Category: Interviews

CMO Insights: How to Score with Content Marketing

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Content marketing is one of those things that is easy to talk about yet extremely hard to get right.  It’s not enough to have a clear strategy although that is essential. It’s not enough to tell compelling stories across a wide range of platforms.  Even with paid media driving views and influencers adding their audiences, there is no guarantee that your content program will take off right from the start.

These realities were front and center at Incite’s Content Marketing Summit in Chicago a couple of weeks ago.  While there, I had the pleasure of kicking the first day off with some historical perspective on the use of content as a marketing tool (i.e. 1900: Michelin Guide; 1955 Guinness Book of World Records) and moderating three panels, including the opening keynote with Charlie Breit (SurePayroll), Steven Handmaker (Assurance), Jeff Pundyk (The Economist) and Amy Weisenbach (Wilson).  I’ve already posted my interview with Charlie and the others are forthcoming, including my refreshingly honest conversation with Amy that follows.

As VP of Marketing at Wilson Sporting Goods, Amy is the force behind Wilson’s first ever cross-brand campaign that includes lots of branded and user generated content.  And though the campaign has exceeded expectations, generating strong engagement rates and significant brand lift, Amy is the first to admit that they are on a steep learning curve. For example, it turned out that it was much harder to get consumers to submit videos than photos. They also learned that when working with influential video creators, it’s probably better to let them go off and create their own content rather than offering them a particular story line. All I know as a tennis fan is that it sure doesn’t hurt when you can get the likes of Serena Williams and Roger Federer to help tell your brand’s story.  Read on.

Drew: How important is content marketing in your overall marketing mix? 

Content is critical to how we build passion for the Wilson brand among our core consumers: avid youth athletes.  Young people are consuming an extraordinary amount of digital content each day, and if we want to be relevant and top of mind with them we have to be in the mix of what they’re consuming.  We have a ton of great stories to tell and interesting assets we can leverage — from our pro athletes and league affiliations to intriguing product development stories from our  Wilson Labs, the innovation hub at Wilson.  We’re luckily in a category that’s important to our consumers’ identities and are among the kind of content they want to consume.  In terms of our marketing mix, most of it is what I’d call “content” – some is more heavily branded and from the Wilson brand voice, but we’re increasingly developing content that feels more organic and soliciting content from our athletes and consumers themselves.

Drew: What role or roles does it play and are there types of content that you are you finding particularly effective?

We’re continually learning the best ways to package our stories and engage our audience.  We’re experimenting with everything from Wilson Advisory Staff Member takeovers on Snapchat to documentary storytelling to blog-like content to soliciting UGC.  We’re definitely in test and learn mode, but early findings suggest the obvious which is that more visual stories get higher engagement.

Drew: Tell me about #MyWilson.  What was the strategy behind this program?

We created the My Wilson campaign to create a conversation amongst youth athletes – across a wide range of sports — about the role their equipment plays in their lives and in the pursuit of their personal ambitions in the sport they love to play.   It’s a 360-degree marketing effort, with a heavy emphasis on social and digital media. At the heart of the campaign is a video, called Nothing Without It, that features amateur athletes alongside some of the world’s best professional athletes recounting the ups and downs of their journeys.  The video features pros like Serena Williams and Dustin Pedroia as well as amateur youth athletes side-by-side.  We also invited youth athletes to add themselves to the video by sharing a clip tagged #MyWilson. To incentivize participation, we pledged to donate sports equipment for every clip shared up to $250,000.

Drew: How did you bring this program to life?  How did people find out about it?

We launched the My Wilson campaign amidst one of the biggest weeks of the year across all of our sports: during the US Open, the kickoff of the NFL season, the AVP Championshipsweekend and the MLB pennant were just underway.  We kicked it off by engaging all 10,000 members of our Wilson Advisory Staff made up of pro athletes and coaches from around the world.  They posted personal stories about what their Wilson equipment means to them and encouraged youth athletes to add their own stories to the conversation.  We also supported the campaign with paid media, including TV and digital video as well as some home page takeovers on key youth sports sites like MaxPreps.com and Stack.com.

Drew: How has it worked out?

The campaign has performed really well to date.  We’re seeing very high video completion rates and many of our social posts related to the campaign have garnered some of the highest engagement rates of anything we’ve ever posted.  It’s been incredibly rewarding to see and hear the stories our youth athletes have to tell and how Wilson plays a part in their journeys. The most exciting results have come from a brand lift study we conducted where we’re seeing double-digit lifts in key brand health metrics like “for me” and “is a brand I talk about.”

Drew: Was it tricky implementing a program like this over a wide range of sports – did you have to make adjustments as you moved sport to sport?

Each of our sports has its own culture and a slightly different tone of voice; that uniqueness is critical to engaging authentically with youth in each specific sport.  So as you can imagine, it was challenging to get all of our individual sport marketing teams to coordinate on approach, content and timing. Believe it or not, I think this was the first time we used a common look for our social skins and avatars. In the end it was worth the extra time and effort because it helped us take a huge step forward in presenting ourselves to consumers as one brand.

Drew: What are some of the major lessons learned when it comes to driving (user generated) content programs like #MyWilson?

Our baseball team has a long-running social photo contest called “Wilson Wednesday” where consumers submit photos of their glove for a chance to win a prize.  We learned through that promotion that it takes a while to get consumers over the hump to submit photos and even there we’ve had limited success with getting consumers to submit videos.  Given that, we decided to lean on a content partner, Whistle Sports, to help solicit user generated content for the My Wilson campaign.  Whistle Sports’ community readily garners and shares UGC content and so when they asked for videos on our behalf, UGC content began flowing in.  As we suspected, we saw a limited number of consumers willing to create and submit content directly through our channels.  Photos a little more, but very few videos.  Moving forward we will be looking for ways to build a stronger two-way conversation with our audience so they are primed when we’re ready to turn on a UGC-based initiative.

CMO Insights: How to Handle the 1st 100 Days

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Passion will take you far in just about any job in any industry.  In marketing, passion for the customer, the product and your company will take you very far indeed.  You may recall my interview with John Yembrick, the head of social media for NASA and how his passion has yielded astronomical success for that organization’s social program.  In my book, The CMO’s Periodic Table, Sharing Passion is in the elemental category Inert Fundamentals along with elements like Showing Courage and Always Innovating.  Also in that category is Listening, which brings me to the subject at hand: Emily Culp.

Emily Culp, the new CMO of Keds, is bringing two powerful elements Passion and Listening to bear on a remarkably cool 100-year old brand. Her passion for Keds is contagious and her expressed desire to listen and really understand the Keds customer is more than just lip service — she used a recent promotional event to personally interview dozens and dozens of Keds fans from multiple generations. It is this kind of hands on ears open research that helped Emily get off to a running start at Keds and makes it easy to understand why The CMO Club recognized her as a Rising Star.  But don’t take my word for it, read on.

Drew: As the new CMO just coming into Keds, what were your goals for your first 100 days?

That’s a great question. I just hit the 90-day mark and some of the most important things that I have sought to accomplish are making sure that I’m clear on the strategy of the brand from a growth perspective, a heritage perspective and a product perspective and just really emerging myself those aspects of the business. Additionally, I am enjoying building relationships with my team and peers in product development, international, sales and strategy. To me, teamwork is one of the most critical aspects of business.

Drew: So, as I was looking at the Keds site I had the realization that, “oh my god, Keds are cool again!” When did that happen?

I would argue it’s been cool since it was founded in 1916.

Drew: Oh, stop! Come on, it was cool and then it wasn’t cool.

You know what? That’s the beauty of heritage products. They ebb and flow but there is a DNA of the product that is substantial and that’s the reason it’s been around for 100 years. Next year is our centennial and it’s because it’s a great product. To answer your question, when did it become cool again? I can’t really pinpoint that. But when you look at Yoko Ono to Lauren Hutton, to Audrey Hepburn, to Marilyn Monroe and then “Baby” in Dirty Dancing and then Taylor Swift, it’s a pretty amazing mix of women wearing our product. And that’s where you can see the cool factor thing cycle. I think it also is important to note that we created sneakers just for women to empower them to be free to pursue what they wanted to and this gives us an unbelievable credibility with women. So fashion cycles may change but there is something just beautiful about the simplicity of our product and you know, we always update it with different materials or collaborations such as Liberty of London and Kate Spade but we are true to our DNA.

Drew: You know it’s funny; it does very much look like a shoe I might have seen on kids in Newport Beach in 60s and 70s.

Exactly but it’s back. That’s what I love about fashion. For example, jumpsuits are back. Who knows when that happened, but it did happen.

Drew: It seems like you’ve done a lot to infuse fresh energy like the Keds/Kate Spade partnership or Taylor Swift designing her own pair of Keds.

That’s exactly it, it’s a multipronged approach and there is a lot more we’re going to do in this coming year around our centennial. We are excited to announce more specific details around it later this year.

Drew: So I’m curious, is there anything in particular that you’ve done at Keds in the time that you’ve been there that you would like to talk about?

I started at a great time which was right around when we were focusing on a women’s equality day initiative where we really were amplifying our Ladies First since 1916 platform. On August 26th, in NYC we did a popup activation in Washington Square Park where we gave out one thousand nine hundred and sixteen pairs of shoes to women so they could conquer the world. We also asked them to pause & think about “today is women’s equality day. What about tomorrow?” and we got some amazing responses. We were all so moved that we captured the responses and created a short video to inspire women everywhere.

It was a terrific way to start at Keds, because it meant that I could personally speak to the first 100 consumers in line and it was multi-generational and there were people who were telling me nicknames that they would call Keds since they were kids etc. So it was phenomenal experience and what was even more fascinating to me was the idea around what does women’s equality mean and what does it mean to each individual. In order to capture this content and really honor the innovation that women are driving forward we made sure that we had content on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Periscope. This approach meant that the event was not only a big success with people physically present in NYC but also around the US as they could participate in many of the elements remotely.

Drew: And how do you measure the success of a program like that?

It comes down to social engagement, impact on sales in retail doors, dotcom traffic and of course, PR exposure.

Drew: Is there a person in your career that’s been particularly helpful or acted as a mentor?

I’ve been so fortunate. I have a number of mentors and I think the question comes down to “what is a mentor” and I think a lot of people have this vision of someone who you’ve worked with for 20 years, who you see every week for an hour. Personally, I reach out to a wide range of friends and colleagues from all different walks of life whether it’s past bosses, to good friends in private equity, to people who are in theatre. I reach out to each of them for different types of advice. So I’ve been very lucky in that regards and I think having such diverse counsel has served me very well and frankly I try and pay it forward. I actively mentor people in Columbia where I went to business school and WIR (women in retail) etc.

Drew: Looking ahead for 2016 (besides your 100th anniversary) what’s the biggest challenge that you’d like to overcome?

As a marketer, for me one of the biggest challenges I always face is– how do you get into a woman’s psyche and become part of their DNA? So to me it’s all about driving brand heat and doing that in a meaningful and sustainable way. So that’s one of the largest challenges I would say I have but I’m beyond ecstatic about having that as a challenge and frankly, I’m honored to work on a brand that’s been around for a 100 years. When you actually look at the history of the shoe, it’s spectacular. Maybe it’s because I’m a mom–I have a daughter and a son but it’s the idea that these shoes were actually created to free women and empower them. That idea is very timely. So it’s how do we make sure that people understand what the brand stands for and also making sure that they think we’re a cool brand and want wear us.

CMO Insights: The Power of a Peer Network

Posted on by Drew Neisser

If you had an advance copy of my book (hint, hint), you’d know already that Julie Garlikov is the master of making the most of “tiny budgets” having done so at Torani Foods and in her current role as VP of Marketing at Nuvesse Skin Therapies. What you wouldn’t know is that Julie nurtures her know how by maintaining a strong network of peers.  In our interview below, Julie shares some of her secrets, insights that are just part of the reason The CMO Club recognized her with its President’s Circle Award.

This interview is followed by our recent Blab on budget busting, complete with a number of great recommendations on how to cut research costs way down and when/when not to work with outside partners.  Consider this a Garlikov twofer, an efficient treat indeed!

Drew: How important is having a strong peer network to doing your job well?  Can you provide a specific example of some action you took as a result of your network?  

I’ve used my peer network as a valued resource and sounding board.  Most frequently, I get tips on agencies, partners and even staffing my team.  I also run programs and ideas by my peers to see what they think of a strategy.  You really need someone else with a similar headset to push on your plans before you bring them forward.

Drew: Have there been any unexpected benefits to your networking efforts? 

I’ve made some wonderful friendships along the way.  Some of the people I initially just used as a business sounding board are now friends.  We go to lunch frequently or catch-up on all things, both personal and professional.

Drew: Making time for networking is always a challenge.  How much time do you invest in peer to peer exchanges and how do you rationalize this investment?  

I spend a few hours a week at least on these efforts.  I don’t need to rationalize the efforts anymore, as I know the value the fresh perspective gives me and my company.  I’ve created bigger ideas, found new ways to solve my problems and just been pushed into new territories.  And, the energy of connecting with a peer lifts me up and inspires me, giving me a new perspective.

Drew: Effective networks are ones in which there is a lot of give and take and some would say, start with giving and the taking will follow.  What’s your approach?  Do you keep a mental scorecard?  How do you handle the takers?  

I am always willing to help out others and don’t see the world as a scorecard or a big mental scale.  Some of my network help me more than I help them and are more mentors.  But then I mentor others that way.  I see it a bit differently and think that if you’re helpful and give the time, you’ll always find others who will do the same for you.

CMO Insights: Focusing on a Superior Customer Experience

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Todd Merry is the CMO of Delaware North, a gigantic company that you many not have heard of but have probably interacted with. How is that possible?  Well, first here are a couple of key facts–Delaware North is privately held yet has revenues of more than $2.6 billion and has 55,000 employees worldwide.  Those employees work around the globe at venues like the TD Garden, MetLife Stadium and Yosemite while serving a whopping half a billion customers each year.  That’s a lot of customer experiences, experiences that, as it turns out, are not always completely in their control.  Now that’s a tricky challenge, one that requires both vision and pragmatism, two of the essential ingredients to win The CMO Club‘s Customer Experience Award as Todd did this year.  To understand how Todd and the folks at Delaware North accomplished this and more, read on:

Drew: Congrats on winning the Customer Experience Award.  Can you share the kinds of things you did to improve the overall customer experience in 2015?

We have so many different customers in different locations – MetLife Stadium, Yosemite National Park, New Orleans Airport, TD Garden, just to name a few – but the one way in which we focused on improving their experience was through insights, specifically a proprietary program called “Total Listening” which incorporates ongoing communities, social media monitoring and analytics. Through this program we have been able to identify opportunities to improve the experience throughout our interactions with customers.

Drew: How do you measure your customer experience?  How do you know if your customers are having a great experience?

We have in place a comprehensive customer experience/satisfaction program called “GuestPath”. The role of this program is fourfold – to define and codify the standards for all of our industries and geographies, to train our customer-facing personnel to these standards, to anonymously measure these results of these standards three times a year at every location and, finally, to collect, analyze and report customer experiences through an ongoing survey process.

Drew:  A lot of studies suggest that only 1 in 10 unhappy customers will share their complaints with a brand. How do you process customer complaints and make sure that a systemic issue is not overlooked?  

As above we have processes in place and are set up to relay comments to the right place and ensure resolution/followup. But we also agree that few customers, even unhappy customers, will follow your feedback processes. To that end we have employed social media monitoring to scour those channels for any negative feedback and reply to the same. Many more people will take to social media to complain and by using a comprehensive monitoring tool these channels can become your best way to catch unhappy customers.

Drew: Do you have complete control over the customer experience and if not, how do you overcome the responsibility without authority conundrum? 

We don’t have complete control over the customer experience which means two things – we have to exercise the control you have as effectively as possible and, two, we have to have great relationships with our operators who become our last mile to that customer. Thankfully most operators understand the importance of the customer experience, particularly in this hyper-connected world where every customer has an expanded reach and influence.

Drew: What other company do you think is doing an amazing job with CX and why?  

JetBlue. Not only do they seem to have almost real-time monitoring and response on their social channels but they seem to have a very active finger on the pulse of the customer experience. And as one of those customers I know they work hard it – they actively seek my opinions multiple times during a year.

Drew: Looking ahead to 2016, what is the single biggest challenge that you’d like to overcome?  

Getting a better handle on marketing ROI and specifically the attribution to “softer” efforts like customer satisfaction/experience.

CMO Insights: Banking on a Priceless Network

Posted on by Drew Neisser

One of the joys of my long-term association with The CMO Club is that I have had the pleasure of getting to know a convocation of really interesting and smart people.  Among my true buds is Tim Suther, whose top secret job as Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase has prevented us from talking on the record for years now.  Nonetheless, we’ve found many other things to discuss, from the rise of digital marketing to the legends of rock n’ roll to the latest cool iPhone app.  No matter the subject, I always walk away having learned something and more to his credit, I’m pumped up to do or try something new.

So imagine my enthusiasm when I learned that The CMO Club had honored Tim with its President’s Circle Award and this meant he’d not only need to chat with me on the record but also we’d be able to talk about something he’s a master at — the fine art of networking.  That conversation follows and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Drew: How important is having a strong peer network to doing your job well?  

I can’t think of a single successful executive who doesn’t have a strong peer network.  It is fundamental to success.  No one knows it all.  No one is awesome at everything.  Furthermore, many great breakthroughs thread together previously disparate concepts.  So, having a diverse network enables the divergent thinking needed to succeed in an ever faster moving world.  So, want to make a difference in business, or for that matter, the world, build your peer network.

Drew: Making time for networking is always a challenge.  How much time do you invest in peer to peer exchanges and how do you rationalize this investment?  

I don’t have a firm budget time for this, because it’s integral to what I do.  I travel frequently and try to use the time at the ends of normal business hours to meet and listen to people.  Meeting for an early coffee or an adult beverage after work, pre-dinner are my favorites.  I like the informality of this format, because it promotes relationships over transactions.

Drew: Effective networks are ones in which there is a lot of give and take and some would say, start with giving and the taking will follow.  What’s your approach?  Do you keep a mental scorecard?  How do you handle the takers?  

My approach to peer networking is to be a maker not a taker.   I try to be very accessible….I’ll take your calls, respond to your emails, etc…but my Spidey Sense is also active; ultimately the relationship has to have a mutual value exchange.  I also want diversity in my network…a blend of millenials to boomers, startups to established companies, senior executives to specialists.  The mosaic of perspectives is valuable to me.

Drew: Are there any software tools that you use that are particularly helpful in keeping up with your network?  

I’m pretty prosaic with software tools to keep up:  LinkedIn is my primary/preferred tool, although I do have some Twitter/Facebook connections.  I capture business card contact info (phone/email) onto my Mac, just using the basis contacts software.  That’s all pretty traditional stuff.  One thing I do that’s a bit different, is I write a POV on interesting companies (and the people that work for them)…I have hundreds of these POVs in the cloud, accessible on demand.  I find that helpful in a world where it’s easy for everything to sound the same.

Drew: Looking ahead to 2016, what is the single biggest challenge that you’d like to overcome? 

Every day is a learning opportunity and 2016 will be no different.  Keeping in tune with the customer mindset, and the various new ways to delight them will remain top of mind.

Final Note: Given its importance to career success in any field, I actually devote two chapters (Networking & Power Networking) to this topic in my upcoming book, The CMOs Periodic Table: A Renegade’s Guide to Marketing, which as you may already know, is available for pre-order this very minute on Amazon.

 

CMO Insights: Redefining Marketing Success

Posted on by Drew Neisser

2885a7aAs many of my readers know, I’m a big proponent of Marketing as Service, an approach that seeks to replace polluting ads & messages with marketing that delivers genuine value.  Marketing as Service is categorized as a Noble Pursuit in my upcoming book, The CMO’s Periodic Table and is represented by my interview with John Hayes of American Express.  AmEx, by the way, has been taking this approach for years, providing small business with advice and support via a variety programs including Small Business Saturday, Open Forum and Membership Rewards.

At this point it would be fair to ask, “why are you telling me all of this Drew if not just to plug your book–again?” Well, the answer will soon be apparent as you read my interview with Missy Walker, Vice President of Brand Strategies and Communications for Strayer University.  Now in her second year at Strayer, Missy is helping the world, including Webster’s Dictionary redefine the meaning of Success, an effort that I absolutely define as Marketing as Service.  In addition to being a newsworthy idea, the program included events and even coaching services. This effort also earned Missy recognition by The CMO Club as a Rising Star at this year’s CMO Awards. Read on to find out how she got this program off the ground and more…

Drew: Can you talk about one of your marketing initiatives in 2015 that you are proudest of? 

One of the many 2015 marketing initiatives that I’m most proud of is The Success Project, a long-term initiative aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers that keep individuals from succeeding in their personal and professional lives. This is a unique campaign in a category that is riddled with cookie-cutter marketing efforts. As part of this campaign, we partnered with Steve Harvey to launch our Success Coaches and hold a Success Summit, which we produced as content for TV and our social channels; and partnered with Rainn Wilson’s company Soul Pancake to produce two inspiring video series exploring people’s views around success and what it means to them.

Additionally, we found through a commissioned survey that 90 percent of Americans define success as being happy and having a strong support network, which differs greatly from the definition in Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, which focuses instead on fame and wealth as measures of success. So we’ve launched a national petition to get Merriam Webster to change their definition of success to better align with American’s values.  The results have been amazing, both in the conversations we’ve started and engagements with the brand, as well as the impact of The Success Project on all key brand metrics we track.

Drew: You’ve achieved quite a bit in a short period of time. To what do you attribute your success thus far?

I attribute my success to loving what I do, having a positive can-do attitude and a great support network. I am not the type of person who says “we can’t do that,” I will always try to find a way to do something that I think is right for the business and right for our students. I am also blessed with a supportive boss and high-performing team at the office, as well as a great husband and supportive family who take care of things on the home front when times get crazy at work.

Drew: If you were addressing a bevy of marketers at the beginning of their careers, what advice would you give them to help them reach the CMO position? 

Take your time in the early stages of your career learning the ropes. Spend time learning from those around you – both in your office and in your field. Don’t say no to any opportunities that come your way.  Learn about your customers. Talk to them. Walk a mile in their shoes and really try to understand what motivates them to choose your product above all others. Learn to love them and be their champion – even if they are nothing like you or anyone you know. Use your own product. Working to cultivate this deep understanding is one of the most important parts of your job as a marketer.

Drew: Do you have a mentor or is there a person in your career that has been particularly helpful? How important is having a mentor?

Mentors are incredibly important and I have had many invaluable mentors at different stages throughout my career. One of my first mentors allowed me to spread my wings and try out things that were uncomfortable for me as a person or a young professional. She let me make mistakes at times, but was always there to support me and teach me how to improve the next time. She really never gave up on me, even when I wanted to give up on myself at times.

Drew: As you look back on your career, what was the biggest risk you took that worked and what emboldened you to take that risk?

I’ve spent the majority of my career as a client working for large, established tech companies such as Aol and Sprint. Switching to the for-profit higher education space felt like a huge risk at the time,as many bad actors had been revealed. I decided to take the risk because of the incredible leaders I met in my initial discussions at Strayer and the sense I got that Strayer really was trying to change higher education for the better.  Making that leap was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.  I’ve been able to witness first-hand that Strayer is a good actor in the space with remarkable people who work tirelessly to innovate higher education to better serve our students and continue to change their lives. We work to make a difference for people in ways no previous industry I’ve worked in really has. It’s amazing to be a part of it all.

Drew: Looking ahead to 2016, what is the single biggest challenge that you’d like to overcome?

Strayer University is unique among other for-profit institutions. We are constantly seeking out ways to innovate the learning experience to create successful graduates that are ready to compete and thrive in the workplace. Our leaders are lifelong learners who are deeply invested in uncovering how people learn and how we can teach important skills that other institutions don’t – like grit, persistence and curiosity. Our biggest challenge in 2016 will be cutting through the noise in our space to be able to showcase our truly innovative culture and how it benefits our students.