Getting The Choir To Sing

Using Content Marketing Practices To Engage Your Internal Teams

Getting The Choir To Sing

Robert Rose Content Marketing World Session 2012

Author of the book Managing Content Marke2ng, and a recognized expert in content marke2ng strategy, digital media and the social Web, Robert innovates crea2ve and technical strategies for a wide variety of clientele. He’s helped large companies such as AT&T, PTC, First American Title, Valley Crest, and Nissan tell their story more effec2vely through the Web. He’s worked to strategize digital marke2ng efforts for entertainment and media brands such as Dwight Yoakam, Nickelodeon and NBC. And, he’s helped marketers at smaller organiza2ons such as East Harlem Tutorial Program, Coburn Ventures, Hippo and Magus to amplify their story through Content Marke2ng and Social Web Strategies.

Robert Rose

Prologue – Heroes & Change…………….….…5 Building The Beautiful Song ..………………12 Selling The Song That Will Be Sung………25 Leading The Choir……………………………….30 Epilogue…………………………………………….37

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

AUTHORS NOTE Hi. So, first of all, thanks for downloading this. I hope you dig it. Secondly – a colleague of mine has told me (quite rightly) that despite my English Literature background, that I use punctua2on like Dr. Seuss uses words. In a word – crea2vely. So, what follows is a talk that I gave at Content Marke2ng World – and is really just a transcrip2on of my prepared talk. So – make no bones about it – it was originally meant to be my speaking notes. Read it like you would dialogue. Punctua2on and syntax in this document are… ahem… high art. With that said – I hope the main points come through. Cheers,

~rr


I’d like to start by saying that if you’re taking notes to just stop for a moment. All the content of this talk – including these slides are available for download. If you want to live tweet or blog please do – but even then… What I’d like to ask is that we use this 45 minutes that we have together to stop for a moment and reflect on two words….

Prologue Heroes & Change

The first one is an aspira2onal one… we have in our heads this word Heroes. We have all kinds of defini2ons for it – but mostly it’s about an ordinary person being put into extraordinary circumstances – and then doing something heroic…. We have the woman saving the guy as the train is about to roll over them.. We have the guy crossing the street and saving the cat… And we see it in novels, and television and movies – and all throughout our popular culture… And that heroism can be intellectual, or iconoclas2c or accidental – or even in some Hollywood cases it can be the dark hero… But there’s one thing in common about EVERY hero that we run across… So, Mohammed Ali was one of my heroes as a kid growing up… And he did something just truly remarkable and reflects on the other word that I’m going to get to in just a moment. So – in 1974 Mohammed Ali was washed up… He was a loser. He’d been stripped of his championship 2tle because of his stance on the Vietnam War and he’d lost a 2tle fight to Joe Frazier and he was by most accounts of the sports pundits – washed up, old and just not viable any longer. But in 1974 Ali won a few fights and started coming back just a li`le bit. And then he got the chance to fight George Foreman for the world championship. It was Don King’s first fight as a promoter – so you already know that it was a circus -‐ and it was going to be called Rumble In The Jungle. Don King had convinced an African King to fund the fight – to pay both the fighters and it was going to be the biggest fight of the decade…


Now a lot of people don’t remember that Mohammed Ali was actually a HUGE underdog in this fight. George Foreman had a punch like a freight train. He was a huge man. He would just punish his opponents. He was a huge man – and he was a young man. Ali had no chance against this guy. Ali was float like a bu`erfly s2ng like a bee… He was a dancer… There was no way Ali was going to go 15 rounds with this guy… And Ali talked… You know Ali liked to talk… He talked how he was gonna float around Foreman and dance around him… And s2ng him… “

Ali completely changed his strategy – and redefined his approach to his sport.

“ How scary must that be? To completely redefine everything you’ve been successful at?


And then he did something Amazing… He did the exact opposite. He completely changed his strategy. He completely redefined the way that he approached the skill of boxing. He innovated the en2re sport of boxing in one fight – and how his style would be defined from that point forward. In the middle of the eighth round – about half way through the fight – he was up against the ropes… It’s where he spent almost the en2re fight up un2l that point… He was whispering in Foremans ear… That’s all you got… you can’t punch harder than that… And foreman was punishing him – and the announcers were flabbergasted… Up against the ropes in what would be forever known as the Rope a dope strategy..…. But then in the middle of the eighth round it became obvious that Foreman was 2red… He had punished Ali with punches and was just dog 2red… But Ali has spent his 2me learning how to take the punishment… building toward this… And that’s when Ali struck… He struck with about 30 seconds leg in the 8th round – knocked out George Foreman and he won that fight… And it was one of the most amazing comebacks in boxing history….. And of course Ali would go on to lose again… And then WIN again…. For a record third 2me… Winning the championship against Leon Spinx four years later… Ali CHANGED the way that he approached boxing – by innova2ng his en2re approach to the skill… How scary must that be…. To completely CHANGE how you’ve approached AND SUCCEEDED everything that you’ve come to know and that brought you to be a champion.. to Fundamentally re-‐learn the thing that everyone else recognizes you as a master for… ‘’ And that’s where I want to come to this word…

Getting The Choir To Sing Getting The Choir To Sing

And whether it’s a workshop… or a consul2ng engagement… or just a visit… As we finish our 2me together, I can tell you that there’s one thing that they all have in common… And what they’ll say to me is some form of the following… You know, Robert this is all great stuff… We’re very excited for content marke2ng and the opportunity that it provides to our organiza2on… But I need to know what happens on Monday morning… When this team goes back to their cubes or their offices – and sits down in front of their computer – and it’s the same old emails, the same old requests from sales, the same old problems – and we go right back into our old pa`erns… How do we CHANGE….

Since the last 2me we were all together at Content Marke2ng World I’ve had the dis2nct pleasure of either working with directly, teaching workshops or talking with and interviewing about opera2onalizing the process of content marke2ng – more than 75 different companies… They range from fortune 500 companies to small startups…


Quick Ques2on for you all…. What are typically the only two groups in our organiza2on that touch every other part of the organiza2on…. That’s right it’s the IT department… And the HR Department… Why is that? It’s because today everybody has technology to help them do their job… And HR is what makes sure we get paid for doing it… Why are we, as paid communicators okay with that these days…. Especially when EVERYONE in our company communicates… And look at HR AND IT departments and what they are challenged with… IT is dealing with the Consumeriza2on of IT – where people are bringing in their devices and expec2ng it to just work… And HR is dealing with managing talent and job design – figuring out how jobs that didn’t even exist five years ago now fit into the organiza2on… Why wouldn’t we in marke2ng be having these same challenges? Our team is now an empowered consumer base – our sales guys want things things on THEIR terms – our store associates find it some2mes easier to look things up on the internet than to access our “marke2ng intranet” our customer service people fulfill on the promise of our blog or our social channels. Our employees can create content, consume content, share content – or route their way around our content using technology if they want to. Sound familiar? Why wouldn’t we put the care and effort into communica2ng to the en2re company that we are pupng into our consumers.


Basically OUR CHOIR…. THESE PEOPLE MUST BE ENGAGED and SOLD on our story before we can ever be successful… And this is the reason I want us to just take this moment… this 2me – to process… So – I purposely asked Joe if he’d put me toward the end of the second day – because what I want to suggest is that you’ve ALREADY received a HUGE amount of amazing informa2on that will fuel this change… The 2ps and processes and frameworks I have over the next 30 minutes won’t be earth sha`eringly unique. They may even be extraordinarily familiar to you. But what I’m hoping is that by looking them through a different lens… Everything that you’ve seen over the last two days will be slightly different…

And what I want to suggest is that before we can effec2vely roll out ANY new innova2ve process that is designed to engage our customers – that we have to focus on CHANGE… and we have to focus on our team… Whether it’s our bosses and gepng them engaged in this – and/or our teams, the employees in our company…our partners our vendors….


Coming out of Content Marke2ng World there will be things you want to do – new techniques you want to try… New ideas you want to implement…. But BEFORE YOU DO…. I’d like you to take 2me and process this word change… And think about it from the perspec2ve of YOURSELF first… And then secondly on the CHANGE in your internal team – and THEN the CHANGE you want to effect on customers, your cons2tuents or your prospects… This is what I want us to think about – and make the space for in our heads… This is the cri2cal point in walking out of here with a bunch of good ideas jo`ed down in a notebook or your iPad – and then sipng at your computer on Monday morning frustrated because you can’t implement them… And actually implemen2ng them… But… How can we change our organiza2on to make ALL THESE AMAZING ideas POSSIBLE in our World… And I’d like to humbly suggest that we must start with ourselves – and then our internal Team to do that…. So… today… a few stories in three acts….


1.  Building The Beau2ful Song – where we show why doing this is important for our business.

2.  Selling The Story That Will Tell The Story – where we focus on our audiences, and how we will get them excited about what we are doing…

3.  Finally… Star2ng to lead the Choir... Focusing on how we use our powers to lead an engaged choir and a framework for keeping it going…


Let’s start by building our beau2ful story… I come from Hollywood – and I’ll start with a quick story on this to tee things up… In Hollywood – and especially in television there is a concept known as The Show Runner… you’ve heard of some of the really famous ones – Aaron Sorkin for The West Wing – and now The Newsroom. You might have heard of Ma`hew Weiner – who wrote for The Sopranos and of course started Mad Men is the Show Runner for that series.

ACT 1 Building The Beautiful Song

So – it struck me that like any good new startup company – these guys have a first day – or days… or even Days when things are going horribly when they have to make dras2c changes…. When all the writers, produc2on people actors etc.. all come together for the first 2me. In order to be successful, they’ve got to all know in2mately – and most importantly BELIEVE in the universe they are about to create over the course of six months – and hopefully six or more years. They are about to be a unified team – telling a story that’s coherent, emo2onal – and most of all resonates with a target audience… How do they get everyone engaged, and passionate about this… you know other than by the paycheck…


It’s about crea2ng a world that everyone believes in… They get EVERYONE involved and they start from where the Show Runner ended and they build this world – they throw out concepts, and physics for this world – and the internal stories they want to tell, and episodes they want to write, and they capture it all…. And then… it becomes a Real World… They believe… and everyone that’s been part of it believes as well… And this is a key lesson for us as we start to incorporate this change in our worlds…. Whether we are star2ng something brand new – like content marke2ng – or more likely working these new things into our process. To our team this is CHANGE. To our Bosses – this is CHANGE… To us.. This is CHANGE… And we must first get our team enchanted and excited about the story we want to tell. They must believe. That’s true even if we’re engaging because we’re trying to avoid risk… I talk with lots of large and small organiza2ons who tell me OUR TEAM ISN’T READY For Twi`er… They’re idiots..… I have no confidence that they will say the right thing – or the coherent thing… Well then that’s even a BIGGER business case to get your team enchanted and excited about the strategy…

“ It becomes a real world. And everyone that’s been a part of it – believes.”


I’ve had VP’s of Marke2ng at Fortune 1000 companies tell me with a sigh… “yeah, we’re going to try this whole content thing – but I can tell you because of…. Our CEO, the employees, the product, the fill in the blank problem… it most likely won’t work”…. I REALLY TRULY want to know why these people are surprised when it ul2mately doesn’t… Okay… So assuming you believe, it starts with a beau2ful, exci2ng story that your team gets excited about. And – yes – this can be as much or even in some cases MORE work than communica2ng with our external audiences. Let’s look at three business benefits…

I’m also going to assume one other thing…. YOU BELIEVE I’m going to suggest that if YOU don’t believe… You cannot make any of this work. Before your customers sniff you out – your team most certainly will. So you should go find something else to work on. Life is too short and you are too talented to work for something where you can’t believe in the story you want to tell.


The first is that an engaged choir will drive be`er business results more generally. We ins2nctually know this – but there are actually results that show it. Gallup did a survey and looked at high performing, world class organiza2ons and looked at the employee base that was highly engaged, not engaged and of course ac2vely disengaged.


The results are pre`y startling… So, in the purple you see average companies on the top and high performing, world class organiza2ons on the bo`om. The light purple represents engagement. The darker the purple the less engagement there is. In World class organiza2ons, the ra2o of engaged employees vs. disengaged employees is nine to one… In average companies that ra2o is 2 to 1…. Addi2onally… and this is the Houston we have a problem here… Average companies have almost 70% of their employees who are not engaged, or ac2vely disengaged… And we wonder why the number of social media disasters, and employee customer service Fails we see are growing…


And the flip side of this… what do we see from an engaged choir… Well if we believe that content will ul2mately differen2ate us… it’s OUR PEOPLE that will be the storytellers…. Studies have shown that an engaged employee base can drive the per person revenue count up by four 2mes… And that employee a`ri2on goes down by a third…. Here’s the thing…. We can start to ac2vely differen2ate our business on gepng our choir to sing.. Because chances are – our compe2tors suck at it…


The second is that engaged choirs tell consistent stories…. Consistency is a huge topic today. The power of a consistent story – and content is something that’s been men2oned in many of the sessions here yesterday and today…. Those same rules apply internally as well… We need to get our choir to tell consistent stories…


But this might be the biggest challenge of all…. Whenever I speak with Fortune 1000 companies especially – this is a HUGE challenge… Most companies have dealt with the onslaught of digital marke2ng and the need to publish digital content by adding more teams to it. We used to have the marke2ng team, the sales team, the CRM team, the finance team etc… Now even within marke2ng we have the ecommerce team, the social marke2ng team, the social crm team, the brand team, the direct team, the web team…. Econsultancy just released it’s latest survey of marketers and where they felt like they were truly integrated with content…. Yay.. 30% of us feel like the Web is pre`y well integrated… And moving down and down and down.. Till basically less than 8% feel like they’ve got an integrated mobile content strategy telling the same story… We may never be able to completely de-‐silo… But we MUST get our choir to start telling a more cohesive and unified story.


If we don’t… this is how we wind up the bu` of a joke… Because here’s the thing… The choir communicates to EVERYONE these days… They share with co workers, friends family… They can screw up your story in less than 140-‐ characters… And maybe most importantly – they LEAVE… Meaning you have a whole new rag of people to get sold… All of these social media disasters are well documented – and we don’t need to rehash them here… Here’s the important point… It might be an honest mistake… which you can argue that the Kenneth Cole was… Insensi2ve, but clearly not malicious intent…. Or, in the case of Chrysler – a pure idiot move…. It doesn’t ma`er… If our team isn’t singing the same song… telling the same story – then we will ul2mately become undone… Want a business case for pupng investment into this…. Think of it as insurance on ALL the other investments into content and crea2ve concep2ng that you’re about to make…


Engaged Choirs Drive Change. As I men2oned above – our ability to change and adapt will be a cri2cal factor in our success in the coming months and years. Enterprise marke2ng will be measured by our ability to quickly and flexibly adapt to changing ground condi2ons.


A study was done and it found that 66% of all major CHANGE ini2a2ves fail in organiza2ons…. We currently suck at driving change through our enterprise organiza2on… And here’s something fascina2ng… When researches look at the sources of innova2on – or change – in business… 70% of it is somebody replica2ng or modifying an idea from a previous job…. 20% of it is just discovered serendipitously… the happy accident of the viral video or the cool new product…. And then yeah, some2mes we’re swept into it uncontrollably… and then a very small percentage actually proac2vely go out and to it… -‐ and that’s what’s so fascina2ng… We stumble upon these cool things by accident or some small percentage of people who do it.. And then we promptly leave to go bring it to another job… You know – the one that we’re actually excited about…


And just to support this point if you’re star2ng out a content marke2ng exercise… So – once again… Marke2ngProfs and CMI did their annual study of marketers and asked what the biggest challenge…. For the second year in a row GETTING ENOUGH ENGAGING Content was the number one challenge… And I can tell you from my experience in working with ALL of the companies I’ve worked with in the last 12 months – This is the biggest challenge… How do we get our people to WANT TO or FIND TIME to create amazing content… This effort gets people excited enough to WANT TO SING… Our goal should be to get employees so fired up that they are ready to burst with content… So – how do we structure this… How do we get these people fired up…


You’ve already heard AMAZING Things at content marke2ng world… Things that you’ll want to try… And things that will really WORK….But perhaps they may work best on us… or our team… How can we take a step back from all this focus on the OUTSIDE… And instead focus on the inside… That said… There are three ideas that will help us think that process through…

ACT 2 Selling The Song To Be Sung

For example – B2B technology company I know… One of the things they do is to bring influen2al thinkers into their community… These thinkers are high level CTO’s and Directors of IT…. They are hard to get to… But the sales guys and other people in the company have access to them… The Marke2ng department engages the choir and rewards the Sales guys and Custoemr Service people for en2cing the influencers to post in the community… it’s part of their JOB now… But they get recogni2on… it’s not just something that MARKETING does.. It’s something that EVERYBODY does

When we construct how we are going to roll out a story to our employees – we’ve got to think how we can include them as a KEY piece of the storytelling mechanism. Remember the Showrunner… They bring the writers in… EVERYONE contributes to the world – they have a piece of that world… And then different for us – how can we make it relevant to their world… the one that they live in… How do they get to par2cipate in the story that we’re about to tell…


And just to support this point if you’re star2ng out a content marke2ng exercise… So – once again… Marke2ngProfs and CMI did their annual study of marketers and asked what the biggest challenge…. For the second year in a row GETTING ENOUGH ENGAGING Content was the number one challenge… And I can tell you from my experience in working with ALL of the companies I’ve worked with in the last 12 months – This is the biggest challenge… How do we get our people to WANT TO or FIND TIME to create amazing content… This effort gets people excited enough to WANT TO SING… Our goal should be to get employees so fired up that they are ready to burst with content… So – how do we structure this… How do we get these people fired up…


This is the normal communica2on method for how we sell the song to the choir…. We throw it up on a slideshare intranet – and then send out an email and say… “Hey – the new campaign is up there… if you’re interested go get it… “ If we marketed to our customers with an email that said – “here’s the latest message from our company – you should go find it in the Sharepoint directory” – Why are we surprised when we see Joe – the head of inside sales -‐ in the company lounge and ask him… Hey did you see the new marke2ng campaign we’re about to launch and they say… “oh yeah… Meh… Seems good… Good luck with that whole thing…” Are you kidding me….


Do we think our team spends LESS 2me consuming media and inundated with marke2ng messages than our consumer… No of course not…. Spending the 2me to develop a beau2ful, enchan2ng EXCITING internal story that gets our choir engaged is absolutely cri2cal.. We should realize that UNLIKE our consumers – we don’t HAVE to adver2se… WE CAN just simply go see them – we can simply call them up.. We DO know who they are… So we have no excuses for not iden2fying them, knowing them as personas and understanding what their needs are. But we need to do it in a way where we’re not Lumberg showing up at their cube saying… Um yeah…. There’s this marke2ng campaign thing I need you do know about… We can think of new ways to deliver informa2on that are unique to our organiza2on – but we should also think of crea2ve ways to engage our teams that gets them excited for the content.


Assuming we’ve got a business case to make investment into genera2ng content and marke2ng toward exci2ng and enchan2ng our teams – and assuming we now understand that so much of what we ALREADY KNOW as content marketers can be applied to this strategy – now we actually have to execute… And of course this is the most challenging part.. Three ideas at the center of this…

ACT3 Leading The Choir

Just before you roll out this content, this effort to your team – let’s stack the deck in our favor. Let’s find our sages… Our Yodas, our Obi Wans, our spunky best friend – and let’s get them to help us tell our story… Or – in some cases let’s get them to ACTUALLY TELL THE STORIES…. This is an incredibly important piece – because this gives us a huge strategic advantage…. So… there are three types of heroes…. There are the larger than life, powerful individuals... these are the charisma2c, usually more senior people who can help drive strategy from the top down…. Or, they really know how to get people wound up about a program…. There are the MOST AFFECTED… Who will be the most affected by this story…. Are we trying to drive greater awareness – and therefore more traffic to the Website with this strategy… How can we get the WEB TEAM to really be behind this… More than just “buy in” how can we get them SUPER EXCITED aobut this program….


And then there are the people who REALLY know the ins and outs of the organiza2on… Everybody knows what I’m talking about… This is the execu2ve assistant that can literally kill a project, or make a project by either a snarky or posi2ve remark while their standing in the door. Find a good mix of these people – and get them involved in building your story – and in telling it – sop that it’s being told from the top down and the bo`om up. Gepng people excited and an2cipa2ng the rollout, and then keeping them excited about it ager it’s launched. Also – they can be your eyes and ears for the naysayers – the people that will poo poo the idea.. And give you the ammo to come back and respond…


Then Number two…. This is where we channel our David Meerman Sco`… Avoiding the IZE… The Gobbledy Gook… I cannot tell you how many 2mes I’ve been in organiza2ons of all sizes… and the marke2ng copy was brilliant… Wri`en in the customer’s voice, ac2ve, persuasive, engaging, enchan2ng, exci2ng… sexy….. And then, I read the internal communica2on of that product launch – and it sound like it came out of a computer…. What you see on the slide is the ACTUAL internal new product launch announcement from a technology company to it’s employees…. The words up there read in any par2cular order actually make more sense than the actual product notes to the employees does…


And… last but not least – and perhaps a summary of really everything we’ve talked about is developing a center of excellence around content, content marke2ng – and engaging our choir…. Coming back to our Show Runner example for a moment – this is the BIBLE… There’s tons of content out there about developing the Chief Content Officer – and the managing editor posi2ons and everything that goes with that. But so much of that is dedicated to facilita2ng the stories and conversa2on with our external audiences….


We need to develop frameworks that help us organize our thoughts and efforts toward our internal audiences as well… If we start with Four basic goals for our internal audiences…. we want to create excitement and a desire for our people to produce content for our efforts. we want that messaging to be a consistent message over 2me – and that it develops a deeper ins2tu2onal knowledge that can be passed from team member to team member… it can be shared just as easily as it can be consumed… we want to develop that exper2se – crea2ng a highly engaged group giving us the ability to discover what REALLY works and resonates with our internal audiences And lastly… We want to deliver that story to the right person at the right 2me…. These four goals… Then give us four focus areas that help to isolate these combina2ons…


These four goals… Then give us four focus areas that help to isolate these combina2ons… Giving our COE of content marke2ng the task of focusing on clarity of communica2on and con2nual engagement – create that excitement and desire…. Focusing clarity of communica2on and ongoing measurement to develop a consistent message and measuring the efficacy of how its retained… by way of internal audits and surveys…. Focusing on ongoing measurement and increasing effec2veness of content to help us develop beèr and beèr content deeper in the organiza2on – and discovering BETTER stories for us to tell both internally and externally… And focusing on increasing effec2veness and con2nual engagement to make sure we’re delivering the right story at the right 2me to the right person…. Even if it’s down to ONE on ONE… It’s not a perfect framework… but it’s a start… And it will get beèr over 2me…. Here’s the important point..

My grandfather used to say something that’s been on my mind a lot recently. Whenever I got frustrated about anything – school, a job, life more generally he would ask me “what have you created lately.” Then, he’d chide me – “go create a new experience for someone.” He wrote this to me once in a card that explained this idea which was – when you create a new experience for someone, you get to experience it – and in turn it creates new opportunity for you.

Epilogue Hug The Chaos

…. The pain2ng above is the one that inspired what I hope you no2ced was a theme throughout my talk today…. It’s called Sunrise – by Claude Monet… And the legend is that this is the pain2ng that generated the term impressionism as a descrip2on for this style of pain2ng… One of my favorites… Monet used the word… Impression…. In the descrip2on of the pain2ng… and it caught on… Is that true…. I don’t know… I don’t care…. It Feels True…. So, in the hours that follow…. In the days that follow… In the months that follow – and in the years that follow this conference… FIND THE TIME….. Make the space… take that MOMENT… TO STOP…. to not only embrace the chaos… But find the 2me to love it…. Use the benefit of NOT KNOWING what the answer is t summon your inspira2on, your wisdom… And to tell your story… And as I always finish…. I dare you to make it remarkable…


And sometimes you need some help telling it. If you are looking for some help with content marketing education, planning or content – please let us know. We’d be glad to point you in the right direction.

It’s Your Story www.bigbluemoose.net

A number of my favorite paintings made it into this ebook – and here they are. A quick Google Search on any of the titles and artists’ names will provide you with great links and info on all of them: •  Edward Degas – The Chorus •  Ali – Simon Bull •  Andy Warhol – Bu`erfly •  Starry Night Van Gogh •  Icarus -‐ Ma2sse •  Gustav Klimt – The Kiss •  Pablo Picasso – Don Quixote •  Georgia O’Keeffe -‐ From the Lake •  Maxfield Parrish •  Cave Pain2ng Lyonne France •  Nathan Mochizuki. – Superman •  Kandinsky – Ravine Improvisa2on •  Claude Monet -‐ Sunrise

Artists Referenced

Getting The Choir To Sing

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Transcript of Getting The Choir To Sing