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BEVAN THOMAS

~ Writer, editor, storyteller

BEVAN THOMAS

Monthly Archives: August 2013

Marketing 3.0

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Marketing

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content writing, Marketing 3.0, Philip Kotler, story

marketing 3.0One of the most interesting business books that I’ve read is Marketing 3.0 by Philip Kotler. This book discusses how the model for successful companies has changed over the decades. Originally the most successful companies were product-focused, those that created the best products. However, around the middle of the 20th-century, the model changed so that the most successful companies were customer-focused, providing great service, meeting the customers’ particular needs, the “customer is always right.” Now, at the dawn of the 21st-century, the world of the Web and social media, customers most want a company whose values and personal identity appeal to them.

Of course good products and good customer service will always be important to a company’s success, but the spread of the Internet has resulted in us becoming much more aware, much more connected with companies’ identities and the identities of the people behind them. We can read a company’s values on their website, follow their CEO on Twitter and Facebook. Suddenly it’s not just their services but they themselves who matter to us. We want to know their values, their spirit. Are the people the sort who would interest us? The sort we can like? Respect?

As a content and marketing writer, I’m very aware that it’s no longer enough to just market your products; you need to also market yourself. You need to tell your story and tell it well. Tell a story that engages someone and you build-up their interest in you and what you offer. They learn of your devotion and knowledge, what makes you stand out from others in your field. Through your story, your audience discovers who you are, what you’ve experienced, and so they come to trust you and what you have to offer. I help professionals explore their story and then I help them figure out how to best use it to engage their target audience. I’ve told my clients’ stories in numerous mediums: text, comics, video, animation… whatever suited the tale the best. How should your story be told?

The Merits of “Commitment”

13 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Review

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Bob Garlick, business book, Commitment, corporate comic, graphic novel

Commitment business graphic novelMy friend Bob Garlick, marketer and half the brains behind the Bunker Project social media podcast, lent me a very interesting business book: Commitment by Olav Maassen and Chris Matt and illustrated by Chris Geary. It’s a business book… that’s also a comic book, a graphic novel!

Comics have always fascinated me – in fact, I’m a board member and regular contributor to Cloudscape Comics. Furthermore, in my role as a content writer, I’m always interested in finding exciting ways to tell my clients’ stories. As I mentioned in my Corporate Comics presentation, a comic’s combination of text and images really engages readers, making the driest material compelling. You can use a comic to lay out the story of a company, the story of a product, an overview of its methods, or the effectiveness of a process. People want to read the whole thing and they remember what they’ve read.

Commitment explores the ideas of risk management and real options – how an individual or organization can overcome business challenges by creatively re-examining the options available to them. However, it’s also the story of Rose Randall, a shy young woman who finds herself in charge of one of her company’s projects, a project that will fail unless she reorganizes the team and their methods in a way that her bosses don’t expect. By using real options, Rose is able to successfully complete the project, proving to her bosses and herself that she has what it takes to succeed.

When I was first told about this book, I expected something like Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, a comic used to explain content but with no over-arching narrative. I was pleasantly surprised to watch Rose’s story entwine with the various business lessons. Almost all of us know what it’s like to be thrown into a situation we feel ill-prepared for, one that is above what we believe to be our level of ability, and so we sympathize with Rose’s situation and are excited to learn how she uses the business lessons to survive and thrive in her new environment.

The story & art take what could otherwise be a dry business book and transform it into a vibrant narrative which we eagerly explore and through exploring learn its lessons. Commitment shows the effectiveness of using a graphic novel to describe business ideas and I hope that other business authors will follow the example of these creators in explaining their own ideas through this powerful medium.

Wildfire Storytelling

06 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Link

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ARG, marketing, Stephanie Michelle Scott, storytelling, Wildfire Effect

Stephanie Michelle Scott

Stephanie Michelle Scott

One of my favourite things about being a freelance writer is all the networking I do, as it means I meet a lot of fascinating professionals. One of the most intriguing ones I met recently was Stephanie Michelle Scott, owner of Wildfire Effect, a company devoted to marketing clients through innovative storytelling techniques.

As anyone who knows me knows, I love stories and the focus of my business is helping my clients tell their stories in the best way to engage their potential customers. Thus, I find Stephanie’s work very compelling, especially her use of ARGs (alternative reality games), innovative games that are played-out in the “real world” to spread buzz about her clients, their services, and their events. For example, hiding around the city various clues related to an upcoming event, then using a viral campaign to encourage people to hunt for all the clues so that they’ll be awarded with a prize at the event. It’s a great way to engage your clients, getting them involved in your brand identity while having fun in the process.

That’s only one of the many techniques Stephanie offers. Stop by her website and take a look at everything else she provides. Though she and I have not worked on the same project yet, our philosophies towards marketing our clients’ companies are so in sync that it’s only a matter of time before we end-up working together.

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