actionable marketing guide

Dear ,

Love is in the air as Valentine’s Day approaches.

Of course, Valentine’s Day isn’t a holiday that all businesses can use.

For example when I was at The Economist, my boss wanted me to create a Valentine’s special just like the Wall Street Journal did. If they had one, he reasoned, so should we.

I took a deep breath and responded that, despite the fact that our brand color was valentine red, no woman wants to get an Economist subscription for Valentine’s Day because there’s only one way that relationship is going. (And it’s not good!)

Instead as marketers we can talk about caring for our audiences, broadly defined as prospects, customers, fans, employees, suppliers, distributors and others.

Recently I saw a paperback copy of The Little Prince on table in a doctor’s waiting room. It had been a special gift to someone since it had a hand written note inside. This made me smile since I’ve given many copies of this book to friends and colleagues inscribed with personal notes.

I mention The Little Prince because at its core the story is about the Prince and his relationship with his rose. Even though it’s not romantic, you can’t get any more Valentine’s Day than that! In particular, I love the line:

“People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said. “But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.”  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince.

Like the Prince, as marketers, we’re responsible for building and continuing our relationships with our audience. We need to feed them quality information, not push endless promotional messages because that pushes our audience away from us.

Even if you work for a business that can’t use a Valentine hook use this opportunity to delight, surprise and/or entertain your audience.

Before you tell me that you can’t, spend 10 minutes brainstorming at least 10 Valentine’s Day content ideas no matter how crazy they may seem. I guarantee that at a minimum, it’ll stretch your creativity. Even better, you’ll have fun and feel better.

If Tim Washer can create a funny Valentine’s Day video for Cisco, so can you!

Really how funny is technology?

Here’s the link to the video (It’s really worth your viewing time!):

While we’re in the home stretch before Social Media Marketing World, I’d love it if you join me in San Diego. I’m leading a session at 1:30pm on Friday, March 2^nd on idea generation. It’ll fill your editorial calendar for at least a month.

Can’t make SMMW18 live? I get that travel can make a dent in your budget. Then consider a virtual ticket to get a full serving of the highly useful and timely content. It saves you the cost of travel.

Content Idea Generation: 3 Super Easy Steps

Ursula K. Le Guin died in January.  To appreciate this world class writer, Brain Picking’s Maria Popova wrote a beautiful piece about writing being an act of falling in love.

I encourage you to read Le Guin’s insights into the craft of writing through Popova’s carefully selected quotes from Words Are My Matter.

• Want to know who to see at 2018’s marketing conferences? Then check out Outbrain’s list of 37 top marketing speakers (including Heidi Cohen).

• Get the inside scoop from 8 pros on How To Do Content Curation Like A Pro in a guest post written by Heidi Cohen for Content Marketing Institute. To be honest, even I learned a lot from these colleagues.

• Looking for an emailing that’s long on fun content and doesn’t flood your inbox? Then check out Ann Handley’s totally revamped Total Annarchy. At a minimum, it’ll make you smile while giving you a nudge towards improving your writing. Even better Handley gave Heidi Cohen a shout out in this week’s letter.

• Jaime Netzer listed Heidi Cohen at the top of his SpredFast.com post, 10 Top Marketing Influencers to Follow in 2018. I particularly liked Joe Chernov’s quote that they spotlighted: “Remember this: just as the camera adds 10 pounds, email adds 10 units of unintended hostility.”