Tag: content marketing

Gearing up for Gen Z: The #Selfie Generation?

Posted on by Drew Neisser

HeadshotPattiGirardiEmailJust when you’d thought you’d wrapped your marketing minds around millennials, along comes Gen Z to really mess with your head.  Born between 1996 and 2013, the oldest part of this group is just now entering college, wreaking havoc with their multi-tasking mobile mindset and no doubt, creating huge challenges for the marketers trying to engage with them.

One such marketer is Patti Girardi, VP of Marketing with Chartwells Higher Education Dining Services, a division of Compass Group that feeds the students at 270 colleges and universities across the U.S.  Patti and I got connected through Incite’s upcoming Content Marketing Summit, where we’re on a panel together. And it turns out, she’s has had serious success engaging Gen Z with content — user generated content. Based on our conversation, we might just have to call them the #selfie generation. Read on to find out why.

Drew: I read about your “Where Hungry Minds Gather” program, which was designed to address the “unique attributes of Generation Z.” Can you talk about the strategy behind this repositioning?

Chartwells’ new brand identity positions its brand for the new generation of college students, Generation Z, which is replacing the Millennials on college and university campuses. With its extreme affinity for technology, Generation Z is described by thought-leaders like the Harvard School of Public Health as “over-connected, yet under-related,” and its work suggests that brands promoting high-intensity relationships will be the key to helping prepare this generation for the future. We looked at what we do naturally to promote high-intensity relationships — our dining programs bring students together and serve as centers of academic life on campus, for example — to arrive at our new slogan, “Where Hungry Minds Gather.”

Drew: How did content marketing fit into this program?  What kinds of content did you develop to appeal to Gen Z? 

Content marketing helps us stay true to communicating with Gen Z “in their language.” This group wants a story, not a sell. So our emphasis is on developing visual content that is quirky and playful, versus a more traditional sales-oriented communication approach.

Drew:  What is the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome in the content space?

Gen Z multi-tasks across five digital screens (versus two for Millennials). So we are always striving to tell our story consistently across multiple digital platforms.

Drew:  How do you measure the effectiveness of your content marketing activities and how have things been working?

We look at the volume of interactions (likes, shares, retweets, etc.). In some cases, we’ve been able to boost same store sales.

Drew: Is there a particular type of content that is really working well for you right now? 

Gen Z communicates in images: emoticons, emojis, video. Regardless of the platform, we emphasize visuals over text as much as possible.

Drew: How does social media fit into your content strategy?  

This group is really all about social. As the first generation that has always had social media and the Internet, this demographic does not differentiate between the two. User generated content programs are highly popular with this generation – this is the age of the selfie!

Drew:  What are the 2-3 key lessons you’ve learned when it comes to developing effective content programs?

  • Keep it short: this generation communicates in snack-size portions (when it does take the time to read).
  • Produce content that is sharable. If Gen Z isn’t sharing your brand, you don’t exist.

CMO Insights: Content Marketing

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Creating relevant content has quickly become one of the most effective ways to engage with an audience. But that’s just part of the story since content marketing in isolation rarely moves the needle.  Today’s CMO needs to being able to understand how to pull all of the available marketing levers working to get the mix just right for his/her brand.  Based on my conversation with Colin Hall, VP of Marketing at Allen Edmonds, few understand this better as he capitalizes on both the latest digital techniques and old school product catalogs to achieve double-digit sales growth.

In the interview below, Colin provides specific examples of how content is an integral part of Allen Edmonds’ overall go to market strategy, starting with the need for a campaign idea, valuing quality over quantity and extending exposure via PR, social media and paid digital advertising. It’s no wonder that Allen was rewarded with The CMO Club‘s Content Engagement award.

Drew: Can you describe your primary content marketing initiatives this year and how they benefited your company? 
Our goal is to create relevant content to consumers through mediums they most often view.  We start with marketing themes and then build integrated content to the channel.  For example, a Rediscover America Sale around Columbus Day helps position our company’s differentiated brand pillar of Made in America.  We develop direct to consumer catalogs featuring made in American product and heritage stories of the company.  We leverage social channels to feature our Wisconsin craftspeople to help prove we’re an American manufacturer.  DSP and dynamic retargeting banner ads are used for those who are most likely to purchase.  Finally we develop films to show our Wisconsin area.  Add some great PR and Blogger reviews, and all of these elements work together to drive awareness and sales. This year, our RDA sale was up over 20% vs the previous year and represents our biggest selling period for the year.

One of our new content initiatives was to develop a partnership with America’s top design school Parsons School of Design in New York City.  This student design competition supported our made in America positioning and told the story of shoe making.  The competition is fun for the students with a lot of social and PR following.  It helps us reach young people and our craftspeople love to work with students.  The winner receives scholarship aid from Allen Edmonds and the winning shoe was featured in our Rediscover America Sale.

Drew: Do you have any lessons learned on content marketing issues like quantity vs. quality, nurturing vs. lead acquisition, self-created vs. curated?
It all starts with great looking product and great photography.  As a domestic manufacturer, our advantage is that we can continually tweak products until we’re sure they’re ready for the market.  In other words, we’re not beholden to foreign manufacturing schedules, international shipment timing and products arriving that are not to our quality standards.

We partner with three different photographers, each specializing in specific environments to ensure our products always look great.  We create almost all of our content in-house which gives us strong control of our brand messaging. Then we measure everything so we can optimize content over time for continual improvement. About the only thing we don’t fully control is PR by fashion editors and bloggers.  But, we supply their closets with our seasonal best products and give them access to our photos and line sheets to help ensure their communication efforts are correct.

Drew: Your brand in heavily dependent on the retailers that sell your product. How does this impact your marketing priorities?  Do you focus on sell-in or sell-through?
We focus on both but place more emphasis on sell-through.  Sell through means our wholesale customers are succeeding and our product is turning.  Sell through success leads to more confidence in our brand and ultimately stronger sell-in.  We support our wholesale accounts with various co-op materials including digital photos, in-store signage, catalogs, videos, in-store appearances by reps, trunk shows and Recrafting services just to name a few.

Drew: What marketing initiatives worked for you in 2014?  Did you try anything new?
We initiated two new marketing efforts; an old school approach using big data and a new school approach.

  • Our old school approach was to ramp up our paper catalogs leveraging co-operative big data for prospecting.  We match back to our database and these efforts are driving sales of existing customers and new customer acquisition.
  • Our new school efforts include Display Network advertising targeting new customers.  We have enjoyed huge increases in sales through digital media including retargeting, affiliate, email and other channels but DSP allows us to serve ads to those who look like our primary customers but have never been to our site.  We’re seeing a $5 revenue return for every $1 we spend on DSP customer acquisition. 

Drew: What’s on your radar to try in 2015?  
From a media standpoint, we’re working on stronger segmentation of our customers which will lead to more strategic contact plans.  It sounds basic but with all the various ways to reach customers it can be quite daunting.  As the CMO, I straddle the desires of my retail and Ecommerce teams to reach customers more frequently versus the brand’s needs of maintaining a premium image.  Hitting customers over the head with more messages in more channels is a very slippery slope towards brand annoyance.

Drew: Marketing budgets are getting increasingly complex as new options and tools become available.  How as CMO are you staying on top of budget allocation and optimization?
This is one of the biggest questions year in and year out.  Our approach is to build on what is proven, optimize what we know should work and always test new efforts in small ways.  If I had to put an allocation on it, I would say we allocate 70% on proven media, 20% on optimizing and 10% on testing new ideas.  As a private equity owned company driving by EBITDA, we never bet the farm on anything unproven.  We stair step our way through testing, optimizing and then investing in media.

Drew: Have you made in major changes to your budget allocation in the last year and if so, can you share what lead to those changes and how these changes have impacted results?
We’re shifting more traditional media dollars to cataloging.  We can measure the ROI of our catalog efforts with margin contribution per customer being the KPI.

Drew: What specific measures have you taken in the past year to build credibility with your CEO and board?
We have new owners and a new board as of last Thanksgiving when the company transitioned from one PE firm to another.  Like any new owner, they have a lot of questions and their own ideas.  Rather than bog down a board meeting with very detailed marketing questions, I began “Marketing Milestone” meetings separate of the board meetings.  These are generally scheduled every other month and tied to our database refresh calendar.  Board members are invited to attend (which they all do) along with internal leadership and younger PE employees who gain great business insight and experience from the meetings.  We spend about 2 ½ hours going into details of learning from prior efforts, optimizing near term efforts and planning ahead.  These meetings allow the board and others to ask a lot of questions, get a great understanding of what we’re doing and why, and allows them to be involved.  When we get to the board meetings we spend very little time on marketing as they’re up to speed and feel the marketing team is on top of things.  This allows the board to focus on other agenda items.

Drew: What advice would you give to fellow CMOs when it comes to building credibility with your CEO? Are there some things to be avoided?
I am lucky to have a great CEO.  We have worked together for 6 years and completely trust each other.  I over communicate with him to ensure he knows what’s going on. Over time I have developed a great sense as to what he needs to know and when.  I always prep him for any appearances and my communication style is fairly to the point.  This means he doesn’t have to search for answers… they are provided in a manner that’s easy for him to digest.

Other than this award, I never seek the spot light. My CEO is the voice of the brand to our customers and I support him in front our leadership team and behind the scenes. While this approach may not garner me headlines in any marketing magazines or get noticed by executive recruiters, it really helps build trust.  At the end of the day, we both do what’s right for the brand.

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.

CMO Insights: Content Marketing

Posted on by Drew Neisser

richardmarnellThis week, over 100 heads of marketing will gather in Los Angeles to share innovative ideas and forward thinking at The CMO Club Fall Innovation and Inspiration Summit. On Thursday, I am excited to be leading a panel on Content Marketing with three leading-edge CMO’s including Richard Marnell, CMO of Viking River Cruises. Richard was kind enough to share his thoughts in advance of the summit including how Viking is creating boat loads of content and using it to cruise ahead of its competitors.  And just in case you think I’m running you down the proverbial creek without a paddle, pay careful attention to how the Viking team has generated over 6 million video views and the role it is playing in their sales cycle.

Read on to see what tactics Viking River Cruises has used to engage their customers as well as why Richard Marnell believes content marketing will be an on going discussion even at next year’s summit.

Drew: What you are doing in the area of content marketing and how is it working for your business?

We started really digging into digital content marketing about 3 years ago in 3 very focused areas:

1) Videos about our destinations that focus on history, culture, food, experiences – things that travelers want to learn about;

2) Recipes that tie into the product because they’re for regional foods from the destinations we travel to; and

3) Social media on the platforms that are either relevant to our guests, business partners, media partners, or all of the above.

How it’s working for Viking? Increasing brand awareness – because videos such as language lessons, or meeting the cats of St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum, or a recipe for Vienna’s Sacher Torte – are things that our audience wants to share with their friends. And on Facebook, for example, when our audience engages with our content, it is then spread to their other Facebook friends. Plus, travel is something they naturally talk about on social media anyway.

Our product has a somewhat long purchase cycle, so content marketing keeps our guests engaged throughout the customer journey. Most valuably for us, it has filled a hole that was previously there for a segment we refer to as Booked Not Departed – meaning those who reserved their cruise a year in advance and are excited, but no longer receiving marketing messages from Viking. Now, they receive content marketing that is relevant to the product/itinerary that they’ve purchased – and it amplifies their anticipation, continues to connect them with the brand, and builds a base of knowledge and enrichment from which to further enhance their actual product experience when they do travel.

Drew: And before someone in the audience can ask about ROI, let’s talk about how your organization measured the success of your efforts in this area?

As a marketing organization we started as a direct mailer, which is highly measurable from an ROI standpoint.  As we have further layered our media mix, we isolate what we can to measure ROI.  Content is one that we more view through the lens of engagement.

This year we have driven 6,000,000 video minutes viewed.  We view this as a very positive sign that our content is being appreciated.

Drew: Content marketing seems to be a slow build versus a quick win as a company builds up its library and proficiency.  Was it a challenge to sell this to your management, and if so, what were the key points that made the sale?  

Our product and brand so naturally lend themselves to content – we focus on enrichment, education, history, culture, travel – that content marketing has been a part of the business from the beginning. New initiatives can be a hard sell at times; investing in video and social media wasn’t immediately intrinsic to the entire management team.

Over time, we’ve looked at the metrics of content within our digital channels:

•Testing email subject lines with keywords that actually promoted 2 of our main content channels – our email open rate is consistently higher when the subject lines state the words “recipe” and “video.”

•Website traffic being driven by content emails.

•Time spent on website pages that include video vs. not.

•The number of leads and eventual revenue generated by customers who came into our database new, through sweepstakes on our Facebook page.

And then using the conversations on social media – our customer-generated content – to showcase to management real-time brand sentiment and feedback around product, service, marketing, policies. Communities can amplify customer feedback in a way that management cannot ignore.

Drew: From a purchase cycle standpoint, what is content marketing particular good at? Are there things it simply can’t do well?

Good content, especially User Generated Content, can help turn awareness into consideration, and consideration into intent, because people are more inclined to believe their peers – even the anonymous online reviews of others like them – or a third party expert, such as a journalist, than to simply trust advertising alone. For Viking that means that having a strong user-generated content outreach program during the relive/recommend/reengage stage is important.

Also, the content that we produce ourselves can be particularly useful in the reengage stage of a long purchase cycle. Our passengers may not take a trip every year, so maybe they don’t always latch onto our promotional marketing, but even if they’re not ready to start planning their next trip, there’s a high probability that they’d like to test out the recipe we just emailed them, or answer a question we posted to Facebook. It keeps us in their consciousness and adds value to their day. Our content marketing helps create a brand halo.

For our product, I don’t think content works as well in the actual purchase cycle. It feeds into all of the other stages, but when it comes time to pick up the phone and purchase a vacation, what’s up on the screen isn’t a piece of content marketing – it’s our website with a very clearly defined cruise itinerary and offer.

Drew: Here we are talking about content marketing in isolation. Can you talk about the synergies of content marketing with your other marketing efforts? 

Content marketing is not a tactic, it’s a strategy. It folds into all of our channels: email, web, social, print, PR, while experiencing the product onboard our ships. It also folds into multiple stages in the purchase cycle.

Drew: How are you getting all this content created? Are you doing in-house or partnering with outside firms? What are the risks/benefits of in-sourcing versus outsourcing?

Currently any Viking published content is all created in-house, but in order to continue scaling with the growth of our business, as well as meet the demands of more and more content, we’ll need to add other publishers to the mix. The benefit to keeping it in-house is that there can be increased speed to publish, and the brand voice will be consistent. The downside is that being a publisher is a full-time job; knowing what to create, how to create it well, and having sufficient time in which to create it is always a challenge.

Rather than outsource more original content, we’re looking to scale for increasing content needs and elevate our brand by partnering with top publishers of the kind of content our audience likes – and curating that content into one digital destination under our brand umbrella. Moving forward, we’re looking to become more like a broadcaster than a publisher.

Drew: Production costs vary tremendously, especially when you are talking about videos. How did you decide how much to spend on content?

We have a fabulous video production team that performs as a full creative agency, and they are a fantastic value.  And no, I won’t tell you who they are.

Drew: Have you sought out user-generated content? What are the pros/cons of this approach?

Yes, we regularly solicit customer reviews – lengthy and detailed ones – on a popular cruise site. We use email and our own website to direct our customers to this third party site to write reviews and rate our product, because it’s a site that ranks high in our top search terms and because we understand that consumers trust peer reviews more than brands.

In PR we’ve started building relationships with social influencers, as well as more traditional media. They produce content differently than traditional media. It’s often quicker, there’s more of it, they’ll take their own photos and videos and publish across multiple platforms. It’s a way of having content created for us, rather than by us.

There’s some risk in turning over your brand to others. 100% of the time they’ll never say 100% of what you want them to say or how you’d want them to say it. They’ll talk about your brand in their own voice, rather than your brand voice – and there are pros and cons to that, too. But it’s an unavoidable situation in today’s digital marketplace. So we start all user-generated content efforts first with understanding who we are talking to: by extensively listening to what our customers are already saying online, by vetting social influencers with both our PR firm and social media team, or targeting customers who rated us highly in questionnaires or with a high NPS. Then, we build relationships with them, provide some kind of guidelines on what we’re politely asking for… and let go.

Drew: Will we still be talking about content marketing at next year’s summit?

Yes. I read once that content marketing began in the 1890s when John Deere published The Furrow magazine to inform farmers of the latest trends and technology that they needed to know about. Today, as marketers, we’re still using content marketing to grow our businesses, attract the attention of new customers and maintain relationships with current customers. Digital has only made it more important as a long-term strategy.

At next year’s summit I suspect we’ll be discussing how more and more, through content curation, brands are becoming both publishers and broadcasters for the best content relevant to their customer and their brand. I suspect we are heading toward competition between brands and traditional broadcasters and publishers.

Drew: If I’m a CMO and have been slow to the content marketing party, tell me a couple of mistakes I should try to avoid.

1. Don’t start by focusing on print. Focus on digital. Digital channels and their low cost barriers and ease of use are part of what has made content marketing explode.

Think of YouTube, WordPress, Facebook, downloadable articles, Constant Contact. Then consider paper, printing, shipping, warehousing, postage and on and on. Plus, remember that digital content is easier for today’s consumer to share with an audience of more than one.

2. Know that producing engaging content is a challenge that we all face and one that is most often learned through trial and error. Our instinct as marketers is to sell, promote, assert market leadership and hit home those branding messages.

Resist the urge to have all of your marketing speak directly to your products and services. Strive to balance the promotional aspect of your content with informational evergreen content. Remember that content marketing isn’t push marketing – it’s a pull strategy that can be thought of as the marketing of attraction. It’s marketing that is engaging, educational, helpful, entertaining and there when you need it.

Think of it this way: No one likes a one-sided conversation, so don’t be the guy on the date who only talks about himself. Instead, start your content strategy with a goal of establishing genuine customer-brand relationships by offering up content that your target audience would find shareable. Be the guy on the date that she wants to go tell her friends about, because he’s the guy who gets the second date, while the one who only talks about himself is in the never-ending cycle of first dates.

3. Remember that 90% of purchase decisions now begin with an Internet search.

Investing in Content Development

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Leader_DPontrelliDelivering successful content is like having a conversation with a potential employer. If the jobseeker delivers a pitch that isn’t tailored to the needs of the organization, he will almost certainly be passed over for the next candidate. It’s no different for a company that is communicating with its customers. Cultivating a good content marketing strategy means moving beyond standard self-promotion and instead speaking to potential customers in an intentionally relevant way.

It turns out that Dominic Pontrelli, Sr. VP, Ricoh Americas Marketing and I are cut from the same cloth, in this view. In the following discussion, Dominic describes Ricoh’s content strategy, how Ricoh delivers highly tailored stories to its customers, and why investing in content development is, in fact, a very smart idea.

Drew: What role does content marketing play in your overall marketing mix?  Or asked differently, what role does the content you create play in the customer journey?
Content marketing is the compass in the customer’s journey to discovering a trusted provider of information.  Content is king.  We’ve always known that, but today it’s more important than ever for marketers to live by this phrase as the balance of power shifts from promotion to information.  Each and every communication with a customer, across all platforms, needs to be data-driven and customized to adhere to their pain points.  At Ricoh, we have a regular cadence with our customers via our customer touch strategies; it keeps our customer and non-customers aware of Ricoh offerings, services, and business-relevant thought leadership topics they may not be familiar with.   We are very sensitive to making sure we connect the messaging and content based upon what our audience is interested in.  Imagine if you worked at an online marketing firm and you received a direct mail piece from a company generally touting their latest product – and the next day received an email from the same company customized to you, with examples of the different solutions they’ve helped deliver that are relevant to you.  Regardless of how appealing the direct mail piece was, wouldn’t you turn away due to its irrelevance and lack of awareness?  I would.  And that’s exactly why consistent content marketing tactics need to be taken seriously.  With customers in such control, we can’t give them a reason to look in another direction.   At Ricoh, we leverage our vertical insights, predictive analytics and our customer successes to deliver highly tailored stories – not just marketing messages – that speak directly to the customer in the format that resonates most with them – print, email or social.

Drew: Are you increasing your investment in content?  If so, why?  Is there a competitive advantage to be gained with great content?
Most certainly.  Without relevant content, how will our customers trust that we know how to solve their issues?  They won’t and we know that.  As marketers, we must facilitate discussions that add value and build trust over time. This is why we’ve made changes within our marketing organization to ensure customer-driven content creation and management is at the forefront of everything we do.  We apply our “first touch” revenue methodology to how we build our customer prospect pipeline via our touch strategies.  Customers that we pull into a sales opportunity cycle via the influential content helps us identify the value of this content.  In addition, it truly assists us with identifying how influential marketing is at building our prospect pipeline.

The landscape is competitive and companies today must find new, creative ways to stay ahead of the curve. Take our vertical approach to solving business issues as an example.  We will fail if we communicate to a legal firm in the same way we do the federal government.  The pain points are different.  Our content must demonstrate that we know your unique needs, and we can fix your problems.  I’m proud to say that Ricoh is doing that today.

Drew: What kinds of content are you creating and are you finding some more effective than others? (If you can provide links to any of it that would be great)
To be honest, I’m finding that from a communications perspective, surveys are quite effective.  With them, we have the opportunity to entice both media AND customers.  Take our recent mobile workers survey for example- we saw media coverage ranging from Reuters to The Today Show and at the same time, traffic to our web site and social properties increased.

Content that involves numbers will always have power.  I think this is because each of us, at the basic level, is curious about opinions in aggregate – what the masses think.  And when we hear it, we then think about why we agree or disagree with the result.  Numbers spur conversations, and conversations related to mobile workers and helping businesses enable information mobility are conversations Ricoh wants to be a part of.  The additional opportunity is developing further content pieces out of the surveys.  White papers, e-books, viral video pieces, customer case studies all grow out of well developed surveys.  We find our customers and prospects find this type of content very compelling.

Drew: What metrics do you use to evaluate the effectiveness of your content and how to you rank them in terms of importance?
We take a look at various metrics that center around the channels we use to provide content to our audience.  For example, in the social area we measure spikes in engagement based upon the content we have shared that month. This allows us to gauge what our followers are interested in, and adjust our content mix to those interest levels.

As I mentioned earlier, we leverage a “first touch” revenue methodology to how we build our customer prospect pipeline via our touch strategies.  Many studies have shown around 57% of the purchase decision-making process is determined online before a customer ever reaches out to a company.  So by designing compelling content that draws followers to Ricoh, and identify these prospects as they come into the sales pipeline, this activity is directly related to marketing and the compelling content we create.   Then with the direct connection to our CRM systems we can associate those contacts with opportunities that then lead to revenue.

Drew: With content, is it as simple as “build it and they will come?”  Or do you need to “market the marketing” either via media (paid, earned and/or owned) to generate significant viewership?  And if so, can you talk about how you “market” your content?
In marketing, it’s never as simple as “build it and they will come.”  In order to be an effective marketer, I’ve learned you must always set objectives, measure those objectives, determine which ones were met and evaluate why some weren’t, update accordingly and repeat.  Lacking that level of self-analysis will hinder a marketing campaign – or prevent meaningful learning from taking place.

We deploy nurture tracks that are educational efforts that assist taking our customers down through the buying cycle.  Each track is dedicated to various vertical or business object targets.  The targeted content is all created to speak directly to the business demands of the target audience.  Leveraging our marketing automation with well managed content is essentially a great way to “market the marketing” as you refer to it.  Create it once and share it to the appropriate audience what we practice at Ricoh.  Let’s take the example of a whitepaper.  We can pull content from that to write a blog post, perhaps use it in a demand generation campaign, pull media snacks for tweets and so on.  Let the content live and so will the conversations.

Drew: Do you think you need a different approach when creating B2B content versus B2C?
At the end of the day, all marketing is reaching a person.  So, I believe that approaches themselves don’t necessarily need to vary, but perhaps considering which approach deserves more emphasis should be varied.  For example, video resonates with both business and consumer audiences, but direct mail’s impact on both can be debated.  A B2B campaign may lead with a direct mail piece with a QR code that drives to video, but a consumer one may lead with the video that brings the viewer to a registration page, followed by a direct mail piece.

Drew: What recommendations do you have for other CMOs when approaching a content marketing program?
As marketers, we have to change our perception of how content affects a communications channel.  What works for one area will not have the same results in another.  So, while content is king, I’d say that content in the right context is really king. It’s import to make sure you maximize your investment in content development and create elements based upon your communications channel.  Also, realize the limits of your knowledge of content marketing – that’s extremely important.  This is becoming a growing area of expertise, and you need people to specialize in this.  Finally, there are many content marketing experts out there such as the Content Marketing Institute who can help educate marketing organizations on best practices.  There’s a marketing shift under way and in order to capitalize on it, we must embrace it.

CMO Insights: Content Marketing for B2B Marketers

Posted on by Drew Neisser

No one is more delighted about all the new energy being put behind Content Marketing than yours truly.  After all, it is a quintessential example of “Marketing as Service,” the conceptual approach I’ve been preaching about on these pages for the last 7 years. Jay Baer’s excellent new book calls this approach, Youtility and a few years back Bob Gilbreath covered much the same territory in his book, Marketing with Meaning.  Regardless of what you call it (and yes I too should have written a book by now but we all have to make choices!), the point is that marketers can build profitable relationships with prospects and customers by doing something for them (in this case creating audio, video or written content) rather than just pushing ads at them.

Always in search of new examples, I was delighted to catch up with Judy Hackett, the CMO of Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corporation, a private spin-off of D&B that provides credit and credibility solutions primarily for small businesses.  As you will see below, Judy provides terrific insights into the breadth of content they are creating, how it is being integrated across multiple channels and why her company is increasing its investment in this area.  This is really a meaty interview especially for B2B marketers looking to grow their content programs.  (NOTE: Judy and I will be talking content marketing at The CMO Club Summit in LA on 10/10 along with Richard Marnell of Viking Cruises and Dominic Pontrelli of Ricoh.)

Drew: Is content marketing a new thing for Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp?  
As more of a conscious marketing strategy to drive sales, yes.  As an ongoing marketing tactic, no.  We have been producing content from the start and have a resource center filled with loads of evergreen content geared towards small businesses. Early on it was all about authoritative content to drive SEO but it evolved. We developed our blog. We launched a monthly one-hour live stream event called Credibility Live.  Our goal with content two years ago was to build our reputation as a small business advocate and influencer. The difference today is we are now carefully crafting a more integrated and meaningful content strategy to drive customer acquisition and upsell.

Drew: Do you approach “content” creation differently than say, ad creation?  
Yes and no.   For larger content projects, there is a creative brief drafted.  So of course all of the same considerations are made, target, language/voice, call to action, marketing objectives, etc.  Even the process is much like ad creation.  There are rounds of approvals and legal considerations.  Where it differs is in its ability to engage a prospect for longer and to tell a larger story. Infographics, videos, and links within an article can take a prospect deeper than an ad that is limited by time and/or space.  The reality is if you’re not creating content that fits your stated marketing objectives, then it’s not worth producing.

Drew: Is Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp increasing its investment in content?  If so, why?  
Absolutely. The need is increasing not necessarily for more content but for more quality content. This is where our money will go.  That and new technology to create, publish and syndicate content.  We are investing in more dynamic content to speak to prospects and customers on a one to one basis for the purpose of upselling and cross-selling.  Some of this is being created in house and some through new technologies.  As an example we are creating some pretty innovative one-to-one video content with multiple variables that will be delivered starting in September.  It’s highly customized to their businesses and what’s happening in their credit reports.

Drew: Do you have a specific content program that is really doing well right now? Tell me about it and, if possible, explain why you think it is working so well.
Access to Capital which is our thought leadership initiative for 2012-13.  Ours is a complex sale. It requires sometimes a 30 minute education to help a small business owner really understand why he/she needs to monitor/build good business credit.   Suppliers, manufacturers, certain business types know that building and maintaining good business credit can be critical to their growth. It’s the other half that doesn’t know anything about it, until they go to get a loan to grow their business and are denied.  We set out to own the Access to Capital conversation and we’re really starting to reap the rewards.  We partner on a quarterly Private Capital Access index with Pepperdine University. Politicians and others often cite the study when discussing the divide between the banks that say they’re lending; and businesses seeking funding but not succeeding.  We are helping to bridge that gap with an integrated content strategy that includes an accesstocapital.com website filled with informative content.  We’ve created our robust live events that in turn provide us with rich content on the topic of funding for future use.

Drew: Its interesting to me that you’ve taken your content program offline to events. What are the benefits of this approach?
The most obvious benefit is the content creation and marketing of that content that takes place prior to, at these events and following the events.  Panels of experts on traditional, alternative, crowdfunding and start-up capital share their words of wisdom as do the business owners share their funding stories.  All of these participants from businesses to banks and panelists to moderators become content generators for us. Attendees share their experience via social and I could go on and on. It’s probably the single best way to create content!

Drew: What kinds of content is Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp creating and are you finding some more effective than others? (If you can provide links to any of it that would be great) 
Video Content by far!

  • We launched the first-ever 529-education savings plan with employer-matched funds called EdAhead this year. It is designed to help our employees save money to send their loved ones or themselves to college.  In order to promote the program, we created a video in which our CEO explains the program to a boardroom full of children. It had over 200,000 views in just a few days.
  • With the help of Stargreetz technology, we launched our one-to-one video content campaign via email in September.
  • We’ll do the same with the launch of our Business Credit Member Alliance.   This program will utilize a network of strategic partners (e.g. micro and small business lenders) who are looking to help educate entrepreneurs on the importance of being creditworthy.  We have shot a series of educational videos as well as produced print collateral and training materials. We will provide this content to these organizations free of charge and we will give them a free business CreditSignal credit report for each business.  We already know how our free CreditSignal report performs and with these strategic partners we know we will be getting the warmest of leads. We’re helping provide them with quality educational content and they in turn are providing us with highly relevant leads.

Also, our active corporate blog has been able to engage hundreds of thousands of people on a range of topics including educational material for small business owners, relevant opportunities for small business owners, and informative posts that help tell our story.

Drew: What metrics do you use to evaluate the effectiveness of your content and how do you rank them in terms of importance?  
The BCMA will be measured on CreditSignal registrations and upsells. Our dynamic personalized email video content campaign will be measured on the results of three calls to action we are testing.  Our Access to Capital initiative is measured on several metrics– event registrations, products sold, partner satisfaction, press coverage, attendee satisfaction.

Drew: With content, is it as simple as “build it and they will come?”  Or do you need to “market the marketing” either via media (paid, earned and/or owned) to generate significant readership/viewership?  And if so, can you talk about how you “market” your content? 

Definitely NOT the former.  Your social team is critical.  Content just can’t be addressed in silos organizationally; you need collaboration between social, marcom, online, sales, etc.  It takes a village.  Also, we push our content partners hard to socialize and our employees are absolutely critical to the success of the content strategy.  We do a great deal to provide our partners and employees with the material they need to market on our behalf.  We occasionally support with social ad campaigns and press releases but it is the viral that makes it work.

I would add that we do extensive outreach to our employees, as in we send out an email to all our corporate employees each week that includes relevant events, interesting articles, new employees, and, most importantly, one “ask” at the top of the email. Through this “ask”, we’ve been able to increase our employee engagement and generate substantial social interactions around targeted campaigns.

Drew: What recommendations do you have for other CMOs when approaching a content marketing program?
There has to be a content commitment across the organization and a great deal of cross functional support.  If you are thinking that this is the job of just your social marketing department or your communications department, it’s not.  The collaboration required to do it right –and by no means are we doing it right yet—is monstrous.