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).
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
3.
4.
5.
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
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.
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.
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
24. 3 | IDENTIFY & TARGET
Identify journalists, bloggers, influencers, and channels
relevant to your brand
SOCIAL
JOURNALISTS MEDIA BLOGGERS Channels
INFLUENCERS
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
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
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!
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.