge, we're not broadening our horizons nor growing mentally.
A graphic design friend told me that when she's feeling uncreative, she starts to do everything with her weaker hand: mouse clicks, coffee drinking, even signing her name. It puts her into a meditative state that helps open her up to new possibilities.
Anyways, I digress.
Yes, this is great feedback WRT "breaking" old-school marketers into new-school marketing. Your story makes it sound like you know something about one of my clients. I've been working on getting them comfortable with letting go of product benefits, corporate news, company awards, etc. It's been almost 6 months and we've come a long way, but there's still a long ways to go.
I think you'll agree when I say it's not an overnight transformation. This is a deep cultural shift that needs to take place. I found success in small wins over time. First, let's make sure you're publishing regularly. Develop a commitment to your social channels - even if it's just updates about the company. Then, let's make sure we know what the audience wants. Let's start to incorporate that into the social channels. See how much more engagement we're getting? New followers? Increased site traffic? Great, let's start building this out. Now let's identify a way to be able to publish carefully written content once a month... now twice a month...
So on and so forth. The proof in data goes a long ways.
Excellent piece. The beginning really grabbed me (I am from Mass. so I always like hearing about Rocky) and it was well written. I am glad you found a way to put in context the awkward transition that has to be made into content marketing. I think that content marketing is a great trend and I am happy to be doing it in a time when southpaws matter.