Category: Drew’s Articles

CMO Insights: The Importance of Fresh Marketing

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Faced with big-budget competitors boasting award winning advertising, John DeVincent, CMO of eMoney Advisors, needed to find a fresh way to stand out. For DeVincent, this meant focusing his attention on eMoney Advisors’ rare, personal approach in a business that is increasingly self-served. DeVincent’s marketing tactics revolve around excellent customer service and include openness to changes in marketing trends. At the end of the day, his efforts make eMoney more visible in the financial services industry, introducing trusted advisors to a solution that helps them build and strengthen client relationships.

Note: DeVincent won the CMO Club President’s Circle Award late last year.  According to The CMO Club founder Pete Krainik, this award is based on “a marketing executive’s demonstrated delivery in supporting the DNA of The CMO Club for building relationships with peers in the club, sharing and helping others, and referring other CMOs to join the world’s best CMO conversations.”  

Drew: A CMO has a lot of choices in terms of where they invest their time.  What have been your top priorities in the last couple of years?
My focus has been around product innovation – the messaging and positioning of new products. eMoney Advisor operates within the B2B space and our focus has been on presenting software products to financial advisors who are looking for innovative and all-encompassing wealth planning solutions for their clients. Ultimately we’re looking to position ourselves as advocates for financial advisors in the marketplace.

Drew: Have there been any big surprises in terms of what’s worked really well and what hasn’t?
There haven’t been any huge surprises. We’ve been working on new 90-second video elements that have shown success so far. Online advertising doesn’t work quite as well (though we don’t focus as much of our efforts here). Additionally, we’re beginning to expand our digital presence to offer constant flow of timely and relevant content to our audience. This industry experiences frequent market changes, which calls for us to shift our priorities. Regardless of this unpredictability, we do a fantastic job of creating content to accommodate these changes.

Drew:  You have some noisy competitors like eTrade and Fidelity.  How have you been able to get your message across without being drowned out by talking babies and endless green lines?
eMoney is a smaller firm. We can’t compete with the advertising budgets of our big competitors like eTrade and Fidelity. Instead, we created a campaign to position our user-base as “trusted advisors” and encourage them to leverage our product as a tool to further strengthen the advisor-client relationship. It can be challenging because of eTrade and Fidelity’s award-winning advertising, but when clients need comprehensive financial advice, they look for a trusted advisor, not an automated system. We advocate for the human advisors – the ones who provide a personal touch.

Drew: Marketing seems to be getting increasingly complex in terms of ways to spend and ways to monitor. Has it gotten more complex for you and if so, how are you dealing with that complexity?
As marketers, we wear several hats.  At eMoney, we manage a blog, create video vignettes, maintain a social media presence and employ traditional advertising. Again, how you shift that focus is dictated by the market itself. With that in mind, it is extremely important for us to work collaboratively to align the 12-15 tasks assigned at any given time.  We make sure we communicate among ourselves to develop our campaigns that reach all channels based on what’s currently relevant in the industry.

Drew: Have you been able to link your innovative marketing activities to the kinds of business metrics favored by CEOs?
We have a number of analytics coming back from these 12-15 projects on any given day. What we do is take the key metrics from each campaign initiative and tie it to an ROI for our CEO. Edmond has come to rely on these metrics as a starting point to strategize for future initiatives.

Drew: How do you stay close to your customers when the relationship is primarily online?  
We’ve realigned ourselves to become a regional company. Our sales team attempts to get as many face-to-face meetings with prospective clients as possible. We also have an advisory board that we meet with twice a year. Our retention team monitors whether or not our clients (advisors and their staff) are actually logging in and using the software. If we find out that they are not, we reach out and offer educational resources, software training, etc. Additionally, we provide classroom training sessions. We are really focused on this because, to us, getting in front of customers to facilitate the natural interactions that we have as human beings is imperative to a lasting advisor/client relationship.

Drew: A lot of financial services firms have tip-toed into social.  Do you see social as viable channel for your business and if so, in what capacity?  
The financial services industry has been very slow to adopt social because of the regulation and compliance gray areas associated with it. FINRA has been very slow in defining how social media initiatives should be handled in our industry. There is a fine line between what is considered advice and what isn’t. Recently, we’ve seen more advisors embracing the tool as an arena to show thought leadership, reach existing clients and find prospects.  However, LinkedIn is currently our biggest social platform. We are using it heavily as a recruiting platform. Highly educated, high-income prospective clients are on LinkedIn and that’s who we see our advisors going after.  However, we’ve recently ramped up our efforts around Twitter and Facebook.  By leveraging these channels, we can participate in current industry conversations, connect with thought leaders and show the depth of our own knowledge.

Drew: What are you doing in the content marketing area?
We have a corporate blog and a user-focused knowledge community blog called Ask eMoney. On this blog, we’ve included eMoney-focused content, as well as general industry best practices. The content is incredibly rich to the point that I’ve hired people whose sole responsibility is managing the blog. We’re also increasing efforts to identify people who are knowledgeable in the industry as content contributors. We’ve found that good content is incredibly sticky – people become more interested in your site and, therefore, your product.

Drew: Do you agree with the notion that “marketing is everything and everything is marketing” and if so how have you extended the boundaries of your job beyond the normal purview of the CMO?   
I do agree with the notion that the CMO’s job extends to supporting the entire customer experience. In my mind, during every customer interaction, you either win or lose share. It’s either positive or negative. That includes everything from a phone call and training, to customer support and interacting with sales people; you want to make the process easy for your customers. You want to be the company that people want to do business with. It’s important to stay relevant and stir emotion. Make people feel good. If you face obstacles, you must make sure you overcome them with style and go above and beyond to problem-solve. Being a small company, this has been a relatively easy philosophy to adopt. The customer experience is a big priority for our CEO. We focus heavily on best practices and proper training for our team — embracing that philosophy as a company. You have to consistently go above and beyond to create an excellent customer experience.

CMO Insights: Leading and Believing in Your Brand

Posted on by Drew Neisser

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A few months back, Mary Kay’s CMO Sheryl Adkins-Green won The 2013 CMO Award for Officers given by The CMO Club.  This award, according to Pete Krainik, founder of The CMO Club,”was based on a marketing executive’s demonstrated leadership in leading the brand beyond the marketing department and leading the growth agenda for the company.”  When you read the interview below I think you will understand not only why Sheryl won this award but also why Mary Kay represents such a distinctive marketing challenge.

Founded just over 50 years ago, Mary Kay depends on independent army of beauty consultants that is now 3 million strong.  For Sheryl, marketing is less about driving demand from end users and more about motivating their consultants to champion Mary Kay products all over the world. Doing this requires genuine insights into the dreams and aspirations of these women who have the potential to transform their own lives AND to make a huge difference in the lives of others.  Connecting with their beauty consultants on a highly emotional and personal level has created a culture that’s become the lifeblood of the company. Read on as Adkins-Green highlights Mary Kay’s unique marketing strategy and her most successful campaigns:

Drew: A challenge that a lot of CMOs face is: where do you spend your time? How do you know where to spend it, and has that changed at all over the last couple years?
I find that my time is best spent with our customers and my team. Ideas and the success of their implementation come from that time spent. I don’t feel like that has changed substantially. I’m also spending more time exploring all the new developments that are expanding digital marketing options – and the trends regarding how consumers are using social media channels and mobile apps. These are areas where, out of necessity, I have been investing more time.

Drew: Let’s break down the time that you spend with customers. Your first round of customers, we could say, are the folks that your 3 million Independent Beauty Consultants. The Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants really define the brand for many customers. Do you spend time with both them and the end user?
Actually, the Mary Kay Independent Sales Force is our only customer, and to your point, they in turn have a customer base. I connect with the independent sales force in larger forums such as our annual Leadership and Seminar events. When I travel to international markets, I also attend sales events and solicit suggestions from the Independent Sales Force. We also include the Independent Sales Force in any research that we’re doing on major new products and new promotion concepts. I’m also “listening” to the independent sales force via our social media channels. In addition, we have an intranet where we’re receiving input from the independent sales force. Certainly, on the public social channels such as Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, we’re in touch with what they’re interested in, what they are talking about, etc.

Drew: You brought up social media; in one case on your Facebook page, there were more shares than likes, which is very unusual for a particular post. Would you say that a large percentage of those fans are your consultants?
Certainly a large percentage are Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants, but the total metrics and the types of engagement indicate that it is a combination of both Independent Beauty Consultants AND their customers who love the products. Our fan base is made up of women who love Mary Kay products, what the company is doing in the community, and also women love their Mary Kay beauty consultants! It’s definitely a combination.

Drew: For other brands, the concept of employees-as-brand-ambassadors has been very difficult to manage. At Mary Kay, the Independent Sales Force are the brand ambassadors. The role that social media plays for them is somewhat different; it’s an educational channel as well as a marketing channel for them, because they can share your content with their friends who presumably are also their customers. How do you manage that?
That is exactly our goal: to make it easy for them to access and share relevant brand content that supports the success of their business. We definitely provide a best practices example and make sure that the content we provide is timely to new product launches—we incorporate what’s trending in the beauty world, whether it’s the holiday season, the Oscars, how-to tips, etc.—and then we make it very easy for them to share. We have what we internally refer to as a “digital zone,” where we aggregate the digital content so that it’s easy to access and share.

Drew: One of the issues other companies have is compliance. In this case, it’s getting the Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants to actually use this intranet, so you end up having to market the marketing. How do you make sure that your consultants spend a little time on marketing versus spending all their time in the field?
We work to make sure the content is easily accessible. The goal is not to encourage them to spend a lot of time at their desk, but to have it available, as they need it, when they need it.

Drew: How do you manage your overall marketing, recognizing that success and failure are almost always determined by that Independent Beauty Consultant?
It really ties back to the strong values that Mary Kay Ash herself built into the company and into the culture. It’s something that’s literally been embraced by the Independent Beauty Consultants who’ve decided to start a Mary Kay business. Those values are around the Golden Rule, and treating people the way you want to be treated. It’s what we call “Golden Rule Service,” providing the kind of service that we would want for ourselves. When you ask how we manage the customer experience that individuals might have, I really credit the value system and the Independent Beauty Consultants’ commitment to those values. It’s something that’s shared and reinforced in how the company interacts with the Independent Sales Force, and then reflected in how they interact with their customer base.

Drew: Mary Kay as a company does not recruit or hire the Independent Beauty Consultants. Because the Mary Kay brand is in their hands, it is important that Independent Beauty Consultants share the company’s values. Is there a screening process that ensures a higher likelihood of signing an agreement with someone who has those shared values?
The culture is so strong, and this might be an oversimplification, but as it relates to the value system, like attracts like. In other words, the women who typically have interacted with an Independent Mary Kay Beauty Consultant have learned about more than the great products. They have learned about what the company is doing in the community. There are core values that resonate in regards to how the Mary Kay brand and opportunity are really about more than just cosmetics. It’s about empowering women, helping them discover their inner beauty, their confidence, their passion and their special gifts through the opportunity. There are typically meetings and discussions that the Independent Beauty Consultants and Directors would have with someone as they are considering this opportunity. It’s not a screening process per se, but there are conversations that help women understand the company’s culture and values as they are considering the Mary Kay opportunity.

Drew: Let’s get to specific marketing programs that you’ve done over the last three years where you were really proud of the results.
There have been a couple; the first took place in 2013. It was a campaign that was developed to commemorate our 50th anniversary, and our mantra for the anniversary year was “One Woman Can.” It not only paid homage to the accomplishments of Mary Kay Ash, but it also represented our empowerment message. One woman can do amazing things, and one woman can do anything that she sets her desires on. The marketing program, specifically, was centered on a global makeover contest. It kicked off on March 8th, which was International Women’s Day. Our goal was to complete the highest number of makeovers ever, and we did complete 44,000 makeovers within a 24-hour period. Earlier this month, Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants and their customers actually beat this record by completing 58,808 makeovers!

By engaging the Independent Sales Force all around the world, it kicked off a global contest where women not only participated in makeovers and agreed to have their picture posted in a gallery, but more importantly they had an opportunity to tell a story about a cause that they cared about. The winners of the contest also had an opportunity to win a grant for the charity or not-for-profit of their choice. The specifics varied a little bit, but in the United States, the company awarded 50 5,000 grants on behalf of the 50 women who received the most votes in the “One Woman Can” makeover contest. Mary Kay Ash started her company with her life’s savings of $5,000. This anniversary marketing initiative, therefore, celebrated what Mary Kay is about—inner beauty showing through as outer beauty. It was an opportunity to engage the Independent Sales Force not only with their current customers but also to connect with potential new customers. A lot of women shared that they typically wouldn’t be interested in a makeover, but because there was an opportunity to support a cause that they care about and possibly earn a grant, then they would be willing to lend their faces.

Drew: How did you promote this program?
We promoted it via social media. The Independent Sales Force outreach and PR coverage was a great way to tell the story to the media. We did get some great offline and online TV coverage that provided the opportunity to share our “One Woman Can” anniversary message and convey why we were celebrating with a makeover contest that was anchored by inner beauty.

Drew: Other than posts on Facebook and Twitter, could you enter via social channels?
Yes. The information on how to enter you could access through social channels, but you needed to enter through an Independent Beauty Consultant. If you didn’t have a consultant, we directed women to the consultant locator on www.marykay.com—you could enter your zip code and find an Independent Beauty Consultant in your area. That’s the way new customers were able to connect to the sales force.

Drew: How do you evaluate the success of your marketing?
We used several metrics. As a leading indicator, we were able to track our sales to the Independent Sales Force; that’s just one element. We were also able to track our social media metrics. We also have annual surveys of the Independent Sales Force to understand not only this type of marketing program, but in general how well our initiatives are supporting their businesses, and if there are any gaps or opportunities, what those are so that we can address them.

Drew: When you sit down with your CEO, how do you frame the role of marketing?
I frame it in the context of supporting the success of the Independent Sales Force. For example, when I talk to the CEO about social media initiatives, I don’t talk in terms of likes or fans but in the context of how social media engagement is driving awareness, consideration and trial of brand, since these activities support the Independent Sales Force. Just as you noticed some of our engagement numbers—we look at how the social media programs drive traffic to the website, to shopping pages, and the consultant locator. Our most compelling metrics are the ones that tie to the success of the Independent Sales Force.

Drew: You mentioned you have a global audience and it’s growing. As a CMO, how do you get to know these international markets?
My team and I spend as much time as possible with our international markets through our organizational structure, working with regional- and country-level marketing teams. It starts with a clear and consistent strategy from which the different marketing teams are able to develop their plans. They start with corporate strategy and programs but have leeway to be locally relevant.

Drew: Have you had to make product adjustments for markets outside the U.S.?
Yes. First and foremost, any regulatory requirements are going to be factored in. For example, in the Asia Pacific market, the skincare category is larger for beauty brands, so we do offer more skincare regimens in this market than in other parts of the world. In Latin America, where fragrances are a very highly developed beauty category, we offer more fragrances that have been specifically developed to deliver against preferences in Mexico and Brazil.

Drew: I love the 50th anniversary story—is there another initiative you would like to call to my attention from your portfolio as a CMO?
Another initiative is our college campus tours, which is actually in its third year. We call it “Fall Into Beauty,” and it’s been in partnership with Cosmopolitan and Seventeen Magazine. Importantly, beyond being an introductory beauty experience on college campuses, we have also partnered with a not-for-profit, LoveisRespect.org. Mary Kay has been the lead sponsor for their text support line. “Love is Respect” educates young women—more broadly, young adults—about healthy relationships. In a nutshell, the goal is to head off domestic violence before it begins. This organization targets younger women, and the text support line provides them with a confidential channel to ask questions either for themselves or on behalf of someone they care about and get advice on how to handle a situation, hopefully before it becomes abusive. They just need to text “loveis” to 77054. Our message on campus is about more than beauty—it’s about creating awareness about this service and about domestic violence in the hopes that young women who are away from home for the first time have the confidence to recognize and avoid unhealthy relationships, and help other young women do the same thing.

Drew: How do you evaluate the success of a program like that?
Specifically with “Love is Respect,” it is one of those things where, on the one hand, if you get a lot of comments and questions coming through that channel, you feel it’s good that those women had a place to go, but at the same time, part of you doesn’t want to see a high number because you feel like that might be indicative of a high number of women in a difficult situation. Our primary goal with “Love is Respect” is to create awareness and to disseminate that this help is available. The campus tour gave us an opportunity to get the word out about the text support line, leveraging the fact that college students are highly connected and can then pass that information on to those who would benefit from it.

Drew: I’ve read that interest in the Mary Kay opportunity is somewhat counter-cyclical—if the economy is bad, then more people are interested in running their own businesses. Does the cyclical nature of your business come into play as you think about your own marketing?
Yes, certainly. When economic times are challenging and when career opportunities are limited, we definitely see more people interested in the opportunity. Those who had a Mary Kay business part-time may decide to invest more time into it or even make it a full-time option. Having said that, the flip side is that when the economy is a little stronger and women are spending more money, it’s also good for the Independent Mary Kay sales force. When they are selling a great product and are part of a brand that’s doing great things in the community, that’s also appealing. From my vantage point, it’s always a good day to start a Mary Kay business. That’s how we approach the marketing. We always treat it as a new and exciting, rewarding opportunity.

Drew: Does content marketing play a role? Did you have any new initiatives in that area? Is that even relevant to your business?
On one level, I am more of an old-school marketer and I feel marketing has always been about the brand messages – not simply the advertising. Everything speaks –  I’ve always marketed with that in mind. But more importantly, brands should always be about discovery. Content marketing is about creating and keeping a fresh face on your brand – everyday! Content marketing is about all levels of the customer experience with your brand—all touch points, telling a relevant and consistent story. I’ve always tried to do that on any brand or portfolio I was responsible for.

Drew: As the CMO, have you been able to address the entire customer experience?
I’ve been able to influence and impact a number of dimensions, but it is shared with other team members in Mary Kay that have a more direct responsibility in terms of customer service and the Independent Sales Force. The ultimate influencer is the Independent Beauty Consultant herself, and this is consistent with how Mary Kay began this business. We use our company principles and education to make the brand experience as relevant and consistent as possible around the world. I believe my team and I have been successful in leading the evolution of the overall Mary Kay Brand experience, but I have to say it does take a village!

Mobile Ads in Social Marketing

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webster headshot 2Many consumers see mobile advertising as nothing more than an annoyance – irritating interruptions that appear as they scroll through their Huffington Post app or disturb their game of Sudoku. Webster Lewin knows we can change that. As the former Director of Mobility at Starcom MediaVest Group, Lewin believes mobile ads are not only useful, but can and should become the primary focus in social marketing planning of the future.

Getting those flashy banners to attract rather than deter consumers will require smarter use of customer data. With more than 15 years in the business to back him up, Lewin can be confident in calling out creativity and relevancy as the two major keys for creating more successful mobile advertising campaigns. He let me in on some of his ideas for improving the way we approach mobile ads:

Drew:  You provided a couple of examples of “great mobile ads we haven’t seen.”  For the purposes of my blog, can you provide a mini-summary of one of the cases and share why you think it was so effective?

I am highlighting two mobile campaigns that I really liked for different reasons (and wish that I had done). The first is one currently running on the iAd network for GIECO called the Money Badger. To me it represents the height of production value of any mobile display unit I’ve seen to date. The team at CDG Interactive used stop motion photography to create something that’s on par with a TV spot.

The other campaign that I really liked appeared on Mashable.com and was for Motorola’s Moto X smartphone. The ad, like Mashable’s website, uses  responsive web design to provide a seamless and compelling experience across a range of devices via a single ad and a single ad tag.

Drew: When you mention mobile advertising to people outside of the industry (i.e. normal people!), they roll their eyes in annoyance.  How do marketers make sure that mobile ads aren’t simply another source of disruption we all try to ignore or avoid altogether?

I think the keys are creativity and relevancy. So, agencies, publishers and brands need to keep pushing for better experiences. Also, as an industry we need to discourage the increasing use of deceptive mobile ads that try to trick users into tapping on them. They only exist because people focus way too much on CTR, and they will poison the well for everyone else.

Drew: Asked differently, what are three key components of a great mobile ad campaign?

Flawless execution from start to finish, targeting the right consumer at the right time in the right way, and offering something of value.

Drew:  It’s been the year of mobile for the last 10 years yet mobile still feels like a bit of an after thought for many brands.  First, why is it so important that marketers put mobile at the center of their planning process today?

Mobile is where the eyeballs are moving to, desktop usage is declining. Consumers are using mobile while they are shopping and while they consume other media, so figuring out how to use mobility in media plans is essential.

Drew:  Mobile at its best seems to be integrated with data (social, local, CRM) which then allows for a very personalized mobile experience. Can you each give me another example of a brand that is doing this well and what it took to get them there?  

I think that Samsung and Walmart, and some of the large CPG brands are really starting to make smart decisions about how to use location and past purchase data in targeting. Retailers are focusing on location data, both real-time and historical, to better target customers and potential customers. I’ve seen that I personally have been targeted by Samsung base on my actual location, around the launch of their Galaxy Gear smartwatch, and I ended up heading over to Times Square that day to check it out. CPG brands are less better positioned to leverage location data as their product are sold in so many places, but they can target using purchase history via Catalina and other data.

Drew:  You provided examples of mobile experiences when a person was indeed using a mobile device on the go. Seems like this is one aspect of mobile. The other aspect of mobile device usage is when we are stationary in the office or at home using a 2nd and 3rd screen. Should marketers look at these situations distinctly and create campaigns specific to that usage scenario? 

A lot of brands are now using various methods to target consumers when they are actually at home, using wifi IP addresses. Also, prime time TV viewers are being actively targeted now on Twitter, and Facebook via sponsored posts. If you are on Twitter during any major TV event, you’re certain to see ads that drive to mobile friendly experiences.

Drew:  You used the expression, “if it doesn’t work on mobile, don’t do it!” yet this is far from the reality.  What are problems that happen when marketers tack on a mobile campaign versus building all programs around it?

When the experience from start to finish isn’t fully planned out and tested on mobile, things inevitably fall apart. I can’t even begin to tell you how many mobile campaigns I see that don’t work the way they should. It’ really unfortunate, because many clients don’t realize that they are just creating a very bad impression of their brand.

Drew:   It seems like we won’t be distinguishing between mobile and stationary media consumption in the near future.  Assuming you agree with that scenario, how will this effect media planning/buying?  Will mobile still be its own thing?

Even when audiences are bought across multiple devices, the experience the consumer has with each of their devices is quite unique. So, I think that responsive ad units are one of the ways that marketers can ensure that they are efficiently reaching everyone, yet still providing an experience that is tailored to each device. Also, when it comes to rich media, there are some things that you can do in mobile that you just can’t on other devices, click-to-call for example.

Drew:  How do you see mobile evolving in the next 2-3 years?  What are the most exciting new or emerging trends leading edge marketers should be experimenting with now or really soon? 

I think targeting data and especially targeting based on location data will be the biggest ways that mobile ads will become more relevant. Also, mobile creative is just now coming into its own. As more digital creatives see mobile as their primary focus, we’ll start to see more really amazing campaigns.

 

 

Content Marketing is No Joke (Unless You Work at College Humor)

Posted on by Drew Neisser

A rabbi, a priest, and a content marketer walk into a bar…. Bet you want to know what happens next, right? Well, patience, Vine-brain–you’ll just have to wait until I’m good and ready. Before then, I must establish why CollegeHumor may be the best source for lessons on content marketing in the known universe–lessons I gleaned from a recent interview with their CEO, Paul Greenberg. (Author’s note–this article first appeared several months ago on FastCompany.com and is more relevant than ever even though Greenberg has since moved on.)

Greenberg took over as CEO in 2011 and since then CollegeHumor, a division of IAC, has laughed its way to the bank as site traffic has jumped to 15 million unique visitors per month and annual traffic was up 40% in 2011 and 20% in 2012. With over 4.5 million subscribers, CollegeHumor is also a top-ranked YouTube channel. Along with the 100 million monthly video streams, CollegeHumor fans also devour a smorgasbord of non-video content like comics, articles, and even a feature film,Coffee Town, that’s coming out next month.

So yes, there’s some funny business going on over at CollegeHumor. Their videos seem to go “viral” more often than bunnies make bunnies. Their 1 million Facebook fans are maybe the only happy army in the world, sharing silliness with serious consistency. Okay, with their bona fides established, here are the 18 things CollegeHumor can teach you about content marketing (and 1 they won’t).

1. Start With Talented People

Before you say, “Duh, Drew, I hope the other 17 aren’t so obvious,” let me just remind you that most marketer-created content is unadulterated dreck and the good stuff is more rare than an amusing mortician. Great content starts with great writers. Period. Explains Greenberg: “We have a phenomenal team of very creative people who are very good at what they do.”

2. Get Out of the Way

With content marketing becoming an increasingly important part of the mix, it might be natural to involve senior management. Not so fast, bored-room-breath–if the CEO of a company that is in the business of creating content stays out of it, then perhaps you should, too. Reports Greenberg, “I don’t see any need to micromanage the content team–I just get obstacles out of their way and let them do what they do.”

3. Don’t Start at the Bottom Line

Long before he became CEO at CollegeHumor, Greenberg had firsthand experience as on-air talent (radio announcer, voice-over artist) and with production at MTV Networks. He believes these experiences set up him up for success in his current role, adding, “If there is someone who has never been a creative before and never been on the talent side, you’re going to make decisions purely based on the bottom line–and probably the wrong ones.”

4. Foster a Fear-Free Zone

Even with a talented team, not every piece of content will be a huge hit and some might even bomb. Greenberg admits that even CollegeHumor only expects two or three of the 50 videos a month they produce to generate multimillion views. “You can’t be afraid to fail; you have to be willing to put yourself out there every day with something new,” he advises.

5. Crank It Out

While you need not create as much content as CollegeHumor unless you, too, are only in the content business, you still will need to produce a lot more than one (albeit scintillating) blog post per week. Reports Greenberg, “We’ve got [a video] that comes out every single day and sometimes more than once a day.” Even B2B brands will want to publish a steady stream of quality content, especially as your audience grows.

6. Muster All the Mediums

In addition to creating lots and lots of content for your primary channel, whether that be a blog or YouTube or whatever, you are well advised to be wherever else your customers and prospects might consume your stuff. “We actually do a fair amount of articles, comics, and funny pictures that drive 30% of our traffic, which adds up to three to four original non-video pieces a day,” says Greenberg. “We have a well-oiled machine that is constantly making sure that we’re getting our tentacles out everywhere,” he adds.

7. Master All the Mediums

Even though you’re now thinking broadly about your channel options, don’t think you can simply make hay by putting the same stuff on each platform. Greenberg has a separate production and writing staff for the articles like “8 New Punctuation Marks We Desperately Need,” an article that got over a million views, “because it just got shared everywhere.”

8. Plan On Having a Penurious Plan

Knowing all the channels and types of content you’ll be creating gets you a few steps closer to having a content marketing plan. CollegeHumor plans out their content on a monthly basis and from one production budget. Greenberg tells his staff, “Here’s your pot for the month; some of you are going to spend more on some and less on others, and you know what you have to do.”

9. Seek Out Your Series

I may be going out on limb here, but chances are you aren’t rebranding your company or product every week. Then why the heck are you creating content pieces that are essentially one-offs? Says Greenberg: “We try to be consistent and let people know when things are coming out–that’s the best way to build an audience.” Creating a series of videos or articles will also increase the odds of building up a fan base over the long term. “People will discover ‘Very Mary-Kate‘ on its tenth episode and go back and watch all of them,” he notes.

10. Show Some Patience, Young Lucas

As they say up in Alaska, “Nome wasn’t built a day.” Accordingly, even if you are lucky enough to land on a great idea for a content series and go on to produce fabulous segments, don’t expect the whole thing to be an overnight sensation. “With the series you are less apt to get into [a topical] zeitgeist really quickly, so you’ll build an audience over time,” Greenberg cautions. “They’re not all going to be gems, but you get enough hits so that people start to realize, ‘Wow, these guys have something interesting going on,’” he adds.

11. Listen Like You Have Two Ears and One Funny Bone

Once your content is flo-ing like Progressive’s spokesperson, it’s more than an insurance policy to listen to your audience. By way of example, Greenberg tells the story of CollegeHumor’s live-action “Dora the Explorer” parody that started out as a movie trailer. “The Dora trailer was an enormous hit and our fans wished this was a real movie… so we made a 12-minute movie in three installments,” he explains.

12. Plan for the Unplannable

As they say in the latrine business, “Humor happens,” and when it does, CollegeHumor is prepared to squeeze it for all its worth. Greenberg points to “Gay Men Will Marry Your Girlfriends,” which they released right after Election Day. “It went crazy because it hit a nerve–it was really topical and it was well done,” he recalls. Like CollegeHumor, marketers also need to be prepared to execute quickly when topical opportunities arise.

13. Experiment Elsewhere

Not all content ideas are ready for prime time, so it’s a good idea for brands to have a safe haven to experiment. CollegeHumor accomplishes this by having a microsite called Hardly Working. “It’s a sort-of playground for us, so that’s where we put these weird ideas in motion,” notes Greenberg. Brands can accomplish the same thing by sharing content ideas with a carefully picked customer advisory group or via an employee-only intranet.

14. Support It in Social

Obvious O’Brien here just wants to remind you that once you’ve created your splendiferous content, don’t forget to share it on your social channels and monitor those channels accordingly. Greenberg has one manager “who spends all her time on social networks, is completely in the loop on what’s happening, and [also] pushes stuff to our PR partners.”

15. Dive Into the Data

If there’s something funny about your data, it’s probably not a good thing unless, of course, you work at CollegeHumor. “We have a lot of data [and] we spend a lot of time analyzing it,” declares Greenberg. “We’ll look at the ratio between likes and views: Is this getting shared a lot but not watched a lot?” This data also helps determine if a new piece of content should be serialized or given an extra boost (see next point).

16. Be Prepared to Push

If you take but one thing away from this article, let it be this: Viral doesn’t just happen. Even the best content needs a catalyst–a spark, if you will–to start the fire that, swears the arsonist, just happened. Admits Greenberg, “Once [a video] gets to the half a million level, we start to really pay attention and ask, ‘Do we need to give it a little push somewhere?’” Such a boost could be featuring it on the homepage again or reposting it on their various social media channels.

17. Lighten Up, People

If your content falls in the forest and nobody reads it, even your mother won’t care. Content marketing only works when your target wants to consume it and share it, which is why a touch of levity can turn your dry opus into liquid gold. This doesn’t mean you need to start hiring class clowns and making videos about college kids puking, but it wouldn’t hurt if your writers knew the difference between a punch line and punch bowl.

18. Short Is Sweet

Now it’s go time. You’ve got a plan, a channel or six, social media on standby, a newfound sense of humor and even an epic writer lined up. The only problem now is that your writer penned an epic. Cut. And I mean cut. When it comes to videos, short isn’t just sweet, it’s like being a Doritos salesman when the munchies set in. Confirms Greenberg, “We try to keep [our videos] under 2 or 2½ minutes–anything longer and people really just glaze.”

There you have it–the 18 things CollegeHumor can teach you about content marketing. As for the one thing they won’t… It turns out that they have something called “The SIV” that Greenberg describes as “our secret formula for viral videos that makes sure that certain videos have certain aspects about them.” Bummer he won’t share. As they say over at Electrolux: “It really sucks.”

As for the rabbi, the priest, and the content marketer, you’ll need to bounce over to this other post on TheDrewBlog for the rest of the story. I dare not sully these pages with such inanities. More importantly, you’ll also find my informative interview with Greenberg.

The Realities of Real-Time Marketing

Posted on by Drew Neisser

This is my fourth and final post on Real-Time Marketing this week!  Here’s the good news–I saved a really meaty one for last as Adam Naide, Executive Director of Social Media for Cox Communications provides a pithy and honest look at what’s worked and not worked in the world of RTM.

Drew: What’s been working for Cox TV in the area of RTM?

First, the Breaking Bad Final Season.  Our objective was to drive fan growth and increase engagement on @CoxTV during the final season of Breaking Bad.  Seeing the volume of social conversation, specifically on Twitter, around the final season of Breaking Bad, our team developed a real-time campaign to cover each episode of the final season with live coverage, engaging custom content, Vine videos, and a RT to win contest. As a result, the campaign attracted 3,145 new followers, nearly doubling the follower base on Twitter. It also led to 5,757 retweets.

National Donut DaySecond, National Donut Day.  Our objective in this case was to capitalize on real-time opportunities as they presented themselves.  In summary, custom creative was produced for Cox’s Facebook page tying The Simpsons to National Donut Day. The post saw immediate lift on Facebook and was promoted to amplify impact. Seeing that #NationalDonutDay was trending on Twitter, the team quickly posted and promoted the creative on Twitter as well.  As a result, the tweet saw 87% higher engagement than average tweets posted to @CoxTV and 67% greater cost efficiency than average promoted posts on the handle.

Drew: Can you give an example of a real-time program that didn’t work as well as you hoped?
Sure.  We had hoped to capitalize on social buzz around the MTV video music awards to engage music fans on Twitter while growing the fan base.  So @CoxTV live-tweeted the awards through an existing brand influencer “Sara” who had previously covered TV and entertainment for the brand. Unfortunately, Sara entered the live- tweeting event with a preexisting personality that didn’t jive with the VMA audience. She wasn’t a fan of the artists being featured and didn’t participate in the conversion in a relatable way.  In this case, the live-tweeting event garnered just 80 new followers and 1,024 retweets,

Drew: Can you gives some examples of brand RTM #fails?

Hashtag hijacking [is the most common #fail.]  Consumers “hijack” brand led hashtags to share negative brand sentiment, to the point that the hashtag is overtaken by the abusers and the original meaning is lost.  Here are three examples of #fails that the press pounced on: #McDStories, #IloveWalgreens  and JPMorgan Live Chat.

Drew: Why do think brands fail so often to get RTM right?

Brands assume that the public perceives the brand in the same way that the brand perceives itself.

Drew: How do you avoid this?

Start with the current behavior of consumers and find ways to mimic, play off of, or join that activity. Don’t force an unwanted idea or perception on consumers. Monitor what organically bubbles to the surface in your industry or trending hastags that are relevant to the brand. As you would with a new acquaintance or friend in real life, find a common interest between you and the consumer and talk about that.

Drew: Let’s review some of the logistical issues when dealing with RTM.

DN: Staffing?  AN: Leveraging real-time opportunities requires full-time monitoring. Listening to social activity is the best way to find opportunities that bubble to the surface.

DN: Client Approval Process? AN: To take advantage of real-time opportunities, a level of trust must exist between agency partners and the client. Planned opportunities are created by the agency and approved by the client, but many real-time opportunities must be created and promoted based on shared goals and strategies for the year, without client approval.

DN: Brands Should Avoid? AN: Brands should avoid forcing real-time content. Steer clear of touchy subjects and irrelevant holidays. For example a baking brand should talk about Thanksgiving, but should not talk about Veteran’s Day.

DN: Barriers to Success? AN: Time and resources. Joining in on trending conversations requires the ability to identify the opportunity, ideate on a response, create content, gain approval and post. This process can be complicated on weekends or after business hours.

DN: The Right Metrics? AN:  Real-time marketing is really about exposure and sentiment. Metrics like reach, impressions, retweets, and earned positive buzz are all metrics that should be assessed.

Drew: How do you see customer care evolving in the age of social as real time marketing?

In our category, our competitors employee dedicated sales reps that mine the social chatter for customer complaints on Twitter… then will reach out to these customers with offers to switch. Many times, they will get to these vulnerable customers before the brand does. It’s become a new front in the competitive battle for market share, one tweet at a time.

Drew: Can you summarize with 3 key factors to getting RTM right?

  1. Relevancy: Do what makes sense for your brand, don’t force it.
  2. Creativity: Stand out, in a good way.
  3. Process: Have a plan for the unexpected. Be ready to take on ad hoc opportunities.

Being In the Moment

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Unless you’re new to TheDrewBlog, you’ve probably figured out by now that I’m moderating a panel this week on real-time marketing down in warmish Florida. Marshall Wright, Director of Social Media at T3, is another illustrious member of our panel and brings lots of insights and experience to the conversation.  I particularly enjoyed learning about how the team at T3 has worked the Windows Phone into numerous real-time conversations.

Drew: Define real time marketing in the fewest number of words possible.  

Real-time is being in-the-moment without looking like you’re trying to be in-the-moment.

Drew: What does it take organizationally to run a successful real-time program?

It takes knowing who you are as a brand, what your voice is, what your business objectives are and what your customers want from you. It takes buy-in from the C-suite down to the day-to-day client level, and having all the right people ready to take action. It takes technology and creativity. And it takes a shit ton of planning.

Drew: Tell me about T3’s real-time efforts on behalf of Windows Phones?

Over the course of over 50 brand and competitor device launches, we’ve learned that most device conversation happens within 48 hours of a launch so we wanted to take advantage of that while still staying true to who the brand is. So for the launch of a competitor device, we prepped by doing a ton of social listening and research to find what people were saying about key features likely to be announced – tone, sentiment, etc. and developed a messaging strategy and content to insert our brand at the right moments in the lead up, during, and after the announce. This allowed us to find the key brand–relevant moments for us to join the conversation, resulting in one of the most retweeted posts of the (launch) day.

Drew: What’s your favorite real-time program that T3 had a hand in and why?

Honestly, one of the most simple moments came a few years ago when the turtles escaped on the JetBlue runway at JFK resulting in a ton of delayed flights. This was shortly after the Bronx Zoo Cobra Twitter stunt, so someone created a JFKTurtles Twitter and started tweeting the journey of the turtles. It was great and caught on immediately. We were managing Windows Phone social and caught on to what was happening and started following along. Angry Birds had just launched that day on the phone and the turtles tweeted they were going to play a game of Mario Bros. It was a perfect moment for the brand to participate in the conversation without looking like they were just trying to be part of a “thing” and we had a great 4-5 tweet conversation with them in real-time that wound up on a list of the best brand responses to the turtles.

Drew: Why do real-time programs seem to fall flat so often?

Because there’s a perception that newsjacking – inserting your brand into every pop culture, trending moment — is real-time. And it’s not. Yes, it can be a part of that, but it really takes knowing who you are as a brand and where you fit. If your not authentic or relevant to the moment it shows immediately. As a brand, you need to pick and choose your moments.

Drew: Should we be talking about real-time as a separate thing or is just part of a smart social strategy today?

It’s smart strategy. At T3, we actually refer to it as “always-on” rather than real-time because it IS smart strategy. As a brand, if you’re going to be in social media, if you’re going to put yourself out there you should be ready to engage whenever your customers are ready to engage. Not just during key cultural moments but all the time. Have a social listening program set up and know what you’re listening for. Then engage when it makes sense all the time. Doing that sets up the foundation for you to be able to take advantage of those cultural moments in ways that makes sense for you and that give your customers a way to celebrate for you and with you, like in the JFKTurtles example.

Drew: Will we still be talking about real-time next year and if so why?

I guess it depends on what happens during the Super Bowl this year.