Integrated Communications and The Dawn of Agile Engagement
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Static is not an option any longer for communicators, neither is having silo'd pr and marketing groups. Organizations will benefit from having PR and marketing and digital and anyone else in communications/external work together to understand audiences, strategize as one, and ultimately use owned media to attain earned media (and earned media to drive creation of owned media).
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Integrated Communications and The Dawn of Agile Engagement
- 1. The Dawn of Agile Engagement Malcolm Atherton | @malcolmatherton | #aztechcouncil 480.414.0666 | malcolm.atherton@prnewswire.com
- 2. Communications then – one way, brand speaking to ONE WAY audiences but not WITH Communications today – conversational, drives behavior, focused on storytelling and content that is shareable
- 6. Agile engagement takes advantage of convergence happening across paid, earned and owned media PAID OWNED EARNED MEDIA MEDIA MEDIA The lines between them are blurred A brand pays to Publicity gained Conversation now A brand continues across all place ad or owns when an content in a a channel influencer Earned media is channel promotes a brand increasing in importance CONTENT drives them all. • Advertising • Events • Company blogs • Company website • Press pickup • Blog mention Increased mobile usage is accelerating earned • Direct • Company social • Social sharing media growth Marketing accounts • Word of mouth Ecommerce is becoming embedded into all, with the option to buy from a channel, ad or link
- 8. CREATE, CURATE & OPTIMIZE CONTENT LISTEN, ANALYZE IDENTIFY & TARGET & STRATEGIZE The 6 Steps for AGILE ENGAGEMENT MEASURE DISTRIBUTE ENGAGE & INTERACT
- 9. First things first | Start with an end in mind goals Are y our communications revenue focused? usiness Is bra nd awareness your b goal? les Drive alignment with your sa team? kup? Do you crave media pic specific Incre ase inbound traffic to pages?
- 10. Build the brand. Create awareness of our product. Rank 4 key terms in page 1 SERP. 500 readers for each blog post. Double website visitors/month.
- 11. 1 | LISTEN, ANALYZE, STRATEGIZE Monitor what’s being said about your brand and industry across all channels and identify audience interests, trending, industry-sentiments, and who is moving content key to your interests.
- 12. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
- 13. 17.9 Billion Core Searches in July 2012 in the United States
- 16. Regulated and wide Audience was content hungry! Learned SQL + tire kickers come by Different types of people at blog vs. website. Our audience is traditional and social Our audience is not always at Distribion.
- 17. 2 | CREATE, CURATE & OPTIMIZE CONTENT Produce high-quality content NEWS ARTICLES LISTS IMAGES VIDEOS STUDIES Thought Leadership Acquisition Nurture | Cross-Sell
- 18. Owned Content…. • Content created by you to support integrated campaigns and amplify brand voice – Tweets, videos, content advisories, blog posts, webinars, Print, LinkedIn Answers, FAQs/customer feedback, case studies, in-person events • Redistribute and reuse components of longer form content in a variety of formats and channels. – For example: An executive’s conference speech might be turned into a long-form video, short video excerpts, a shared slideshow, multiple blog entries, an infographic, a whitepaper, tweets, etc.* • 3rd party content shared with your audience *Source: "Content: The New Marketing Equation“ Altimeter, Mar 2012
- 21. (Notice anything that is missing?)
- 22. Principles to Communicating Your Message Today • Make your content Accessible • Make your content Easy To View • Make your content Easy To Use
- 23. Blog. Resource library Webinar series Curation of content Press releases Spin offs Content Packages
- 24. 3 | IDENTIFY & TARGET Identify journalists, bloggers, influencers, and channels relevant to your brand SOCIAL JOURNALISTS MEDIA BLOGGERS Channels INFLUENCERS
- 25. What does “influencer” mean to you?
- 27. Engage Opportunity with all key audiences Investors The Media Decision Bloggers Makers CONTENT Influencers Consumers Shareholders
- 28. Be where your people are. • Create Web infrastructure of outposts and communities to MICROSITES SEARCH house high-quality content MOBILE – Support paid campaigns to APPS BRAND amplify brand voice WEB – More brand-voiced Web real SITES estate to help overshadow MOBILE conflicting messages SITES – Become go-to resources for BLOGS media & consumers COMMUNITIES – Increase social interaction and crowd-sourcing
- 29. Strategic partners Multi-Audience Spin-offs Guest bloggers .
- 30. 4 | ENGAGE & INTERACT Build a framework of content engagement platforms • Combination of owned, and earned media placements (and paid) SPONSORED EARNED BLOG MEDIA SPONSORED PAID POSTS PLACEMENTS NEWS BROADCAST MEDIA SITES 3RD- PARTY PORTALS SOCIAL SITES OWNED IMAGE POST WEB ARCHIVES ARTICLES OUTPOSTS SOCIAL SOCIAL BLOG BRAND SHARES POSTS BRAND SOCIAL BRAND WEB MOBILE LIKES SITE RE- SEARCH DIGITAL PARTIALLY- TWEETS VIDEO OWNED BRAND OWNED BRAND SITES BLOG COMMUNITIES MOBILE MEDIA MICROSITES SITES MOBILE APPS MOBILE
- 31. 5 | DISTRIBUTE Distribute a stream of your content to all channels ONLINE SEARCH NEWS SITES NEWSROOMS & SOCIAL MEDIA JOURNALISTS CONTENT BLOGGERS DISTRIBUTION PHOTO ARCHIVES MOBILE BROADCAST VIDEO SHARING
- 32. Goal | increase earned media via owned media. • Identify and target brand influencers – Journalists, bloggers, social • Disseminate to outposts/communities ONLINE • Cover all media channels – MENTIONS print, online, social, broadcast • Multimedia formats – text, photos, audio/video – More views – More social interaction
- 33. Make Your Content Directional
- 35. More Multimedia = More Views * The number of stories with downloadable files such as PDFs, PPTs, DOCs is significantly fewer than those without, however the data shows the potential for very high visibility when such assets are included along with other multimedia assets. Source: PR Newswire Web Analytics, June 2012
- 38. Published 228 blog posts. Produced 8 whitepapers. Held 9 webinars Created 14 presentations for download 7 speaking engagements 13 bylined articles Oodles of tweets and abstracts for social channels.
- 39. 6 | MEASURE Measure results at each step of the Agile Engagement process to improve content & expand reach Monitor earned media pickup Listen to social media feedback Identify new influencers Analyze effectiveness of channels & formats
- 40. Distribion revenue up 40% Cost per acquisition down 15% 4 keywords/page 1 SERPs! Blog traffic increased over 2,000%, improving from 700 to 117,000 visits/week Spin-off success!
- 41. Boom!
- 42. CREATE, CURATE & OPTIMIZE CONTENT LISTEN, ANALYZE IDENTIFY & TARGET & STRATEGIZE AGILE ENGAGEMENT MEASURE DISTRIBUTE ENGAGE & INTERACT
- 43. For more information, read our free white paper: “The Dawn of Agile Engagement.”
- 44. Thank you!! Malcolm Atherton | @malcolmatherton | #aztechcouncil 480.414.0666 | malcolm.atherton@prnewswire.com
Editor's Notes
- As a brand, you ARE a storyteller. Always keep that term in mind!!!
- PR and Marketing must learn to work together (if they are silo’d). Either integrate PR and Marketing functionality or work closely together. PR has always been an exercise of listening and earning media. This can deliver a multiplier effect for the marketing dept’s strategy. Marketing’s content is courted by PR as material for courting influencers and marketing’s research is needed by pr to help target and measure their strategies. I will refer to efforts as “communications” or “integrated communications”.
- The process and the work flow of Agile Engagement require that listening, acting, reacting and reviewing be a continuous loop. Pumping content into the digital ecosystem across paid, earned and owned media with strategic frequency, will keep the conversation around your brand alive by providing ongoing fodder to engage audiences.
- Are your marketing goals revenue-focused? If so, focus your content marketing goals on generating leads or driving immediate revenue opportunities (e-commerce). Is brand awareness your business goal? Then your content marketing strategy should incorporate thought leadership pieces, search engine optimization strategies and the like. Or are you tasked to drive alignment with your sales team? In that case, content marketing will play a large role in retention and crosssell strategies. Are your communications goals revenue-focused? Is brand awareness your goal? Are you tasked to drive alignment with sales? Is driving traffic your objective? Some or all of the above?
- Distribion is a marketing automation company that serves a very specific marketplace. Its customers are all in highly regulated industries, such as healthcare, insurance, financial services and casino gaming, and its product allows the sales channel to access corporate-approved marketing materials to send to prospects. Because Distribion’s target markets are all very regulated, it is important for all marketing and sales messages to be approved at the corporate level to ensure the communication doesn’t run afoul of any rules. Deb McAlister-Holland, Director of Marketing, Distribion, said the pain point for its clients is compliance. For example, she mentioned one customer who had to deal with 13 federal agencies and 50 state agencies when marketing in the United States. She added that Distribion’s marketing pain point was building the brand, and creating awareness about its highly specialized product.
- Monitor and Listen for audience interests, your brand’s Social Echo and industry-wide sentiments that may be trending at any given time.
- 10 times more searches for “cosmetic dentist” than for “prosthodontist” – Source: Google
- Knowing where your audience is and what they like to do is important to identifying tactics/content types to focus on.
- Distribion’s product is very highly targeted to a limited group of industries, but the company still creates content for a wide range of online visitors. The website focuses on the company’s products and services, but the blog is more general and geared more toward anyone interested in marketing. McAlister-Holland said, "We have something to offer both sales-qualified leads and tire kickers, and it allows us to reach out to a much broader audience and build our brand at a very low cost." She said the broader blog content drives conversions from people who self-select by saying they want to know more about Distribion’s products and services. Whenever McAlister-Holland felt there was a particularly high-value piece of content, be it a whitepaper or blog post, she sought to leverage that content for bylined articles in other media, and also sought speaking engagements with Distribion’s executives. The goal was to reach at least four spin-off opportunities each quarter, and the marketing team well exceeded that goal.
- Content created by you to support integrated campaigns and amplify brand voice Redistribute and reuse components of longer form content in a variety of formats and channels. For example: An executive’s conference speech might be turned into a long-form video, short video excerpts, a shared slideshow, multiple blog entries, an infographic, a whitepaper, tweets, etc.* 3rd party content shared with your audience Newsjack Jay Baer – full text transcript of each podcast. Turn that into a blog post.
- Blog | 3x/week (Distribion team + guest bloggers) Resource library | white papers, longer versions of the blog content, webinar series Curation of content from strategic partners | don’t have to do it all yourself! Press releases (aka content advisories) Content packages | content piece/press release/10-12 tweets linking back to the content/abstracts for Google+, LinkedOIn, StumbleUpon, etc.
- Crest story
- Strategic partners | reached out to peers who aren’t quite in Distribion’s specific niche. That way, they are serving the same space, but aren’t really competitors. Spin-offs | Distribion sought to leverage white papers or blog posts, etc. for bylined articles in other media, and also sought speaking engagements with Distribion’s executives. Multi-audience | Distribion’s product is very highly targeted to a limited group of industries, but the company still creates content for a wide range of online visitors. The website focuses on the company’s products and services, but the blog is more general and geared more toward anyone interested in marketing.
- We Need To Create Proactive Messaging Proactive Messaging Should Be Created With Optimization
- Content packages
- Only YOU will know what to measure. Only YOU will know what success looks like to you.
- Company revenue grew 40% over previous year. Cost per acquisition is down from 15% the previous year. Blog traffic increased more than 2,000% with weekly blog traffic improving from 700-117,000 visits per week
- Content packages
- The process and the work flow of Agile Engagement require that listening, acting, reacting and reviewing be a continuous loop. Pumping content into the digital ecosystem across paid, earned and owned media with strategic frequency, will keep the conversation around your brand alive by providing ongoing fodder to engage audiences.
- http://promotions.prnewswire.com/rs/prnewswire/images/wp_The_Dawn_of_Agile_Engagement.pdf