What Kevin Spacey said about content marketing

His top three tips for marketers and how they apply in financial services

Joe Pullizzi, founder of Content Marketing World welcomes Kevin Spacey (House of Cards, American Beauty, The Usual Suspects @KevinSpacey) to Cleveland’s CMW 2014

You’re probably thinking what I’m thinking: why the hell would Hollywood legend Kevin Spacey care about content marketing, much less talk to 2,500 marketers about why it matters?

The short answer is a shared passion for good stories.

Stories that contain conflict, stories that are authentic and stories that connect with our audience.

Content Marketing World

A little over a week ago the world’s largest gathering of content marketers invaded Cleveland’s centre and spilled over into the city’s outer suburbs in order to learn about the latest, greatest in content marketing. I was there with a narrow focus – to find out what we in financial services, wealth management and professional services in Australia need to learn or adapt from others who (frankly) lead. With a particular interest in search engine marketing (SEO), analytics (Google analytics but also the wider tool set) and lead nurturing for the finance sector I picked those sessions. Most sessions were great and are entirely translatable to our sector. More on that another time, but for now let’s focus on Mr Spacey’s wisdom…

What makes a good story?

With remarkable generousity Kevin Spacey took the audience on a journey through parts of his own career and his experience as a storyteller. He singled out conflict, authenticity and audiences as the three critical ingredients in the magical mix that makes good narrative.

And in that regard, we’re not so different: Kevin Spacey and marketers in financial services who ‘get’ content.

Conflict

Conflict, he said, is “the essential thread of own lives…that tension between who we are, and who we want to be. How we respond to life’s events and which roads we choose often define our lives”.

This thought is so very evident in “House of Cards” where characters make choices that increasingly take them down a certain kind of path – often successfully, but with bloodless calculation and in a way that defines their character and narrows their future options as their own choices box them into increasingly narrow ways of being.

Sidebar: I’d argue financial sector brands face a similar defining set of choices right now about their marketing, content and online (social, search and the whole shooting match) direction. The choices we make now (for example about content marketing) could (in good or bad ways) define who we’re able to be in the future.

“Choose with care” might well be a financial services digital marketer’s motto as well as those Machiavellian House of Card characters’.

Spacey described how a decade ago he was interested in doing something outside what he’d already achieved, chosen and was expected of him. He took on the role of Artistic Director at London’s famous Old Vic theatre. Spacey describes the move as “something challenging, at the edges of my experience, that made me a better actor.”

“Our stories become richer and more interesting when they go against the subtle order of things to achieve something different and unexpected,” said Spacey of his personal journey, but also of the journey characters take in film.

And what is that idea, if not analogous to marketing’s “differentiation” holy grail? Seth Godin said it all when he asked us to make our businesses Purple Cows. While that’s a lot less subtle than Spacey’s message, it’s still asking us to buck the trend, be different – resist the usual.

Authenticity

“In an environment of spin, how do you keep in mind something that feels genuinely authentic to an audience?”

It’s a question for film-makers but equally relevant to financial services marketing – especially the corporate affairs folks telling a corporate or solution story.

The answer is good content. Whether film, TV or marketing, it must be narrowly conceived for, and delivered to increasingly niche audiences – so it really meets a need, solves a problem, delivers value. Spacey cites Netflix as a business that embraced brand and target marketing. Brands need to do the same.

Audience

Lose sight of our audience and we lose the game says Spacey. “We must strive, as Buzzfeed has done, to give them good stories…device and length are essential to understand. The audience doesn’t care about the platform, they care about the content”.

All true. For the finance industry, and creatives seeking to touch the hearts of viewers. These are the viewers who most likely are device hopping, time shifting and on the move as they consume content.

We’re all, in the end, talking to the same people.

How well we do it determines whether or not we deserve a first look, a regular read or cult-TV series addiction status.

Can your content cut it?

Brogden's Swan Song: Leave Super Alone

John Brogden has just delivered his final speech as CEO of the Financial Services Council (FSC).

Predictably he referenced the scale and importance of our industry - as he has consistently since taking the role. It's this theme that most, in my mind, defnes his tenure as the FSC's leader.

Let's face it, when Brogden took the helm from well-regarded predecessor, Richard Gilbert, not all the industry thought it was the best hire they'd seen.

In part this was to do with the new CEO's lack of industry experience. What the critics underestimated was that this former politician understood a far bigger picture and could, in time and with shrewd political calculation, place our industry well in that bigger national picture.

There is no doubt he has done that - getting across the issues, engaging Canberra on all sides of government and raising the industry's profile to the point where our industry debates are often front page news. This is, overall a positive and reflects the national importance of having our people well served by the financial system, it's institutions and the products and services it delivers.

After our health and relationships, the state of our finances is the next most significant determinant for many people of their happiness and well-being. Added to that super plays a key role in the financial stability of the nation as the pool of retirement savings has grown to become a globally significant capital base.

It's perhaps appropriate then, as Brogden leaves the industry that he mounted a defence of what works, and called for a halt on "tinkering" - instead asking that we leave the reforms in place for enough time to allow them to do their job.

Today he spoke of a system in it's infancy, a system that needed to be allow to grow into it's own free from further tinkering. Quoting Churchill, Brodgen said, in effect, it's the best worst system we have (see the video for an excerpt). In super's defence, Brogden cited:

• Global research suggesting the larger the retirement system, the higher the returns. Size, along with competition and other key features that exist in our super system are shown to correlate with stability and returns
• Today's data from Chant West shows median fund return over the long term is 8 per cent per annum, some 5.4 per cent above inflation, net of fees and tax. This is well above typical return objectives of CPI plus 3 per cent. Evidence the system works, says Brodgen
• Citing the Deloitte super report, Australia has the world's third highest returns.
•  Fees are in fact dropping, and at an accelerating rate
• It's too early to assess the effect of My Super reforms: while the Grattan Institute calls My Super a failure, Rice Warner data suggests the reverse, showing drops in fees accelerating, indicating an immediate decline in cost of default funds.  Total fees moved from 1.3 per cent to 1.2 per cent 2002 to 2010 then between 2011 and 2013 declined on average from 0.92  to 0.73 per cent
• With 80 of Australians in default funds, most of us are getting immediate benefits from super reform and competition
• On a global scale these numbers compare to CALpers fees at 0.77 pe cent and a return of 3 per cent and the major Canadian fund at 0.92 per cent fees and 5 per cent returns.

So our system may in fact be pretty good - and as Brogden says it's only today's ten year olds who will have the benefit of a lifetime of 12 per cent of their earnings being saved for their retirement.

And that's a good note to end on: our industry is one that should be thinking about lifetimes to come, not just this year's shareholder returns.

Disruptive thinking in financial services: first stop Cairns

I’m not sure if Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson can teach me to think in under an hour at next week’s Financial Services Council (FSC) annual conference in Cairns.

But I’m willing to let him try. 

Our industry would arguably be better for consumers if more people did the same.

Next week’s annual industry gathering comes at a very interesting time. We have, as I’ve blogged before, and Deloitte called this week, reached a digital tipping point. That’s a tipping point that involves traditional financial services and wealth management business models and value chains being disrupted.

At the same time – perhaps not coincidentally – financial advice as a profession finds itself at a crossroads of sorts.

We as individual consumers want greater trust, transparency, value and less BS from the brands and individuals serving us financial solutions.

The circumstances cry out for new ways of thinking. Ways of thinking that help deliver radically better service, for less money and with greater openness about underlying business models.

So Hewitt-Gleeson’s teachings resonate right now. Here are my top five takeaways from his writing, and the things I hope most to learn more about next week.

1. Thinking, in any situation, is escaping from your current view of the situation (cvs) and searching for a better view of the situation (bvs)
2. The switch from cvs to bvs can be made by using something Hewitt-Gleeson calls Universal Brain Software (cvs2bvs)
3. Using this we can switch our brains from one parallel universe to another
4. This very moment (NOW) is a cvs – in each ‘now’ moment we can use our brains to either defend the cvs or escape it
5. If we chose to escape then we open up the opportunity to search for (create) a better view. That better view (bvs) = cvs x10 i.e. a bvs can be ten times better than a cvs

This echoes much of the latter day positive psychology movement thinking around empowerment and creating positive future alternatives.

In short, this kind of thinking is game-changing.

It’s also what we’re all going to need to catch, and successfully surf, the wave of disruption that’s coming with digitally-enabled financial services.

This post was first published on the BlueChip blog. If you’re not going to the FSC Conference you can follow the action here (I’ll be blogging) and via @carden @FinServCouncil

The Insiders's Guide to Australian Financial Services Content Marketing: top 5 trends to watch

This financial services content marketing thing we've been talking about for the last few years appears to have gone crazy. 

In a seemingly correlated event, my blog has yet again gone very, very quiet. 


The short version is that we've been too busy doing the work to talk about it. The long, and infinitely more interesting, version you can ask me about over a drink!

Here's a quick insiders' guide to what we've seen so far in 2014 and how we think content marketing will evolve into 2015. This post deals with two of the top five trends. My next post (really!) will deal with the next three.

TREND ONE: Getting of religion

Last year and this year we've seen a massive turn around in financial services C-suite and marketing thinking. 

We're no longer having to have the "why digital, social or content?" conversation. Thankfully.

The conversation now has turned to "how do we do digital, social and content?".

The answer is as varied as the context, the client, and their customers, clients or stakeholders.

A logical starting point is a discovery exercise. These too, are massively varied. Answering the "how?"question might start with:

• a social media listening exercise

• a comprehensive online audit

• a digital strategy review

• a content and channel audit

Regardless, we can't answer the question without quality research and thinking. So no, there are no effective quick wins (see my next lost for more on that!) without discovery.

Trust me, we've tried it. And failed. 

TREND TWO: The "Oh sh!t" moment

After discovery, comes the proverbial "oh sh!t" moment. It goes some thing like this:

"Our digital, social and content is a) non-existent b) shabby or c) nowhere near good enough now that we've had a proper look at it"

"We are SO far behind on this. It's overwhelming. Where do we even start?"

"We have limited resources but the opportunity/challenge looks like a bottomless money and people pit. What now?"

"We don't know this stuff - and certainly don't have the expertise to make it happen anytime soon. BUT we're going to lose the race if we don't get started."

Or a personal favourite?

"The Board want to know how we are planning for social media / online reputation risk / digital strategy. We're kind of not. Well, not well enough."

It's not a fun feeling, being in this moment. The good news it's temporary. As long as you keep moving.

By keep moving I mean:



1. Get clear on what matters most - now, and medium term2. Choose the right mix of inhouse expertise and external help3. Plan carefully - perhaps a well resourced trial before a full commitment 4. Set clear milestones and 5. Review, refine and repeat

And yet many are doing it right now - trying to quickly get content strategy up and running without proper planning, get a super-fast digital rollout in place - without a sense of where audiences are online...and more. 

But "sssshhhh" - don't tell them how to do it properly or they just might! ]

Overall the "oh sh!t" moment is a good thing - it's a realisation more is needed. And the moments are just going to keep coming as digital marketing, social media and content marketing practice proceed faster than many can keep up in practice.

The inside tip here is simple: dedicate capable people from inside and out, keep your BS detector on and for Pete's sake TRY something. The sooner you fail, the sooner you learn.

My next post on Australian financial content marketing will talk about another three things we're seeing:


TREND THREE: Quick and dirty (aka quantity over quality)
TREND FOUR: The rookie error: create more content
TREND FIVE: Getting it together: strategy, planning and implementation in harmony.

What keeps the Asset Management CMO up at night?

And what to do about it...

Chief Marketing Officers, and the CEOs of smaller asset management firms, are worried about the same things.

Lack of resources

Competing priorities

Finding more time to be pro-active

Sound familiar?

The CMO panel session at PAICR 2013 (#PAICR2013) was revealing, sounded very familiar and revealed common marketing challenges, from large global firms to one-office boutiques. 

The problems might be similar but the solutions vary immensely.

Lack of resources

Facing headcount limits, Morgan Stanley Investment Management skewed their marketing team towards bolt-on team members. 

Contractors and consultants help the team deliver projects, scaling up and down as needed without taking up headcount and incurring fixed salary budget. On call, this team of exceptional consultants has essentially replaced a large in-house marketing team.

Even with limited resources CMOs are still investing in quality content. Getting a clear message out across disparate channels with limited resources still starts with good content, at least for the PAICR panellists. One CMO, pushed for budget and time, says their best marketing starting point - online or off - is still a good writer.

Competing priorities

The ugly sibling of being resource-poor is competing priorities.Marketing leaders find themselves constantly re-prioritising as they struggle to make best use of scarce resources. 

One solution is cross-training. While marketers typically have a particular speciality, one global firm uses cross-trianing to get the most from the team. This might mean a single person has responsibility for email marketing, events and web - with training in the areas that are not strengths to enable them to perform well across all three functions.

Unable to deliver everything you'd like to as a marketing leader? Prioritise the things clients really want. 

It sounds simple but one CMO claims what you're doing right now probably isn't what clients want. Just one example given by the CMO panel participants was online content, and in particular websites. A recent review in one firm showed almost none of the content they had online actually met clients' requirements. Resources devoted to putting more content online could well be completely wasted.

Finding time to be pro-active

Starting with client need means actually finding out what they want. And that starts with having time to be pro-active.

Finding more time to be pro-active, especially in a small firm where resources are limited, was a key issue for the smaller firm (Munder Capital Management) CMO panel participant. The solution for some includes having a marketing routine that ensures planning time is set aside and results are reviewed on schedule. Which means campaign results are carefully evaluated and learnings captured so that the things that work are repeated - and those that don't are dropped.

Sometimes simple solutions suffice. Just talking to clients, for example, can give insight that no amount of market research, data or analytics will match. Whether in large or small firms the panel CMOs remain big fans of just staying close to clients. Panellists agreed that asset management marketing now at an online tipping point. That means being "always on" in a social media driven world, moving away from print and bringing previously static materials to life digitally.

Whatever the problem facing CMOs, sometimes the only solution is to learn from experience.

A final piece of wisdom from one asset management CMO was simply this: fail fast, learn from it, and move on. 

Freedom: Financial services marketers' great opportunity (and risk)

If just 42% of marketers say their content is effective, what are we doing about it?

Today was a great opportunity to watch 1,700 marketers obediently walk, clap and tweet on demand. Skilfully managed by Joe Pulizzi's Content Marketing World team we showed respect to the world's content mega stars, (over) ate our boxed lunches and kindly cross-promoted each other. 

Some showbiz fairy dust, a bunch of speakers with a lot of self-belief, and some clever clever conference planning have so far delivered a very impressive event in Cleveland, Ohio (who knew?). It's impressive as logistical undertaking, let alone a font of content knowledge like no other.

It's also impressive in it's ability to remind me of this: we are all just people. Whether a content marketing rockstar, real rockstar or humble content marketing neophyte we respond to certain things in certain (often predictable) ways. 

Energy, passion and humour move us.

Next year I think we need to send a plane load of Australian financial services marketers and their agencies.

I'm not saying we lack energy, passion and humour…I'm just saying we could use more of them in the work we serve up to industry and consumer audiences.

Ann Handley (@marketingprofs) said it best when talking about innovation, so here's a snapshot of her session.

Too few of us are focussed on helping versus selling. Our content isn't inspiring, and we're not innovating. If fortune favours the bold, we'd better get bolder. 

That's the nutshell version for our industry, but here's a little more. 

What's innovative? Innovative doesn't equal cool, odd, a billion dollar budget, a global brand, or a situation monitoring room (think Oreo in the SuperBowl blackout).

"Innovation is often the act of taking what worked over there and using it over here", quoted Ann. And her definition of content marketing?

"Content marketing means you consistently create and share information that is...packed with utility, seeded with inspiration, honestly empathetic...to attract customers to you."

Other gems?

"Empathy is not what you do, but what you do for your customers."

"Useful x enjoyable x inspired = innovative content"

"Experiment, especially when looking to build brand momentum"

I can hear the screams of anguish from here - often brand guidelines, senior management and even our audiences don't permit us to be as energetic, innovative or passionate as often as we'd like. 

Sometimes, freedom is in the mind. 

Sometimes the box we put ourselves in is the hardest one to get out of. 

Sometimes the boundaries are of our own making. 

So my enduring question after today is this: are we boxing ourselves into smaller creative and strategic spaces more than we need to? 

OK it's a leading question. Obviously I think the answer is yes. There's a time and place for smart bravery. It's here, and now, is today's CMI take-home.

Marketing agency of the future: top three things clients should look for

Content marketing legends @jaybaer @robert_rose @paulroetzer (let's call them the three wise men of content consulting!) all have plenty of practice serving clients, large and small, with content services. They've built agencies, developed service lines and rolled out content strategies over and over again.

So what can you learn from our three wise men - who are expert service providers - as a client?

Sure, I gained a massive amount as a consultancy owner, but for clients the takeouts are quite different. Having spent more of my time "client-side" than in consultancy, I'm going to share just the things that are most helpful to those procuring, not selling, marketing services from this year's Content Marketing World (#CMWorld).

CMW got off to a cracking start today (overnight in my body clock's time zone!) in Cleveland, Ohio with pre-conference workshops including a return of the marketing agency session offered last year.

So as a financial services client, what would I now look for in an agency offering content marketing?

My top three, based on today's session, are these:

1. Measurable results: a few things done well are better than a lot poorly. Paul's counsel is to measure just a few key metrics - think downloads, leads, inquiries. As a client share what you're measured on with your agency - and make it their problem to measure it for you! Without metrics we're all dead in the water.

2. Strategy services, before content production: there's absolutely no point getting into content execution without a game plan. The three wise men counselled that clients are wasting their money producing content without a plan.

3. Integration across marketing and digital channels: we don't live in a siloed world when it comes to content consumption - yet typically client organisations are siloed functionally. This makes it even more important your agency can help you bridge those gaps.

So how does @bluechipcomm fare on these three criteria? We're on the journey. The measurement piece remains challenging, "strategy first" we're absolutely insistent on, and integration...well it's hard but we've started.

I'm speaking on Thursday at the Financial Summit. I will (of course!) also be blogging and tweeting (@carden).

To follow the main event starting tomorrow see the free live streaming here or the blogs here.