An Open Appeal to Marketing Thought Leaders

Dear People Who Create and Distribute Awesome Marketing Thought Leadership Content:

I can’t stand it any longer.  Every day for the last 5 years, some awesome piece of thought leadership content comes into my inbox.  There must be hundreds, if not thousands of webinars, virtual conferences, blog posts, presentations, whitepapers, and case studies I would love to digest.  I really would.  But unless something changes I will probably only consume 1% of what I crave, simply because YOU’RE NOT MAKING IT EASY for me to grab this content on my iPod (or iPad) WHEN IT’S IN FRONT OF ME.

Big Idea:

You early adopters that made sure all your content was on iTunes but abandoned it…  You gave up too quick.  The rest of us needed time to catch up, and now we’re thirsty.  You’re putting barriers between me and the drinking fountain.

I’ve been an internet marketing consultant for 10 years, and by no means am I a cutting edge adopter of every social/RSS/tagging thingamaJIGee.  But I also don’t think I’m a laggard when it comes to how I use the internet and consume content.

I can’t imagine how corporate marketers that you are trying to reach, particularly older CMOs must feel.

I have never seen a single, clear, option to “PUT THIS ON YOUR iPOD”, directly next to the piece of content, on all the emails, landing pages, event invites, post event followups, etc. that I’ve received.  And it doesn’t matter if the email comes from the content creator, the sponsor, or the distributor.

In a world where the vast majority of your target consumers has an iPod, how could this obvious opportunity be so grossly overlooked?

Please don’t assume that just because you have an RSS or itunes feed or channel that I’m going to subscribe to it.  Just because I like a new song on the radio doesn’t mean I should have to join the band’s fan club to hear it.

I don’t necessarily care about all of your content… just this piece.  Make it easily available to me, NOW, without any add-ons

Everyone recognizes the icons for Facebook, Twitter, RSS, and LinkedIn.  Where’s the icon for “PUT THIS ON YOUR IPOD”?

How much more intelligent would I be today if I, instead of  listening and watching entertainment or limited value business content podcasts and audiobooks, in the car, while jogging, on vacation, in bed, etc, I had been consuming YOUR thought leadership content?

Because you can’t, or won’t make it obnoxiously clear and easy for me to either add your content to my ipod now, or automatically when it becomes available, with just a touch of a link, I will likely never digest it, and spread the word about it.  Your brilliance is lost somewhere in my inbox or if you’re lucky lost in a large list of bookmarked sites ‘i’d like to read someday’.

So as you look at both your own content and the content you are exposed to on a daily basis, ask the obvious question…  “WHY THE HECK CAN’T I EASILY GET THIS RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE, ON MY iPOD FOR ONDEMAND CONSUMPTION, ON MY TERMS, NOT YOURS?”

Here’s How I’d Do It:

I think i could figure out what this button meant (I’ve never seen it on any of the emails or landing pages you guys send me).

This would be even better….

But what if you don’t have your content ready for iPod distribution?  WHO CARES.

You can still collect my name or flag me in your database so you can notify me when you figure out how to do it.  I don’t really care if you send it to me six weeks from now.  If it’s good, it’ll hold up, I’ll still want to consume it.

So when I click on that button, show me this.

And you savvy as hell marketing automation people know you don’t need my email address cause you already went all Big Brother on my butt. So please, save me the hassle of giving you my email address and just show me this:

Peace.