1. Truly Creative Content Marketers Make Work Intrinsic, Not “Telic” Here's the phone number list science behind the ice cream metaphor: When you eat ice cream, you're intrinsically motivated to eat it. You do it for phone number list itself regardless of the end result. The opposite of something intrinsic is "telic". When an action is telic, it is performed for end results - created for a definite end. When you focus too much on that end result, that is, when an activity is entirely telic, it becomes something no one wants phone number list to complete and few people do with enthusiasm: a chore. Here's the catch, my friend: marketers have turned content marketing into a telco business. We want the formula. We want best practices. We want phone number list to get to the end result as quickly, cheaply, and repeatably as possible. Another way of saying this: too much content marketing goes through the motions. But the phone number list best among us find joy in the process. They LOVE creating the phone number list content, tinkering with their framework to do it, and testing their process and workflow – just because, just for fun. And it actually gives better end results. 2. Truly creative content marketers view the “quality or quantity” debate as a false and misleading choice – a debate not worth hosting. At Content Marketing World in 2015, I remember asking a dozen people before my talk whether they preferred phone number list to produce high-volume work or high-quality work. Everyone said, “High quality, of course!” But a fearless content marketer named Colin took a break. He looked at me and simply replied, “Why not both?” I swear I almost hugged him. (I'm Italian. This is my default greeting for phone number list. I want you phone number list to imagine a single content producer – marketer or otherwise – who blows your mind with their ability phone number list to do a ton of things, all incredibly well. Aren't you downright jealous? For us phone number list to have a chance of being this good, we need to start in a much different place than asking “quality or quantity?” As soon as we see these two things as juxtaposed ideas - or, worse, a choice we actually make - we've lost. 3. Truly creative content marketers are voracious consumers of their own material There is a lot phone number list of talk about “empathy” in marketing. Empathy is the phone number list ability to understand and share the feelings of others. (It's not the same as sympathy, which we also need to feel - but only when our audience meets our competitors! HEYOOO!) Ahem. As I said: empathy! We need it. But it's not like we've taken empathy lessons. Our boss also doesn't send us a panic analysis report because the phone number list data shows that we are not empathetic enough. So how do we actually execute this idea phone number list of ​​empathy? How can we understand how our audience will feel and thereby improve our ability to trigger a response? We have to be our own biggest fans. Now a quick disclaimer: I don't mean you should go home and pin your content marketing to your fridge, although it's a little fun for the phone number list kids to stop dreaming of being a firefighter and get on with it. on phone number list our noble profession instead.