Tuesday 2¢: I Don’t Give a Crapronym, You Still Have to Tidy Your Content

There is always a good reason why we as marketers focus on the front end, but what about the fact that we have a marketing automation system full of assets such as “New image 3.jpg” and can never bloody find anything?

  1. chevron left iconI Don’t Give a Crapronym, You Still Have to Tidy Your Content
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Ian TruscottMarch 27, 2018
  • Content Management

Welcome to the Tuesday 2¢. It’s Tuesday, the weekend is a distant memory and it’s time to let off some steam and give our 2 cents on a hot industry topic. This week Ian Truscott laments the state of marketing data and urges us all to, well, tidy it up!


Like a kid wailing at its mother when asked to tidy its room, there is always a good reason why we as marketers focus on the front end, the pretty things and cool new marketing acronyms which we need to apply. But what about the fact that we have a marketing automation system full of assets such as “New image 3.jpg” and can never bloody find anything?

I was at OMR in Hamburg last week where I co-presented a masterclass on real time marketing, one of the latest hot new marketing trends which is on everyone’s lips right now. It’s an exciting topic to dig into so we had a full room and some interesting discussion.

I have developed a reputation as the “content guy”, based on 15 or so years of doing this, so I picked up this element of our workshop – how do you prepare your content for real time?

The latest data driven marketing trend has seen us focus on understanding the customer, creating detailed personas, mapping buyer journeys, harvesting vast lakes of data, and employing machine learning tools to discern insight into that data. Then investing in artificially intelligent digital experience tools to open up the buying consciousness of the right person at the right time in the right context. Delivered so seamlessly that the consumer barely registers that it’s personalization, it’s so smooth that they are eased into ultra-convenience buying nirvana. Ooooooh... yes!

But.. what about “New image 3.jpg”?

The funny thing about “New Image 3.jpg” is that it’s the very thing this consumer would like to see right now, the very thing which would tip them toward the “buy now” button.

You see, “New Image 3.jpg” shows the back of a brand new television in our store.

This consumer wants to see that, as one of his buying criteria is the position of the connections on the back. The product information tells him how many connections there are, but this buyer wants to see them. In fact, he needs to see them.

Without them, this buyer is not easing into ultra-convenience nirvana – instead he is stuck, worried about whether this product is really for him.

“New Image 3.jpg” has no idea that it’s a picture of a TV, that is relevant for the “Audiophile” persona (which marketing has spent weeks developing), or that the data implies that the final step in this customer journey is in fact to view the back of the TV.

“New Image 3.jpg” is not smart, it does not know that it is related to: “SAMSUNG_UE40MU612_4K_TV_FRONT_VIEW.jpg” or even “SAMSUNG_UE40MU612_4K_TV.pdf”, or that someone who has viewed “SHARP_LC-40FG5341KF_BACK_VIEW.jpg” might be also interested in seeing it too.

And because “New Image 3.jpg” is not smart, the shiny artificially intelligent, real time, digital experience tool could do nothing with it in order to influence this buyer.

So, to cut a long story short, my contribution to our real time workshop - like almost every content management presentation I have given in response to the latest advance in delivering customer experience, whether personalization, relevance or real time – you have to know your content and make it smart.

I don’t give an crapronym, you still have to tidy your content.

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Ian Truscott
Ian Truscott has a passion for creating ART (Awareness, Revenue and Trust) for B2B software companies as a marketing leader and is a censhare alumni. Wanting to connect a like minded community and share something useful, he founded Rockstar CMO, a monthly digital publication, and is currently helping B2B companies create ART at appropingo.

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