I'm writing a book, and am really glad you're following me along here. This book is for marketers, and having people like you here will keep me on track making it as helpful as possible.
As a working idea, it's a practical guide for marketers on sizing up their programs, getting them working better, and showing their organizations what they're truly capable of.
I'm approaching the writing by tasking myself with talks and solo podcasts, tackling different themes in the book. As I complete each of them, I'm left with content that's — hopefully — conducive to the book's overall thrust. It's a way of building the book in pieces, in public, while making sure the ideas actually hold up when they are all bound together as one body of work.
My first crack at this came via a talk I recently gave at OPMMA (the Ottawa Product Management & Marketing Association) called From Adversaries to Advocates. The core argument was this: a lot of marketers annoy company leadership by presenting numbers that don't translate to the business. Leadership sees their reporting as amateurish and predictably reacts by shutting them out of strategic discussions, or cutting their budget.
The fix is straightforward: make marketing's reports show how they drive business outcomes, mirroring what other departments do. Reports have to go beyond giving campaign readouts; they must tell data stories. Done well, that transforms the relationship from adversarial to one where their insights on the customer are sought, where marketing's allocated their fair share of budget.
The book's earlier sections teach how to get everything into good enough shape for us to go to leadership with the kind of data stories I described in my OPMMA talk. For this reason, it's going to go in the latter half of the book, probably forming one or two chapters. My immediate task is turning that talk into one or two chapters. The material is already there — I just need to go from a deck and speaking notes to actual prose.
I don't have any 'ask' to give you here. Just knowing you're aware of what I'm doing helps me get my work done. Afterall, I'd be too embarrassed to come back to you in two weeks with no update!
If anything in my email resonates with what you're seeing, I'd love to hear it. Also tell me if you think I'm getting something wrong. Or just email me if you feel like cheering me on as I write.
Talk soon,
Glenn