Triangle Marketing Club is excited to host Christoph Trappe, career storyteller and global keynote speaker.

Christoph will speak at our next event on August 22nd! His interactive presentation will bring us insight on crafting the right story to bring your marketing efforts to life.

The Interview 

Before every event, we conduct an interview with the speaker to bring our members some background information and a little “sneak peak” of what’s to come. Fortunately, I was able to interview the talented Christoph Trappe and directly ask him some questions about his interesting life and career. Keep reading to learn more about him and our awesome interview!

First, could you tell me a little bit about yourself?

“I grew up in journalism. I worked for newspapers, TV stations, and over the years I moved to very journalistic models to the corporate communications world.”

Now what I do is I help other organizations tell better stories but the way I do that is based on journalistic principles. First, how do we get those stories? How do we share them? How do we distribute them? So everything I do, even though it’s content marketing and authentic story telling, is actually based off all of those different techniques and tools that journalists around the world use. I’ve done that in non-profits, healthcare, banking, and other industries here and there.”

What are some hobbies you enjoy outside of work?

“So, everything as a story teller does kind of flow together…”

…”but I go to the gym quite often usually in the mornings. A lot of times I end up blogging while I’m at the gym. I can do about 900-1000 words in about an hour, but of course you have to go back and edit and think about what you have to say before you write. Other than that I do have two daughters and we spend family time together as well.”

I see from your LinkedIn that you have a Journalism degree and have worked various jobs throughout your life. Could you elaborate on your interesting career path? 

“It just evolved over time. Really what I do today is very similar to what journalists do, except I don’t write for a mainstream media outlet. I work with brands trying to tell their story. So what I do is still very similar except I’ve moved that to the corporate communications and marketing side of things in the last few years.”

Your position at MedTouch is an intriguing marketing career.  Could you share some of your favorite parts as well as some challenges that come with the job?

“One thing I should mention is that at the end of the month, so by the time I see you in Raleigh, I actually will have started a new job at ScribbleLive. I wrote an article about it on my blog, The Authentic Story Telling Project (check it out here!). I’ll start there as VP of Content Marketing in the Americas. It’s very similar to what I do now except it’s not industry specific and it’s not necessarily only in the US because it includes Central and South America as well. But what I’ve done so far [at MedTouch] is I’ve gone in and helped organizations figure out how to tell better stories, how to overcome all of the different barriers, and help them move forward. One of the biggest challenges always is: why do we need to do it? Is this just a new trend? I have seen a little bit of a shift in conversations over the years. People used to say “Why do I need something?” and now they say “How do I do it?”. Then of course figuring out budget implications, staffing, and all of those things. Once it gets going it’s really, really rewarding and it helps organizations when they do it well. We are always looking forward to help improve the patient experience so that is a really meaningful goal.”

Could you please share any advice you have for someone starting a career in business?

“Figure out what’s unique about you if you can and try to determine that niche around your expertise and also around a skill that you can move from company to company because things change.

Think about it, 10-15 years ago, we didn’t even know what an app developer was. One of my daughters said a few years ago, “You know there’s another word in our last name!”. I figured she was talking about the word trap, but then she said the word app. But especially for people entering the workforce: my skill is not tied to a tool or not even tied to an industry. Figure out something you’re good at and something you can learn or do that’s transferrable down the line. For example, some kind of marketing and story telling will always be needed, it’s just the question of: what channel do we do it on? How do we do it? How do we get the people? So that skill, as long as you’re willing to change, is very transferrable and very useful in a lot of different industries.”

Without spoiling what you plan to present at the TMC event, what do you really hope the audience will take away from your presentation?

“So we’ll have an interactive, fun session on determining “What’s a good story?” and how do you make it fun for people involved and how do you distribute those stories to others. So every story telling strategy comes back to two things: 1) you have to know what you want to share, so you have to have content that people actually care about, and then 2) how do you get that out to people. It’s interesting because they’re both widely different skill sets. A really good content creator might not necessarily be a good content distributor. So we’ll talk about how to do it, how to figure it out, how to move forward, and I’m sure there will be plenty of smiley faces and emojis being seen.”

I hope you enjoyed reading about my interview with Christoph Trappe as much as I enjoyed conducting it! You won’t want to miss the valuable information this content marketing expert will bring us on Tuesday, August 22nd at 6pm. Don’t forget to RSVP on Meetup. We look forward to seeing you there!