"Sh*tting the Bed"
John A. Marzano
Marketing & Content Strategist | Healthcare Branding & Storytelling Enthusiast | Fixing 'Marketing Malpractice.'
Sick of the political posturing on night-time TV, I've settled on binge-watching Netflix.
Right now, it's "Suits." -- All nine seasons. I'm finally on season 9.
The show is about law firms and lawyers. I've always had an affinity for lawyers, too, while watching them walk the legal line in courtrooms to put away bad people or prove innocence.
Aside from waiting to see if Harvey Spectre and Donna Paulsen get together at the end, as well as observing Meghan Markle's acting ability (not bad for a Duchess), a funny phrase surfaced throughout the series...
Whenever anyone screwed up on a strategy, or a case, or a failure to act in the best interests of their client, they enlisted pop culture slang and called it 'shitting the bed.'
Wow, nothing provides a more graphic visual for a mistake than that bombphrase.
In reality, I bet lawyers do it a lot. So do marketers in the eyes of many, especially in the world of healthcare marketing where everyone has the expertise to regularly 'screw the pooch' --another slang term coined by NASA astronauts.
Physicians cannot do it. Nurse caregivers either. If it happens, the result can be life or death.
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More importantly, in marketing's world of putting words together to maximize impact and connection, the ability to develop content in meaningful ways that connect to consumers or patients gets lost in status quo protection.
Consumers are confused about healthcare. The drivel communication is not personal to their need, nor always grounded in education to help them make informed decisions for themselves and their family members.
We need to be simpler and more direct. Content development needs a makeover.
Perhaps slang, pop culture, or a marketing influencer can have a better impact on getting people interested and engaged in their care than the last 40 years of saying "high-quality care for the people and communities we serve."
Maybe AI will help provide a new baseline. You can prompt it to be more direct and provocative. And maybe - just maybe - it can ignite creativity again to put words together that are substantive enough to get people to take action.
Ask yourself this...is the content working for you right now?
Asking again for a friend...are you tired of 'shitting the bed?'
I am.
I am an older adult working to help others over 60 live the most fun, fulfilling and rewarding lives they can lead. | Writer and editor who makes complicated subjects simple.
4wGood article, John. Yes, content development does need a makeover. The question I have is what parts of it needs the makeover. Is it how we develop content? What we develop? Why we develop content? Or what we are trying to achieve with it? I often feel as if content marketing has become one of those marketing activities we all do just because everyone is doing it. As we all do it because everyone is doing it, all we succeed in doing is blending into the river of crap. There has to be a better reason.
✏️ content writer 🤔content strategist ✨I help businesses & agencies level up their online presence with high-quality content. ✨ blog writer | thought leadership expert 🪙retail & crypto investing enthusiast
4wBest subject line I've seen hit my inbox all year John A. Marzano! Made me open this up and read it immediately.