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Superbowl Ads and Crazy Creators – #80

Published: February 25, 2022 | Last Updated: March 1, 2022

The Best Super Bowl Ad

This was the first year in a long time that I honestly analyzed all the ads from the Super Bowl. But first, did you see all the celebrity talent this year? My wife mentioned it about halfway through the Super Bowl and she was right…about every other commercial featured a celebrity…and the ones that did had MANY inserted into their commercial spot.

But when the Coinbase ad was featured, I stopped in my tracks (I was on the couch, but whatever). If you didn’t see it, the entire ad was a QR code that bounced off the sides of your screen like an old PC screen saver. Each time it hit the side it changed to a different color.

coinbase QR code ad for Superbowl

I told my wife immediately, “this will be the best ad of the Super Bowl.”

At the time, I didn’t know who the ad was for. I later found out that the QR code was an offer to get $15 in free Bitcoin from Coinbase for signing up.

Apparently, the site experienced 20 million hits inside a minute and Coinbase had to throttle traffic because of the demand on their servers. Why they weren’t prepared for this is another story altogether (as my oldest pointed out).

So why did this work and why do I believe this was the best ad?

It was different. Period.

Someone in the Coinbase marketing department said, “hey, let’s do something different.” They did. And as a side note, it was the least expensive ad to produce as well.

The same works in content creation.

You can create mounds and mounds of content consistently over time, but if you don’t have a content tilt, you won’t make it. The content tilt is where the creator finds an area of differentiation where they can break through all the other clutter and get noticed. It’s your hook.

I’m sitting here right now and I only truly remember one ad from the entire Super Bowl. The one I’m writing about here.

Are you struggling to get attention with your content? Find your tilt. What makes you different?

How you say? Focus on a niche audience. Try a smaller, sub topic. Look at a new platform. Tell your story in a different way.

Finding that Little Bit of Crazy

As you are reading this I’m on vacation. I’ll talk about it in the next newsletter.
It got me thinking of some of my previous holidays…specifically one my family and I took to Italy and Spain about five years ago.

Over the trip, we had the opportunity to see breathtaking paintings, sculptures and architecture. We visited Picasso’s Museum, saw Michelangelo’s David, viewed Botticelli’s Venus and topped it off with Gaudi’s amazing Sagrada Familia.

As we went from city to city, museum to museum, my wife would comment on how “crazy” these artists were. Picasso, for example, spent months painting the same image over and over, making minor variations along the way. When you look at the paintings as a group, you wondered how obsessive-compulsive he really was.

Michelangelo basically locked himself in a room for two years while designing David, and spent six months alone on just polishing it.  He often went to bed with his boots on and rarely, if ever, showered during that time.

Gaudi’s early designs for Sagrada Familia were almost laughable.  Nothing like it had ever been undertaken. The idea was almost too big.  That idea is now on schedule to be finalized in 2026, 100 years after his death.

Maybe the greatest creators are a little bit crazy, but maybe it’s something more. At least during this holiday, I found that the world’s greatest creators are incredibly focused on one thing at a time.  They also think big…setting lofty goals and visions of what can be accomplished. They focus on areas and do things that haven’t been done before.  It is also fairly obvious they deny conventional thinking, or as Robert Frost would say, they take the path less traveled.

We have a lot to learn from these creators.

If you are going to create content, choose a content niche where you can actually be the leading expert in the world, setting that as an actual goal. If you are going to be a content creator, focus on doing something consistently over a long period of time (a hallmark of all the great media companies). And if you are going to actually create something, don’t tell the same story…tell a truly differentiated story (see Coinbase above).

Sure, it can be based on what’s happened in the past, but something about it must be different.

NOTE: You might like this overview of Adam Alter’s recombination about combining familiar things to create something new.

Might all this seem a little bit crazy?  It will absolutely look that way to those who don’t stand out.

So ask yourself…who do you want to be?  Who do you want your company to be?

And do you want your marketing to actually make a difference?  I hope your answer is yes.

Congratulations for getting to this point in the newsletter. I’d love to see you in person at Creator Economy Expo (Phoenix, AZ – May 2-4). If you are a content creator, this is your event (developed by creators, for creators). Use coupon code “pulizzi” and get $300 off.

Asking for Help and the It’s Early Days of NFTs – #79

Published: February 11, 2022 | Last Updated: February 11, 2022

Love Is a Verb

quick note…thank you to all that donated to my Orange Effect Foundation page two weeks ago. I’m already halfway to my goal because of you wonderful people.

Valentine’s Day is next week. I think of two things on that day.

First, it’s the day I proposed to the love of my life. I took her out to dinner and had this idea to propose, down on one knee, in the park after we ate.

The problem? It was 10 degrees out and snow was everywhere. That, and I couldn’t find a park. She probably thought I was an idiot looking around for someplace to stop.

Anyway, I found something that seemed like a park (there was a bench that wasn’t entirely covered with snow) and she said yes.

Oh, and I agonized over the ring. It took me 21 months to pay off that thing. I bought it at a jewelry store that no longer exists inside a mall that no longer exists. Worth every penny.

As I type this I can hear my kids saying “boomer.”

Second, I think of both helping others and being open to receiving help.

For many, we think of Valentine’s day and the resulting feeling of love. Sure, love is a strong feeling, but true love is action oriented.

Unfortunately my wife and I have been to too many funerals in the past few months. I hear the same issues at every funeral no matter the age or cause of death.

“I didn’t reach out enough.”

“I didn’t see them enough.”

“I didn’t do enough.”

Regret can be a terrible thing. It can also be an amazing motivator.

So on or before Valentine’s Day, make a list of 10 people in your life that you love. Then, take a small action. Nothing earth shattering.

Mail a short note.

Shovel their walkway.

Deliver a gift card to their favorite restaurant or coffee place. Promise to go together.

Text them hi.

Share your favorite book.

Small things like this change stars for people. So, no regrets…just lots of do’s next week.

Good, but the other side is true as well. We have to learn to ask for help.

I don’t know about you, but I used to be one of those people that had to do everything on my own. Stubborn, some would say.

Then, out of sheer desperation, I started asking for help.

Personal life, yes. We have three couples in our life that are our best friends. I ask them for help all the time. They ask me for help. It’s beautiful when we all help each other.

For business?

This just occurred to me. When people ask me what the key to my business success is, I generally say something like patience or grit. Not true.

It’s the ability to ask for help.

We started a content marketing survey back in 2008/2009. That research project put our business on the map. None of it would have happened without Ann Handley’s support.

Content Marketing World seemed like a Hail Mary in 2010. I asked A LOT of people for help that year. So many come through, showing up when they had no call to do so. Marcus Sheridan, Andrew Davis, David Meerman Scott, Sally Hogshead, Jay Baer and about a hundred others made that show happen. Why? Well, I asked them for help. They were kind enough to do just that.

CMI (back in the day) ran on fumes. So many on our original team made sacrifices I can’t even fathom. Why? Well, I asked them for help. They said yes.

The same continues today. The Tilt started because I asked a small group of people for help. Our upcoming event, Creator Economy Expo, started and is continuing in the same way. Big-name speakers from all over the country are making sacrifices and showing up…because we asked.

So, for Valentine’s Day, make love an action. But also start integrating asking for help into your daily life. To be human, we need to give and receive. It has to be both. Love, the action word, requires both.

A Quick Word on NFTs

The Tilt LinkedIn Survey about NFTs

Last week The Tilt did a survey on NFTs. Over 500 marketers and content creators completed the survey. Here are the results.

What’s your current NFT Status?

Yes…I own at least one – 13 percent.
No, but considering – 30 percent.
No, and I will never buy one – 42 percent.
What’s an NFT? – 16 percent.

Couple things to take away from this.

First, we are VERY early days here. Could be an amazing opportunity for those in early with real ideas. Yes, many of these early NFT projects will fail, just like many early web projects failed in the late ‘90s. But there was also Amazon and eBay.

Second, while NFTs can just be digital art, they are really smart contracts backed with blockchain technology. This means that, ultimately, NFTs can do just about anything. Think ticketing, insurance, healthcare records, etc. And yes, digital real estate as well (which is going to be huge). My prediction is that in 20 years digital real estate will be valued at more than regular real estate (this is not financial advice).

Of course, I could be wrong. But my advice to you is to be curious. Start doing some research. Here’s a good group of articles to read up on that are introductory in nature.

Personally, I didn’t have a clue about NFTs until I purchased one. Practice a little with an NFT or two where you can afford to lose the money. It will pay off in the long run.

Writing Tips for Sales Emails – #78

Published: January 28, 2022 | Last Updated: January 28, 2022

Staying Focused

I normally have an orange notebook by my side. On one page, is a list of ideas for the future.

Often times I want to start on any one of them…or even a few.

And then I think of Jeff Bezos and Amazon.

Amazon sold books in 1995. Only books.

For three years, that’s all they sold.

They became great at it.

Then they started selling other things.

Today, they sell everything.

We often forget early Amazon and how focused they were.

Book Recommendation

I’m a big Andy Weir fan. You may remember his amazing book (and subsequent movie starting Matt Damon) The Martian. We had him speak at one of our events as well. Great guy!

My friend Marc recommended Weir’s new book called Project Hail Mary.

I was hooked immediately and couldn’t put it down. If you like science fiction, it’s perfecto.

Techniques for Writing Sales Emails

Over the last month I’ve been selling sponsorships for Creator Economy Expo. I haven’t sold full-time like this since the first Content Marketing World in 2011. To be honest, it’s taken me a while to dust the rust off.

Here’s a little before and after email writing, with some results to show the difference.

Here was my first email try:

——

Hi FNAME,

Wanted to make sure you were aware of our event, CEX – Creator Economy Expo. This is an exclusive event for 500+ content creators at the Arizona Grand Resort in Phoenix (May 2-4, 2022).

Brian Clark (Copyblogger) and I founded this event because we believe there is a real gap in the event space for true content entrepreneurs…those full-time creators trying to build a substantial business.

Our attendees are experienced entrepreneurs and content creators who spend, on average, $10k per year on technology solutions to run their content businesses.

Companies already sponsoring CEX include Hubspot, Rally.io and MarketMuse. We are limiting sponsors to just a few dozen this year (for obvious reasons).

We just announced our first round of amazing speakers, including Roberto Blake, Ann Handley, Jeremiah Owyang, Jordan Harbinger, Kaleigh Moore, Wally Koval (Accidentally Wes Anderson) … all some of the most amazing content entrepreneurs in the world.

I’d love to get you involved in some way. Here is our prospectus just to see what we are offering, but I’d love to create something that helps you grow your business and help our attendees at the same time.

Five minutes to chat about it?

Best, Joe

——

So, what do you think? I bet you didn’t even read the whole thing. I wouldn’t either.

Well, it really doesn’t matter because I got absolutely NO response. Of course, I should have known better. Frankly, it’s too long. And they really don’t care about why Brian and I founded the event.

They care about themselves and their own needs. How quickly I forget.

I modified this a few times and finally came up with this version.

——

Hi FNAME…We have a new IRL creator economy event, called CEX: Creator Economy Expo. 500+ creators that could use your services. I believe there is a fit here. Would love to chat with you for less than 10 minutes about it if possible.

Or…if interested…I can email you a few ideas.

Check it out here —> https://cex.events/ – May 2-4, 2022 (Arizona Grand Resort)

——

BINGO.

This one is hitting at about a 25 percent clip. Some want a phone call, some want emails.

Why did it work?

First, it’s short. 65 words versus 195 words.

Second, I quickly answer what the event is in the first line.

Third, I make it about them, saying that my audience wants their services. Every person I’m reaching out to has a sales goal.

Fourth, I won’t waste time. 10 minutes maximum. Everyone has 10 minutes, especially if it will help with their jobs and lives in some way. Seems reasonable, right?

SEO: What You Need to Know

Do you want to get found in search engines but don’t quite understand what it takes?

Well worry no more.

Alberto from our Tilt discord group shared this amazing resource covering everything you need to know about On-Page SEO.

NFTs, NIL and the Great Resignation – #77

Published: January 14, 2022 | Last Updated: January 28, 2022

Kids Staying at Home Longer

Prof G kids living with a parent chart

Recent Pew Research shows that almost half of all young adults ages 18 to 29 still live with their parents (see above chart). This trend has been rising every decade since the 1950s.

Professor Scott Galloway from NYU breaks down this chart in two minutes here. His rationale? Prof G believes our economy is broken, and that for the first time in US history 30-year-olds are not doing as well financially as their parents did at the same age. It’s worth the two minutes to listen to his take.

The Great Resignation

First off, my wife never watches regular television. But she loves football. So, she was watching an NFL game on CBS that ended, and on came the show 60 Minutes right after. She ended up watching the entire program.

Apparently there was a piece about the Great Resignation that featured Karin Kimbrough, LinkedIn’s chief economist (I didn’t even know they had a position like that). There are some interesting stats in this show, but the one that caught my wife’s eye was this one: Before the pandemic, one in 67 jobs were remote. Today, one is seven jobs are remote.

Name – Image – Likeness

Not sure if you’ve been paying attention, but the Name/Image/Likeness (NIL) rule that the NCAA passed last year is starting to go crazy nuts. Just in case you haven’t been paying attention, NIL means that college athletes are now allowed to sell their name or image to companies. Basically these are sponsorship deals. Like it or not, it’s here to stay.

Last week the Twittersphere went crazy when former Super Bowl Quarterback Charlie Batch offered Oklahoma quarterback Caleb Williams $1 million dollars to transfer to Eastern Michigan. Batch works with GameAbove Capital, which would be the sponsoring company.

My prediction for 2022 is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s going to be like the movie Johnny Be Good, except it will all be public.

NFTs Here to Stay?

You may have noticed that almost all cryptocurrencies have been down so far in 2022. Well, not NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Here’s an NFT overview if you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.

In the last 30 days, 23 NFTs have sold for over $1 million dollars. In addition, people are starting to think about what the future of digital life (uh, the metaverse?) holds. Last month one collector paid $450,000 for a plot of digital land next to Snoop Dogg on Sandbox.

My thoughts? I believe they are here to stay, but that about 99 percent of NFT projects will go bust. So do your own homework before you invest in something.

CEX Early-Bird Pricing Ending

The $495 pricing to CEX – Creator Economy Expo ends next Friday (January 21, 2022). That rate is $500 off. I’d love to see you there on May 2, 2022 in beautiful Arizona. And bring your significant other. The Arizona Grand Resort is amazing.

We are featuring about 50 sessions on how to build an audience on the web, grow that audience, make money from that audience, and what opportunities work for content creators in a Web3 world

We are keeping the event small and mandatory vaccination to make it as safe as possible. Once we hit around 500 registrations we’ll be done. We are about 20% of the way there.

We just announced our first round of speakers including Roberto Blake, Ann Handley, Jeremiah Owyang and many more.

$TILT Coin Rides Again

After a brief hiatus, our own $TILT coin returned to the #1 spot on Rally.io’s list of creator coins. We now have over 1,500 coin holders and almost 1,000 people on our discord channel (come join us!). Not bad for nine months (we had a crypto baby!)

As part of Rally’s rewards program, we’ve delivered (get this) over $350,000 in real paper dollars to $TILT coin holders. Many coin holders used these rewards to buy holiday presents and pay off some outstanding bills. Truly amazing. BTW, if you sign up to our email newsletter at The Tilt and finish the signup process, you get $5 in $TILT coin the following Friday.

2021 Year in Review – #76

Published: January 3, 2022 | Last Updated: January 3, 2022

What a crazy year it has been.

Crazy, yet extremely insightful. I’m working on things today that I never would have imagined doing just a few months ago. How about you? 

Last year at this time, I wrote down something my son said in my 2020 review, “2021 is going to be as awesome as 2020 was terrible.” I don’t know if I agree, but I think most people would say that 2021 was at least an improvement. 

For me, by improvement I mean crazy different (here’s a quick personal update). 

In March I launched my own social token, $TILT coin. $TILT is the #2 performing coin on the entire Rally.io network, launching at 34 cents on March 4th and now clocking in at $34 per coin. That’s 100x growth if you’re counting. Many of you have been so supportive of $TILT coin and I am eternally grateful for all your help. 

In April, we launched our new company, The Tilt, a newsletter dedicated to helping content creators become content entrepreneurs. We’ve gone from zero to over 12,000 email subscribers in less than nine months.  

In May we launched our Discord discussion group, which now has almost 1,000 people who help and support each other with their content creation tips and examples. Later that month I launched the new version of my book Content Inc. (McGraw-Hill), which spent quite a few weeks as the #1 marketing book on Amazon. 

In June we introduced our original research on the State of the Content Entrepreneur (it’s free, get it here). The report was based on the findings from over 1,400 content creators who are trying to build full-time businesses from content and audience building. 

In October we launched our merch store (if you love Ted Lasso you’ll love this “Create” shirt) and in early December we launched our training program, Content Entrepreneurship 101. We’ve already had dozens of students pass through the course and the feedback has been tremendous. 

And, last but not least, a few weeks ago we announced CEX – Creator Economy Expo, an in-person event for content creators, by content creators that will take place May 2-4, 2022 at the Arizona Grand Resort. To be honest, the event was not on the 2022 roadmap, but we believe there is a big need here and we wanted to be the ones that filled it. 

Oh, and on a personal note, my wife and I sent two off to college this year. We are now also experts in the benefits and expenses of assisted living complexes (all good now though). 

I’d love to hear how your 2021 was and what you plan to accomplish in 2022.  

14 Must-Read Stories from 2021

 For this issue of The Random, I decided to go back through all the articles we featured over the past 12 months and pull out the most impactful. So, let’s do this. 

Social Media Warnings 

The social media news in January set the tone for the year. By mid-January, Facebook kicked former President Trump off its platform, while Amazon kicked off social app Parler.  

We learned two things. First, the big tech platforms like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are now more powerful than literally all other entities on the planet. They can, and will, do whatever they want. Second, we (as users of social media) have no rights. 

This is especially true for content creators. While we can and probably should leverage social platforms, we must always have a strategy to build direct relationships with our audience (through email and now crypto). 

In February Facebook dropped all news media providers from their platform in Australia. By August, creator platform OnlyFans banned NSFW content from their platform (that’s a huge part of their model) and then reversed the decision shortly after. Just last week Amazon’s Twitch banned Hasan Piker, one of their top streamers, for saying the word “cracker.” 

I’m not saying these decisions are right or wrong. I’m saying that we ALL see the writing on the wall when it comes to users’ rights on these platforms. If you get banned or the rules change or they take away access to your followers and fans, you know the risks. 

Crypto Crazy 

Where do we start? 

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies continued their rise at the start of the year due to, in large part, governments around the world, including the US, printing unlimited amounts of money. The US money supply grew by over 35 percent, an increase of over $5 trillion dollars between December 2019 and August 2021.

Inflation is now tracking at over five percent on the year, with some projections actually much higher. This seems like it will be an ongoing problem as more dollars continue to be created (out of thin air), which brings down the value of every dollar we have in our pockets. 

Since every dollar we don’t spend is worth significantly less in a year, investors are looking for new types of assets. One of those asset types, the NFT or non-fungible token, hit the mainstream in March when Beeple sold a collection of NFTs for $69 million at a Christie’s auction. By late March, things got crazy, with some Cryptopunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club and NBA Tops Shots selling for hundreds of thousands (even into the millions). 

In May, Gary Vaynerchuck sold 10,000 VeeFriends NFTs, which gave access to his new conference VeeCon, in 12 days. By summer, Opensea, the largest NFT-trading platform, was doing $1 billion in total volume. In November, that number was $10 billion. By the end of the year we saw the rise of DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) and the amazing ConstitutionDao example.  

Could we be in an NFT/token bubble? Perhaps…but NFTs, social tokens and crypto are here to stay, and they provide a real way for creators to build a business and provide a piece of ownership to fans at the same time. For more on using tokens as a business model, be sure to check out Random #71.  

For more on Bitcoin, here’s an amazing article on why Bitcoin is an answer. 

For more on social tokens (fungible tokens or FTs), check out issue number 59. 

Looking Back at What It Means 

It’s difficult to say at this point, but I believe that 2021 will go down as the year the content creator business model changed forever. Since the dawn of the internet, creators have been looking for something to truly harness the power of connecting with fans anywhere at anytime. That power may finally be in the form of the token (NFTs, social tokens, DAOs, etc.). 

The token is the thing that can be developed by the creator and owned by the audience. As my friend and co-host on the This Old Marketing podcast Robert Rose says, Web 3 is about co-creation. Creators and fans can build and grow something of value together, where both sides retain value and grow a piece of the business. 

This hasn’t been possible, until now.  

It will be interesting to see what 2022 will bring.

 

Get IN on This!

A few weeks ago I launched my first NFT program, CEX Never-Ending Tickets (NETs) – see image above for sample. They are limited to 100 and will help us fund the in-person event (Creator Economy Expo) in May, 2022 in Phoenix.

As of me writing this, there are 82 NETs remaining. I would like any member of this community who wants one to get one. If you are interested, you can mint your NFT here or email me (just reply to this email) and I can walk you through it.

The minting price is .75 ETH (that’s currently about $2,800). When you buy one, you get:
– A ticket to every CEX event for life (as long as we produce the event) – $995 per year value
– VIP access at CEX (including exclusive parties and seating at events) – $1,000 per year value
– Private Discord group with myself and Brian Clark – priceless 😉
– Special opportunity (depending on which NET you get) to introduce a keynote from the main stage, meet a keynote backstage, have lunch with Joe and Brian or receive exclusive event swag.

To purchase a NET, you need to have a digital wallet (i.e., Metamask) and fund it with $ETH. If you don’t have a digital wallet and would still like to purchase one, we can get you one the old fashioned way and invoice you. Just let me know.

Remember, if for any reason you don’t want your NET anymore (gasp), you can always re-sell it on Opensea.

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