Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling

You may have seen these rules posted elsewhere. They are so awesome, I'm going to post a link anyway.

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling

Former Pixar story artist Emma Coats tweeted this series of “story basics” in 2011. https://twitter.com/lawnrocket These were guidelines that she learned from her more senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories. I superimposed all 22 rules over stills from Pixar films to help me remember them. 

My favorite? "#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___."

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Second Priveo Video - "Emoticon Man"

I posted last week that Honeycomb was hired to help launch Priveo, a mobile app for messaging your friends with short videos.

I neglected to post a link to the second video we produced. The first video gives you a sense of how the app works. This one is a little more fun...I hope you enjoy it.




Monday, October 21, 2013

The Truth About Sleep, Science and Productivity

Good article in Fast Company about how much sleep people need to maximize their productivity.

The Truth About Sleep, Science and Productivity 

When the topic of sleep arises, two questions invariably follow:

What's the perfect amount of sleep to keep batteries charged and stay productive?

How do I go to sleep the right way?

Both are common questions, but the answers aren't as simple as they might seem.

THERE'S NO MAGIC NUMBER

... 
The bottom line: understand that sleep is highly individual, and to ensure that you can fall asleep when you need to, train your brain into knowing when it's time to turn the lights off.

For the record, I am one of those people who needs 8 hours of sleep to even be quasi-functional.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Honeycomb Consulting Covered in Washington Post

So...I'd like to brag a little bit. LOL.

I was asked to appear on a panel for DC Entrepreneur Week. The topic was on branding and marketing a startup, something that I love to talk about. The other panelists were super engaging and intelligent, so it was a great discussion. Anyway, the Washington Post wrote a short overview of the event, with a quote from yours truly.

Read it here: 5 take-aways from DC Entrepreneurship Week’s panel on “Creating a Loyal Brand”



Wednesday, October 16, 2013

First Video from Priveo

My client, Priveo, just released their first video. We are pretty excited, so check it out and tell me what you think.

Priveo is a mobile video messaging service that will be launched soon.

You can sign up for an invitation here: http://bit.ly/14j6OhR


Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Good Examples of the ROI from B2B Content Marketing

Top Rank blog is generally a good source of usable information. This article is particularly rich.

Want to see content marketing in action and real world examples of the value it can generate...

11 Examples of Killer B2B Content Marketing Campaigns Including ROI

Read the whole article for more info on these campaigns-


SunGard – Created awareness amongst IT professionals for SunGard Cloud offerings with a zombie themed campaign. The zombie themed effort resulted in exceeding download rates by 300%, a 5.7% email open rate and 20+ leads.

Limelight Networks – Implemented a “For Dummies” themed education campaign drawing attention to success and failures for companies and their digital presence. The campaign gained exposure through nearly 10,000 social media and news release views and $200k+ worth of sales opportunities.

Logicalis - Using content assets such as emails, microsite and ebook, Logicalis developed a thought leadership effort that supported sales teams by enabling custom messaging based on the prospects interaction with the campaign. With a target audience of about 2,000, nearly $8 million in new pipeline business was closed.

Sales Benchmark Index – Targeting prospects that were newly hired VPs of Sales, this campaign focused on providing a toolkit that identified corporate pains when VPs of Sales fail as well as case studies of successes. The promoted ebook was downloaded by target VPs 5,781 times.

Lattice Engines – Partnered with a research firm to create a study showing the impact big data has on sales. A robust mix of content marketing tactics were used to promote the report including: ebook, blog posts, guest articles, video interviews, Slideshare and an infographic. The report was downloaded 500 times, covered by 15 blogs and industry media sites and 1,500 views of the ebook.

Optum – Created an integrated marketing campaign to support the launch of a new solution, support sales and build thought leadership. The content marketing mix included: advertorials, display ads, email, direct mail and a campaign website. The successful campaign earned a 23.5 lead to conversion rate, 475% increase in website traffic, 2,500+ resource downloads, 28% increase in YoY blog followers and $52 million in contract value of new business with less than $ 1million invested.

ADP – Developed a content marketing campaign to connect and engage with their target audience on a ADP solution using white papers and a diagnostic assessment tool. The campaign generated over $1 million in new sales opportunities with several deals closed within the first 3 months of launch.

Demandbase – This education campaign was designed to help B2B marketers make the right content technology investment by using a white paper, infographic, webinar, Slideshare and a live presentation to spotlight tools that can maximize the power of content. The results of the campaign included 1,700 leads, 125 webinar participants, 5,000 views on Slideshare and $1 million in new business.

Xerox – Created a targeted “Get Optimistic” campaign to connect with 30 top accounts and partnered with Forbes to create a magazine that offered relevant business tips. 70% of targeted companies interacted with the microsite, readership increased 300-400% over previous email campaigns, added 20,000 new contacts, generated 1,000+ scheduled appointments, and get this: yielded $1.3 BILLION in pipeline revenue. Yes, BILLION.

OpenText – Created a personalized new customer onboarding site offering a variety of assets (white papers, checklists, product pages, ebooks, case studies) and content to welcome new clients and provide upsell, cross-sell opportunities. The campaign also included a two phase nurturing program. 1,700 new contacts were identified along with 31 new opportunities worth $1.8 million.

Crowe Horwath – Using 48 pieces of content in 4 different topic areas, this campaign targeted C-level prospects in financial institutions with $1 billion or more in assets across the buying cycle. Content tactics included: executive briefs, case studies, infographics, checklists, Q and A, and Brainshark video. 778 contacts were engaged with a 70% open rate (vs. 10%), 2 engagement worth $250k in revenue.



Wednesday, October 09, 2013

Jeff Bezos Had His Top Execs Read These Three Books

Just read this interesting post on Farnam Street (a good blog to read).

Jeff Bezos Had His Top Execs Read These Three Books

One of the best parts of the interview is the detail given by Bezos about some of the books he’s shared with Amazon’s top executives — he uses these as frameworks for shaping the future of the company. 
1. The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
2. The Innovator’s Solution by Clayton Christensen (Interestingly, the only business book Steve Jobs ever liked was The Innovator’s Dilemma, by the same author.)
3. The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt

Thursday, October 03, 2013

Good Article in Inc.- 6 Reasons Companies Fail at Content Marketing

Another good article on marketing in Inc.

6 Reasons Companies Fail at Content Marketing

So...what are the reasons?
1. They have no subscription strategy.
2. They fail to inspire brand evangelists.
3. They still keep their content creators in silos.
4. They place traditional marketers in content roles.
5. They overlook internal marketing goals.
6. They miss out on opportunities to partner with traditional media.
I'd say that pretty much covers all the possible modes of dysfunction.

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Five B2B Marketing Trends to Watch

MarketingProfs, always a good source of innovative essays on marketing, posted a good article that reviewed the coming trends in marketing.

Here is a link to the post along with a quick outline...

http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2013/11767/five-b2b-marketing-trends-to-watch?adref=nlt100113


Trend No. 1: Employee Advocacy and Social Selling

Trend No. 2: Content Marketing

Trend No. 3: Mobile and Consumerization

Trend No. 4: Big Data

Trend No. 5: Agile Marketing

This last trend is something that I think marketers have been wrestling with. Many companies are having trouble dealing with a faster business tempo.

Being an agile B2B marketer means that you still need to adhere to the same core principles of strategic marketing, but you also need to act in a faster, more collaborative and responsive way. New and adaptive automation technologies are essential to acting fast, being responsive, and scaling. Social marketing is essential to staying informed and being relevant to your target audience. Be flexible, understand your customers, and act quickly!

Go and read the whole article...it's worth your time.