Kathy Klotz-Guest - Stop Boring Me!: How to Create Kick-Ass Marketing Content, Products and Ideas Through the Power of Improv

Copyright 2016 Kathy Klotz-Guest

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-68418-931-1

This book is dedicated to my hubby who reminds me why I work hard. I called him once when we were dating and said, I have a crazy idea. After I finished explaining, he responded, Thats one of the most ridiculous things Ive heard. You must do it! Thats why I love him and our beautiful son, madly.

Id like to acknowledge the following people for their continued support: my patient husband; my beautiful son, who is still my favorite audience; my improv group, Make Your Own Damn Sandwich, and my smart, funny, and talented Harold Team at Pear Theatreboth of whom make me laugh until I pee my pants; and to my amazing friends and colleagues who asked relentlessly and patiently with love, Where the hell is your book? Now I can answer that. You hold me to a high standard. I hope Ive hit that standard here.

First, I want to give you a heartfelt thank you for buying this book and investing your time in it. I hope it gives you great ideas, makes you smile, helps you to look at content and storytelling in new ways, and banishes boring from your marketing. Your audience wants to be inspired, entertained, and educated. I know you care about that, too.

Source: gratisography.com

I wrote this book because content, storytelling, and marketing in general need a shot of creativity, humanity, and fun if they are going to get results for your business. Together, were going to eradicate boring, superficial storytelling and bad content. Sadly, there is too little meaningful content today. Its a case of too much ineffective content chasing too little (and over-saturated) customer mindshare.

In its most recent survey, the listed generating new content among the biggest challenges businesses of all sizes face. In the work I do with organizations, I see many of the same stuckness. The challenge is more than just content ideas and volume of content. Marketing teams sometimes forget how to add human elements in their storytelling and content that would make a world of difference in connecting with audiences. Most business storytelling and content reads like a transaction rather than a conversation with emotion. Creating storytelling and content with an emotional punch that gets people to act can be tricky, both in crafting the right types and amounts. We all feel content overload. There is no easy app to fix that.

Like many content marketers, or marketers in general, you, too, may be hitting a walland not one of those fun climbing wallscoming up with fresh, engaging ideas. Or you may wish to humanize your storytelling by giving it more emotional resonance, which makes a difference in engagement and sales. No sale starts without a connection. Connect with the rational and emotional centers of your buyers brains and youll sell more.

Marketers spend a great deal of money on PPC (pay per click) and SEO (search engine optimization), content distribution, tools to manage our social posts, and data analyticsall important, technical parts to content management. Yet, how much time and money do marketers spend on creating content that inspires, helps, and engages people? Too often, organizations throw technology at the content issue and end up scaling ineffective content.

We have to start with really great content.

Source: Keepingithuman.com

Back away from the content calendar, grab a cup of coffee, and lets look at content in a different, much more creative way. Improv methods increase the fun, utility and humanity quotients in our marketing, and allow us to see things in fresh ways when we need it most. When content is at its best, it produces results by grabbing something visceral in your reader so they share it and eventually contact you. I believe improv-powered techniques can help get us closer to creating the kinds of content audiences want and marketers want to produce. No kid ever says, I want to grow up and create boring content for a living! Your inner kid wants to play and be creative. Your audiences inner kids want that, too.

This book is written primarily for marketing, content marketing, sales, and branding people, as well as for entrepreneurs who must:

• Tell stories in business (internally, externally, when looking for funding as a startup or entrepreneur, throughout the sales process to demonstrate that companies understand and have experience successfully resolving specific customer challenges, to close business, to create change any business, branding and marketing storytelling)
• Generate bold content and content ideas (and innovate product and service ideas, too) consistently (for yourself and for others)
• Present, sell, and advocate big ideas in exciting ways (read: not boring and self-serving) to engage audiences

The bottom line: engaging content connects with people emotionally and moves people to take action.

Even if you dont work in marketing, sales, or product, you are a creative storyteller. Each of us has that spark. We are all creative. You can use the exercises and examples in this book to come up with new ideas for products, content and for better stories! Ive used these exercises with engineering and HR teams, too. Improvisation elements will not only make you more creative, they will make you a better communicator and connector. And these approaches are fun. And fun is a creative catalyst. Improv is like zesty Sriracha sauce (or substitute your favorite sauce here) for creativity.

Improvisation connects. It takes us on an emotional journey that makes us care because we see the humanity at the center of the stories being told, and fun in the games being played. Additionally, improvisation is fabulous for sparking new ideas.

Source: gratisography.com

Although there are many varieties, improvisation boils down to two basic categories:

Short-form: short games that pop in a big laugh at 3-5 minutes (and deliver laughs all through-out a scene). Youve seen this type of improvisation if you have watched the popular television show, Whose Line is it, Anyway? These games can be used to generate massively creative content and marketing ideas.

Long-form: fully improvised, longer plays. Based on audience suggestions and games played out by the participants, improvisers create 30-45 minute (or longer) pieces. Long-form improvisation is not always comedy as you would see in short-form. Often, in long-form you see the full spectrum of human emotions and expressionshappy, hilarious, poignant, sad, ebullient, for example. The focus in long-form is portraying characters in real ways. Long-form improv works great for inspiring longer marketing storytelling pieces, also called long-form content. Coincidence? Ok, maybe.