An agency built on Crap
In the five years since we published Crap, Velocity has gone through enormous changes—pretty much all of them good. (Humblebrag Alert: won CMA Agency of the Year…opened in NYC… grew to 50+ weirdos… got bought by Next 15, the coolest, hottest independent digital group on the planet… quite a ride). All that was thanks to a dance card full of amazing clients who took a punt on a foul-mouthed agency-with-attitude hiding in leafy West London and a windowless WeWork in New York. (Big shout out to our spirit animal soulmates at Sprint in Kansas City: your early, irrational faith in us told other guys—like Salesforce, Xerox, Amazon Web Services and Informatica— that we were trustable with some big briefs. ‘Gratitude’ is too small a word for the way that makes us feel). So yes, Velocity is very much an agency built on Crap (and for a few years we were referred to as ‘the crap guys’. careful what you wish for). It’s hard to quantify the impact but it put us on the map; drove up all of our favourite vanity metrics (web traffic, views, downloads, shares); got us speaking engagements; made us new friends… and attracted new clients. It also lifted the performance of all our other content, from our blog to the pieces we produced before and after. Some of the earlier pieces got 5-10 times more views post-Crap as they’d had pre-Crap (with zero additional promotion). But the most important Crap effect wasn’t quantitative, it was qualitative: as it turned out, the marketers who were attracted by the attitude and energy of Crap were somewhere between 20 and 100 times more likely to be our kind of marketers. The piece (and our other content, I hope) resonated with confident, ambitious marketers who wanted to do great things. It also alienated timid, corporate, rule-monkeys. And both of these effects made us who were are today. Because when you attract your ideal prospects instead of just any prospects, the work is better, more profitable and more fun. We like to pretend that all of this was a strategic decision (dressing it up as a ‘psychographic targeting’ model). In truth, it was dumb luck. The simple consequence of being ourselves in public. But when all of your clients are your kind of people—people whose definition of great marketing is the same as your own—everything becomes possible. It’s a thousand times more fun than trying to drag Luddites into the light and it’s the only way to attract the kind of talent that refuses to be associated with… crap. (Um, yes, we’re hiring). (I’m a bit embarrassed, no deeply ashamed, to admit it now, but the fact that content marketing really does work—that it just might actually transform a business—came as a bit of a surprise to us. It’s disconcertingly unfamiliar when the things you’ve been telling people (like clients) turn out to be true. It’s also quite a relief.)What we learned from the Crap experience
Before looking back at the predictions and prescriptions made in the Crap deck, I want to share a few things that it taught us: A good rant can be a healthy thing – Helpful, how-to content and high-minded thought leadership all have their place in the content marketing mix. But sometimes a big, unabashed howl into the void is exactly what your audience wants.So did Crap come true?
The central prediction of Crap was that the days of easy wins from content marketing would soon come to an end. Did it? Was our advice for fighting against this by building a great content brand good advice? That’s the subject of the next Crappiversary post: Did Crap Come True? How To Fight the Content Marketing Deluge. The third and final post in the series is 40 Reasons Good People Make Great Content – a bodacious listicle of doom. YDon’t say I didn’t warn you.Enjoyed this article?
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Comments
David Petherick Doctor LinkedIn January 10th, 2018
Just as vital today as it was five tears ago. A timely reminder to all of us to not publish shite. Thanks.
Doug Kessler January 10th, 2018
Thanks, David! ‘Shite’ would be a good sequel…
Henry Cazalet The SMS Works January 10th, 2018
I was an early consumer of Crap and it made a massive impression, not just on me but on everyone I mentioned it to.
I remember it brought us up short, just as we about to press publish on yet another weak infographic.
Your Crap made us completely rethink what on earth we were doing with this content marketing lark. We changed for the better because of it, so cheers!
Doug Kessler January 12th, 2018
That’s so great to hear, Henry.
Made our day!
Alessio January 10th, 2018
thanks to that crap deck, I had the chance to meeting you guys in London back I think it was 2012? or 2013 maybe.
Crap power.
Doug Kessler January 12th, 2018
Alessio! How could we forget.
You must stop in again next time you’re in town (new offices though).
Pedro Matias Anglux January 13th, 2018
5 years already, I remember to have read this at the time and I must have been following you on Twitter since. On a smaller scale, I also cannot tell for the data of me, why a post on Rankbrain got almost 100 Rts and likes and most others only a few.
Wrongly, I then edited out the truth, anger and negativity that was probably what got all the reactions in the first place.
I think this is the inspiration I need to celebrate a 20 year mark of my own with a post-truth rant.
Doug Kessler January 19th, 2018
Go for it, Pedro!
And send a link when it’s live.
Joakim Ditlev Content Marketing DK January 16th, 2018
Great reflections and results, Doug. I know it’s not your style, but did you ever have any discussions like “what if we had gated the bastard”?
Lots of marketing departments are hung up on either lead gen goals or are hunting signups to feed their marketing automation platforms. I’m sure there’s a lot of great pieces out there just as good as Crap that never took off, because they were gated too hard.
Would you have exchanged 4 mio views with 50K email addresses and build an audience like Joe Pulizzi and others recommend? Would love to hear your take on that.
Doug Kessler January 18th, 2018
Thanks, Joakim!
Really good point.
We’d already learned out lessons by experimenting with gating some earlier pieces.
No, I don’t think I’d trade the wide reach for the fewer names.
We’ve seen too email forms ruin campaigns, chasing away 90% of the people who made it all the way to the landing page.
I can see the value of (and need for) forms, but not on the first date!
Col Gray Pixels Ink January 16th, 2018
Ah, another wee kick up the arse that I needed. Thanks again for the timely reminder Doug 🙂
Cheers,
Col
Doug Kessler January 18th, 2018
Thanks, Col.
I don’t imagine you needed reminding but I appreciate the comment!
Lionel Msource February 14th, 2018
Hey great post. As usual. Note: there’s a typo at the end in the link to ’40 Resons….good people make great (should say ‘crap’) content.