The central challenge of content marketing is getting people to engage with the content you publish or, to put it simply:

The secret to success in content marketing is to create content people care about.

But how does a marketer go about creating content people care about?

By taking the time to care about the people they are marketing to. By knowing who these “people” are, where they can be found, what they need, and when and why they need it. By surfacing the right message at the right time in the right place to the right person–a state I like to call Content Nirvana.

Finding Your Audience: Research

Creating content without knowing your audience is a surefire strategy for campaign failure. This is why audience research should always play a part in the process of developing new content and/or a content marketing strategy. It equips marketers, content creators and decision makers with hard data from real people so they can make informed decisions about what kind of content to produce and where to distribute it.

There are multiple ways to gather data on your audience and, ideally, you would pull data from multiple sources to create a detailed composite of your target group. Analytics, surveys and interviews are three of the most common ways to do audience research.

Analytics

By far the easiest and least expensive way to gain insights into your online audience and their behaviors is to review your site metrics. Even the most basic data logs can yield useful insights into your audience demographics and behavior by displaying clear trends in:

• Geographic location
• Preferred time(s) of day to interact with the site
• Referral channels (how they reached your site)
• Preferred content formats
• And so much more!

Sometimes the results can be a real surprise. For example, a client based out of Asia was working with the Portent team to optimize its online marketing efforts as it moved into new markets. The client was looking to expand into English-speaking countries, choosing to focus heavily on North America.

However, after conducting a review of user data in Google Analytics, it was revealed that a fair number of website visitors were coming from India. This insight enabled the client to not only develop targeted marketing messages for their Indian audience but also led them to reconsider whether they had their sales team located in the right places.

Surveys

While analytics provide a wealth of quantitative data, there is a limit to its insights. Surveys yield personal quantitative data and qualitative insights that often can’t be found through search engine or browser histories. Conducting a visitor survey via email, website or social media channels can be an effective way to define the basic demographics of your core audiences, including personal data points such as:

• Age
• Gender
• Marital status
• Race/ethnicity

Audience research surveys that use open-ended questions can also be particularly helpful in validating (or debunking) popular beliefs about why your customers choose to work with you. Ask your audience questions such as:

• How did you first hear about us?
• Why did you visit our website?
• How satisfied are you with our customer service?
• How easy was it for you to complete your purchase?

Behavioral questions like these allow marketers to put together a clearer picture of why and how customers interact with a particular product, service or business by exploring the personal stories behind the actions. I once worked with a client who had been in business for several decades, amassing a very loyal following in the process. This client was relatively new to digital marketing and asked that I evaluate their website.

The results of their audience survey showed that nearly a quarter of respondents had first gained brand awareness from hearing the client speak on his weekly radio show–that had ceased broadcasting in 1987! This came as a real shock to the client, who had canceled the broadcast due to dwindling ratings but, in light of these findings, was now reconsidering whether to start it up again by broadcast or podcast.

Only by looking beyond basic transactional data and delving deeper into each audience member’s personal history was I able to go back in time and identify this new place to distribute content. When there’s a match like this–between audience, place, and time–that’s content nirvana.

Interviews & Observation

One of the oldest methods of data collection–pure observation–can be an invaluable tool for determining how people interact with a product. Personal interviews, conducted either in person or over the phone, can supply the “why” behind consumer interactions. Combining in-depth interviews with observation, such as with a focus group or user testing session, can allow you to view human interactions with your product/service and speak directly with your audience members to determine the thoughts behind their actions.

Interviews are the place to solicit in-depth, truthful feedback. Seek clarity on the interviewee’s thoughts and feelings about your organization:

• What do you think of our product/service?
• How could we improve your online experience?
• What do you like/not like about our website?

Aim to interview a minimum of 5 people who are representative of your personas in age, race, gender and other demographics. Avoid the common pitfall of interviewing family and friends of your organization. These people are too close to your organization to provide unbiased opinions and are often less representative of your audience groups as a whole. An easy way to find interview subjects is to include a “request to contact” question in your audience survey to identify people willing to speak with you. Offering a small token of appreciation, such as a $5 gift card or company schwag, can be an effective motivator as well.

The goal of audience interviews is to get people to share their innermost thoughts, not tell you what you want to hear. Expect answers to be long and rambling–in fact, encourage this! It often produces the most original insights. Case in point, one client I worked with had a rather dated-looking website and wanted me to conduct interviews with users of their current site before developing a new design. When asked what she thought of the current website, one interviewee exclaimed:

“1997 called. They want their website back!”

This got a lot of laughs from everyone involved–including the client. It was also a useful way to describe in greater detail what people thought of the website beyond that it “looks ugly/old.” It even became the yardstick against which our creative team compared elements throughout the design process: “Does this look too 1997?” they would ask.

Putting It All Together: Audience Personas

So what do you do with all this audience information once it’s been collected? Start building personas! Audience personas act as representative archetypes of your core audience groups; a unified symbol of the diverse set of individuals who comprise your audience. Offering an easily digestible snapshot of audience demographics and behaviors, personas are a powerful tool used by editorial, marketing and design teams to quickly and efficiently convey key information to freelancers, vendors, executives, stakeholders and each other.

Start by looking for trends across the data and group audiences together by shared demographics, actions and/or motivations. This will lay the foundation for evidence-based audience personas. As you comb through the data, you should be answering questions like:

Is my audience clustered in specific regions of the country or globe?
Do older people prefer a different set of products than other age groups?
Are there demographic similarities between the people who come to my site from Facebook vs. search engines?

Building Your Personas

Think of each persona as a mini style guide that outlines questions to answer, key phrases to use and which channels are best for content distribution for that particular audience. A good audience persona should address the four elements needed for content nirvana: person, place, time and message.

Person
Simply giving the persona a first and last name immediately humanizes him or her and enables content creators to better visualize the person they are writing for. Give your persona a job, a family, a hometown. Provide a personal backstory that explains how specific life circumstances have led to your organization.

Place
Always try to include a discussion about which channels are best for reaching that particular audience. Depending on your specific organization and business goals, this could be as narrow as a few pages on a website or as broad as a comprehensive list of all online and offline media outlets.

Time
Knowing what stage of the sales funnel your audience is at when viewing your content is critical to producing the right message. Include a list of interactions this person could have with your organization and a short description of how and why they do so.

Message
Be sure to include key messaging, phrases to use and avoid, and potential calls to action in your personas. This will help align content with marketing goals and strategies by providing a standardized terminology and clear value proposition, as well as cut down on the back and forth of the editing process. Developing editorial guidelines are very helpful for content creators, especially if the language has been previously vetted by stakeholders.

Aim to create 3 – 5 one-page personas to represent your core audiences, with the one that represents the largest group of people designated as a “primary” persona. Having fewer than 3 personas risks discounting secondary and tertiary groups who, when combined, may account for a significant portion of your total audience. Having too many personas risks diluting your message.

Example Persona

Here is an example of an audience persona for a technology company that licenses its customer relations management (CRM) software.

Note how everything fits neatly onto a single page; this is intentional. The goal is to produce a document that people will actually use. I’ve had content creators tell me they’ve printed out their personas and posted them next to their workspace for easy reference while they’re developing content.

Download a copy of this audience persona template.

Find Your Content Nirvana

Many successes in history can be attributed to the simple coincidence of being in the right place at the right time. But times, they are a changing, and as Secrets of the Millionaire Mind author, T. Harv Eker, puts it, “It’s not enough to be in the right place at the right time. You have to be the right person in the right place at the right time.” Or, in the case of content, you have to send the right message to the right person in the right place at the right time. When all of these elements (place, person, time, message) align, you will have achieved a state of content nirvana.

Remember the secrets I shared with you at the beginning of this post:

The secret to success in content marketing is to create content people care about… And the way to create content people care about is to care about the people who are viewing it.

Or, as marketing guru Lewis Howes succinctly states:

“Know your audience.”

The post How to Achieve Content Nirvana appeared first on Portent.

Content-as-marketing isn’t new. The promotional tools, though… Those are new. We’ve never had as cool a toolset as we have now. It’s easy to get drunk on the possibilities. Sober up:

Promote Lightly-Branded Content at Top of Funnel

Lightly and non-branded content is a top-of-funnel vehicle. Don’t promote it to a high-intent, bottom-of-funnel audience. You’ll see limited results.

I, uh, tested this while helping out a friend & colleague with a local political campaign.

In our current political environment, I will not share names, but it wasn’t a national candidate, so cool your jets.

She wrote a great piece about a broader political issue in her campaign. We promoted it to everyone except her fans, and it hit a home run. Likes, shares, comments, clicks. I was like Eli Gold.

Then, for some stupid reason, I promoted it to her existing fans. It was a complete dud. No likes. No shares. No comments.

Campaign 101 is to get your name in front of the voters as much as possible. But people closer to the top of the funnel need to see the lightly branded stuff.

It seems obvious in hindsight: The almost converted want answers to product/service questions. They’ll come back for the lightly-branded information later.

Don’t spend dollars pushing lightly-branded content to the bottom of the funnel.

Promote Heavily Branded Content at Bottom of Funnel

Do amplify heavily-branded content at the bottom of the funnel. You’re already directly promoting your product or service (or candidate). But do you promote heavily-branded content that’s not a product description?

Say you run PPC ads for your $900 gaming mouse. You say it’s a great value. You say it’s lighter. You should also promote the case study about a video games star who won a tournament using your product. And the piece about your product research team.

Heavily-branded content seals the deal with almost-customers. Promote it to them.

Create Layered Retargeting Pools

Content of all types is your best retargeting pool builder.

Use lightly-branded content to build one retargeting pool. Then promote moderately-branded content to that audience.

Use moderately-branded content to build another retargeting pool. Then promote heavily-branded content to that audience.

Use heavily-branded content to build your final retargeting pool. Run conversion-targeted, direct-response ads for that audience.

Great Promotion Won’t Sell Rubbish

It’s a tired-as-hell principle because everyone says it: Great marketing won’t sell a crappy product. I promise that the moment brands follow it, I’ll stop talking about it.

Promote the unique stuff. Teach me something. At some point, we all have to produce content that says “be authentic.” We don’t have to waste money promoting it.

Market the well-executed stuff. I’ve never done this (cough), but if you raced to publish something and know it lacks polish, think twice before you spend money on promotion.

Don’t waste money promoting garbage. Content is a product. Promotion helps if you create great stuff, not if you ooze informational mucus.

OK, All Done

I hope this isn’t a tired rehash of things people have read elsewhere. If it is, I apologize, particularly after that last principle. But I rarely see huge content promotion budgets. Spend carefully, and follow the principles.

The post Principles of Content Promotion appeared first on Portent.

Like it or not, you’re a content marketer: Content is your product. But no one notices it. No one consumes it. So you’re a frustrated content marketer (as am I).

What’s going on? There are plenty of interested people out there. You create good stuff. You have a distribution problem. You lack the network to distribute your product to the people who want it. So promoting it is like this:

Content marketing without a distribution network. Good luck with that.

How do you solve a distribution problem? Find those who own strong distribution networks and need your product to grow them. Find dealers.

Working with dealers, content promotion is more like this:

Content marketing with a dealer: Soo much easier

The best dealers are sites that grow through curation of material related to them:

• Content sharing networks, like SlideShare
• New and growing toolsets, like Piktochart
• Industry-specific, user-generated content sites and publications, like Moz or MarketingLand

Instead of beating your forehead flat against the brick wall that is Twitter (or Facebook, or LinkedIn), find great dealers. Love them. They’ve already chipped away at the wall. They’ll deliver your content to their audience for you, getting you the exposure you need. They are your dealers.

Some of my favorites:

Content sharing networks

I spend most of the rest of this article talking about content sharing networks. There’s a reason: These are the best dealers. These sites have built distribution networks. Their purpose in life is to host and distribute fantastic content. Their networks are well-maintained, and they’re very deliberate about promoting the best stuff.

They need your great content to keep those networks happy and growing. In other words: They need your products. You need their distribution. It’s a match made in heaven.

SlideShare

SlideShare is a huge library of presentations and presentation-style content.

Audience oomph: SlideShare always tweets and posts their favorite presentations. They share with their 232,000 Twitter followers and over 400,000 Facebook friends. And their own site is a social network in itself. Hundreds of thousands of SlideShare users search for great content every day.

Why I like it:

• Home page placement isn’t purely vote driven. While lots of views certainly help, SlideShare editors feature their favorite content, so the site avoids the popularity contest you sometimes see on other sites.
• They support embedded content. You can embed any presentations you upload on your own site. I’ve had featured presentations get 100,000+ views. 20% of those views came via the embedded slideshows on the Portent site. Onsite visitors promoted using a huge content distribution network? Sign me up.
• You can generate leads using their built-in lead forms: Place a mandatory or optional lead generation form at the start of your presentation, in the middle or at the end.

SlideShare needs great content, day-in and day-out. They need a great product. Without it, they’re an empty storefront. If you create presentation-style content, SlideShare is your perfect dealer.

Tip. Convert your presentations to Acrobat PDF before you upload. Otherwise, any non-standard fonts you use may turn to gobbledygook.

LinkedIn Pulse

I have to be honest: I’m ambivalent about LinkedIn Pulse. There’s a lot of verbal vomit on there. On the other hand: LinkedIn. Larry Kim uses Pulse as well as anyone out there. Have a look at his work.

Audience oomph: It’s LinkedIn. If you can get into the LinkedIn Pulse—that’s the LinkedIn feed for Pulse (confusing, I know)—you end up in front of about 200 million users give or take.

Why I like it:

• Publishing is very straightforward. There’s no expectation around content length. Alas, there doesn’t appear to be any standards, either.
• You can leverage your LinkedIn networks to get views.

Like I said: Ambivalent.

Tip: Keep at it. LinkedIn favors persistence. The more good stuff you publish, the more people like/view your content. That seems to increase attention, getting you more likes/views, and so on. LinkedIn is more of a popularity contest, but it’s one where you have a chance.

By the way: It’s not obvious where you go to write for Pulse:

On LinkedIn, this means 'Write for Pulse'

Medium

It’s hard to classify Medium by type of content, but they’re definitely a great network. Authors publish long-form-ish content across a dizzying array of topics, from marketing to LGBTQ issues to football.

Audience oomph: Medium has a mind-boggling 1.6 million Twitter followers and 145 thousand Facebook friends. Your chances of a social share are small, but still better than getting a direct ‘home run’ on a major social network, and the upside is huge. Like SlideShare, they have a big internal network. I published a story, told colleagues and friends about it and got 900+ reads (not views – full reads) in two months, generating 8,800 visits to eigene-homepage-erstellen.net. That’s higher than my average on the Portent blog.

Why I like it:

• Medium is first and foremost a writing tool, not a marketing tool. They make it easy to create some really nice-looking pieces. Anything you publish and share will be easy for your audience to consume.
• The site allows highlighting and paragraph-by-paragraph commenting. That ups user involvement.
• Readers can recommend content, thereby boosting it within the Medium network.
• You can designate other Medium collaborators. Not really a marketing thing, but I like the ability to give credit to those who help you write.

Tip. Get your pieces edited before you publish. Polish is always important, but it will take you far on Medium.

Bonus tip. Tag carefully. This site’s all about categorization. Aiming for the ‘biggest’ category isn’t always the best idea.

More options

Content sharing networks aren’t your only option. Yes, they’re great. But some of the other dealers offer huge opportunities. Don’t ignore them:

Emerging tools

Always look for companies that are trying to gain a foothold for their tools. These companies often build content sharing networks to distribute the great stuff their users create. They have a very strong incentive to distribute your work—it may be the best way to grow their user base. Plus, you get to play with all manner of cool new toys.

Haiku Deck is an online toolset for creating gorgeous slide decks. Far easier than Powerpoint and usually with better results. They aren’t that new in Internet terms, but they’re definitely growing. They have an onsite gallery and feature the best slide decks. They also respond in social media and clearly understand the product-dealer virtuous cycle-upward-funnel-good-news-thingie.

Piktochart is a slick design tool great for creating infographics and presentations. They publish their favorites at magic.piktochart.com. They also write blog posts and tweet about stuff they like.

Tip: Support the dealer. When you post about a new piece you published on a content sharing network, don’t just link to it. Mention the content sharing site where it’s located. They’ll appreciate it, and you’re repaying their help distributing your content.

Industry-specific sites

Look at industry specific sites and publications, too. In marketing, for example, write something great for MarketingLand, Moz or another site, they’ll distribute it to gigantic audiences.

If you shrug and say “Yeah, that’s only for marketing,” you’re missing out. Whatever your industry, there will be sites looking for great content.

Tip: Find sites using Google. Search for [TOPIC] “submit a story” and [TOPIC] [TOPIC] “contribute”.

Bonus tip: Don’t spam. If you build a list of sites and start submitting everything you write to every site on that list, you’ll get yourself in trouble. See Not Crap, below.

Not crap

Be aware that your results depend on quality. Dealers need good products. If you provide them with lousy content, one of three things will happen:

1. They’ll stop accepting your work
2. They’ll continue accepting it, but stop promoting it
3. They’ll promote it, thereby publicizing your ability to produce crap

There’s another, even bigger downside to spamming dealers: You’ll create copyright and ownership issues. Some of these sites want exclusivity. They’ll be pretty unhappy if they see your article pop up on multiple sites.

Continuously build your dealer network

By the way: At some point, you’ll be tempted to dump the dealers and distribute 100% of your content ‘direct.’ I don’t recommend it.

Definitely transition more content to direct. The benefits are clear: Better brand recognition, links, direct social shares, etc.

But you’ll still need those content sharing sites to amplify and re-amplify your content. The more successful you get, the more sharing sites pay attention to your content. They’ll offer better distribution deals because they want your stuff. You can still help each other.

Your content is a product. Work to make it great. Then build and maintain a healthy dealer network. It pays off.

A quick note: You may notice I use the phrase ‘content marketing’ in this post. I surrender. The term makes me cringe, but after five years of fighting it, I beg for mercy. I’m jumping on the bandwagon with as little sarcasm as possible. Please support my cowardice by not saying anything.

The post Need to Crush Content Promotion? Love Your Dealers appeared first on Portent.

Or, “How I Became a Certified Jedi Knight”

Yay! Star Wars!

I can’t wait for The Force Awakens! It comes out in a couple weeks and I have totally bought into the hype. I know I’m not alone, even after a certain late-nineties, floppy-eared, backward knee-walking, CGI disappointment, who shall remain nameless.

Now here’s the really fun part. A few days ago, 15 years after seeing A New Hope, I became a certified Jedi Knight. And I did it for professional reasons.

A universal marketing goal: The droids we’re looking for

Reach and retain more prospective customers, increase website traffic, increase conversions, and increase revenue.

These universal goals for digital marketing should sound pretty familiar. And as an SEO strategist, there are a couple big things I need to help get you there.

First, some future-proof SEO.

Future-proof means using foundational tactics (not gimmicks or loopholes), clearing a path for search engine bots and humans to find every valuable page of a website, connecting them to the relevant content they’re looking for, and growing a site’s authority honestly and organically. Future-proof SEO is as relevant years into the future as it was a long time ago and far, far away.

Secondly, I wantneed to know what makes your business amazing.

To do the best work possible in SEO, just as in every other facet of marketing, I need to have an understanding of my clients and their websites, but more so who they are and what sets them apart in their market. Businesses wantdeserve a team that understands their KPI goals, but also their mission. Someone who knows them well enough to connect them with that unique, “weird” audience that fits them so perfectly. To that end, I get to know each client’s website inside and out, but I also make it a point to understand what makes them unique and relevant to searchers.

So what is the Universal Life Church and why do they matter?

One of my SEO clients is the Universal Life Church Monastery, and if you think that you haven’t heard of them, you might also believe that Greedo shot first (of course that is ridiculous, everyone knows it was Han).

The ULC is a non-denominational, non-profit religious organization that provides free and legal ordinations online. They’ve even ordained the likes of Conan O’Brien and Kathy Griffin. There is a pretty good chance that someone you know has been ordained by them, or you have been to a wedding officiated by one of their ministers. Before I even knew who the ULC was, both of those things were true for me. They are everywhere.

Almost immediately, I found that there were a few things that I personally and emotionally latched onto with the ULC’s message & mission statement. Their core belief is that “we are all children of the same universe” and two of their tenets are to “do only that which is right” and the First Amendment’s freedom of religion: to each their own.

The Universal Life Church also doesn’t take themselves too seriously. They truly know who they are, and they know who their customers are. How cool is that?!

What a shame it would be if I tried to change their site, in the name of SEO, into something that no longer represents them or celebrates that message as loudly as possible. No, my mission is to understand and embrace what makes them awesome and to be their ambassador to a galaxy of people who are just their kind of weird and cool.

So, just to recap, the ULC provides free ordinations, Freedom of Religion, and… Jedi Knighthood?!?! Holy beek-monkeys!

Who wouldn’t want to be a Jedi Knight?!

Well, I did not see that coming! Maybe there were more midi-chlorians pulling me to the ULC than I realized… And then, the more I thought about it, the relationship between SEO and the Force got closer and closer.

• SEOs attempt to influence the search universe around them through unseen ranking signals.

• There are groups of people out there who believe SEO is either a hoax or has long since died off.

• Some use their skills honestly, only for knowledge and defense, while others use the Force for aggression and personal gain, leading them to the dark side.

• Those who are on the side of good tirelessly work to serve others and seek to improve themselves through constant training.

So, yeah, now I’m a certified Jedi Knight (along with the entire Portent SEO department & ULC team here). It just made sense to me. No midi-chlorian blood test required. No need to pass through the ranks of Youngling and Padawan. Straight on to Jedi!

R2-D2 marketing (Weird, Useful, Significant)

At Portent, we talk a lot about the idea that marketing should be weird, useful, and significant. Yep, it’s literally on the home page.

When I say weird, I don’t mean the drummer in the Cantina band. I’m talking about holding out an authentic and unique piece of yourself and your brand, and flying that Rebel flag for any like-minded souls to rally around.

For useful, I’m talking R2-D2 useful. Even though he was built for just starship repair, using only those skills and knowledge, the little guy just kept showing up to be an incredible help, whenever and wherever he could.

Significance is all about showing up, over and over, until you’re an irreplaceable partner to your customers, prospects, and industry.  R2 quietly went from a very out-of-place astromech, to one of the most amazing, indispensable sidekicks in history. We could all learn a little something.

I know that every company is unique, occupying its own galaxy in the middle of a universe of intersecting values and audiences. But by getting to know and actually understand my clients and what makes them remarkable and important, I get to live their brand along with them. And that makes me 100 times better at both telling their story and meeting their goals.

May the Force, and marketing success, be with you.

Postscript:  I just got back from Disneyland, where it has been declared the “Season of the Force.” You should totally go. Also, don’t worry, I bought my kids the requisite BB-8 water bottles, and rode the revamped Hyperspace Mountain. Twice.

The post The Rank Awakens: Living the Brand with Universal Life Church appeared first on Portent.

That’s why we have full bands and, furthermore, the production and management crew that all help make a spectacular show possible. Portent is the same. Our strong team works together to provide our clients with fantastic full service that keeps them coming back for more!

As mentioned earlier, you can impress with a single display of amazing talent. However, with the right people alongside you, something greater can emerge and possibly go supernova! This doesn’t just apply to concerts and Portent. Everyone can benefit from solid teamwork.

The Band Members

The Front Man (or Woman)

The lead guitarist or singer is usually the first to be recognized or remembered in a typical rock band. These members are generally the “front man” who serves as the face and voice of the band.

Without a front man, there is an uncomfortable amount of room for a chance at a PR nightmare. Kind of sounds like an Account Manager, right?

We rely on Account Managers to clearly express who we are and what we’re doing for current and potential clients (who’re practically the audience).

The Drummer

When I ask non-musician friends what comes to mind when they think of rock drummers the response is often along the lines of “frantic people with sticks”. This is partially true.
While it may seem that drummers are just banging on drums and making noise, from experience I can tell you they are really the key to keeping in time and are crucial when it comes to determining where you are in a song.

Like the drummer, Project Managers are (while doing four things at once) keeping everyone at a steady pace.

The Producers and Accompaniment

Big bands often hire a very reputable producer or songwriter. It would be very overwhelming for any one person to write music for each instrument, the lyrics, and focus on mastering your part while teaching others. That is, unless they were already a master at their creative craft. That’s where these specialists come in.

They create the music for the band to perform for the audience. There are numerous famous bands out there that would cease to exist if it weren’t for their producers. There are, however, a good number of songwriters who still perform out there. That’s the kind of talent our subject matter experts have.

Whether it’s our PPC, SEO, or Content team, we’d be at a complete loss without them. Not only do we have them produce brilliant work, but they also act as consultants both to us and to our clients.

Band or business, there’d be nothing for anyone to do if there’s no substance or strategy to work with.

The Stage Production

Even if the music is great, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the show is going to be great. That’s where stage production comes into play. The stage production crew consists of artists, engineers, and directors who all work to incorporate a spectacular display and atmosphere in tandem with musicians. These range from light shows and motion graphics to stage props and costumes. This provides great assistance to the image and persona of the band.

Our Creative team is comprised of talented artists, engineers, and directors who specialize in a variety of trades and services. Just look at the Portent website, it’s pretty snazzy. When our clients need something that “wows” their target audiences, we have faith in our Creative team to do just that and more.

The Managers

Sometimes, being a master of your own craft is not enough to successfully turn it into a business. This is why we have managers. Gigs, budgets, and the big picture are what they provide their bands. Imagine what a manager could do if they were also experts in performing music. They’d be able to keep everyone on track with the long term goals and offer guidance.

We don’t have to imagine. Our leadership team consists of some of the most knowledgeable professionals in their industry. At the end of the day, they are the ones credited with keeping the band a cohesive unit.

The PR

Need to get word out about a new album? Want to make sure as many people as possible know about your book? Get PR on the line. These folks excel at the right kind of marketing, reputation, and public awareness. The results are bigger crowds, more sales, and more recommendations.

We have people who do that for us through means of social media with superb outreach. I present our social media team! Sure, Facebook is a product that millions of people know how to use, but how many people truly know the ins and outs and how that affects business? I can name a few off the top of my head because I see those folks here at Portent. I have personally learned how much more intricate social media can really be after speaking to the experts here. It goes beyond the stage AND the page.

The Roadies

Last but not least, I’d like to talk about what I believe relates closest to what I do here at portent. In all my time that I’ve performed as a guitarist, I was really lucky to have a roadie for a couple of months. Roadies are the backstage people who prepare things for the performers. These things include setting up the gear, assisting the sound and light masters, and providing support to the performers so they may rock the crowd as best as they can.

That’s where I come in. Whether it’s project support, technical support, or building a tool that can help background tasks running more efficiently. Although I’m not standing in the lime light, I get to watch the Portent teams “wow” their clients and have the satisfaction that I’m a key element of this band.

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Transcript:

Sara:  Hi and welcome everyone to our next…or to this installment of the Portent Webinar Series.  My name is Sara.  I’ll be your moderator for today’s webinar, which is 7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming Genius with Katie Fetting, our Brand Manager at Portent.  We would love it if you would all join in.  There are a couple of ways you can do that.  You can ask your questions with gotowebinar’s questions window or you can tweet your questions using the hashtag portentu.  Um, that’s #portentu and just so you know in case you miss out on any of today’s webinar or want to review it later, don’t worry, um, you’ll receive a follow up email, which will contain a link to this recorded webinar, a slideshow linked to the presentation slides, and a Bit.ly link bundle that contains links to the resources that Katie’s referencing here.  So without further ado, please join me in welcoming Katie.

Katie: Hello and thank you for attending my webinar.  So obviously genius is a bit of a stretch, but uh, I’m going to try to live up to it.  Anyway, here are the links for the Bit.ly.  What we’d like to do obviously at the conclusion of this is after a few questions and answers I’d like to get an interactive brainstorm going so tweet in product topics, ideas you want ruminated on, suggestions for other people’s topics or ideas they want ruminated on.  This is an experiment but it may prove really fun and enlightening (she says hopefully).  But first things first, just who is this Katie Fetting anyway?  Well first of all it’s me but to give you a little background (with dubious fashion sense obviously), but my brainstorming began early when I was called upon to explain a variety of weird occurrences in my home, for example why there was a puffy Cheetos stuck in my brother’s nose or who was playing in the car, left it in neutral, and walked off?  True story, they found it in a ditch.  Anyway, back then the result of my brainstorming was referred to as lying but now I like to call it creativity and they pay me for it.

I was a journalist from my sophomore year of high school until I was about 23.  I worked for a syndicate of small newspapers in Chicago after college, which is most noteworthy because we had very few resources, meaning I had to be very resourceful, which included a lot of brainstorming.  Actually once one of our photographers forgot to take pictures at a local play and I was forced to quickly brainstorm to cover a page of blank space.  I wound up spearing my hand with ink to make a bloody handprint.  In my defense it was for a play called Crime of the Century, which looked really cool when scanned but now I can’t commit any crimes in Illinois.

Then I became a screenwriter and I wrote two amazingly derivative, sub-par movies.  On the other hand, Hollywood loves amazingly derivative, sub-par movies so you would’ve thought I’d be more successful.  I did however write some unique scripts, which I brainstormed on non-stop.  I’m hoping to see them produced and released in honor of my 90^th birthday.

And now, I’m the Brand Manager at Portent and a content dynamo.  Obviously one of those is an official title and the other one is slightly made-up.  I invite you to guess which.  But more than any of these things I am someone who has never given a webinar so if I stumble, if I fall, if I don’t take up the appropriate amount of time, please forgive me dear listeners.  Are you instilled with confidence?  Well then let us continue.

(My friend Josh made this odd bouncing man after two shots of bourbon and I’ve decided to leave it in.)

Notes on this webinar: first of all brainstorming is for everyone, not just content people and not just marketers.  Brainstorming is basically just problem solving.  If you think about it, MacGyver was an amazing brainstormer, constantly coming up with new and exciting ways to build bombs out of paperclips and gum and who knows what else.  I like to think of myself as MacGyver-esque though.  A few weeks ago at my mom’s house we were roasting some marshmallows and we didn’t actually have any spits so I basically sat there in our house imagining all the different things that could be spits and I finally came up with a hanger that I could straighten out, a wire hanger that I could straighten out and roast my marshmallow on, which worked pretty well.  So what does Joan Crawford know anyway?  But while MacGyver was a one-man brainstorm, I think brainstorming in groups usually presents better results.  A variety of viewpoints and ideas generally lead to the best outcome.

While brainstorming is for everyone, like I said, this presentation will focus on brainstorming for marketers, campaigns, blog posts, branding videos, speaking topics, well mostly because I’m a marketer and I’m guessing you are too.  But why this webinar?  Why are you really here?  Okay, so this is a slight exaggeration but I come from Hollywood remember, and so for every Inception there are a zillion Pirates of the Caribbean 17’s and Iron Man 43’s and every other type of man you can imagine.

For example Batman as an idea, as a character, is just Batman.  No matter how many times they remake it, he has the same alter-ego, he has the same tragic back story, the same skills; he’s basically the same core product.  Even the villains are often recycled so what’s the difference between Tim Burton’s films and Christopher Nolan’s?  The positioning of Batman.  Burton’s Batman is fairly upbeat and certainly less tortured, more in line with that ’60s television show and his alter-ego, Bruce Wayne, is downright nerdy.  This fits with Burton’s bright color pallet and gaudy gangsters, but Nolan’s Batman is damaged, dark, sorrowful.  His Bruce Wayne is a suave womanizer who seems to always know what to say, so his film is darker in tone and color and seems more rooted in reality – but it’s basically this same core product with a different interpretation and positioning.  So there are new ways to communicate a message even if the subject or product or service itself is familiar or even stale.  The art is in the telling, not in the subject of being told, what’s being told rather.

So to differentiate your product or service from your competitors you need to carve out a unique position in the market.  And how do you do that?  You need a brand.  And remember branding initially came from ranchers who had to separate their steer, basically their products, from others.  So what is Christopher Nolan’s unique positioning?  I think he thinks this is a complex, gritty take on Batman, you know, that both appeals to fans and film snobs.  And as people commented on at the time, he was trying to make something like The Godfather of superhero movies.  So your messaging needs to support this positioning.  The messaging that supports gritty Batman, he’s a character that’s tragically damaged and dwells in a world not unlike our own.  The horrors of his world are merely heightened versions of our own.  Content is then generated around that messaging and in this case the content is the film itself, the script, the art direction, the lighting, the cinematography, editing, music, you name it, and it’s basically the unified delivery of this new positioned Batman product.

But it all begins with brainstorming, trying to see something similar in a new light.  It should be noted in the case of the Batman narrative that Nolan didn’t actually do the positioning himself.  He basically based it, you know, largely off “The Dark Knight” Batman comic books, so he obviously had a lot of help.  So brainstorming is basically just one method of generating a fresh position or a message.

But so what?  Why would you want a fresh position or a message?  Remember when I said brainstorming was basically problem solving?  Well for marketers that problem is usually how do I separate myself from the pack?  How do I convince consumers that my widget is the best widget if all the widgets basically seem equal?  Well a fresh position or message is often the only way to differentiate yourself from your competition, which then, of course leads to greater visibility, likability, and consequently what we all care about, sales.

The characteristics of a good brainstormer: they’re open-minded, they’re willing to hear other people’s opinions and evolve their own, they’re creative, they can see things from fresh perspectives, they can develop connections other people can’t see, they’re educated and I don’t mean necessarily educated in the academic sense but they have a wide and broad background of experience to draw on, theirs or other people’s.  Um, they’re collaborative, they aren’t overly obsessed with putting their stamp on everything; this is the enemy of good brainstorming.  More on that to come.  Incidentally one of the reasons there are so many disjointed movies in Hollywood is everyone’s desire to put their stamp on it.

Secure, this goes along with open-minded and collaborative but they basically don’t see every amendment to their initial concept as an attack on their intelligence or talent.  And curious; curiosity may have killed the cat but it keeps us constantly evolving and striving for something new and better.  And the impression of new and better are two core necessities for brand positioning.

So what makes a bad brainstorm session?  Well avoid the following and hopefully you won’t have any: not verbalizing everything.  Yes, some of it may seem stupid or wacked out or downright unhelpful but it all is in the end.  You don’t know what will jog an idea loose from someone else and if you don’t try something you don’t get the failure out of the way.  Like our boy Tom Edison said, “I’ve not failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Two, dwelling in preconceived notions; you have to be open-minded.  Coming into a brainstorm with fixed opinions on what will or won’t work, that defeats the purpose entirely, which happens a lot in Hollywood.  People come in with a fixed idea of what they want, um, so much so, that they’re unable to consider other possibilities.  For example sometimes it’s just as easy to make your main character a woman and you might want to do this if say you have an actress interested in the part and you can’t get an actor.  But if you’re so entrenched in how you see the movie, like how you view the script, that, um, you can’t sort of be open to that opportunity, you basically don’t get your movie made.

Pulling rank; brainstorming has to be a democracy.  If only the top exec in the room can voice their opinion then no one else should be there.  We need to let everyone’s ideas breathe and then evaluate and categorize them later.  No one likes someone who hogs the conversation and talks over others, which is ironic right now given that I am having a one-way conversation.  On to the next one.

Don’t get caught up in the details.  Follow what people mean, not necessarily what people say.  Now isn’t the time to filter.  That comes later when you’re in a more analytical mindset.  So if someone gives a specific example like maybe saying a horse when you think it should be a dog, you know, just go with the spirit of what they’re saying, not necessarily the specific.

Number six, making someone feel dumb.  Don’t be intimidating.  Don’t inhibit your exchange of ideas by being overly critical or condescending.  Nobody likes to think that their idea was a bad one.

Blocking, this is somewhat like being down in the weeds and making someone feel dumb.  Blocking is when the other person just refuses to engage and puts up unnecessary roadblocks to the detriment of what you’re trying to accomplish.  Um, the term comes from comedy improv.  You know when you’re working with a partner, and ‘with’ is the key term, you need to feed off of each other.  There’s a concept called “yes and.”  When you’re finally with a partner and somebody starts with “remember last year when you were arrested” and your partner says something like “actually, I don’t remember that at all.  I don’t think you were arrested.”  That’s a block.  What your partner should’ve said is “yes I remember that, and…” they add something else that then you can feed off of.  So you don’t want to block people when they’re brainstorming.  You want to basically evolve their idea much like a comedy improv.

And seven point five, showing up too drunk or too sober and I don’t mean this literally.  Basically this is just about moderation.  Participate but don’t dominate.  Allow yourself to be flexible but don’t let it go too far off track and be ridiculous.

So I figure we should take a break now and so, I was going to tell a story, um, but as I was thinking up a story to tell here, I basically got blocked.  Every story I was brainstorming didn’t seem to really fit my topic.  I mean I could tell you about the time I forgot what Ketchup was or why my roommates in college put a roll of toilet paper outside their closet with the sign, “This is not a bathroom,” or the time I was pitching a movie to some executives and I could tell on page 2 of a 20-page pitch that they were bored and I had to keep going anyway, or the time I told Charlize Theron I didn’t write a script for her but if Nicole Kidman passed she’d be great, or the time I was hit by a car while sitting in a Chinese restaurant.  I could tell any of these stories but none seemed to fit… so that’s my story.  The point is sometimes self-referential works.  There’s almost always something you can write about even if it’s just writer’s block.

And now we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming.  Without further ado, the 7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming Genius and basically coming up with unique ways to approach content and deliver value to our clients.  Be self-critical.  Anticipate the criticisms of your brand and head them off.  You can use FAQs.  You can use complaints.  You can ask yourself “what is it people don’t like about your product or think they don’t like about it?  Is there a way to turn that into a positive?”  We have a client who is only accessible to Seattleites by ferry.  Many people find this annoying, they want to drive, it seems like a hassle, so we’ve crafted content around how fun ferries are, you know best board games to play on ferries, X reasons ferries are romantic, et cetera.  So answer questions and issues before they’re asked.

Two, think about your mom.  This is not my mom, by the way, Mom, if you’re listening.  Basically it can be your mom, your plumber, the weird guy standing in front of you at the Shell station.  What would appeal to these people?  My boss Ian Lurie says when he’s brainstorming he thinks about the last person he saw walking into work that day.  Well, Portent is located in Pioneer Square so that person could be just about anyone.  It might be a lawyer or a homeless fellow or a bail bondsmen or a sandwich engineer at Subway or, of course, some combination therein.  Generally I start with my target market and a goal relating to it and work backwards.  So say my target is working moms and my goal is social shares.  Um, what’s a hot button topic right now for a working mom?  Which channel should we push it through and on?  Is she more likely to be on Facebook or Pinterest, Twitter?  What do working moms look at?  Where can we find them?  I try to enter her mind.  If I were a working mom what would make me interested in X?  Craft your message around this.  Yes, it sounds basic but sometimes we forget to do it.  You become so buried in the message of your brand you forget what it’s like for the consumer.

Two point five, ask a little kid.  Little kids are great.  I mean just look at the AT&T campaign that they’re running right now.  I want a puppy brother.  I want to go to show and tell.  Kids ways of looking at things are so different you can’t help but be inspired by this out-of-the-box thinking.  I mentioned in my blog post how my seven-year old cousin said she wished she had a magnet in her back so she could sleep on the ceiling; amazing.  Kids love to be asked things and unlike adults will give you a straight answer.  For example me: do you like my haircut?  Kid: no.

Three, think about Tom Cruise.  Now use metaphors.  A great metaphor can make even the most tired topic seem fresh and can translate really heady topics into things that a consumer can understand.  So we had this client who wasn’t grasping a concept that our director of accounts was trying to explain.  She asked me how I would explain it to a lay person and the concept was this 70/20/10 theory on content strategy that gives basically an ideal ratio for creating different types of branded content.  The basic standard stuff that appeals to your existing consumer or customer, that would be like the 70 percent content, you know really safe.  It appeals to a lot of people. 20 percent should take that standard stuff but push the limit a bit, you know still be relevant to your audience but also reach out to others, have a solid point of view or challenge conventional wisdom.  Then 10 percent should be kind of revolutionary, explosive, and hopefully have the potential to go viral.  Something that’s outside of your comfort zone on occasions or maybe it just appeals to a different demographic altogether.  This is where your content and company grows.

So I looked for a metaphor that could possible explain this 70/20/10 idea, something that the average person could connect with and I came up with Tom Cruise because let’s face it: most of us have seen most of his movies and if we haven’t seen them, we still know what they’re about.  And he is a risk-taker on occasion but generally he sticks to his core competency, his core competency being sort of the cocky, lovable guy that by the end of the movie saves the day.  You know we’re talking Mission Impossible or, um, Top Gun, uh, I’m trying to think of another one…well Jack Reacher just came out.  He basically has like a very standard Tom Cruise style so that would be a 70 percent; his fans like him in that persona.  Reaching out to different fans but not getting too far outside the box he does things like, say, The Last Samurai or like Far and Away.  Far and Away particularly, he’s basically playing the same cocky, lovable dude, except that he is in a period film with an Irish accent.  So that’s taking his 70, still remaining true to the core of it but giving it a little spin.  But then sometimes he goes nuts and he does his 10 percent content and he does things like Les Grossman or Born on the Fourth of July or, um…what did he just do…Rock of Ages, and basically these are things that can fail epically like Eyes Wide Shut or they wind up getting you Oscar nominations like Born on the Fourth of July or Magnolia.  So basically I thought the average person could really latch onto that concept and understand how their brand’s content should be like his, that the 10 percent is going to be like a go big or go home and the rest of it is very regimented.

Anyway we turned it into an infographic for two reasons.  One, we couldn’t get the rights to the photos themselves, but two, we knew more people shared infographics and so what happened?  I pushed it out into the world and boom, Tom Cruise retweeted.  Sorry, this still just blows me away.  I had a Top Gun poster on my wall when I was eight and he retweeted this, if you notice, on Valentine’s Day, so it was pretty much just, you know, totally romantic for me and yes, I had lots of nice dreams afterwards.

Anyway, back to number four, research.  So whenever I’m jammed up for ideas I start surfing.  Ideas build on each other so staring at a blank Word document really doesn’t help anybody.  So browse new sites, bounce around Wikipedia, read your clients’ sites.  You never know where the inspiration is going to come from.  When I was a kid I had an Encarta CD rom, which just shows you how old I am.  Sarah looks like she has no idea what that is by the way.  I would get lost for hours clicking around.  It’s amazing how much you don’t know you don’t know until you look.  I mean how else would I know that Hitler wasn’t from Germany and Catherine the Great wasn’t from Russia?

Number five, you can use a tool.  There are plenty of tools out there to help writers get past the block, um, and in fact two of my coworkers, Isla McKetta and Rebecca Bridge, wrote a book of writing prompts for blocked novelists and poets that suggests things that I find amazing like eavesdropping on strangers for inspiration or using a piece of clothing to describe a character’s backstory.  And there’s no reason that marketing content folks can’t do the same.  At Portent we’ve created a Content Idea Generator that allows you to enter a keyword and creates a crazy title such as Why Webinars Should Be One of the Seven Deadly Sins.  A lot of them wind up being silly, um, like that one, but they can be great jumping off points and it’s pretty fun to boot.

Six, change your world.  Is this not the greatest stock art of all time?  There’s change, there’s a world; amazing.  Anyway there was an ad agency that used to covertly switch everyone’s desks every week or so to keep them from becoming too entrenched in one spot and mindset.  Other agencies have people sitting in canoes or conference room tables painted like basketball courts.  Why do they do this?  Well, because your environment does affect your creativity.  It affects the way you see the world.  To see things differently you need to change your perspective.  You need to go outside, breathe fresh air, go to a museum.  Live in all of your senses.  You’ll find your approach to your brand will be different; you’ll see it with fresh eyes.

When I was writing a scene for one of my scripts, um, yet another unproduced one, and I largely write thrillers by the way, I would try to match the space I wrote in to the scene I was writing.  For example I once had a fight sequence in a kitchen so I sat in my kitchen imagining all the ways I could do damage with various utensils.  I mean sure knives and frying pans are obvious but what would happen if you slammed some guy’s head with a wooden cutting board?  Anyway, my big finish included a can of Raid and a gas oven.  I’m not going to go into details.

Number seven, borrow.  Don’t steal people.  It’s really lame and usually illegal.  You need to make something your own.  I mean you wouldn’t steal the sugar from your neighbor.  You’d borrow it and make something better, maybe a cake or some cookies.  My movie Homecoming was supposed to be an homage to Fatal Attraction and Misery but it wound up coming off as more of a blatant rip-off because a lot of its unique features were cut in the editing.  At least that’s my story as the writer.  No one likes that.  Make sure to stamp and keep your personal spin on whatever it is that inspired you.  Picasso may have been an okay painter but I have to say he was wrong when he said, “Good artists copy.  Great artists steal.”  I think great artists transcend.  They make something new out of something that’s been old.

And two more, mostly two more because I’ve thought of them after my blog post went live.  Eight, choose a facilitator.  For example this guy, he looks way inspirational, but no, this is not a leader.  A leader would defeat the purpose of a democratic exchange of ideas.  But a person who can solicit opinions and draw people out, he can write on the board and keep things moving along, that’s a really great person to have in the room.

Nine, come in with ideas.  Sometimes it’s really hard to get the storm started.  If everyone comes in with a few ideas jotted down, it’ll be much easier to get the ball rolling.  Even the worst idea can spark some discourse that may turn into a great idea later.  In screenwriting it’s what they call the bad pitch or the bad version.  They’ll say like ‘so this is the bad pitch but there should be like this mean girl in the Civil War who just wants to get home but then a lot of stuff happens that prevents it’ and that bad pitch could be Gone With the Wind.  So basically come in with ideas that other people can feed off of and contribute to.

So there you have it, 7.5 ways or 9.5 ways or 9.5 ways plus 7.5 sins so 17 of whatever.  Um, thanks for coming.  I would love to start the brainstorm or answer some questions so Sara, do we have something exciting?

Sara: Let me look and see.  I don’t know that we’ve had a brainstorming request come through so we’ll ask –

Katie: Blerg people, blerg.

Sara: Yeah, we’ll start with some questions and then, um, if you’ve got a topic that you’d like to brainstorm about as a group here, um, or something that you’d like to throw out for Katie to give a go at then hit us on Twitter at #portentu or in the webcast, um, chat screen.  So, uh, we got a question from, um, Mike.  What is the best remedy for writer’s block?

Katie: Like I said I think a lot of it has to do with changing your environment.  Um, also I find when I want to start something I write the best and I write the fastest when I get sort of annoyed about something so I would suggest reading The Huffington Post, just something…look…I don’t think you should base your content on your competitors but you know look at their websites; see what they’re talking about.  I would also say look at trending topics on Google, see what your audience members are talking about on social media, um, and I think in that way you can probably generate a few good content ideas.  Um, you can also just engage somebody else.  Just say you’re kind of blocked and ask them for their opinion.  People love to give opinions.

Sara: And Aviva asked, “Are there any classic exercises like word association that you don’t think are effective for brainstorming?”

Katie: Um, I think most things are probably effective.  I think that’s kind of the point of brainstorming is you’re not going to put sort of a finite stop on anything.  Um, I think that there is a point where maybe you get too far off the path and you end up, um…there needs to be that person who draws you back in.  I mean it’s great to be creative but like anything else in life there’s kind of a limit.  You don’t want to go totally crazy on it.  Um, but yeah, I think word association could help.  I think you know pretty much anything that gets the creative juices flowing helps.

Sara: Great and then, um, Elizabeth asked, “For those of us who are resistant to the word ‘brainstorming’ is there something else you can call it?  Is there a way to sneak brainstorming in without raising those brainstorming red flags?”

Katie: Hmm, well I mean you could call it idea generation or collaborative thought or…let’s see, what else?

Sara: I like that you’re brainstorming right now.

Katie: Yeah, I am.  I’d say like uncovering the collective conscious or actually somebody in one of my blog post comments shared the word mind showers so if you don’t like brainstorming you could have a mind shower, which sounds a little dirty but I think it could work.

Sara: Uh, Kimberly on Twitter asked, “Are there any special tricks to long-distance brainstorming?”

Katie: Long-distance brainstorming…um, you know I think I find everything in the room is ultimately better, but yeah, you could use a WebX.  I think my problem with calls is generally people become inhibited just because they think they’re going to step on somebody else during the call so they end up not saying as many things as they would say and then by the time they speak often they’ve forgotten what they were going to say in the first place so I would say if you’re on a long-distance brainstorm and you’re on a call, make sure that you have a pad and paper so that you can write these things down while other people are talking, um, and each person can sort of draw out their own storm map, um, while they’re listening.

Sara: And then, um, Alexander on Twitter asked, “What do you think is an ideal group number of people for brainstorming?  How many people makes it too crowded and unproductive?”

Katie: Um, well sort of the real answer is probably that there isn’t a solid number but I understand the question because it’s kind of like establishing an age you can drive.  There are certainly people who are 14 who drive better than people who are 40 so I think it really depends on the person, um, and the people involved and sort of how they get along, but I would say just in terms of logistics I find the best brainstorms are about 4 to 5 people.  I think also people who are a little more shy aren’t likely to participate in a brainstorm with too many people.

Sara: So that dovetails into my question, which is what do you recommend for getting more introverted, more shy people, not that introverts are necessarily shy, but still just saying involved in brainstorming?

Katie: Um, I would you know welcome them to write things down.  Um, I spoke to someone who’s introverted and she says that actually pointing at them and saying ‘talk’ doesn’t work so, um, I think you can sort of look at their social cues and see who seems to want to jump in.  Um, just give them room to talk but don’t put them on the spot or intimidate them, um, because that’ll just backfire.

Sara: Cool and then, um, let’s hear a story.  What…Elizabeth asked, “What idea or creative campaign are you most proud of that came from a brainstorming session?”

Katie: We just had one recently, um, for one of our clients where one of our clients was telling us a story about something personal that was going on in his life and it sort of sparked something that made us think this guy would be sort of an ideal brand voice in addition to the actual brand.  Um, and then we got very excited about it because the best thing about a brainstorm of course is when your adrenaline kicks in and you start really just feeding off each other and we started coming up with all sorts of topics, what he could talk about, and there’s just a certain charisma to this guy that you know just gives you the idea that this is going to be really successful.  Um, we also had a client who I think it’s okay to say this, they sold various arousal oils so we were trying to brainstorm a way to make something that would go viral and it was during the political election, the last presidential election and so we brainstormed a lot of ways that we could potentially tie in the presidential election with this in terms of getting your base excited.  And so that was a very interesting mix of things but you know ideas out of left field can be amazing.

Sara: And then Josh asked, “What’s the best way out of an impasse like if you just can’t get started, if you’re just completely stalled?  What are some other tips for getting out of an absolute wall?”

Katie: Well that might be a borrowing case.  You know think about what inspires you and sort of saturate yourself in whatever that is.  Um, yeah, I mean that works.  I think some of the other tips would also work.  You know it’s very difficult when you really feel a block and a lot of the time it’s just you almost need to put it away for a little bit as well because you can approach it later and sometimes it just clicks into place.  When I was writing I used to do this thing that I called sleep thinking where I would just sort of try to go sleep while thinking about whatever my problem was I was having in the script.  Um, of course everyone told me I was just being lazy and going to sleep when I should be working but I think it was really helpful, um, because sometimes I would wake up and you also don’t know when the idea’s going to happen.  I had a problem in one of my scripts, um, where I was just…it was driving me insane for hours, it was you know basically while I was thinking about it I could not get anywhere.  When I stopped thinking about it and was just watching TV with my parents, suddenly the answer just came to me and it really was literally the light…well not literally, but it felt like the light bulb.  Um, so I think yeah, sometimes just putting it away for a while, especially if you’re doing it by yourself, is probably the best way to approach it and then come back to it with fresh eyes.

Sara: Super and then Mike asked, “How can you be creative in brainstorming with more traditional or conservative clients?”

Katie: Yeah, that’s difficult but then you, you know…there’s sort of a number of realities I think.  There’s what might sell their brand but then what they think sells their brand and then what they’re comfortable with and so there are a lot of things that sometimes aren’t necessarily the same thing, um, and I think that you need to sort of find out what makes that person, what entertains them, or makes them interested and then sort of build your concepts around that so that it’s easier later to sort of get them to, uh, to get on board with what you want to do.

Sara: Um, and we’ve only got one or two more questions here so if you’ve got a question go ahead and send it on the webinar chat or you can tweet it to us at #portentu.  Um, Marianne asked, “Is there such a thing as guided brainstorming?  Is there anything that you can do as a group leader to help kind of get people started when everyone’s just sitting in a room staring at each other?”

Katie: Um, I know some people do various, you know exercises.  I think sometimes getting people talking is just as easy as you know what did you do this weekend and just get them sort of engaging with each other.  Um, so don’t bring in sort of the topic until you feel everyone is comfortable and willing to talk so I would say something like that.  Um, otherwise people coming in with a few different ideas, I think whoever the facilitator is should probably come in with some questions that they can ask people, um, their opinions on things.  You can always if it’s a product, you know what are the words that come to mind with this product.  That reminds me of Mad Men actually.  I think they did that on an episode not that long ago where you know what is the essence of this.  I think it was margarine and they’re basically just sitting around free associating about margarine so I think there’s definitely that aspect as well.

Sara: Well I think that’s it for questions unless any pop up.

Katie: Cool.

Sara: Is there anything you’d like add in closing Katie?

Katie: No, thanks for listening to me talk.

Sara: Um, so that was fantastic and now don’t forget all of you out there that the resources that Katie referenced will be available via the Bit.ly link bundle, um, which I don’t know if it’s on the slide –

Katie: Let’s see…there we go.

Sara: Yes, there it is.  So hit that Bit.ly link bundle and, um, that is case sensitive so make sure you type it in the right case.  Um –

Katie: And it’s co, not com, which they point out there.

Sara: Be careful, portent.co.

Katie: Right, we couldn’t get the M.

Sara: If you have any more questions for Katie you can tweet them directly to her at @katielfetting.com…sorry, .com. @katielfetting and make sure that you add the hash tag #portentu.  Just a reminder, today’s webinar and the presentation slides and all the links will be coming your way in a follow up email.  Join us next month for our August webinar, which will be hosted by our, um, very own CEO, Ian Lurie.  Uh, he’ll be here at Portent on August 29^th and his presentation will be about Distance from Perfect: A Quality Drive Approach to SEO and Internet Marketing.  Details about that webinar can be found on our webinar tab on our Facebook page and that’s at Facebook.com/portent.marketing.  Thank you for joining us today and have a great day.

Katie: Goodbye.

[End of Audio]

The post 7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming Genius [VIDEO WEBINAR] appeared first on Portent.

It ended up being a top-to-bottom guide on how we do content strategies at Portent. We put it into a custom format so it’s easier to read:

Read it: [How to: Create a Content Strategy in Only 652 Steps ]

I look forward to your adulation/catcalls…

The post The Humungous Guide to Content Strategy appeared first on Portent.

The following posts were chosen based on social impact, traffic generated, breadth of topic, and overall quality. Some of this information was gleaned from Ian’s Top Secret new tool the Content Inventory and Audit (CIA)… get a free sneak preview here:

The posts below are not in any particular order.

1. How to Write an Effective Outreach Email [Instructographic]

Writing an outreach email is an important skill to have. If you think your ability to craft a well-written email is lacking, don’t worry — our Nick Bernard has you covered.

2. Why Tom Cruise Should Be Your Content Strategist [Infographic]

Is it possible to compare a content strategy to an actor’s career? According to Katie Fetting, if that actor is Tom Cruise, then it’s definitely possible.

(P.S. Thanks to Jess Walker for her graphic genius on the instructo- and infographics above.)

3. Manage Stuff, Lead People: How to Turn Workers into Leaders

As their tenures lengthen, some of your employees may want to transition into a managerial role. Portent’s president, Steve Gahler, explains why being able to set goals, recognize potential, and foster growth is key to your company’s success.

4. Weird, Useful, Significant: Internet Marketing in 2013

Avoid becoming another voice shouting into the ether by being weird, useful, and significant.  The post and accompanying slideshow are by our CEO, Ian Lurie.

5. How to Blog: Humanizing Your Brand

Writing for a corporate blog can be a challenge, especially if you’re writing as the corporation itself. Isla McKetta instructs you how to free yourself of those restraints and start blogging like a person.

6. Why Web Professionals Hate SEOs

SEOs get a bad rap from a variety of web professionals, sometimes without knowing why. George Freitag reveals what they do that causes the animosity.

7. Why You Should Market Like You (Want to) Cook

Marketing is a lot like cooking.  Don’t believe me? Well then you need to read this post by Alexander Nessel.

8. Better Quality Score = Better Results?

We all know that quality score is important, but just how important is it? With this case study of 27 small business accounts, Michael Wiegand finds out what quality score impacts.

9. How Google Ruined Marketing

Thanks to Google, marketing has become a zero-sum game.  But don’t despair: according to Ian, by diversifying your efforts, you can weather whatever Google throws at you.

10. Into The Fold: Why Web Design is More than One “Rule”

Does the fold still matter when it comes to web design?  Our friend RJ LaCount posits that it does, just not in the traditional sense.

Are there any posts you can remember that should be on this list?  Let us know in the comments!

The post Portent’s Top 10 Posts of 2013 (So Far…) appeared first on Portent.

For a highly visual medium, the Internet has been slow to attract marketers with a graphic bent.  Perhaps due to proliferation of search engine optimization, or web browsers originating as text-based applications, many of us have focused on the word, not the image, video, or application.

But words aren’t attracting the attention they used to.  There are just too many of them.  So as marketers, we need to look to new content methods for garnering attention, branding our message, and engaging meaningfully with our target audience.

At Portent, we like to make things, experiment, and philosophize.  And under the “make things” and “experiment” categories falls our newest effort, the Kitten Moodinator – an app that allows a user to answer a simple question which leads to a “predictive mood.”  In turn, this predictive mood appears as a very cute kitten picture:

The idea originated from my ex-mother-in-law’s frequent Facebook “mood” posts.  “Anne is 70% happy today,” “Anne is 30% happy today.”  I thought, what better way to communicate a mood – be it good or bad – than with an amazingly adorable kitten?

But ultimately, the Internet is full of kittens.  Why would we invest time and energy into something that we’re not making any cash off of?  …Which leads to another question: why does anyone invest in content at all?  It’s not measurable like PPC or quantifiable like CRO – it doesn’t have SEO’s trackability.

In fact, unless you charge for it, there is no direct correlation between content and revenue at all.

And yet, it’s what makes your business successful.  People buy what they know about.  People buy what they like.  And unless you’re prepared to go door-to-door hocking your wares, that means content.

So I gathered our internal teams – content, design, development, social and paid search – and we set out to make something fun.  It wasn’t the worst work on earth, that’s for sure.  We chose Facebook for its sharability, hoping (of course) for virality.

But, as Portent’s president says, “so what?”  So the Moodinator goes viral – what does that achieve?

Our internal goals for the Kitten Moodinator are three-fold:

1. Attention

Most messages on today’s Internet are the equivalent of yelling in Lambeau Field.  Whether selling steak knives or online marketing services, getting the attention of an audience is daunting at best, impossible at worst.  This is why words are often not enough – at least not on their own.

The competition loosens up a bit, however, as content shifts away from the written and more toward the visual.  Not only are fewer firms doing it, a user can more quickly and easily digest images.  And who can resist a catchy, cute kitten photo?

So before the Kitten Moodinator can accomplish the two goals below, it needs to capture audience interest.

2. Engagement

On some level, all content is ‘engaging,’ even if the audience is merely reading.  But the best kind of engagement involves a back-and-forth.  The user takes action.  There is a response to that initial action that invites them to take subsequent action.  These exchanges are the best way of building the engagement, and ultimately, the buy-in of your audience.

And once you have that, you’re able to establish your…

3. Brand

This is our greatest goal with the Moodinator – to likably convey our expertise in content creation and social media strategy while differentiating ourselves from the competition.

Along with basic product or service messaging, branding is the major goal of content – it’s where you separate and elevate yourself in the minds of your core audience.  It’s why, all things being equal, they choose your offering over your competition’s.

How we’ll (attempt to) measure success

What does success look like to us?  As noted above, there is no calculable monetary ROI for the Kitten Moodinator (absent some future client stating ‘the only reason I’m hiring you is the Kitten Moodinator’).

Consequently, the metrics we’ll be looking at to evaluate success are:

• Social referral traffic, reach, shares, and engagement
• Repeat interactions
• Page views on eigene-homepage-erstellen.net
• Links
• Press coverage and “buzz”
• Client reaction now and in the future
• An expanded knowledge base in-house, allowing us to better serve current and future clients

Will it work?  We think so, but time will tell.

And for now, as the great Jay-Z says, on to the next one, on to the next one.

Have you used the Kitten Moodinator?  If so, let us know in the comments. 

The post Portent’s Kitten Moodinator: When Content Isn’t Words appeared first on Portent.

If you’re like me in the kitchen, sometimes you want to add a little North African flavor to dinner. After some light Googling the other night, I found plenty of couscous recipes, but I also found this culinary gem: “5 Couscous Cooking Mistakes to Avoid.”

Wait, what? “Cooking” couscous amounts to no more than adding semolina to boiling water. Do we really need a blog post to warn us of the dangers of forgetting to fluff our couscous with a fork before serving? A more interesting piece would have been, “5 Mistakes to Avoid When Opening a Car Door.”

Who is polluting our World Wide Web with this drivel? Well, it’s us, actually. SEOs. Content Marketers. “Inbound Strategists.” The above blog post is why, as Wil Reynolds described it at MozCon, the Internet hates us. We need to get better at creating and pitching our clients great content—not only because it’s our duty, but because our jobs and livelihoods depend on it.

If you’re writing a blog post, stop. Stay your hand. Abandon that list of infographic ideas. Relinquish your license for that stock photograph of a group of attractive people in business attire smiling and pointing at a monitor. I have alternatives.

Here are three simple ways to leverage JavaScript libraries to create meaningful, interactive content.

Make a Map

Embedding Google Maps into webpages is great and all, but the web offers a ton of other solutions for customizable, interactive maps. I’m neither a developer nor a designer, but even I can figure out Leaflet.js, Polymaps, and OpenLayers—all of which are free to use. Data-Driven Documents or D3.js can also be used to make some rad maps, like this example that shows how air traffic connects the country’s airports.

My personal favorite, though, and the best one for code-phobic folks, is MapBox. You can create and style your own maps with their design suite, TileMill, and the MapBox.js API makes adding maps to webpages blindingly simple.

Having just moved to the wilds of Helena, Montana, I’ve joined Portent’s elite group of remote employees. This map of our locations in relation to Portent’s Seattle office took about 15 minutes to create:

Truly great content, however, will leverage this technology to push beyond just creating maps. Young Hahn wrote a brilliant tutorial on how he used MapBox.js to visually illustrate a Sherlock Holmes mystery. This example also shows how we’re not limited to traditional maps. For an ecommerce client, I could show their suppliers around the globe, or I could use the floor plan of a house for my map tile images with markers highlighting how their products are used in different rooms. It’s easier than you think.

Make a Chart

One of the inspirations for this post was Justin Briggs’ SearchFest presentation and subsequent blog post on Technical Hacks for Content Marketing. He outlined the process for making interactive infographic with just a few lines of JavaScript for each chart.

He utilized NVD3 for making re-usable charts for D3.js. The relationship between the two seems like a business-in-the-front/party-in-the-back sort of situation, with NVD3 giving us nice, respectable stacked area charts while D3.js lets you get weird with things like magic waves.

Justin also highlights how OkCupid created graphs that change based on user interaction with a slider bar. These graphs use slider.js from Scriptaculous—a JavaScript library to help make anything from tabs to puzzles.

An even more creative use of the slider functionality I’ve found is from Bellroy, a leather wallet retailer—not exactly a sexy niche. They used an interactive graph to demonstrate how their wallets stay slimmer than the competitions with varying amounts of credit cards and cash:

This is an excellent example of how content can be impactful and memorable without reinventing the wheel. The next time I need a wallet, you can bet I’ll remember them. I found this page, by the way, by clicking on a banner ad. A banner ad. Bellroy is killing it on the Internet.

There are many more libraries out there for data visualization, and Datavisualization.ch has curated a nice list. One of my favorites is arbor.js, which shows connections between data points. Here’s another way of visualizing Portent’s remote workforce:

Make a Timeline

Every company has a story, and many have pages dedicated to telling that story, but few present it in a compelling way. Libraries like Timeline and chronoline.js are good for showing data points at across a spectrum of time.

If you’re just looking to make something quick and dirty to show a client, I’d recommend TimelineJS. You can pull in all kinds of data from different sources like Twitter and Vine, and the tool spits out an iFrame embed code to display the timeline on webpages. Now, iFrame’s aren’t exactly ideal for SEO, but this is the easy solution, remember?

Here’s an example timeline on the history of user interfaces.

Beyond Blog Posts

This stuff isn’t new, and there are many more libraries, toolkits, and applications at our disposal. If you’re a designer or a developer, I’m sorry; you must be bored to tears by now. It’s marketers who need to stop writing top ten lists and start creating truly interesting, useful content.

What are your favorite examples of interactive content? How do you pitch content to clients that goes beyond a simple blog post? Share your examples in the comments.

The post Stop Writing Blog Posts: Ideas for Interactive Content appeared first on Portent.