Awaiting Constant Contact on “Foundations of Digital Marketing Success.”
Tag Archives: marketing
BonfireLA at the Small Business Expo
BonfireLA on “AI, Search, and Your Website: Staying Ahead in a Changing Landscape.”
BonfireLA: https://bonfirela.com/
Pasadena Convention Center
Small Business Expo begins soon.
Revisiting the Bredemarket 4444 Partner Retainer: It’s For More Than Content
I haven’t mentioned the Bredemarket 4444 Partner Retainer in a while (since May, in fact), but since I recently proposed it to a prospect I thought I’d mention it again.
Originally envisioned as a service for clients who wanted a flat monthly rate for high-volume content creation, I have since extended the Bredemarket 4444 Partner Retainer to also apply to Bredemarket’s analysis services and related strategic services. Embed me for the month and I’ll handle your strategy.
The structure: you pay a flat fee, in advance, and I give you a certain number of prepaid base hours for the following calendar month. In exchange for prepayment, you get a discount from my standard hourly rate.
Benefits to you include an “embedded partner” relationship.
And easier budgeting.
Benefits to me include a more predictable income and a better understanding of your needs.
The brochure at the end of this post includes sample pricing for 15, 30, or 45 hour per month increments. Any additional hours above the maximum are billed at Bredemarket’s standard hourly rate.
Interested? Book a free meeting.
“Embedded” picture: By Staff Sgt. Michael L. Casteel – [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2407244.
Is Your Content Up-to-date?
Are you a technology marketing leader who lies awake at night worrying about the following?
“Keeping up with the speed and complexity of the digital landscape.”
Well, maybe not that exact phrase. That sounds like something generative AI would write.
And in fact, my buddy Bredebot wrote it when answering a question about Chief Marketing Officer pain points relative to content.
But I’m not going to let Bredebot write an entire post about it, because I’m going to write it myself.
The human way to reflect the sentiment above is to ask whether your content is up-to-date, or is as dated as a Pentium.
And that’s something that a marketing leader DOES worry about, because they (usually) want their firms to be perceived as innovative, not old fashioned.
Let me give you an example of outdated content that persists today.
SEO, AEO, GEO…I believe they’re different
For years we have been discussing search engine optimization, or SEO. The whole point of SEO is to ensure that your content appears at the top of results when you use Google or Bing or another search engine to launch a search. (Ignore “sponsored content” for a minute here.)
In case you haven’t noticed, fewer and fewer people are using search engines. Instead, they are searching for answers from their favorite generative AI tool, and now the new term the kids are using is answer engine optimization, or AEO. Or perhaps you can follow the lead of Go Fish and refer to generative engine optimization, or GEO.
Now some people are continuing to use SEO when they mean AEO and GEO, under the theory that it’s all just optimization, and it’s all just searching but just with a different tool. Personally, I believe that continuing to refer to SEO is confusing because the term has always been associated with search engines.
Plus, the concept of keywords is fading away, as Lisa Garrud noted in May.
“Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on ranking for keywords, AEO concentrates on providing comprehensive, authoritative answers that AI systems can easily process and deliver to users….
“Think about how you use AI tools today. You don’t ask for ‘electrician Auckland residential services’, you ask, ‘What’s causing the flickering in my kitchen lights?’ or ‘How much should it cost to rewire a 1970s house?’ You want answers, not search results.”
But forget about XEO and let’s return to the content YOU create.
How do you keep YOUR content up-to-date?
Let’s say that you’ve reached the point in your content calendar where you have to write a blog post about pop music.
And let’s also say that you’re old enough to remember the 20th century.
You may have a problem.
For example, when you see the words “pop music,” you may immediately spell the second word with a “z” and a “k” when you TALK ABOUT.
Or if someone mentions INTERPOL, you immediately respond with Deutsche Bank, FBI, and (und?) Scotland Yard.
And now that I’ve lost half my reading audience, you can see my point. While personas are approximations, you need to refer to them when crafting your content. If your hungry people (target audience) tend to be in their 20s and 30s, they’re probably not going to understand or respond to songs from M (Robin Scott) or Kraftwerk.
There are other things you can write that are obviously old, such as “fingerprint identification decisions are infallible.” That statement was questioned back in 2003…BEFORE the whole Brandon Mayfield thingie.
So how does a marketer ensure that their content is not dated? By remembering to ask, then act. Question your assumptions, do your research, write your content, then check your content.
Question your assumptions
Before you write your content, ensure your premise is correct. For example, I didn’t assume without questioning that “keeping up with the speed and complexity of the digital landscape” was a pressing issue. I KNEW that it was a pressing issue, because I encounter it daily.
Do your research
Next, take a moment and check what you are about to say. Was your assumption about fingerprint examiner infallibility affected by the NAS report? Was your assumption affected by activities that occurred after the NAS report?
Write your content
At some point you have to stop asking and start acting, writing your content. Write your draft 0.5 to get your thoughts down, then write your draft 1.0. And keep your personas in mind while you do it.
Check your content
Once it’s drafted, check it again. Have your dated assumptions crept into your writing? Did you use the term “SEO” out of habit, by mistake? Fix it.
The results of up-to-date content
If you do all these things, you’ll ensure that your competitors don’t laugh at your content and tell you how out of touch you are.
Ideally, you want your competitors to show how out of date they are.
“Look at WidgetCorp, who doesn’t even know how to spell! Their writer’s left finger slipped while typing, and they typed the so-called word ‘AEO’ rather than ‘SEO’! Everybody know the term is SEO!”
Which gives you the opportunity to write a succinct reply to your bozo competitor.
I’ll give you the joy of writing it yourself.
Unless you want Bredemarket to write it, or other content. Book a free meeting to discuss your needs. https://bredemarket.com/mark/
Marketing Mashups
I am a fan of song mashups…when they’re done right. Such as Mike Jones vs. the Cure in “Mr. Jones in a Forest.” Or a recent discovery of mine, Blondie vs. the Doors in “Rapture Riders.”
At their best, song mashups attract the hungry people for each component song and bring them together to appreciate the whole.
And in this case there IS a lesson for B2B marketing. While most marketers prefer emphasizing a single uncluttered message, a well-structured marketing mashup can be powerful. Take Tide and Bud Light.
By the way, I’m also a fan of shreds, such as “I Get Around.” But I haven’t found a B2B marketing lesson in shreds yet.
How “Humans in the Loop” Kills Companies
What happens when you and all your competitors adopt a “humans in the loop” methodology for your marketing and your product marketing?
Quotes from Robert Rose, Content Marketing Institute.
“Generative AI promised to relieve humans of the tedious, mechanical work — freeing them to be more strategic, more creative, more human.
“The reality? We’ve wrapped our rationalizations around this new concept called “humans in the loop.”
“This often means marketers are demoted to glorified spellcheckers and fact-checkers for machine output. Not creators. Not strategists. Just custodians of content they never had a hand in shaping.
Perhaps Rose’s thoughts are wishful thinking on the part of carbon-based marketers.
But if the “humans in the loop” thought persists…isn’t everyone using the same undifferentiated loop? When everyone yells “we use AI,” no one is differentiated. And no, it makes no difference with AI flavor of the week you’re using, since they all train on data. Human data.
And if the humans at all the companies are imprisoned by their identical loops…who has the competitive advantage? No one.
Except for those that use humans…especially humans who have been around for a while and remember this. If you don’t have a full five minutes, skip right to the three-minute mark.
Aspirational Brevity
This is a 9 second version of my 33 second “Aspirational marketing leader. Falling behind?” video.
Call this one “Aspirational brevity.” Because marketing leaders need time.
And some need help from Bredemarket, the technology product marketing expert, offering content-proposal-analysis services.
Contact Bredemarket: https://bredemarket.com/mark/
Question 4: Are You a Marketing Leader Who Is Seeking a Strategic Partnership?
Continuing going through the points of my September 4 post and its analysis from Google Gemini. Here’s a small portion of it:
Here is a list of psychographic characteristics of your most likely buyer, the marketing leader at an identity, biometrics, or technology firm. These characteristics go beyond simple demographics and aim to uncover their motivations, challenges, and attitudes….
Seeking Strategic Partnership: While they need a service provider, they are really looking for a partner who can provide fresh, objective insights and strategic thinking. They value an external perspective that isn’t clouded by internal biases or politics.
For my part, I hunger for these strategic partnerships.
- It’s one thing to get a topic for a blog post, write it, and throw it over the fence. You can get someone on Upwork to do that, or you can get a bot to do that.
- It’s another thing entirely to take a step back, ask questions about your company and product/service, then figure out what you need. That’s the fun stuff.
But why should you consider Bredemarket as a strategic partner?
Because I’ve been there: as a technology product marketing expert, I’ve created strategy and tactics to market technical products for over 20 B2B/B2G companies and consulting clients.
Let’s hold a (free) conversation. I can tell you about me, you can tell me about you, and we can figure out what you need and how we can best work together.
Question 3: Are You a Marketing Leader Who Is Driven By Urgency?
Continuing going through the points of my September 4 post and its analysis from Google Gemini. Here’s a small portion of it:
Here is a list of psychographic characteristics of your most likely buyer, the marketing leader at an identity, biometrics, or technology firm. These characteristics go beyond simple demographics and aim to uncover their motivations, challenges, and attitudes….
Driven by Urgency: They are often facing deadlines and a “need it yesterday” mentality. They have projects to complete, campaigns to launch, and are looking for a reliable partner who can jump in and deliver high-quality work quickly and efficiently.
One observation: if you are driven by urgency, then you are a rare breed. Too many of my conversations sound like this:
Me: When do you want this?
CMO: As soon as possible.
Me: Good, can we meet at 7:00 am Pacific tomorrow to set up the parameters?
CMO: Maybe the week after next, if I don’t have any conflicts.
I promise you that I can meet your urgency. As I like to say, I ask, then I act.
Once we’ve “set up the parameters,” I can run with them and create something for you. Short material in three days or less, longer material in seven days or less.
And then you provide your feedback in the same timeframe. Since you’re driven by urgency, I won’t have to wait a month of two for your comments.
Now let’s measure your drive for urgency. Are you going to schedule a free meeting with me this afternoon, or are you going to schedule it right now?
Bredemarket 