The new one is right here.

Thanks!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said the fault of struggling to sign up on the Obamacare exchanges didn’t lie with the faulty website, but with the people who weren’t “educated on how to use the Internet.”

Politics aside, how often do marketers make this same statement - or something very similar.

We don't figure it's something we're doing wrong. It's obviously that the people visiting our site are too stupid to know how to do what they're supposed to.

The next time you find yourself blaming the user for your website, product or anything else wrong, remember this. If you need to say that people don't understand how to use your site, it's because you didn't make it easy enough.

Start over.

Google values what doesn’t scale. Google values great content, which is exceptionally difficult to scale. Google values innovative ideas, and heaven knows innovation is a struggle. If it’s unique and difficult to do, Google will probably value it. Being a great content provider? Hard to do, even harder to scale – ask anyone with a successful website or team blog just how difficult it is to consistently crank out great content. Being an innovative developer? Very hard to do, exceptionally hard to come up with consistently great new ideas, and incredibly hard to scale well.

While it's tougher to give Google what it wants these days, I think it's much better for everyone.

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]]>MarketingKevin BehringerWed, 26 Mar 2014 15:49:48 +0000http://ideaspire.net/blog/2014/3/this-is-what-people-think-of-marketing5005877ce4b0306d6cfd0db9:50072561e4b0f2b3c8a5108b:5332f728e4b04626b1911935

Sadly, they're not really out of line to think this.

via: The Verge

Recently, I saw this tweet that, to me, seems like a good start:

Building something people need is the best marketing you'll ever do.

— Justin Jackson (@mijustin) March 21, 2014

That tweet was not only encouraging but insightful. It also made me realize that, while I couldn't agree more with the sentiment, I think there is one key element missing. Instead of simply saying that "building something people need...", I would adjust it to read, "building something people need and want is the best marketing you'll ever do."

So many of our decisions as consumers are emotionally driven that, as marketers, we need to consider those motivations when creating products. Very rarely is the utilitarian product the one that wins. Sure, there are commodity products that many people don't think twice about buying, but when it comes to a considered purchase, I would argue that often desires and wants will far outweigh someone's needs.

That said, I agree with the sentiment. Instead of creating marketing to "convince" (or even trick) people to buy our products, we - and they - are much better served by creating products that are useful and desirable. Those types of products, with the marketing built right in, are the ones that will win from now on. It's high time we marketers started acting like it

Marketers can now reach just 6% of their fans organically. When we published our research, some brands were surprised to find that Facebook only delivered posts to 16% of their fans. In December a leaked sales deck revealed that Facebook was telling marketers they should expect organic distribution of posts to decline further — but few could guess how far and how fast that distribution would fall. This month, Ogilvy released data showing that the brand pages they manage reach just 6% of fans. For pages with more than 500,000 fans, Ogilvy says reach stands at just 2%.

If your marketing strategy is largely depedent on Facebook, you may want to revisit that drawing board. Or, get ready to open your wallet wide.

The recent news could have damaged the Airbnb brand significantly. Obviously. But, they acted quickly and went above and beyond to make the situation right.

Austin Carr, writing for Fast Company:

But "to Airbnb's credit," as Gawker reported: "Airbnb's response to Teman was quick, almost absurdly so. Within 24 hours...Airbnb had sent a locksmith to change his locks, made plans to put him up in a hotel for a week, and wired him $23,817."

That's service. Doing more than you need to, faster than you need to, because it's the right thing to do. How many brands can you think of that would have taken the responsibility on themselves to make this situation right? Not many. Most would have just done the minimum they felt responsible for, with many probably pointing to a line in their "terms of service" that removes any culpability from them.

That's the problem. Whether it's the brand's responsibilty or not, it is. And, from a marketing standpoint, taking responsibilty, even when you may not be at fault, and doing more than someone could expect is going to do much more for your brand than any TV ad you could conceive of.

How do they do it? How are they able to react in "real-time" the way they did. The secret is elsewhere in the article.

To make Airbnb into a service capable of providing the same level of hospitality as hotels would require expecting the unexpected. "One of my first questions when I joined the company was, 'Have we dealt with every potential situation? Have we thought about X, Y, and Z?'" Conley recalls.

That's the key. They thought through every possible situation - however unlikely - and developed solutions should they ever arise. Sure, in many cases, these will never come to fruition. But, for the one time that they do, having the solution ready and waiting is the key to weathering the storm.

What if your company isn't as high profile as Airbnb, though? Can you ignore planning ahead like this.

No chance.

Not every high quality customer interaction with Airbnb ends up in the news. But, they don't care.

Later in the article, Carr highlights this:

Conley also recalls recent cases of prostitution in Sweden and Washington D.C., where Airbnb reacted equally quickly despite less news coverage. "We're going to have bad situations that don't get press, and bad situations that do," says Conley says, contending they must be afforded the same attention regardless.

It's easy to jump into action when you have reporters and other media jumping up and down on your brand. The real test is what happens when things can fly under the radar with seemingly little impact to the brand?

This piece illustrates the benefit of treating every situation with the same high level of quality - regardless of the amount of attention. When one of these negative situations arises, these quiet moments of doing right will also help dispel the negative impression because you have proven your desire to do right by your customers.

Now, admittedly, some criticism remains about this situation and some people still accuse Airbnb of poor service/quality. But, I think that the user of the service does have to assume some responsibility. In compairson to the poor service of many other companies, I think that Airbnb has gone above and beyond in their reaction to this disaster.

It's almost like being a good company that does the right thing for its customers ends up helping the brand. Imagine that.

Content is something that goes inside something else. When the word you use to define something is intrinsically based on its subordinate relationship to another thing… it devalues it. Really what you’re saying when you use the word is that it’s a means to an end — usually a way to make money.

It seems to me that this is what much of the rest of the world (read - non-marketers) think when they hear "content".

I agree wtih Sid that it seems to devalue what is being created and the word itself has become far too widely used. I'm not saying I have a solution or a better word, but I do think it's something we should consider when we say "content" marketing.

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]]>LinksKevin BehringerThu, 13 Feb 2014 21:58:50 +0000http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/the-marketing-moral-compass/5005877ce4b0306d6cfd0db9:50072561e4b0f2b3c8a5108b:52fd4026e4b01646a34c2f17Mitch Joel:

You can have a brand that people aren't interested in, but if you're always perceived to be doing the right thing (because you are doing the right thing), this will lessen the potential damage of negativity, while adding layers of comfort to those who are already in love with the business. So, what does your business stand for in relation to your consumers? What types of relationships do you want with your customers? Before you buy that first ad, before you ask for that first email address, before you post that next piece to your Facebook page, spend some serious (and quality) time defining your marketing moral compass.

Very important post today by Mitch and one that every organization would do well to consider on a regular basis.

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]]>Kevin BehringerFri, 31 Jan 2014 20:26:03 +0000http://jaredlatigo.com/the-look-of-the-industrialist/5005877ce4b0306d6cfd0db9:50072561e4b0f2b3c8a5108b:52ec06fae4b04ebfb35a3633Jared Latigo:

Marketing is about telling a story and asking people to take part in it. That is what the connection economy is all about. The deeper we can go, the better off we’ll be.

An intersting point, albeit a slightly simplistic one. But, I think we'd do well as marketers to think deeply about what our role is and should be.

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]]>LinksKevin BehringerFri, 31 Jan 2014 17:58:34 +0000http://blog.squarespace.com/blog/introducing-rss-subscriber-statistics5005877ce4b0306d6cfd0db9:50072561e4b0f2b3c8a5108b:52ebe459e4b04984d222781fToday, we’re adding RSS statistics to the platform – a feature that’s been requested many times by our customers.

We’ve worked hard to create an accurate view of your RSS subscribers, where you can see daily, weekly, and monthly statistics. You can view subscribers — people that have recently accessed your RSS feed — for every feed on your website.

Finally!

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]]>LinksKevin BehringerFri, 24 Jan 2014 20:05:48 +0000http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/01/three-long-held-concepts-every-marketer-should-rethink/5005877ce4b0306d6cfd0db9:50072561e4b0f2b3c8a5108b:52e2c7b0e4b0c76cfdc4d090Itamar Simonson, writing for Harvard Business Review

When consumers can assess their likely experience without having to rely on things like brand names or prior experience, everything changes. Yet most people think about marketing using the same old concepts. Despite all the talk about the Internet and social media, the presumed critical roles of branding, loyalty, and positioning have not changed. It’s time to seriously reevaluate these and other long-held beliefs about marketing.

This is one way of saying that brands and marketers need to earn it every time now.

That's a good thing.

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]]>LinksKevin BehringerThu, 16 Jan 2014 20:16:21 +0000http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/01/no-tmi-on-the-internet.html?utm_source=loopinsight.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+loopinsight%2FKqJb+(The+Loop)&utm_content=FeedBurner5005877ce4b0306d6cfd0db9:50072561e4b0f2b3c8a5108b:52d83efbe4b0bd82f3839689Maureen O'Connor, writing for New York Magazine:

In the age of social media, when cell phones come with camera lenses optimized for selfies, that last question gets asked regularly. So I am going to answer it, once and for all: No. There is no such thing as TMI on the Internet. We are living in a post-TMI age, and everyone needs to deal with it. Preferably by using the “unfollow” button.

There is such a thing as too much information for you. There is such a thing as information the speaker will later regret. But if an audience is willingly and pleasurably consuming the information, then by definition, that is the right amount of information for them.

Sad, but true. TMI is very subjective and, more and more, the line is shifting to ease the definition of what is "too much" information.

via: Jim Dalrymple

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]]>MarketingKevin BehringerTue, 14 Jan 2014 21:43:44 +0000http://ideaspire.net/blog/2014/1/is-it-really-their-fault-for-hating-marketing5005877ce4b0306d6cfd0db9:50072561e4b0f2b3c8a5108b:52d5afc9e4b03a2f95867836Recently, Apple guru John Gruber, made a statement to everyone frustrated with the "rate this app" popup found in many iOS apps these days. He suggested sending a message to developers by, every time an app uses the popup rating request, responding with a "one star" rating. The goal being to teach app developers that there are better ways to encourage people to rate their app.

There has been a lot of backlash and discussion about this idea. Nick Lockwood, the developer of one popular rating popup called iRate even went so far as changing his app to improve the user experience.

Watching this unfold made me wonder how many things are marketers doing every day to serve our interests or meet our needs at the expense of our customers? How many things do our customers put up with simply because they have not found a simple and preferable way to voice their displeasure?

My sense is that it's far more prevalent than we like to think and it's something we should change if we want marketing once again be respected as a profession as well as making our marketing as effective as it can be.

Users First. Always.

The issue in the rating popup scenario was not the fact that app developers were requesting their app to be rated. It was not the fact that they wanted feedback to improve their app (obviously a good thing!). It wasn't even that they were hoping for good ratings to improve their ranking in the app store. The issue that Gruber (rightfully) pointed out was that, in an effort to get the data they wanted, the developers were diminishing the experience of using the app for their users.

But, that's so common for marketers, isn't it?

We know that people don't want to be interrupted when watching TV, but we run ad after ad. We know that visitors to our websites hate banner ads and popups, but it doesn't stop us from "testing them out" to see if it helps us make our quarterly numbers.

Ultimately, we're not that different from these developers when it comes down to it, are we? When we're faced with selling our products, we'll try anything to get people to buy and, if it shows any sign of being successful, we'll repeat it until it stops working.

Regardless of the effect it may have on the brand long-term, if it works now, we're going with it. Regardless of the impact it has on our customers and their experience, if it works, we're happy.

In that sense, I think a punishment like Gruber proposes for developers should apply to marketers who act the same way. They should feel the sting of their bad choices and shortcuts from the customers they are ignoring.

There's Enough Blame to Go Around

As easy as it is to sit back and blame bad marketers for bad marketing, they're not always the only party at fault. Pressure from above in the organization can drive them to do things they normally wouldn't in order to pacify the "higher-ups."

Plus, if the market responds favorably to their poor tactics, it's hard to blame the marketers for continuing them. The famous quote (attributed to Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and others) says that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."

I think this often applies to consumers and marketers equally. Consumers keep responding positively to the tricks and underhanded tactics of bad marketers and then feign outrage at being inundated with bad marketing. When we, as consumers, keep doing the same thing over and over (buying in spite of bad marketing) and expecting a different result (marketers to change their ways), we're insane.

If something is working, businesses will continue doing it until that is no longer the case. They see the graphs all going up and to the right and they keep with the status quo. The only thing that will really deter them is to see those graphs change. And it's understandable. Try to think about a situation where someone would walk into a boardroom and say, "Well, this is working, our profits are going up, so I propose we stop doing it."

That's why I say it's not completely the fault of short-sighted marketers.

It's On Us, The Good Marketers

Ultimately, a lot of this comes down to a gut feel and scruples on the part of marketers. Sure, things may work and we can say that we're only doing them because people respond, but if we're pumping things out that we don't feel proud of, what's the cost? If we're doing things like the popup that Gruber rightly chastises, in spite of being annoyed by them in our own lives, we're divided within ourselves. And, "a kingdom divided against itself, cannot stand."

Instead, it's time for us as marketers to put a line in the sand. To say, "Yes, I know that may work for a little while, but I hate it when other organizations do it, so I'm not going to consider that tactic. Until we decide, as a profession, that we're going to raise the bar, this will continue.

I, for one, want to see the phrase, "I work in marketing," change from being met with disdain to one to say strongly. But, it's on us to earn that change of viewpoint from the people we look to reach.

Many of us bemoan the glut of content being created these days. Everyone is creating content and it’s all the same. But it’s also (mostly) free. We complain about how Twitter or Facebook isn’t working right, how the sites run too many ads, yet we forget that we aren’t paying a penny to use either service.

Nothing is truly free and I think we need to realize that if we aren’t paying for content or a tool on the front-end, there is a cost in terms of time, diminished experience, etc on the back-end. The myth of the free lunch is just that.

I think Mack's sentiment in the post is a good one. There is a difference between giving away content, though, for a brand that is selling something other than content. The challenge Mack rightly points out is when you are trying to sell content by giving away content as a prospecting strategy.

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]]>MarketingKevin BehringerFri, 10 Jan 2014 15:10:14 +0000http://ideaspire.net/blog/2014/1/marketing-with-stories-not-just-a-story5005877ce4b0306d6cfd0db9:50072561e4b0f2b3c8a5108b:52d00d64e4b04a2f696edb77I was recently reading an article from the Harvard Business Review about business process and lean processes in the healthcare and manufacturing industries. Compelling stuff, I know.

But, as I fought through the haze of statistics and effectiveness studies, something jumped out at me. The writer recounted some stories of business process failures that cost some patients their lives due to errors on the part of employees. They weren't malicious on the part of the employees, they were honest mistakes in the process that ended in tragedy.

The details and outcomes of those stories, however, aren't my point here. What stood out to me more were the stories themselves. In an otherwise drab, uninteresting article (for the most part - some people get excited about that stuff) these stories put a human spin on the article and made it compelling enough for me to continue reading. It also taught me a valuable less about the type of content that businesses should creating.

Nothing New, But a New Twist

The idea of including personal stories and human elements to content is nothing new, I admit that. But the way the writer in the article I read approached it made me realize that there's a way of using personal stories that we need to explore.

While the article did tell some stories that were sad and compelling and served to point out the broader thesis of the article, they were self-contained and smaller elements of the story. The writer told the story, then transitioned to more abstract prose to make his point of how healthcare needed to change and the processes he highlighted were the way to make that change.

What if, instead, he continued the personal part and told a hypothetical story about how the processes he was promoting would have helped in that specific case, rather than painting with a broad brush dipped in a bucket of data paint? Would that have led to a more compelling piece?

But, You Need the Data

I understand that focusing on one person's story in a piece that is trying to present a larger case can be detrimental. When there are numerous angles and subtleties to an issue as complicated as healthcare, there is a lot of information to cram into a single article. I will concede that.

The other challenge about focusing on one or two people is the risk of alienating or turning off those people who many not feel a connection to the challenges that person faces. For example, if the story is focused entirely on a cancer patient and the reader has had no connection with someone who has battled cancer (unlikely, but hypothetical), they may not feel the emotional connection to the story the way someone who lost a close family member to cancer would.

There's also the consideration of the broader message not fitting into one single story and, if given that one opportunity at an article in something like the Harvard Business Review, you need to take that opportunity and fully convey your message. This can be difficult or impossible if you focus solely on one person's story.

Maybe It's All a Matter of Focus

It is tough to tell a personal story. Especially if it's one that you haven't been personally impacted by. Someone may have a great passion for fixing healthcare, but may not have exposure to a person who was deeply impacted or had an instance where the messy healthcare system cost them or a loved one dearly.

That does make it difficult to tell one person's story. So, maybe it's not a matter of telling one story, but a matter of telling multiple stories.

I think there's a middle ground. What if, instead of telling a quick story before getting back to vomitting statistics all over the page, you sprinkled statistics in throughout stories? What if, when you want to illustrate a point about a negative situation, you told the story of someone from both sides? Someone who started on the negative side, but, though the solutions you are proposing, found their way to improvement.

That illustration of success through personal stories goes a long way to connect with real people on a real level and I think it's the future of not only content marketing, but more and more will be the tone of business as a whole.

Ultimately, the equation is the same as it always has been: Quality content will win, regardless of how deep the pockets of the company producing it. That quality content will spread more quickly given the application of savvy social marketing techniques.

But the capacity for consuming content will continue unabated regardless of the amount of content available. For most people—as evidenced by the Northwestern study—it’s as simple as this: I can stand all the quality content you can throw at me, as long as it’s about the stuff I’m interested in.

I stand by my original point(which Shel also calls out in his rebuttal), being niche with our content and understanding the people we are trying to reach will be key. By knowing who you want to reach (hint - not everyone!) and creating the type of content they want, there is still opportunity.

The onus is on the content consumers to be selective with the type, volume and quality of content they consume. The responsibility then falls to the content creators to be minduful of this and making it easy for the right people to find the content they want.

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]]>MarketingKevin BehringerWed, 08 Jan 2014 15:54:49 +0000http://ideaspire.net/blog/2014/1/doing-good-can-also-be-good-marketing5005877ce4b0306d6cfd0db9:50072561e4b0f2b3c8a5108b:52cd755ce4b0c8d185f03e99As long as many people can remember, marketing and advertising have largely been self-serving endeavors. The sole purpose of both professions has been to promote companies, push products on people and improve the bottom line. On the face of it, there's really nothing wrong with that, per se. Companies are in business to make money and the function of marketing and advertising professionals is to help them do just that.

But, as with nearly everything, the internet has changed all of that. Now, people are so inundated with marketing and advertising messages that they have become immune to the same old tired routine of yelling louder than the other guy in order to get attention. They have learned to tune out marketing and in large part ignore the messages that companies spend enormous amounts of money to spread.

So, the smart companies are now taking a different approach. They are trying to find ways to stand out in a noisy market, and are finding it necessary to change their definition of what constitues marketing. They are trying to not only talk to their markets, but to interact with them. Rather than assaulting the senses of the people they want to reach, they are working to become a part of their lives and integrate the brand into their experience of the world.

Many of them are turning to what I think is one of the most interesting and compelling forms of marketing in recent memory. They are utilizing company resources to make an impact in the lives of people without overtly marketing the organization. And, it's proving to be one of the better options for growing attention for brands.

You Want to Use $25,000 for What?

Two recent stories come to mind when considering this type of "peripheral" marketing. The type of marketing in which a brand chooses to do something worthy of people's attention, simply because it's a good thing to do. Rather than trying to make something with the end goal of "going viral," they are doing things that matter and seeing them go "viral" in the truest sense.

The first example is one that has captured people's attention around the world and comes from the traditionally frivilous movie industry.

When Ogilvy & Mather was charged with marketing the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, they turned to director Casey Neistat to produce a $25,000 promotional video that would help spread the message of "Live Your Dreams." Neistat, impacted by the (at that time) recent devastation in the Phillippines, said he would take the job only if they would let him take the budget and go help with the relief effort there. Sure, he'd film it and put together a video of sorts, but certainly not what the movie studio had in mind.

Traditional organizations would likely bristle at this tactic - understandably. Taking the entire budget and not spending it to promote the movie directly is a big risk. What if people don't get the connection? What if the stunt is misunderstood? What if the promotion overshadows the movie? What if no one pays attention?

But, they chose to take the risk - with sensational results. When the story came out, media outlets around the world were looking to tell the story. To highlight the efforts of Neistat and, by extension, the movie. By putting the money into something that people could connect with, something they cared about, they were able to tell their story and spread their message and people would listen happily because it was part of a larger, more important narrative.

Plus, with every news story about the efforts that Neistat was putting forth, the movie and studio were getting free advertising and promotion. Talk about extending the function of every dollar!

Don't Worry Colts Fans, We've Got You Covered

As anyone who follows the NFL knows, there were numerous teams in this year's (2013) playoffs that were in danger of having their first playoff game "blacked out" in their local markets. There is a rule in the NFL that if the game isn't sold out, then the game won't be broadcast to local TV markets. Understandably, many fans of the teams that could be impacted (including my beloved Packers) were nervous.

One team that was facing blackout was the Indianapolis Colts. With one day remaining to sell out, they had to sell 1,200 tickets or face the prospect of their local fans being unable to watch their Colts play in the first round of the playoffs. It took a grocery store to step in and knock the ball out of the park, to keep the football game on the air.

Colts corporate partner, Meijer, Inc., found it unaccpetable to keep Colts fans from seeing the game, so they purchased the remaining 1,200 tickets to prevent the television blackout. But, they didn't stop there. Rather than using the tickets to send executives to the game, or giving them to people within the organization or as perks to their vendors, they took it one step further and donated the tickets to be given to local military families as a thank you.

So, not only were Colts fans thrilled with the brand at helping keep their team on the air, but the goodwill given to Meijer due to their supporting military families extends far beyond their local market.

But, Every Dollar Needs to Bring In More

These are undeniably difficult concepts to come to grips with. Admittedly, it does seem a bit counterintuitive for a business to spend money with little or no guarantee of return. Consumers have so many options spending their money, that businesses need to make every promtional dollar count.

The other consideration, of course, is the shortened attention spans people these days. This certainly makes it dangerous to spend significant business resources on the hope that people will pay attention long enough to connect what you're doing to the message and goals of your brand. For people that can't spend more than a couple minutes to watch a video, it does seem a lot to ask for them to see a brand buying football tickets and connect the dots to do their grocery shopping there.

How Doing Good Cuts Through the Fog

While these are all realistic concerns, I tend see them as valid reasons to consider these tactics for promoting a brand. When a brand does something unexpected - like spending a promotional budget to offer aid to people in need overseas - it stands out in a market crowded with noise. While it is tougher to tie specific dollar returns to those efforts, they do cut through the fog of marketing messages that bombard people every day.

The other benefit of this unconventional approach to marketing is that they ultimately make people feel something. They endear a brand to people on a personal, emotional level, which is something that will stay with them long after the initial impression. As the fact that people buy from people (or brands) that they like becomes more widespread, any time a brand can make a connection on a human level, it will make an impact.

It's About the People

As brands are jockeying for position in people's minds and wallets, it is becoming more important to think differently. It's critical to be unique and show people the human side of the business. There are businesses out there taking that to heart and spending their promotional dollars not on "spray and pray" advertising that is losing effectiveness each day, but to stand for something. They are showing that they are not just buildings and balance sheets, but they are groups of people who have similar cares and concerns as the people they are trying to reach.

Next time you're faced with spreading the message of your organization, consider how you can do something that will surprise people with its generosity. It may feel scary or nerve-wracking, but often the things that work best do.

First, from Mark Schaefer

This intersection of finite content consumption and rising content availability will create a tremor I call The Content Shock. In a situation where content supply is exponentially exploding while content demand is flat, we would predict that individuals, companies, and brands would have to “pay” consumers more and more just to get them to see the same amount of content.

I know that you are under a barrage of distractions from increasingly amazing content. For me to simply maintain the “mindshare” I have with you today on this blog, I am going to have to create significantly better content, which of course will take significantly more time. I will have to “pay” you at much higher rates just to keep the same number of readers in 2014 that I had in 2013.

Then, Christopher S. Penn picks up the torch an runs with it:

However, the most important strategic change to keep in mind is that earned media will become paramount in the Content Shock if you don’t already have a large, loyal audience. Forget about SEO and web analytics for a moment and realize this simple but profound truth in Mark’s Content Shock theory: the battle for attention is entirely about the audiences you have access to. As the landscape gets more and more crowded, people will tend to stick with what they know, a la Barry Schwartz’s paradox of choice. The pain of change is significantly better than the pain of sticking with the media sources you already know.

Both great reads and interesting viewpoints on the future of what we call content marketing. It's a swell in the world of marketing that I've been feeling for a while. The challenge to get noticed in a crowded world.

I think that there's still room to build that following they both point to as the key to success in a crowded future. I just think it's through much more niche, targeted tactics that will take longer and more work. The flip side is, though, that it's likely that those groups will be far more dedicated to you and your content. So, like everything, with the impending challenges there will also be great opportunity for those willing to look for it.