The blog he didn’t dare to run: a sad story for you about corporate cowardice

Would this 10 point guide to modern marketing upset you? I hope not.

A friend wrote what follows for his firm’s blog. But he decided they’d never let him run it. Too true to be funny. I think it’s marvellous. How about you?

A 10-point guide to modern marketing

1. Do not, under any circumstances, try to sell anything to people. Selling is a relic of the 20th century, like humility or non-online porn.

 2. You must not ‘interrupt’ people with your marketing. People must grant you permission before you are allowed to not sell something to them.

3. Whatever it is that you create, make sure it is shareable. The best way to do this is to present it in bite-sized pieces. Like a fun-size Mars bar. Except they’re not shareable, come to think of it. Er, forget that analogy.

4. The ultimate aim of being shared is to go viral. Exposing yourself to as many people as possible is the goal. So, in summary: selling = evil; shameless global exhibitionism = good.

5. No matter what you communicate about your business, you must make sure that it adds value. A good way to add value is to write blog posts about how important it is to add value.

6. Modern marketing is all about engagement. You can ‘build’ engagement or ‘grow’ engagement, but the best way to achieve an embiggening of engagement is to ‘drive’ it.

7. Make sure that your marketing efforts are in alignment. With what, you ask? With everything: your culture, your values, your vision, and your mission. If you don’t have any of these, just steal them from another company; they’re the same for every business.

8. Don’t get caught up ‘doing’ things. Instead, you should plan things or, even better, strategise things. Only low-paid chumps do things.

9. An excellent way to avoid doing things is to automate them. Need to measure something? Automate it. Customer service? Automate that shit too. And if you need some writing done, there are thousands of monkeys on thousands of keyboards out there. Hire one. Hell, hire them all – they work for nothing.

10. Whatever business you’re in, you must be innovative. The only thing you can’t be innovative about is using another word for ‘innovative’, because it is mandatory. Say you’re innovative. Then say you’re innovative again. Innovative.