5 Content Marketing Lessons from Lance Armstrong’s Epic Fail
It’s hard to keep up with the latest news about Lance Armstrong. While most casual observers probably bowed out of the story line following Oprah’s interview in January, I continue to follow the former champion’s downward spiral.
In fact, I’ve been following Armstrong since 2005. He had just won his seventh-consecutive Tour de France. I went bike shopping and chose a Trek, a long-time sponsor of Armstrong. At checkout, I added in a yellow Livestrong bracelet.
The streets where I lived were far from the peaks and valleys of Europe’s grand tours. But atop my new Trek and wearing the bracelet, I somehow felt connected to an amazing athlete, with an inspiring story of cancer survival.
Several years later, I still ride my Trek. Only now, like Armstrong, it’s far worse for wear. Athletes can learn a lot from the rise and fall of Armstrong. But what can content marketers take away from this debacle?
Lesson 1: Be Honest
The number of times Armstrong lied about doping may never be known. It’s doubtful that Lance could even remember all of the occasions he professed innocence. In marketing, the truth can also get blurry.
Marketers control the top of the funnel. Our goal: bring in leads. But there’s an ethical and unethical way to do it. In “All Marketers Are Liars,” Seth Godin writes that all marketers are not, in fact, liars: They are storytellers. He says successful marketers just provide the stories consumers choose to believe.
After starting my career in small-town news, it took time adjusting to brand journalism, a component of content marketing. What I learned is that brand journalism is not traditional journalism. In a marketing environment, objective reporting isn’t the goal. The goal is to bring prospects into the funnel.
But brand journalism still captures aspects that make journalism great – specifically, the ability to tell a story. I write with the goal of enticing readers into wanting to know more about CSC. And in a time when content lives forever online, being dishonest would only set you up for an Armstrong-like fail.
Lesson 2: Trust Instincts
Doping in cycling is like false teeth in hockey. As a result, there was always an odor of suspicion around Armstrong. Many wondered, and some worked hard to prove, that Lance was a fraud from the beginning.
Now, certain smells that repulse some – entice others. In marketing, the same can be true of content pitches. Most people can agree that great ideas are great ideas and bad ideas (presented as great ones) usually have a lot of questions and doubts swirling around them from the beginning.
We’ve all got ideas we think are great. Then there are the ideas you get talked into. Sometimes ideas you get talked into don’t pass the sniff test. And in many cases, the people pitching these ideas can’t smell it because they’re too busy talking.
A good pitch should be followed by a good debate. But content marketers don’t need to debate much. We have analytics. And analytics don’t lie. A content marketing program should be data driven. Leads, unique visitors, page views, shares, time spent and other data points should be tracked regularly.
Lesson 3: Make Friends
What finally broke Armstrong was testimony from his peers. The men he won with, lost with and doped with, brought him down. Many of Lance’s fellow riders stuck by him for years, but for various reasons came clean before he did.
Instead of following suit, Armstrong turned his back on his friends and in many cases, sought to destroy them. Without his network of friends on his side, Armstrong became a lone rider in his race against the truth, and ultimately that proved to be too high a mountain to climb.
CSC’s digital marketing program could not have grown so rapidly in the past year without our partners. Our Digital Marketing Platform runs on marketing automation by Eloqua, analytics by Adobe, Web governance by ActiveStandards, SEO data from Acronym Keyword Objects, and much more.
The advantage of partnerships is that you can leverage the technology and experience of others, take what works best for you, and not have the significant investment of starting from scratch. Strategic business and technology partnerships allow you to maximize someone else’s CAPEX.
Lesson 4: Team Up
No one wins the Tour by themselves. Even though Armstrong cheated, he never would have worn a leader’s jersey without his teammates. In addition to the coaches, mechanics and others that make a cycling team run, other roles are critical.
These riders include sprinters, whose fast-twitch muscles power them to finish lines; climbers, whose lactic acid tolerance pushes them up mountains; time-trialists, whose wind-resistant form is ideal in races against the clock; and domestiques, who carry supplies and protect during group riding.
Digital marketing technology is useless without a strong team running it. As brands become publishers, teams of writers, editors, designers and producers are becoming common in marketing departments. In addition, SEO, analytics and marketing automation experts are increasingly indispensable.
CSC’s Global Brand & Digital Marketing team is building up around these desirable skills as well. Former journalists, creative designers, seasoned marketers, technology wizards, and search and video pros are combining talents to deliver a world-class digital marketing center of excellence.
Lesson 5: Accept Failure
Armstrong was allergic to failure. His desire for victory could never be satisfied, and it led him down a dark path. Maybe it was greed (he’s reported to have earned $125 million) or vanity (dating celebrities must be nice), but losing isn’t all bad.
Losing is valuable. Losing lets you know what’s working and what isn’t. Losing is a learning opportunity. Nick Panayi, director of Global Brand & Digital Marketing at CSC, says, “fail fast.” The principal benefit of failing fast is to not limit the opportunity to try new things.
Marketing in some sense has been around for millennia. But content marketing only became the rage in 2012. So anyone claiming to be an expert in it isn’t much better off than the rest of us. Failing fast lets you move forward with ideas, see if they work and try something else quickly if they don’t.
You’ll likely need a forgiving boss. But if the boss, like you, could learn anything from Armstrong’s road to perdition, it’s this: As long as you eventually make the right decisions, you can repair the damage of the wrong ones and, let’s hope, take a well-deserved victory lap of your own once in a while.
CHRIS SAPARDANIS is a senior editor on CSC's digital marketing team. Follow him at @ChrisSapardanis.