Smart Marketing is About Help Not Hype

This one keynote made all of Pubcon worth the price of admission. If I didn’t see any other keynote, I would be satisfied with the trip. Jay Baer nailed it!

I unfortunately had to miss Chris Brogan’s talk yesterday, and from what I hear it was equally as fantastic. So I’ll be searching around for anyone who’s published their notes from the talk. If you know of anywhere, please throw them in the comments!

For Jay’s talk, I made it a point to take the best notes I possibly could. Below are the exact notes I took.

Keynote Notes

It’s harder than ever to be a great marketer.

3 Enormous Obstacles to Great Marketing

Reach Is Declining

Example: TV show’s ratings throughout the decades. Number 1 rated shows sharply declining in rating every year.

Most of today’s shows would have been canceled 15 years ago based on ratings. Why? Because the ratings are much lower due to the staggering amount of shows now competing for ratings.

Marketing and Customer Service Collision

Customer service is now a spectator sport.

Competition for attention.

You are competing with everything and everyone. The social stream is a competition of attention between people’s friends, family, and, oh yea, other businesses as well.

Whatever you’re trying to say is being seen side-by-side with people that your audience loves.

Stop being amazing and start being useful

Amazing isn’t a strategy. Amazing is gambling. Being useful works.

The difference between helping and selling is just 2 letters.

Hilton suggests example:

Person tweeted out, “Good places to eat near the Magnolia hotel…” and Hilton Suggests found it and recommended local places.

Youtility is marketing so useful, people would pay for it.

Make marketing that people cherish instead of marketing people tolerate. Tweet this!

“Useful articles are forwarded 30% more than average.”

People love Youtility, so search engines love Youtility.

Do you have the courage to create Youtility? Most don’t because it’s a long-term play. It’s not trackable/measurable/instant.

3 Ways You can Create Youtility

1. Self-serve information.

“B2B customers contact a sales rep only after 70% of the purchase decision has been made.”

The better you teach, the more you will sell.

Relationships are created with information first, people second.

2. Transparency and humanity.

Trust is the prism through which all business success must pass. Tweet that!

3. Real-time relevancy.

Example: Corcoran Group IFTTT tweets when it rains.

Great Youtility can transcend the transaction. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.

How to create Youtility

Focus on what people really need. Never in the history of the world has there been a need for “socks”– there has only been a need for our feet to be warmer.

We are surrounded by data but starved for insights.

Market your marketing

Treat your marketing like a product– launch your Youtility!

“Content is fire, social media is gasoline. Tweet that!

Get more Youtility

Youtility is a process not a project.

Inspiration doesn’t respond to meeting requests. Think of Youtility as a river that is constantly flowing through your organization.

Every morning before you wake up, before you brush your teeth, before you look at your phone, as yourself one question:
How can I help?

The bottom line

The big point here from Jay’s talk (and his book, which you should definitely buy) is to be useful. Give people something that they need without expecting a return.

Don’t be afraid to help someone if it doesn’t have an immediate monetary reward.

When you become a useful resource of information or assistance then you will effectively win the every competitive battle for people’s attention.