Marketing That Means Something

I'd like to tell you about a project I'm working on.

Photo by Bruce Warrington on Unsplash

If you started reading this newsletter in the last couple of years, you may not know that I have a whole archive of blog posts, podcast episodes, worksheets, and online courses about… marketing.

As I’ve honed a more critical approach to writing about business, work, and leadership, I find much of that archive lacking the level of analysis or nuance that I hold myself to today. Most of that archive is good and relevant—but I want it to be more than what it is. More contextualized, maybe. More socially and politically aware. More cognizant of the systems it’s part of.

The other thing I want from my archive of marketing content is for it to cohere into a broader, more cogent vision of what earning a living in a corrupt system could look like. And I want that vision to be as practical as it is revolutionary. Revolution, after all, is its own practice.

Whether we’re looking at the micro-systems like social media platforms or the macro-systems like the US economy, we know things are horribly broken, but we still need to put food on the table and pay the rent. And for many of us, that means taking our livelihoods into our own hands—hence, the need for marketing.

A few weeks ago, I took everything I’ve written about marketing in the last 3-ish years and copied it into a folder in my writing app named (what else?) Remarkable.¹

Screenshot of the Obsidian canvas where I’ve organized my marketing content

From there, I began to organize it into themes: Big Picture, Strategy, Craft, and Results. I started to revise and rewrite. I added a glossary to keep track of the terms I wanted to use and define. And I started to envision the product of this work as a sort of workbook meets essay collection.

I made a cover on Canva to act as a visual reminder of what I wanted to build. Making a graphic is the first step to making something real—at least for me.

On the preliminary cover, the full title is “Remarkable: Interactive Essays on Marketing That Means Something.” If it’s not clear already, none of this is set in stone.

I even wrote a first draft of a preface to further define the project for myself.

PREFACE ——

This weird little workbook is a love letter to the internet and to everyone who calls it home.

It's a workbook about marketing—specifically, content marketing. But I define content very broadly. Content is an idea. The idea might take the form of a story, of data, of a joke, of a conversation, of an argument, etc.

We are, therefore, surrounded by content. From dawn until dusk—and largely from dusk til dawn, as well—we encounter content, much of which is designed to persuade, frame, or connect ideas so that we think a certain way.

That's the marketing part.

"Marketing is a system of ideas and practices that draws people together into a set of mutually overlapping relationships." — Marketing: A Critical Textbook

Content marketing is not a set of tactics or even a strategy designed to meet a certain end (sales) through a particular means (content). The term illuminates a system much bigger than that. Content marketing is how we weave ideas and people together to create impact.

Presidents are content marketers. Mothers are content marketers. Teachers, lawyers, economists, managers, administrative assistants, and janitors are content marketers. 

My guess is that you're here for more of the tactics or strategy approach to content marketing. And that's fine. That is actually what this weird little workbook is about. But the foundation of my approach is the theory of content, how we relate to it, and how content plus people creates change.

Here, I've combined more than 15 years of experience in what might more traditionally be called content marketing with my deep interest in social philosophy and media theory. My intent is to help you think about content and marketing in a way that transcends any platform or medium, as well as any purpose or scale.

This project is a way to bridge the gap between the work that feels most urgent to me (what you typically find in my newsletter) and the work I know pays the bills (getting more concrete and instructional about “what works”).

What’s Next

If you’re engaged in marketing activities of any kind and this project sounds useful to you, I’d so appreciate if you completed this very quick survey (4 multiple-choice required questions and 3 short-answer optional questions).

And if you know someone who would be interested in this project, share this post with them and tell them to complete the survey, too!

Tomorrow, I’m going to send out a sneak peek of the first “Big Picture” part of the project (at least, as it stands now) to premium subscribers. It’s about creating and inhabiting the media environment we want most—rather than the deluge of mediocrity we often find ourselves soaked in.

If you want to get that sneak peek, upgrade to a premium membership today!

1. The germ of this project was a title that came to me in the shower: “Marketing in the Social Media Apocalypse.” I still like that line, but I don’t think it has the staying power I’m looking for.