Fix Up, Look Sharp

Welcome to The Beat by Rockstar CMO. I’m Ian Truscott, a CMO, trusted advisor, strategy consultant, and Chief Bottle Washer at Rockstar CMO. In this newsletter, I’d like to share a mix of what’s caught my eye, topics from our podcast, and our street knowledge blog.

Hi there!

If we are connected on LinkedIn, you might have seen that last week, I was invited to speak at a Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) event in London, the “PRCA Matchmaker NewBizFest” - which, as you can imagine, was focused on new business for PR agencies.

A key takeaway I got from the event (after all, events are all about “key takeaways”) was to encourage people to attend and speak at events that maybe aren’t in their usual goldfish bowl or wheelhouse - as I had a good time, but this was not my usual audience.

I’ll share more on that experience another day, but at this event, one of the presenters used a quote from George Bernard Shaw:

Which took me back almost two decades when I gave presentations about personalization. I would use the same quote and share a story about a real-life experience I had buying a suit.

The story I used to share involved the conversation I had with the person in the store who asked what occasion the suit was for, guessed my size. Then we did a series of A/B tests - “this one or this one sir?” - until we settled on something that was, of course, marginally more expensive than I intended to spend.

Of course, I tied this to our journey of getting to know our audience and personalizing the customer experience.

Honestly, the play was better than the book on this one - I hope it was a more compelling presentation than it reads!

Seeing the presenter using this same tailor analogy (obviously without the err…. mildly charming story) underlines the timeless wisdom of a classic quote, and that the fundamentals of marketing are just as timeless.

For me, using the Bernard Shaw quote in a marketing context is not just about the obvious importance of using data in your marketing but about making assumptions - specifically the “measure anew every time” bit.

As our experience of bad personalization, clumsy nurture campaigns, or when we notice this stuff go wrong, is when someone, automation rule, or algorithm makes an assumption - which is often the challenge with trying to predict a buyer’s journey.

So, listen to George, measure anew once in a while - and this week I have gone with UK rapper Dizzee Rascal and his track “Fix Up, Look Sharp” from 2009, vaguely suit related, a bit of fun and good advice for a Monday.

Cheers!

Ian

Ian Truscott | Chief Bottle Washer Rockstar CMO

I hope you enjoy this week's rant - thanks for reading this far, and I hope you like the links below. And please, say hello, reply to this email, find me on LinkedIn or my personal website.

This week on the podcast…

If you listen, I would love to know if you prefer that I’ve split the show or if you liked the hour long single episode?

This week’s street knowledge

From the community, what caught my eye and a bit more from me…

Get your Monday Marketing Mojo Working

This chap oozes all the mojo we need for a Monday.