Kathy Klotz-Guest
Kathy Klotz-Guest
For 20 years, Kathy has created successful products, marketing stories, and messaging for companies such as SGI, Gartner, Excite, Autodesk, and MediaMetrix. Kathy turns marketing "messages" into powerful human stories that get results. Her improvisation background helps marketing teams achieve better business outcomes. She is a founding fellow for the Society for New Communications Research, where she recently completed research on video storytelling. Kathy has an MLA from Stanford University, an MBA from UC Berkeley, and an MA in multimedia apps design.
Content Marketing Lessons From Cartoons: My Chat with Cartoonist Liza Donnelly
On Sept 19, I had the pleasure of chatting with The New Yorker cartoonist, author and TED speaker, Liza Donnelly about her craft on...
Video: Think Like an Improviser, Speak Like Your Customer – AINx Talk from the 2012 Applied Improv Network World...
View my AINx talk from the 2012 Applied Improvisation Network (AIN) World Conference Think Like an Improviser, Speak Like a Customer Blah, blah, blah, blah.…
Connect “Like a Boss” – 9 Secrets of Master Communicators and The World’s Best Brands, Part II/II
This post is Part II of II. Read Part I. Always keep people at the center of your focus. This demonstrates empathy and empathy matters.…
Connect “Like a Boss” – 9 Secrets of Master Communicators and The World’s Best Brands, Part I
Keep Communications Human in a World of Partial Attention. It Starts with Connecting. What does it mean to "Keep it Human" in the way you...
Going Mobile! A Podcasting Trends Chat with Stitcher CTO and Co-Founder Peter de Vroede
Podcast and On-Demand Content Trends Today, I had the great pleasure to talk to my colleague, Peter deVroede, the CTO and Co-Founder of on-demand podcast...
When “Funny” Isn’t: A Social Media Humor Fail
Social Media Author Jay Baer wrote an interesting piece this week (August 4) about a case of social media humor gone wrong. The culprit:...
Scaling Customer Relationships Means Scaling the Human Element
Marketing Automation is Not a Customer Relationship-Building Strategy Social media is about people. Marketers know this. We've talked about it forever. Yet, we want to...
The Social Enterprise – Lessons on Content, Internal Advocacy and the Human Element From IBM’s Susan Emerick
Content, Profits and Internal (Employee) Advocacy Today I had the pleasure of talking with Susan Emerick from IBM. We chatted about content, employee advocates and...
Podcast: Customer Delight in a Social World – a Chat with CustomerThink CEO Bob Thompson
I had the pleasure of chatting with my colleague, Bob Thompson, on my July 25th podcast! What a great show. One of the biggest...
Great Companies Aren’t Just Storytellers: They Act on the Company Story to Drive Results
Business Storytelling vs. Storydoing In his recent HBR article, Ty Montague calls great companies 'storydoing' organizations. The premise: great companies are story doers, not just...
Podcast: When Bad Messaging Happens to Good Business – Signs and Fixes
Sometimes Bad Messaging Happens to Good Businesses! On Thursday, July 11th, I talked about the signs – and fixes – for bad messaging. How do...
Hey CMO: Your Product Story Sucks! Great Product Marketing Needs a Better Story, II / II
This is part II/II. Read Part I here. Show How Customers' Situations "Change" Users don't buy 'value propositions'; they buy something bigger that helps them…
Hey CMO: Your Product Story sucks! Great Product Marketing Needs a Better Story, I / II
Humans are wired for stories; we're storytelling animals. Yet, we're living in an era of 'Big Data' information overload. There is too much data...
Marketing Storytelling: Six Big Lessons From Improvisation to Improve Your Results
I am a marketer and improviser and that makes me a storyteller. And "digital storytelling" is critical today. Few things stretch your comfort zone (read:...
Want More Innovation? Start with Your Business Culture
On Thursday, June 13th, I had the pleasure of talking to my friend and colleague, Mary Beth Deans, about the importance of business culture...
A Kid, a Cardboard Arcade, and a Champion for a Cause – Why Everyone Needs a ‘Nirvan’
Kathy sat down with Laurie Kretchmar recently to discuss "Caine's Arcade," a viral sensation, and why everyone needs a "Nirvan." Laurie is a communications...
Hubspot’s Unsubscribe Video Humor Hits the Right Spot
I've written about Hubspot before. The company has a great sense of humor and it shows in its content, videos, and social media marketing....
Nest Labs: Great Products Still Need Great Marketing Stories
I gave a workshop recently about humanizing products and marketing, and we talked about why narrative and great stories matter during design and in...
Every Organization Needs a Chief Marketing Improvisation Officer
As a stage improviser, I love playing with the audience and creating stories in real-time. As a marketer that often applies improvisational tools to...
Marketing with a Purpose Means Knowing Your ‘Why’
I've written a lot about knowing your core purpose and telling that story in marketing. It's your most important one. And I've had a...