native advertising

December 2, 2013 by Marc Hausman

The Two Cs that Derail Native Advertising

Cost and conflict dampen the appeal of native advertising. (Image source: Pardot)

UBM Tech calls it Create. Forbes Media dubs it BrandVoice. And Time Inc. refers to it as Watercooler Live.

If you’re a publisher, a native advertising service is the hot thing to have in your portfolio.

Need to read up on native advertising? Check out this blog post I wrote in January, as well as this piece my partner Chris Parente penned in late summer.

I’m all in when it comes to the attraction, credibility, influence and sales metrics a company can achieve through the production and distribution of high value, thought leadership content.

In fact, the alignment of content creation and measurable sales outcomes was the topic of my keynote address at the Inbound Marketing Summit this past October. You can see a brief video of my presentation here.

Do you need a publisher though to realize these benefits?

It can certainly help because organizations like UBM, Forbes and Time are very much in the business of content creation. They also bring access to a community of readers which can accelerate interest in a content-rich campaign.

My issue with publishers getting into the marketing services business is related to the two Cs – cost and conflict.

Let’s look at cost. I question whether the value and ROI delivered by a publisher is worth the premium they tend to charge for association with their brand and access to their readers. Targeted content distribution can be achieved through home grown search, social and digital channels.

Moreover, there is an inherent distrust and dislike in the news room for anything that strays from the core journalistic mission of the publishers. That’s the conflict.

A publisher will produce content for an advertiser, yet it sure isn’t coming from the well respected and prized journalists who adorn the masthead.

My take is that it’s a more effective and cost efficient model for a company to lead its own content marketing initiative. Plus, the tie-in to critical ROI metrics — such as demand generation, lead nurturing and deal capture – is easier to achieve through a close interaction with sales reps.

Use publishers as an advertising channel. That’s probably what they prefer anyways.

Note: My consultancy provides integrated content marketing and sales enablement services that compete with native advertising offerings from publishers.

November 1, 2013 by Marc Hausman

Process Becomes Core – Here’s Why

Formulas in business work. They allow for consistency and scalability — critically important for a growth oriented company.

McDonald’s employs a team of scientists to make sure a French Fry tastes the same in Alaska as it does in Alabama. Global technology firm SAP has such a defined approach to the implementation of its software they are often derided as being inflexible.

I’ve personally seen the haunting challenges that arise from a failure to standardize. Years ago Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) worked for an innovative and entrepreneurial company called Export Software International. They customized their product to the unique needs of each customer, demonstrating an unmatched level of responsiveness.

Yet, Export Software International was soon stuck maintaining, troubleshooting and upgrading multiple versions of the same product. Customer support costs exploded and staff turnover left the company scrambling to capture critical product knowledge.

Five years ago Strategic embarked on a dramatic reinvention by shifting from a public relations focus to creating integrated content marketing and sales enablement programs for clients.

This business reset was influenced by macro changes in the market, such as the enlightened buyer, as well as a desire to align our services with revenue-related success metrics. While our work still contributes to brand awareness and credibility, we also tie closely to a client’s lead generation, nurturing, deal capture and sales intelligence metrics.

This brings us back to the issue of standardization. Candidly, we’ve had little of it in Strategic’s delivery of service while on this journey.

The alignment of content creation and social engagement with sales outcomes has been the domain of early adopters. Our projects tended to be pilot oriented and funded out of modest line items for experimental programs.

Plus, it has been an arduous period of learning with each campaign. We’ve grown smarter. We’ve added best practices. We’ve thrown out unsuccessful approaches.

Come Monday we introduce to our clients a fresh and newly developed methodology for service delivery, reporting and success measurement. My colleague Jenna Sindle (perhaps the smartest person I know) did a Herculean job during the past few months to capture and document five years of best practices.

We’ll face challenges as we roll this out. A few of our team members have expressed their desire for more flexibility. And I suspect certain clients may push us to step outside of the process and methodology to meet a specific desire.

Staying true to our proven approach is now core to Strategic. It will ensure consistent and high quality delivery of service, and enable us to appropriate scale the business.

French Fry anyone?

McDonald’s commitment to process makes sure a French Fry tastes the same worldwide.

January 10, 2013 by Marc Hausman

Dated and Dusty Publishers Find New Revenue Life

There are two sustained trends that have re-shaped how buyers of information technology products and services make a purchase decision:

–The rapid, timely and convenient access to relevant information through Web search and social media; and

–The shift in influence from traditional sources of credibility such as journalists, analysts and conference organizers, to the community and conversation that define social networks.

To be relevant with customers, prospects and partners at the initial point of interest, we work closely with our clients to become quasi-trade publishers. Our approach is to produce exceptional content to attract a loyal community of readers and then deliver measurable, sales-related ROI through the appropriate integration of lead generation and nurturing tactics.

Our work on programs like Transformative Health, Engage Today, M-unition, FedUC and Federal Blueprint are all examples.

In my pitch to prospective clients about our methodology I position publishers as dated and dusty in their thinking. And candidly, I believe we can all agree publishers have been slow to react to the massive disruption in their business model that occurred during the past five years.

However, I now realize that I may have been too hasty and eager to toss publishers into the scrap heap occupied by irrelevant businesses such as music and video rental retailers. As it turns out, many traditional ink on paper providers have developed new and innovative sources of revenue.

Here’s an example: native advertising. Never heard that phrase before? Me neither…until yesterday when I came across this article in Adweek:

Why Native Ads are Bad News for Creative Agencies

It is certainly a confusing world for corporate marketers because they have a myriad of vendor options when it comes to content creation, distribution and sales enablement.

I’m still thinking through what this all means for Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) and how to most effectively position our approach in the market.

Thoughts?

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