I love Mark Cuban in a man-crush kind of way. Who doesn’t? (Chris Lloyd and other Laker fans — don’t answer that). He is right up my alley — He loves to disrupt, has crazy ideas…oh and he owns an NBA basketball team which is of course aptly named the Mavericks.
I was going to write a big post for today, but I read this post from him and it made me think of some interesting b2b content marketing topics.
First of all, here is the post. If you don’t like basketball, it will not be a fun read unfortunately. If you don’t want to read it, then trust me — there is a lot of discussion topics. He basically talks about
1. Who should we hire to create content: Thought leaders or journalists/content writers?
I won’t name names but a certain big-time marketing guru said something interesting to me: “After watching and living content marketing over the last couple years, I now believe that it is worth paying more money for a thought leader to create content than hiring a journalist.” Wow. He went on to say that the ROI from a thought leader is 10x to having a journalist or another content writer. Think about these benefits: The blog content they create is more widely respected and read, they speak at events, they are sought after for interviews, they can be put in front of clients, etc. Someone should run and own content marketing, but what type of person should be the face(s) of your content? Mark Cuban is bigger than the Mavericks. He embodies the thought leader or star personality. I sat there and said: “If a faceless guy wrote this post would I care as much as did.” The answer is NO.
2. Open the kimono but in a real, personal, human way
What made Mark’s post so compelling is that he gives us a backstage pass to his organization’s thought processes, strategies, and inner workings. This was great content for the sports fan. Many CEO posts on the “inner-workings” of an organization are ghost-written by PR, filled with over-careful wording. It is often cold and the reader feels that. Sure, Mark’s PR team makes sure he doesn’t mess up to bad but they certainly did not clean up his spelling…
Yes, the dude spelled it “Ive” in his note that he misspelled things.
The post felt real whether it was or not and that is my point. It is hard for organizations to let it “hang out” like this, but it lends itself to more readable, engaging content. (not the misspellings, but the human writing style)
3. The recruitment of Dwight Howard and Account Based Marketing (ABM)
If you aren’t aware, this summer in the NBA, a number of teams tried to recruit a guy named Dwight Howard. Mark Cuban’s Mavericks were one of those teams. Of course, they didn’t get him which will likely hurt my point but I am going with it anyway. I am a big believer in creating account-centric content when doing account based marketing. Basically, you create content that is built specifically for that particular client. An example might be to offer clients a report that compares them to other benchmarks in the business. I always talk about one company I ran into that created 2-3 page reports on a prospects social media effectiveness compared to their rivals. If they were selling to GE, it would be the GE Social Effectiveness Report. It was brilliant. When recruiting Dwight, the Mavericks created a cartoon video featuring him. A brilliant example of account based marketing. (once again, I know it didn’t work, but it was a great idea).
What are your thoughts on the thought leader vs journalist issue? Inquiring minds want to know (in the comments section)
Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic and a co-founder of Topo. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter