WORKWEEK

Like all content marketers, I too, have spent my career admiring––and competing against––greats. There’s Hubspot and Shopify and Mailchimp and Intercom and Stripe, of course. And then there’s the newer guard. Folks like Miro and Wealthfront and Reforge. 

But few are doing quite the comprehensive job as Invision. 

In fact, Invision seems to take the best of all the worlds before it. Handbooks (similar to the heydays of Intercom and Stripe). Beautifully designed guides and reports, a place where Shopify long reigned. A podcast, of course, and hosted on Substack nonetheless (Shopify conquered the podcast space pretty early on). A blog homepage / content hub that reminds me of Dropbox or Atlassian or Mailchimp––places that have such a repository of different types, archives, newer info, etc. that you are overwhelmed (in a good way) with the plethora or choice. 

And the content above is great. It likely drives organic search results, and leads. It helps with brand awareness and builds a sense of community, of expertise, of deep passion and knowledge on the subject matter. 

And all of that is incredibly important. 

Still, it is their films that I am most taken with (behind gates mind you! Helloooo lead gen!).

• Transformation by design
• Squads 
• Design disruptors
• The loop

Each of their promo videos are well produced. Each of their page experiences and branding are custom. Each of them seem to hammer home of what is likely an internally marketing pillar for Invision (though who knows, really…things always seem more put together from the outside looking in). 

What these videos reminded me of is that for those of us in the B2B space, tech has become commonplace. In some ways, its become the enemy. Zoom meetings. And endless work hours. AI taking jobs, and causing unknown futures. 

But tech has been transformational––and continues to be…and not because of the technology itself.

But because of us. Because of humans. Because of our ingenuity and creativity, and drive to change minds, draw clear lines around nuance, give words meaning that punch you in the gut. These videos remind me of what it once felt like, as a kid, to first use an Apple product. To get your first phone (not an Apple product…that was an iPod for me). To have a sense of power at your fingertips, and the opportunity to define what that might mean. 

There are a lot of voices in the content marketing space right now. There is a lot of new tech. Will AI take our jobs? Will we all become media companies? Must we all be on TikTok and be social influencers fo rour companies? Is content now about selling your soul to try to earn a paycheck? 

Content is what you make it. It is the vision to bring to your company’s content program. It is what you show them, what you use as inspiration, and the way you light up when you get inspired by something good––something possible––something powerful. 

So many of us are in a content purgatory as the tech around us changes, as the strategies that were once foundational crack beneath our feet. Things are changing, which is the only constant. 

What is it that you can find to inspire you? What can you bring to this new content world? What vision will you present to your org? And how will you work to make your team’s efforts part of the new guard of content excellence? 

That’s my message this day before a holiday. See you all next week!