Content Mapping the Buyer Experience

I recently presented on 'Content Mapping the Buyer Experience' at the 2011 Canadian Marketing Association's (cma.org) B2B Summit in Toronto. Gotta say, it was an impressive (oversold) event. The combination of a good agenda, great people and interesting content made for time well spent.

I'm an advocate of supporting the 'Buyer Experience' which goes beyond the traditional buying cycle. How so?
1. The Buyer Experience includes various stakeholders, such as influencers, partners, end users, procurement, executive sponsors, etc - all those involved in a purchase decision - and looks at their motivations and involvement along the buying stages.
2. I include the loyalty cycle after the deal closes as part of the Buyer Experience. This is a discipline that is often managed separately under a 'customer experience' or 'customer satisfaction' label. While this is all well and good, I prefer to include it with the Buyer Experience because customers are potential repeat buyers. Having a holistic view of your buyers - even after they become a customer - provides a better view into patterns, people and purchase characteristics.
3.The Buyer Experience also includes all the pre-buying cycle activities that are done before the vendor is ever contacted or even knows there's an opportunity in play. With the evolution of social media, word of mouth, and user generated content, the Buyer is exposed to a wealth of information - an incredibly powerful and influential force,  that impact the buyer's perspective, perception and purchase decision criteria. If vendors aren't including this in their content marketing strategy, it's a missed opportunity.

While I could have spent all day on the topic, here's what I covered in the thirty minute session. Enjoy.

Content Map the Buyer Experience-CMA B2B Event

View more presentations from Corinne Schmid

INFOGRAPHIC: where did Content Strategists come from?

Very cool info graphic on Content Strategists from Richard Ingram. EMBED

Check Out Cool Content About.... Content!

I've seen a lot of really cool content lately that was about.... content!

Digital media becoming mainstream opened up a world of possibilities to communicate and express ideas in radically new and interesting ways. Formats and delivery mechanisms continue to mash-up; evolving content into the intersection of both art and science. Check out my new favs:

Content about Content #1: Content Marketing versus Advertising Infographic
This infographic from Marketo looks at the face-off between advertising and content marketing. Marketo is a marketing automation company, positioning themselves as a revenue performance management company. I started following Marketo back when they had under 100 customers and within a few years their website claims to now have over 700. They have a lot of useful and informative research, reports and best practices - it's worth checking out their site at www.marketo.com.

From the website: The data for this rockin’ infographic came from Marketo’s Content Marketing Cheat Sheet and the 2010 B2B Content Marketing white paper on benchmarks, budgets, and trends from the amazing content marketers at MarketingProfs and Junta42!

Cool Content about Content #2: Push Pop Media's Digital e-Book: Our Choice by Al Gore
From an unlikely source - Al Gore. Yep, his follow up book to An Inconvenient Truth called Our Choice, that Push Pop Media took to a whole other level with a next generation digital e-Book. You know it has to be good when it's featured on Ted.com. As you'll read on the website, software developer Mike Matas demos the first full-length interactive book for the iPad -- with clever, swipeable video and graphics and some very cool data visualizations to play with. The book is "Our Choice," Al Gore's sequel to "An Inconvenient Truth." 



Cool Content about Content #3: Content in the Cloud - Cloud App (author Tom Jenkins)
This is a triple threat: content on content that provides an immersive content experience for iPad. Tom Jenkins' follow-up to the ECM Trilogy book series went mobile and interactive:  Content in the Cloud - Cloud App. Everything you ever wanted to know about Enterprise Content Management,16 chapters featuring innovator stories, case studies, videos, podcasts, and a bunch of other cool stuff. It's free and is available in English; and sadly NOT French, German, Japanese, Spanish and Swedish as it suggest on iTunes. Here's a preview:


Full disclosure: yep, I work at OpenText and I 100% stand by listing the Content in the Cloud as one of my fav's - especially when it was the first iPad immersive book app (and one of the first iPad apps overall thanks to its super talented developer/designer/you won't believe what this guy can eat in a day Jonathon P).
 
If you've seen Cool Content about Content, I'd love to check it out - either list it in the comments below or message me.

Enjoy the Content about Content! 

Part II: Be Memorable! Rock Your Presentation with a Profile Infographic

Last week I wrote about a great presentation tip I picked up at the annual CMO Council Summit in San Jose: a biography puzzle.You can read about it here. For those who have waited with abated breath for me solve my bio puzzle - the wait is over! 

To all the aspiring Double Jeopardy presenters who took a run at solving my Biography Puzzle, I had a good laugh at some of the responses. And yes, there were a couple... concerning ...interesting... suggestions, “you think I’ve done what??” Thanks for the emails and a big thank you to Chris Hummel for providing his puzzle details.

This week I stumbled upon - but not on Stumbleupon.com - an online tool that creates a personal profile Infographic and allows you to save the output. Before I crack the code of my bio puzzle, I'm wondering if anyone has an Infographic? Has anyone tried this? Seen anyone? Anyone? …..Bueller? 

I love infographics. And I mean LOVE them. The good ones, of course. I would characterize a good one by

• a clear and focused narrative (even better if it has a unique point of view)
• Addresses one topic and has done its homework with finding, verifying and providing good data and information.
• Creatively and often genius - marries design and data to visually represent and communicate the story – and deliver knowledge. For me, when I find a good one –  I feel like I’ve absorbed an entire chapter from a school textbook within seconds and can retained the information with ease.

I like the clever and savvy use of visuals. Especially the combination of rich media and interactive design. I’ve got a few links at the bottom that you can check out - there's a great one for the sports fans. As I searched for other tools, I found a a series of Infographic resumes which were super creative, informative and could be used as an introduction (a lighter, less detailed version).  I have a few links below you can check out.

The online profile infographic tool took me about 2 minutes to sign-up and complete their template and then another 5 minutes to format using the options provided. The information isn’t that spectacular but it looks impressive for a <10 minute effort.  In fact, I’m pretty optimistic that a color copy would wildly impress my parents and likely be showcased on their fridge next to my niece and nephew elementary school art projects.

Here are two versions. Let me know what you think and if you’ve come across anything better.

the horizontal layout

itzCorinne Profile Infographic: same tool used as above, but with the vertical layout and different background.

 
BIOGRAPHY PUZZLE

As for the biography puzzle:

1. It’s all German and Greek to me
2. T •
3. 000010001100011 x 15
4. BI, CPM, ABM, APM, SOA, ITIL, BPM, BBIM
5. ECMM
6. CMO and/or Wired
7. Sat Nam

Answers:

1. I’m half German (half British) and my name is Greek. Most people assume it originated in France.
2. I live in the Tdot – aka Toronto.
3. I’ve worked in the software industry for 15 years
4. Some of the specific software areas include Business Intelligence, Corporate Performance Management, Activity-based Management, Application Performance Management, Service-Oriented Architecture, Information Technology Infrastructure Library, Business Process Management
5. I’m currently in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and you can call me a ‘Master’… at least that’s what the ECMM stands for – it’s a certification from the AIIM organization.
6. My big hairy audacious goal in life is to become a CMO or make the cover of Wired Magazine… best magazine ever!
7. Sat Nam: No - it's not a sandwich! I’m into Kundalini yoga and yoga therapy. Sat Nam is the Kundalini equivalent to Namaste.

 

 The links to the online Infographic tool and resume examples:

• The Infographics I created above are from http://ionz.com.br/
• Seriously amazing Interactive NFL Sports Stats: NFL stats "spike chart"
• There's a great collection of resume infographics - which are far more advanced than the template I used above and illustrate very clever visuals.Check them out at Cool Infographics
  

If you have any to share, I'd love to see them.

Be Memorable! Rock Your Presentation Intro with a Biography Puzzle

How many presentations did you attend in 2010? 

My answer is…. no idea. A lot? Think back for a moment: all the travel, conferences, obligatory meetings, the webinars you signed up for…Nope… I still couldn’t tell you how many presentations I attended. 

I can recall the good ones - like John Mancini at AIIM's annual conference or Jess Schell's DICE 2010 keynote (WOW!). But it's rare to land the Double Jeopardy presentation: great speaker and great content.

Far too frequently, I witness the audience succumb to the relentless Blackberry itch that compels attendees to check for anything that will hold their attention or maintain a semi-conscience state (especially during the dreaded post lunch time slot).

Let’s flip it around: how many presentations did you deliver in 2010? Were you memorable? What about your content? Let’s be honest – there's one Steve Jobs. For the rest of us presentation mortals, we can use some tips and tricks. Especially when we're one of umpteen speakers in an all day line-up of back-to-back presentations – we can use a little help to up our game.

But how?

I hit Double Jeopardy last week at the annual CMO Council Summit in San Jose.

I didn’t know Chris Hummel, CMO & President of North America, Siemens Enterprise Communications prior to the CMO Council Summit. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t anticipating any life changing revelations during his keynote, How the Operationally Savvy CMO Can Become a Valued CEO Asset.

I’ve never been happier to be so wrong.

I’ve never seen a keynote delivered by a mortal in 8 slides. And with an introduction I’d call genius. Yep, Hummel is my new reigning Double Jeopardy presentation champion. The bar has been raised: compelling content and speaker with 8 slides. Actually:

 - 7 slides if you remove the title.

 - 6 if you overlook the bio.

 - 5 if you don’t count the Agenda.

In this instance, his intro was the highlight. Chris called it a “Biography Puzzle”, he captivated an entire room with 7 bullet points:

• The Martinellis & the Walshes
• RS – C – P
• 14 + 8
• Здраствуйте!
• FSO
• 3
• ?

His DaVinci code approach had everyone’s attention. The next day I caught myself telling a friend about this great speaker who was part Irish, fluent in Russian, has a German last name, lived overseas for nearly a decade, in 8 countries, did a stint somewhere as a Foreign Service officer and is now the CMO of Siemens Enterprise Communications.

I’ve never seen this approach before and based on comments from the other CMOs in the room – they won’t forget Chris either. I figure if I can remember that level of detail on someone I just met - in a line-up of 20 other speakers, he's on to something. And I love that he came up with the concept just to keep the presentation interesting.

I decided to give it a try and came up with my own biography puzzle:

• It’s all German and Greek to me
• T •
• 000010001100011 x 15
• BI, CPM, ABM, APM, SOA, ITIL, BPM, BBIM
• ECMM
• CMO and/or Wired
• Sat Nam

I suppose I could simply tell you what it means…. Nah! I’m interested to hear your interpretation, see your biography puzzle or find out what other interesting presentation tips you've seen. 

Any takers?

1 Minute on Marketing 3.0: Values-Driven Marketing

I came across this video ages ago and it stuck with me. Now I know why.

"You can do anything. So go do it."

Sadie has a pretty clear and compelling message. More remarkable, she expresses and personifies all things marketing 3.0 – in a minute! The same principles that have many corporations flummoxed. The simple breakdown:

Medium

She uses rich media -  video, to tell her message. A future in Content Marketing looks bright for Sadie as she also showcases some of her artwork.

Message

She’s authentic – from the pink room with all the stuffed animals to the Coldplay poster pinned up on the wall, Sadie is real. Full stop.

Mission

From an academic perspective, if you compare this with Philip Kotler’s Marketing 3.0 approach, she’s also got it covered: she’s got Mind, Heart and Spirit and she certainly exudes her Mission, Vision and Values.

This isn’t dismissing the notion that we need values in the sense of value-based selling and value messaging and value this and value that – sometimes a gentle reminder that we need just plain VALUES.

Kotler calls it ‘Values-Driven Marketing’ and I don’t disagree. And this takes Mind, Heart and Spirit to communicate and express your mission, vision and values. Kotler and Hermawan Kartajaya have a great article I found on Scribd at

Marketing 3 0 Values Driven Marketing

Funny that you can learn all that in 1 minute from Sadie. What's your view on Sadie or Kotler's approach?

Latest Marketing, Storytelling, Content Strategy Reading List: Pink, Tasner, Roma, Denning and others

Okay, I confess: I love ordering books online. It's not just about the books; I get a rush like a kid opening birthday presents when the package arrives. It's awesome. Especially when I've compiled a lengthy wishlist and then finally have some time to dig in and check out the topics that have been wiggling my brain.

My selection criteria is pretty simple: if the book passes the highlighter test, I buy it. That may shed some light on age (I stopped counting at 29), the highlighter test is when I browse through the book and have an impulse to highlight sections for future reference. There's other factors as well, but that's the main one.

Here's the latest books that past the highlighter test:

•  A Whole New Mind: Why the Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future - Daniel Pink
•  Any guy named Pink who suggests that us left-handed creative types will rule the world - I don't even need a highlighter.
•  Engage!, The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web - Brian Solis 
• I’m not sure how I feel about Ashton Kutcher writing the forward but Solis past the highlighter test nonetheless.
•  Marketing in the Moment: The Practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 Marketing to Reach your Customers First-  Michael Tasner
• I first opened this book on the page where Tasner talks about being the best marketing person ever by 25 years old. What a punk, I thought... oh... wait... there's a whole lot of highlighting for this book - and I'm talking where you need multiple color highlighters. I got over the whole punk thing pretty quick - it's a great resource.
• The Back Of The Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures - Dan Roma

• When I realized that Roma was suggesting the pictures were drawn versus using graphics or illustrations, I nearly put the book back on the shelf.  I can't draw - what's this guy thinking? Rest assured - he's got that figured out and lists the dozen-ish stickman pictures that any 3 year old can draw. Genius. For that - I even bought the over sized version of the book so the pictures are bigger.
• The New How: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy – Nilofer Merchant
• The title for this book doesn't do it justice. It's a great great read for anyone who wants a prescriptive look - with case studies and examples - on how to approach intercompany collaboration. I'll admit - wasn't so much the highlighter test as accompanying comics by Hugh McLeod which are simply hilarious.
• Get Content Get Customers: Turn Prospects into Buyers with Content Marketing, Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett.
• You gotta love Joe (sorry Newt, I don't know you).  If you're into content, content marketing or content strategy, then I recommend checking out anything from Joe or the Junta42 resources. And  congrats Joe to being named the #1 Content Strategy Rock Star.
• The Leaders Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative, Stephen Denning
• I love storytelling and how it's being applied in the business context. Let's get past the buzz, hyperbole and gobblygook (there's a BS meter - aka gobblygook - where you can find out just how many of these BS infractions you've made in your copy). Denning's book was a no-brainer 'must buy' as soon as I saw it.

Still on the Wish List

    •    Made to Stick, Chip Heath. .... Funny thing about this one:  not too long ago, I walked past a display of this book. I hadn't heard of it at the time but the cover caught my eye even though I was engrossed with a book in my hands. And I proceeded to the cashier, I wondered why a home improvement book was in the marketing / management section. Since then, at least a dozen people have recommended this book to me.

These look interesting – potential Highlighter candidates:

•  UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging - Scott Stratten
•  Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping--Updated and Revised for the Internet, the Global Consumer, and Beyond - Paco Underhill
•  The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind -   A. K. Pradeep
•  Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide -  Henry Jenkins (I've heard a lot about Mr.Jenkins and the general consensus is that he rocks).

What are you reading these days? What recommendations do you have for me?