KILLING MARKETING:

How Innovative Businesses Are Turning

Marketing Costs Into Profit
by Joe Pulizzi & Robert Rose

BOOK SUMMARY
260 pages in 18 minutes
 Our rating:

KILLING MARKETING:
How Innovative Businesses Are Turning
Marketing Costs Into Profit

„
by Joe Pulizzi & Robert Rose / McGraw-Hill Education @2017

„
What if everything we know to be true about
marketing is actually what’s holding back our
business?

5 KEY TAKEAWAYS
►► The marketing we used to know is dying. The value of original owned media content is
growing and forward-leaning brands are using this to build more trusted relationships with
customers by creating publishing houses and producing original content in multiple forms.

►► The audience you are delivering value to today may not be ready to become your custo-
mer now but they will be willing to tell you when this moment comes.

►► First, create a loyal audience, then start to monetize it.

►► Creation of content-driven experiences should have the same priority for a company as
developing the main product/service.

►► Marketing is not just describing the value of the product or service. It is about creating
customers from zero and delivering value for them.

~2~
 INTRODUCTION

M
ost of our decisions are based on the knowledge and experience we had
before - ...the more we see something, the more this becomes our
reality… As a result, this might hold us back from making objective conc-
lusions. This applies not only in everyday life but in marketing as well.

Philip Kotler described the core functions of marketing as CCDVTP—Create, Communicate,

and Deliver Value to a Target market at a Profit.

This idea still holds true even if the methods of delivering these values have changed. Over the
past decade, the most innovative companies have found more effective ways to achieve their
goals, primarily through content marketing.

A great example of a well-implemented and profitable content

strategy is Red Bull, which started with selling soft drinks and
ultimately became a successful media house with magazines, TV
series, documentaries, world-class events, music, merchandising
etc. in its portfolio. Brian Morrissey of Digiday says, Red Bull truly
is a media company that happens to sell soft drinks.

In order to achieve success as Red Bull has, forget what you knew
before and realize that the marketing skills of tomorrow are
equal parts marketing and publishing.

CHAPTER 1. KILLING MARKETING

W
ith the sharp development of technology and the Internet, it becomes
harder to keep up and adapt marketing strategies to new market realities.
As a result, marketing oriented on ROI in a long-term perspective might
not be effective as it was before. What’s more, marketing budgets have to
grow to get the same results previously achieved with at a lower cost.

The strategic value of content has evolved over time:

Characterized by high cost of original content due to printing costs.

1985-1995 However, in the early 1980’s owned media were used as a loyalty tactic (ma-
loyalty tactic gazines received after becoming a member or customer).

~3~
With digitalization the cost of content production dropped. The only challen-
ge was how to get noticed on the Internet.
The answer was… to produce as much content as possible. Marketers tho- 1995-2005
ught that traffic generation will be always cheap but with the growth of publi- marketing
cations, videos, graphics etc., people started to consume more content (the tactic
average person spends up to 10 hours a day consuming content) and easily
switch between sites and platforms. As a result, media started to protect
relationships with readers and members (Facebook changed its algorithm, Google impro-
ved its search algorithm to reward quality content). When quality became more important than
quantity, businesses had to figure out how deliver original, valuable content.

Content as a means of trusted relationships with customers.

2005-2015 A lot of companies like LEGO, General Electric, IBM, Cisco, Coca Cola, P&G
marketing etc. began to create owned media publications in order to build strate-
strategy gic relationships with their audiences.

“Content will affect business—it’s just a matter of “how,” not “if.” 2015-2025
It’s a period when the audience is built first and then the company can de- business
termine what products should be sold. Content becomes a key element in strategy
achieving this.

2025 - ... Content will not only help in lead generation and customer retention,
business but it will become a seperate profitable cell of the business.
model The only way to do this is to kill the marketing we know.

CHAPTER 2. RETURN ON AUDIENCE

M
arketing is still quite young and we, as marketers, are doing a lot of
things for the first time that were never done before. Sometimes, it is
hard to predict how those actions will affect our business. That’s why
we came up with ROI (Return On Investment).

Unfortunately, ROI in marketing only encourages us to underperform. Marketing as we

know it is not an investment, it is a cost that sometimes, in total, provides benefits for the money
spent.

Here is an example why marketing oriented towards ROI tends to fail:

~4~
 “If I spend $200 in marketing to get to $250 in revenue—then technically my ROI is
25%. But if I spend $0 and make $100—my ROI is 100% (or really infinite).” Consequ-
ently, the best solution is to do nothing and just hope for one sale to be done.

Nowadays, everything can be copied except the way we communicate.

McKinsey has published a report that states that being in the initial consideration set of brands
may be the largest component to growing market share. That’s why it is important to look at mar-
keting that can attract attention and loyalty from a true asset - an audience.

„
Forward-thinking companies have already realized this. All of them have one thing in common
- investment in marketing activities that are aimed at delivering value by operating as a media
company in order to create direct relationships with their target audiences.

We used to be a toy manufacturer. Now we’re turning more and

more into a media company to tell our story about these bricks.
~ Conny Klacher, Lego’s VP of marketing and consumer experiences

Audiences can provide businesses with different types of values, namely:

Competency - Data given willingly by an audience to a company can give real, deep insights.
For example, Schneider Electric created Energy University, a free e-learning resource. During
the last few years more than 180 000 students registered for courses. The information the
company received helped them better understand their audience and to predict more accura-
tely what products they might be interested in.

Campaign Value - This enables us to create more effective marketing and advertising campa-
igns.

Customer Value - This helps to create loyal customers that will advocate for the brand.

Cash - Generate revenue from an audience by diversifying the business. For example, in 2003
Salesforce.com held an event for 1,000 customers of its customers. In 2016, the same meeting
was the biggest software event on the planet and gathered over 170,000 people and the at-
tendee list price was $1,799 per person, with a platinum sponsorship package going for more
than $1 million each.

CHAPTER 3. MEDIA MARKETING

T
he new media business model and the new marketing business model
are exactly the same.

Some examples to prove that:

Dennis Publishing, one of the biggest media companies in UK and publisher of Men’s Fitness,
The Week, Car Buyer and Auto Express, bought the online car dealer BuyaCar, which now gene-
rates 16% of revenue and sells over 200 cars per day.

~5~
„
On the other side, Arrow Electronics, seller of electronic equipment, has
established itself as the largest media company in electronics and secured
itself an ever-growing customer base.

We think about the brightest, most talented kids. When we think about who
we’re competing with there—it’s not our competitors. We compete with manage-
ment consulting, or fashion, or other career choices these kids may have. So, the
more of those bright young kids that we can attract to the electronics industry,
at some point they will become customers to our industry... So, our job, with this
part of our marketing—is to make sure that the underlying market keeps gro-
wing. And we can make money doing exactly that.
~ Victor Gao VP of Arrow

An exceptional example of a company that has been a media and product

brand from the beginning is Disney. After building an audience it started to
monetize it through media channels and by selling products and services.

CHAPTER 4. THE REVENUE MODEL

W
hether it is a media company, a big product brand or a startup, a B2C or
a B2B market, building a loyal audience first will give many ways to
receive direct and indirect revenue streams.

In general, there are 10 ways to monetize an audience:

Direct revenue:

1. Advertising/sponsorship (traditional advertising, native advertising / sponsored content,

sponsorships).
2. Conferences and events. According to CMI/MarketingProfs research, approximately 7 in 10
enterprises create and manage their own events.
3. Premium content (Content Products, Funded Content Sales, Syndicated Content).
4. Donations (micro-funding).
5. Subscriptions.

Indirect revenue:

Win Revenue:
1. Products (Affiliate Sales, Data).
2. Services.
Keep Revenue:
3. Recurring Customers - aims to create loyalty and improve customer experience.
Grow Revenue:
4. Yield Increase.
5. Cross-Sales.

~6~
Usually, media companies use direct channels to leverage revenue, while product / service
brands use Indirect. However, the authors predict that in the future both types of busines-
ses will use direct and indirect ways to generate revenue.

CMI (Content Marketing Institute) increased its audience from just a few
thousand in 2010 to 200,000 in 2016. What has helped the company in
achieving this success?

1. Events - Content Marketing World gathers over 4,000 delegates from 70 countries. The ave-
rage attendee pays $1,295 to attend the main conference, average sponsorship costs about
$15,000 ranging from a few thousand dollars to $100,000.
2. Digital - includes benefactors, podcast, email list rental, webinars, white papers, virtual
events.
3. Print - Chief Content Officer Magazine launched in 2011, has delivered 30 issues to 20,000
marketers for each issue.
4. Insights - online training, advisory services, research, Content Marketing Awards.

CHAPTER 5. THE MARKETING MEDIA

SAVING MODEL

T
here are 6 ways to save costs and monetize an audience:

1. Decrease Sales Costs

A loyal audience can help significantly decrease the cost of sale. However, in
order to achieve this, a company has to slow-down and instead of building
lists with leads and pushing them into the sales funnel, be patient enough to build an audience
of people who will volunteer to become a customer.

2. Marketing/Media Costs
The biggest value of an audience is insights it gives you how to access and reach individuals
from that audience. These data is the basis of more accurate and effective advertising campa-
igns.

3. Cross-sell and Up-sell Costs

Once your audience finds your content to be helpful, it can not only buy more products but also
find additional value so you don’t need to discount as much.

4. Decrease Research and Development Costs

A loyal audience can inform you about what features or new products they would like you to
have.

5. Customer Loyalty and Word-of-Mouth (WOM) Referrals

According to a study conducted by the Corporate Executive Board in 2012, the number of inte-
ractions between a brand and a customer has nothing to do with loyalty. Loyalty is about the
valuable experience users continue to have with a brand. We can take an unusually creative
idea of loyalty from a tire company. Not many people know that Michelin Guide, the world’s
fanciest restaurants award, was invented by a tire company. The Guide was created so people
drove more and thus used more tires.

~7~
6. Overall Business Profitability
You can make people buy more with discounts and sales or you can fill
emotional gap with decent content and get people to pay full price, or
even a premium. This is a core strategy for Red Bull Media House. We all
know that Red Bull is one of the most expensive soft drinks and has a me-
diocre taste. However, Red Bull Media House managed to build such a loyal audience through a
content-driven experience that people are ready to pay a premium price for a drink with a, let’s
say, unique taste. Basically, if tomorrow the company decides to sell clothes or bicycles, people
would be willing to pay the premium price for them.

CHAPTER 6. FIRST STEPS ON THE ROAD TO

KILLING MARKETING

S
urprisingly, media companies adjust much faster to new realities moving into
product development than marketers do.

3 core components of the change in process common to the companies

that are succeeding in the new approach:

1. Orchestrating events, not guiding buyer journeys. It is important to inspire customers

to move to the next step in the sales funnel by themselves and not to push or guide them.
High-performance companies build their portfolios of media experiences that map across
the buyer’s journey to benefit the customer first and content delivery mechanism second.

2. Meaning-driven, not data-driven. Data and the digital experience become meaningful when
they generate true, actionable insights. Data by itself is just a list of facts, therefore it is im-
portant for companies to find the emotional component in the data that was given and not
gathered.

3. Organizing for agility, not speed. The fear of being too slow, makes marketers create a lot
of ads and posts. However, instead of trying to be everywhere, it is better to focus on being
in the right place in the right time.

CHAPTER 7. THE ONE MEDIA MODEL

W
e are moving from a product-centric to an audience-centric stra-
tegic approach. Unfortunately, sometimes marketers overcomplicate
this. Being everywhere on the web, publishing the same story on dif-
ferent platforms 11 times a day or putting all efforts into creating viral
content is not working anymore. While your competitors are wasting
their time on this, you should focus on building a loyal audience since that is the real asset.

~8~
Before starting to create a new business strategy, you need to answer the following qu-
estions:

1. What business challenge (specifically) are you trying to solve?

2. What is the ultimate outcome?
3. What is the risk if you fail?
4. Who’s involved?
5. What is the budget?
6. What is your plan B if something will go wrong?
7. How long do you have to show success?

Next, follow these steps:

1. Set your goals, define opportunities and risks.

2. Describe your target persona: who’s the target audience, what they care about, what is the
Unique Value Proposition you can offer them?
3. Choose the type of content and topic you want to cover: do you have enough expertise, what
internal resources do you have, where will this content be published and how it will be distri-
buted?

Research of over 100 successful media brands and content marketing examples showed 4
elements each platform creation had in common:

►► One key audience target.

►► One mission (tilt) that answers the question “Why do we exist?”.
►► (Primarily) one content type (audio, video, textual/image, face-to-face).
►► One platform (blog/website, iTunes, YouTube, Snapchat, etc.). When choosing the platform,
answer the questions “Which platform gives the highest reach?” and “Where you can get the
biggest control?”. In this book email is proposed as the best way to monetize an audience.

CHAPTER 8. TODAY: THE BEGINNING

B
efore changing your content strategy entirely, find a way to test it (pilot pro-
ject should be at least 12 months): build the Minimum Viable Audience
(MVA) possible and see if people get engaged with your content. It is better to
set a minimum number of people for your MVA, although it is not necessary.

According to a SiriusDecisions 2015 Buyer Survey, prospects engage in 2 to 12 interactions

with vendors before making a purchase, and the larger the price of the service, the more to-
uches are needed for closing. This means we need more content-based subscriptions options.
After building MVA we need to launch into new media platforms.

Sometimes it makes sense to build your audience from scratch, sometimes it makes sense to
acquire media platforms or blogging sites that come with built-in audiences.

~9~
The process of acquiring a content platform consists of 7 steps:

1. Determine Your Goal.

2. Clearly Identify the Audience.
3. Make Your Short List of Platforms.
4. Approach 3 Best Opportunities.
5. Determine the Purchase Value.
6. Make Your Offer.
7. Enter Final Negotiations.

Authors believe that in the next 5-10 years we will observe a trend when brands will purchase
media companies and blogging sites.

CHAPTER 9. WHAT NOW: LESSONS LEARNED

ALONG THE TRANSFORMATION

L
esson learnt from Zappos:
The company has built a complete revenue-generating
marketing platform—its Zappos Insights Program. But it
isn’t stopping there and continues to develop itself, ke-
eping in mind the main goal: to be around in 100 years. If
one day somebody creates an alternative for your product and everybo-
dy shifts there, you are in trouble. That’s why if it doesn’t cause harm, then give it a try and
it doesn’t require a perfect plan.

Lesson learnt from Schneider Electric:

The company is always looking for new ways to scale the program of
Schneider’s Energy University, testing different ideas, making different
experiments and facing many challenges. An education program as
a type of content to produce was chosen as it was something easy to
share for the company. As a result it helped to create brand awareness and then evolve those
audiences into potential leads that came in by the millions.

Lesson learnt from Life Time Fitness:

The company created Experience Life magazine that cost millions of
dollars a year and was given away to the members of the fitness club.
However, due to the initiative of the editor of the magazine, Pilar Gera-
simo, they managed to turn it into subscription-based profitable asset.
New members received a free trial of the printed magazine and then they could continue paid
subscription or to get free access to online issues. This idea turned into huge success. Howe-
ver, it’s worth mentioning that it wasn’t another marketing catalog but included interesting
information and insights from the world of fitness and sport. The key was stating the obvious,
which just is sometimes an unpopular thing to do, and having some data to support it. In the
end, it’s really just focusing on your audience.

Of course, for a 150-year-old enterprise, a transformation can look differently than for a star-
tup but commitment and flexibility can be a virtue for success.

~10~
„
CHAPTER 10. THE FUTURE OF MARKETING
Marketing 3.0 is evolved. In the first stage, marketing was transaction oriented,
focused on how to make a sale. In the second stage, marketing became relation-
ship oriented, how to keep a consumer coming back and buying buying more. In
the third stage, marketing has shifted to inviting consumers to participate in the
company’s development of products and communications.
~ Philip Kotler, author, professor

A
ccess to and relationships with an audience is a future of marketing.

Nevertheless, you will still be correct if you say that this new marketing model
is not entirely new, is difficult to implement and is not necessarily cheaper than
conventional advertising. And maybe the secret of the success of all these exam-
ples we looked at (General Electric, Lego, Red Bull) is based in their willingness to change and
adapt. They are using content to evolve their approach to marketing that will make the
entire business better.

Of course, you might have list of reasons that might keep you from testing this new approach,
especially if you have many important things to do on your plate (provide sales department
with marketing materials, make posts on social media, send newsletters regularly). However,
the essence of the strategy isn’t why we should do something new, it’s why we should
stop doing the old thing.

~11~
 WRAPPING UP
This book provides deep insights into marketing and is very thought-provoking. I totally agree
with authors—original content that delivers value can generate profit for businesses.
On the other hand, in order to build such a loyal audience, you must have resources (knowledge
base, a certain amount of available time and budget etc.) and patience - since trust takes years
to build.

If you are looking for some know-how that will turn your marketing within one day into a profita-
ble center, Killing Marketing probably isn’t for you. The idea presented here isn’t new and even
Robert Rose confirms this. In one of the chapters, he writes: ...and that really what we’re talking
about here is that it’s the same old marketing as it always has been—just in a different
package.

Although if you are looking for some inspiration, I truly recommend reading the full edition. And
even though, I believe, the authors could save a few pages by not repeating the same concept
many times just in slightly different words, the book is full of tons of real business examples
(probably in this summary I barely mentioned 10% of it) and the illustration of various studies
on the topic of content marketing.

To sum up, grade of 6.5 out of 10 would be fair enough.

While reading the book, I noticed how some statements correlate with our marketing strategy in
PushPushGo.

The biggest challenge we’re facing is the fact that web push notifications are quite new technolo-
gy and not so many companies are aware of how they can help to move their business forward.
That’s why to educate the market we conduct webinars, participate in different events
with presentations, write ebooks and articles. Still, there are ups and downs in this process
but, as it was said in the book, Thinking strategically about the use of owned media doesn’t
cost you any more. Meanwhile, we continue our work to become company #1 in people’s minds,
when we talk about web push technologies and the content is an important tool to achieve this.

What else do we do?

►► We prove that clients and subscribers are our most valuable asset. We are proud to call
Customer Support our Unique Value Proposition. We are available to our clients 24/7.

►► 80% of all features in the PushPushGo App were made based on the demands of clients
and our IT department is constantly developing additional functionalities.

And you? What actions have you taken to build trusted relationships with your audience?

Let’s talk about it.

Olha Lypnytska
Growth Marketing Manager @PushPushGo

olha@pushpushgo.com
www.pushpushgo.com

~12~