social media

July 16, 2014 by Marc Hausman

Ferris Bueller and the 3Es of Content Creation

In the 1986 movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the lead character played by Matthew Broderick explains to his pals, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

The speed of life struck this morning when I realized it has been six years since I wrote my blog post about the “3Es” of content creation – engage, educate and entertain. I vividly recall the inspiration which helped the words to this seminal post flow while I was in flight to the RSA Conference in San Francisco.

While my contention about the 3Es remains relevant, the content narrative has evolved to a multimedia orientation.

Words on a screen simply are not enough. Marketers have a responsibility to produce and publish video, podcasts, infographics, e-books, presentations, etc. The rationale for this diversification is clear: your audiences consume and digest content in different ways.

That’s why I asked my friend Joe Witte of ISEBOX to join me on Tuesday, July 29 at 11:30 AM ET for an exclusive online conversation entitled “Become a Visual Storyteller: the Evolving Role of Multimedia in Content Marketing.”

I have chatted with Joe at a couple of industry conferences and found him well informed, engaging and…yes…entertaining. Join us for 30 minutes on July 29 by registering at this link. It will be time well spent.

May 30, 2014 by Marc Hausman

McCormick Gets Cookin’ with Content, Digital and Social

Jennifer LaFrance’s life is an Old Bay journey.

The director of digital communications for the US Consumer Products Division at McCormick is responsible for content marketing, social and digital programs for the company’s spice and seasoning mixes, including the cherished Old Bay brand.

Last month at the Mid Atlantic Marketing Summit in McLean, VA, LaFrance took the stage to engage and inform attendees with an entertaining overview of how McCormick has leveraged emerging media to connect with consumers. Her Old Bay story begins with three bold (yet achievable) objectives:

1. Be there

2. Give fans a stage

3. Celebrate the community

To meet these benchmarks, McCormick put in place a campaign that relied on customer provided content (i.e. photos, videos, recipes, etc.), leveraging Facebook as the publishing platform. The more than 500,000 likes is a testimony to how beloved this product is by its fans.

The social-oriented campaign was so well received that McCormick re-purposed its content into a television ad to celebrate Old Bay’s 75^th anniversary. Amazingly, this was the first time McCormick had ever invested in broadcast media to promote Old Bay.

With a homerun campaign for Old Bay in her portfolio, LaFrance turned her attention to McCormick’s GrillMates product. Although a national brand with a significantly larger promotional budget, GrillMates lacks the iconic status that defines Old Bay.

As a result, McCormick has invested considerable resources in traditional media and advertising promotional activities to encourage consumer engagement and participation in its Grill Mates Facebook page, contests and requests for user provided content.

The results are equally impressive with more than one million likes and a comparable level of content creation by consumers.

Plus, McCormick analyzes user interaction trends and feedback to make decisions about product strategy and promotion.

Now that’s smart thinking by a “seasoned” marketer!

April 21, 2014 by Marc Hausman

News Flash: Google and Facebook are in it for the Cash

The two consumer technology powerhouses created in the past 15 years were both founded on philanthropic philosophies. While wealth creation was certainly on the agenda, the entrepreneurs behind Google and Facebook proclaimed their mission to be primarily altruistic.

Google espouses a don’t be evil code and commitment to provide users with “unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can.”

Similarly, Facebook places its members desire for a social online experience above all else. Playing the role of co-founder Sean Parker in the movie The Social Network, Justin Timberlake explained, “We lived on farms, then we lived in cities and now we’re going to live on the Internet.”

Yet, as it plays out, the sobering realities of the public markets and lofty expectations of shareholders have forced Google and Facebook to stray from such noble aspirations.

Last year Google introduced its new Hummingbird search algorithm to supposedly provide better results for its users. In a flash the mainstays of search engine optimization – such as cross-linking and key word tags — penalized a Web site owner and sent their organic ranking tumbling.

Of course, this lost traffic could be recovered through an investment in paid search. Cha-ching!

Now it is Facebook’s turn to hype up its advertisers at the expense of those organizations that seek visibility and connections without scratching out a check.

In an open letter to Facebook published earlier this month, a food delivery service called Eat24 complained the content that appears in a user’s News Feed are weighted towards those way pay to promote their posts.

“We give you text posts, delicious food photos, coupons, restaurant recommendations … and what do you do in return? You take them and you hide them from all our friends,” Eat24 said in its letter.

Computerworld’s article about Eat24’s break-up may be mis-titled Marketers are Losing Faith in Facebook. It all depends on what a marketer understands “faith” to mean.

This is all about expectations. Facebook and Google can still deliver access to their engaged communities of users. You’ll just need to pay for it.

Eat24 recently dropped its Facebook presence because of the priority given to promoted posts.

April 9, 2014 by Marc Hausman

Lessons from Jill Rowley’s Sad Tale at Oracle

For the past few weeks I have been watching Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, a wonderfully educational and entertaining show produced by Fox TV and National Geographic.

My favorite episode discusses the evolution of life on Earth, the forces of natural selection and the “big five” mass extinction events. This served as a reminder that change can occur slowly over generations, or rapidly through a dramatic shift in environment or the impact of the unexpected.

Regardless of how it happens and its speed, sustained viability and prosperity requires the ability to adapt. It’s as true for businesses as it is for species.

This brings me to a fascinating article authored by SF Gate’s Thomas Lee entitled Social Media Evangelist Clashes with Oracle Culture. Here’s a chronological recap:

-Oracle buys Eloqua

-Jill Rowley is a successful sales rep at Eloqua who employs social media and digital communications to identify and nurture prospects

-Oracle hires Jill to educate their enterprise sales team on the practice of social selling, recognizing that customer needs and how they make purchase decisions continue to evolve

-Jill employs her honest and open brand of communication with external and internal audiences at Oracle

-Oracle’s management gets uncomfortable with change

-Oracle fires Jill

Jill’s change agent adventure in a corporate environment was sadly predictable. Unfortunately, it is something I have experienced on multiple occasions during Strategic Communications Group’s (Strategic) six-year shift from PR shop to provider of integrated content marketing and sales enablement programs.

I often refer to the achievement of sales metrics – such as lead generation, prospect nurturing and deal capture – as the “last mile of content marketing.” It’s a painful irony that what companies crave most from their marketing spend (a measurable ROI) is the most difficult to achieve because of their own unwillingness to accept change.

So…here you go…three things the person(s) who champions an innovative content marketing and sales enablement initiative must have and be willing to exercise:

1. Understand what is required of you and your organization to be successful.

2. Get buy-in from internal stakeholders who hold the budget and have the ability to provide (and enforce) direction to sales reps, marketers, subject matter experts, etc.

3. Measure outcomes without the fear of tactical failures derailing the program.

Jill’s change agent adventure at Oracle was sadly predictable. (Photo source: Brighttalk.com)

February 26, 2014 by Marc Hausman

Crossing the “Last Mile” in Content Marketing

The last mile in content marketing is the alignment with measurable sales metrics. (Photo source: http://aws.amazon.com)

I often compare the sales enablement component of Strategic Communications Group’s (Strategic) client campaigns to the last mile that has historically bewitched cable, television, telecommunications and Internet providers.

For telcos, it is this valuable final stretch of network that is the speed bottleneck for the customer and (ironically) the most expensive to upgrade.

For corporate and field marketers, it’s the alignment of content with sales metrics (i.e. lead generation, prospect nurturing, deal capture and sales intelligence) that provides the most measurable return, yet proves the most daunting.

Why?

There are a couple of entrenched obstacles a marketer must circumvent to deliver on the sales ROI of content marketing:

1. Foster an open and collaborative relationship at all levels of the sales organization. Sales leadership must be convinced to champion the program and promote its importance to enterprise and inside reps.

Then, reps must be educated about how they can actively participate in the program by providing guidance on editorial/content strategy, serving as a content distribution channel and, most important, taking an action based on intelligence generated from analytics.

LinkedIn recently published an excellent blog post with suggestions about how to train old-school sales pros in the art of social selling.

2. Capture analytics and translate it into actionable sales intelligence. Reporting on quantity and quality of readership and audience engagement is an indication of brand awareness, credibility and thought leadership. Yet, these are the all-too familiar benchmarks marketers fall back on, even though they lack true ROI.

The modern marketer recognizes how critical it is to make recommendations about a tactical sales activity to be taken based on analytics. This demands the marketer have intimate knowledge of sales messaging, the status of opportunities in the sales pipeline, product developments and enhancements, and competitive threats.

I provide more insight into the changing role of today’s marketer in this four minute video produced by the Pulse Network.

3. Set realistic expectations and then measure program ROI. What if we bring opportunities to the sales team, make actionable recommendations and things don’t pan out?

This is a real and legitimate concern among marketers because of how tenuous the relationship often is with sales. Waste a rep’s time chasing a prospect, and you’ll lose respect and support.

Plus, in a corporate environment, no one likes to be associated with failure when they have personally championed a new approach. It’s not good for job stability.

Set expectations upfront when it comes to the opportunities identified from an integrated content marketing and sales enablement program. Not every lead or nurtured contact will produce immediate return. That’s true of any type of sales or marketing program.

The appropriate success benchmark is programmatic, and needs to be evaluated at quarterly or semi-annual intervals.

How much opportunity in the sales pipeline did this program touch during the past three months? And what percentage of those deals turned into revenue?

Those are the questions executive leadership, sales management and modern marketers need to ask (and answer).

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