The Funnelholic

Jobfox has released a report on the 20 most recession-proof jobs. There are two really interesting developments for my two blog constituents, sales and marketing folks.

1. Sales guys: Congratulations — you have and will survive the economic slowdown. Heck, even sales executives made the list, so congratulations. Bottom line: You can’t make money unless people are selling.
2. Marketing people: ouch. You’re not even on the list. What’s clear here is that marketers still have a lot of work to do to prove that they’re a part of the critical path to revenue. There are great tips on this on Jon Miller’s Modern B2B Marketing blog. Read his post “7 Strategies for B2B marketing During a Recession.” Then hit his series on “Proving Marketing’s Value” (start on Part I). It’s easy for me to say, but don’t lose your job. If you take the lesson learned from my previous post “The 7 Similarites Between VPs of Sales and Professional Sports Coaches,” marketers don’t get fired as frequently … but, as you can see from the below stat, you will struggle to get a new job.

By the way, I have never heard of Jobfox so I don’t even know how credible the data is. What I do know is that there is a beautiful marketing lesson to be learned from this. This data has been great viral content for Jobfox. I found this article on Network World’s blog, which proves that this piece of content worked. Now, I am writing about a company I have never heard of before, and I am giving them visibility. I also forwarded this article to some friends. And Jobfox didn’t write about its marketing mumbo jumbo, and the site has no registration form. Now that is social-media marketing.

Read Jobfox’s”Top 20 Most Recession Proof Professions” (PDF).

Top 20 Most Recession-Proof Professions

Rank

1. Sales Representative/ Business Development
2. Software Design/ Development
3. Nursing
4. Accounting and Finance Executive
5. Accounting Staff
6. Networking/Systems Admin
7. Administrative Assistant
8. Business Analysis ( Software Implementation)
9. Business Analysis ( Research)
10. Finance Staff
11. Project Management
12. Testing/ Quality Assurance
13. Product Management
14. Database Administration
15. Account/ Customer Support
16. Technology Engineering
17. Electrical Engineering
18. Sales Executive
19. Mechanical Engineering
20. Government Contracts Administration

Written by Craig Rosenberg - The Funnelholic
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So, first to be clear about some things:

First: Lists: What I mean is the popular-offer/subject-line-grabber technique of 100 Best Ways to “X” or 10 Reasons You Shouldn’t “X.”

Second: George Carlin . If you don’t know him, read about him on Wikipedia.

Third: Offers can be blog posts, article headlines, whitepaper headlines, Webinar topics, email subject lines and so on.

So, I am listening to the radio, and the host is talking about George Carlin, who passed away this year due to heart failure. Here is how he described Carlin: “George Carlin is known primarily for his ’seven dirty words act’ … ” The “seven dirty words act” is of course George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.”

OK, so do the math. This dude did stand-up comedy and movies for 40 to 50 years. He was known as being funnier than hell. At the end of the day, Carlin will always be remembered by the ultimate list headline: “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” The seven words take one minute to list, and the monologue was one act in an entire career. Yet it is what everyone turns to when they describe Carlin’s career.

George Carlin proves one thing: You cannot stop the use of lists for marketing success. You can only hope to contain it.

Ironically, as I was thinking about this offer, I figured that I should do some research on it, and, lucky me, some of my favorite bloggers have some great posts on the subject:

• Michael Stelzner from Writing Whitepapers blog: “Two Reasons Numbers Still Work in titles“
• Two posts from Brian Clark of Copyblogger: “7 Reasons Why List Posts Will Always Work” and “5 Reasons Why the List Post Is Dead“

One thing is true: With the blogosphere and the multitude of people trying to capture eyeballs, the list technique has never been more prevalent. But the bottom line is that it still works.

Then there’s this comment from MacStansbury in the “7 Reasons” article:

“It’s getting so bad with the lists, I’m almost to the point I don’t want to read a post if there’s a list. Of course, I’m still writing posts like that, because it works!”

Why does it work for approaching B2B buyers? B2B buyers have no time and want their information from people whom they trust or that they believe are thought leaders. The list approach conveys the following to a B2B buyer:

1. Easy to Read: The list format gives a feeling that your offer will be “to the point” and can be consumed quickly and easily.
2. Authority and Thought Leadership: Making a list is authoritative and definitive.

The most important factor is that the list technique still works, and B2B marketers should take notice. Also take notice that if you haven’t been doing it, everyone else has, so you have to still be creative and think outside the box on how you present a list. George Carlin would be proud.

Written by Craig Rosenberg - The Funnelholic
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Traffic on The Funnelholic has started rising dramatically since I declared my comeback a couple of months ago. The boost the site has received due to the recent wiki articles has been awesome.

Blogging is an important part of B2B (business-to-business) demand generation. I have learned a ton from The Funnelholic experience, and will continue to do so. Below are some of the things I have done since the blog’s relaunch that have contributed to its recent success. In the meantime, I am constantly trying new ideas and am humbly reaching out to get other opinions.

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Written by Craig Rosenberg - The Funnelholic
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Just how easy it is to edit Wikipedia:

A real wiki-expert jumps in the fray. The wiki-gate scandal has brought me from blogger into journalism. Just to re-cap:
1. Wrote a blog post: the How-to guide to getting jacked by Wikipedia
2. Got a lot of traffic from it as well as comments and personal emails. Job well done
3. Wrote a follow up post “interview” with Anvil Media, the marketing agency whose clients got “jacked” by Wikipedia.
4. Now, got approached by Gregory Kohs who has been following the Anvil Media saga AND is an expert on Wikipedia.
5.Interview done…see below

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Written by Craig Rosenberg - The Funnelholic
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