The Beat: Three is The Magic Number

Welcome to The Beat by Rockstar CMO. Delighted you are here! I’m Ian Truscott, and I intend to share a mix of what’s caught my eye from the Rockstar CMO community, the latest discussions from the podcast and our street knowledge blog.

Hello!

The title of this newsletter may mean something to you if, like me, you are a hip-hop fan of a certain vintage. This week I am, celebrating that the classic album from De La Soul, 3 Feet High and Rising, released in 1989, is now available on Spotify after much copyright wrangling that kept them in the streaming wasteland (you can read all about that here).

The big hit single from that album is, of course, “3 Is the Magic Number” which, even if I didn’t have their album on repeat on Spotify, it would be playing in my head from the recent acronym-laced conversations we’ve been having on the podcast. Three is the magic number when it comes to acronyms as we obsess on a few TLA’s (three-letter acronyms).

DXC? DXP? WTF?

If you regularly listen to the podcast, you’ll know that my regular contributor, Jeff Clark, our in-house strategy advisor and former Research Director is on holiday for a couple of weeks, so for episode 157, I had an extended conversation with my chum Cathy McKnight, from The Content Advisory (who have a TLA of their own - TCA).

I think I am allowed to say that Cathy and I are veterans of the Content Management industry (CMS), and while our chat started with a discussion about one of the newer TLAs in our industry DXC (Digital eXperience Composition), Cathy and I was soon riding our hobby horses down several rabbit holes as we took a tour of various topics, including DXC, DXP, CMS, WCM and ALL the TLAs.

SPOILER ALERT! - While we respect a lot of the bright folks talking about DXC, the conclusion was that we’re not sure about this DXC/DXP thing, and all these vendors need to talk about the value of their solution for the buyer and maybe put down the TLA crack pipe.

DAM! It’s Theresa Regli

One TLA that is a thing is DAM - Digital Asset Management, and last week, with Jeff still away, I again indulged in a long conversation with another long-time industry chum; analyst, author, speaker and DAM expert Theresa Regli, Chief Strategist at Vox Veritas Digital. In this conversation, not only did we cover DAM, Theresa has some straight-talking advice for B2B vendors wanting to influence analysts like herself, and her nomination for our portal to marketing hell (the Rockstar CMO Swimming Pool) is a classic…

Marketing Street Knowledge

Aside from horn tootin’ the podcast, what else is happening?

One last mention of the podcast as my regular guest, Robert Rose, has been talking about taking a content-first approach, specifically revisiting the classics and this TLA; Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), and he expands on this on The Content Advisory blog:

We are not shy of dropping the odd TLA at Rockstar CMO, so here is another hot one for you if you are in the SaaS technology marketing game - PLG (Product Led Growth). I shared some opinions on this on our Street Knowledge blog:

And while I am reeling off the TLA’s, in case you missed it (as I mentioned it in last week’s newsletter) also on the Street Knowledge blog, Jeff Clark dropped this on finding your ICP, (Ideal Customer Profile).

This next one is a cheat, as it’s not a TLA, but an FLA, or maybe an F’in’ FLA, as it’s a four-letter acronym that I had some fun with and got some great feedback on this idea, as I suggest what’s stopping your buyer is FOFU - Fear of F’in’ Up.

Finally, something that I am not sure whether it is a TLA or an FLA as it’s a classic from a good friend of Rockstar CMO, Ted Rubin and his concept of Return on Relationship which is either ROR or RonR.

If you have any feedback or suggestions for the podcast or this newsletter, please get in touch with me; I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for getting this far! Have a great week.

Cheers,

Ian

Ian Truscott | Chief Bottle Washer | Rockstar CMO

Get your Monday marketing mojo working

Here it is, the classic…