Winning Equation: How Marketing, Editorial & IT Can Achieve Breakthrough Results
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The document discusses strategies for marketing departments to successfully collaborate with editorial and IT departments within a publishing company. It provides tips for marketers to understand the perspectives of editors and IT in order to get their buy-in and support for new initiatives. The document recommends that marketers see things from other departments' points of view, involve them early in the process, and find ways to make new projects respect their constraints and priorities.
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Winning Equation: How Marketing, Editorial & IT Can Achieve Breakthrough Results
- 1. Winning Equation: Marketing + Editorial + IT = Breakthrough Results Publishers Love Greg Krehbiel · @gregkrehbiel Director of Marketing Operations, Kiplinger Matthew Cibellis · @mcibellis & @EdWeekEvents Director of Programming, Live & Virtual Events, Education Week
- 2. 30,000 Foot View Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com
- 3. We’re Doomed Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com
- 4. Option 1: Be the Disrupter!!! Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com Publishing has changed and your old- fashioned ideas are no good any more We’re going in a new direction whether you like it or not Get with the program or you’ll be left behind Change or die We want the right people on the bus
- 5. Option 2: Be a Diplomat Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com Learn the personalities and strengths you have to work with and adapt your method accordingly. “People do what they want to do.” Learn people’s strengths and deploy them to the benefit of the company. Explain the business to everybody on the staff. Involve everybody. Focus on better communication so people don’t feel left out. There is no magic bullet.
- 6. Consider Your Colleagues’ POV Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com People already know publishing is a mess and their job is on the line. Help them to buy in to new ideas by presenting those ideas in a way that respects their personality and professional integrity. Don’t let one department rule the roost. E.g., if editorial is making production miserable, the editors have to change!
- 7. Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com Don’t be a disruptor. Be a manager.
- 8. • D • D • D What My Company Does: Putting Education News and Information in the Hands of the Media, Public, and Decision-Makers Matthew Cibellis @mcibellis · @EdWeekEvents Director of Programming, Live & Virtual Events Education Week Editorial Projects in Education
- 10. What Editorial Projects in Education is and How Education Week’s live and virtual events fits into the company.
- 12. Be the One Who Fills the Gap
- 13. • Originally an add-on sponsorship to former c- level live events (FY11-14) • FY14 = year one • FY15 = 19 nationwide • FY16 = 26 dinners scheduled. • Key growth opportunity for company. • Limited staff resources.
- 14. Perceived Editorial conflict: “Sponsored dinner”≠ journalism?
- 15. Yawning Gaps in Perceptions • Weigh the relative value of an “ask.” • Not all “asks” are equal. • Easy “asks” can be your undoing! • Plan ahead! • Work within the constraints of your colleague’s busy schedules, so you can win and they can win.
- 16. HOW TO WORK WITH IT BIMS Summit 2015 Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com
- 17. Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com “Could you build this for me, please?”
- 18. When Your Only Tool is a Hammer ... Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com IT’s main tool is the computer. The IT mindset is to … Automate, Use databases and templates, Eliminate exceptions, Build once and use many times.
- 19. IT is About Stability Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com The IT department builds things that have to work exactly the same way a million times. IT wants processes that are dependable, repeatable, and play well with other systems. IT needs a way to predict and manage change.
- 20. Details vs. Big Picture – IT side Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com You’re thinking … How does this make money? How soon can I have it? The programmer is thinking … How does this integrate with other systems? What server resources does it use? How often do I have to update it? Does it create any security problems?
- 21. IT Wants Requirements First Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com IT wants a clear requirements document up front. This includes mock-ups of every type of page. Don’t change the project in the middle! IT wants a fixed target.
- 22. Get IT Involved Early Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com Get a sense of how hard the project might be. Get suggestions on ways to make it simpler. Break larger projects up into smaller pieces. “Get your IT team involved right at the beginning or it's your fault if they become blockers later.” Kate Mayfield, Mayfield Solutions Ltd.
- 23. You Need an IT liaison Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com Learn the basics of the technology. Understand IT’s motivations. Be diplomatic. Bring IT in early and work with them. Model with commercially available software. Consider limiting to low-hanging fruit. Regular meetings – both with IT and stakeholders.
- 24. Don’t Expect Creativity Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com Don’t count on IT to "come up with solutions" to make somebody’s idea work. Rather … Understand how the system works. Understand the business objectives of the technology. Understand the basic technical requirements, costs and time investment. Find creative solutions to new problems. Decide if it’s really worth all the effort.
- 25. Be a Diplomat Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com There is a large cultural gap between IT and other departments. Things that work in sales and marketing (e.g., “lighting fires”) might not work with programmers. Contact by email or instant messenger may be better than by phone. (Find out what works with your team.)
- 26. Getting Past Barriers Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com "Write me a requirements document" does not mean "leave me alone.” See if you can get IT to give you a template for a requirements document. The helpdesk is not designed to make you go away. Show that you’re willing to adapt and learn.
- 27. “Good Enough” vs. Perfect Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com Some IT guys are perfectionists. Others are happy to slam out some code that’s “good enough.” Beware the IT tendency to over-engineer a solution. Beware of the project developer’s tendency to over-specify. Sometimes it’s best to do the simple thing first and learn from it.
- 28. What Drives IT Crazy Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com Half-baked ideas. Emergency projects. Failure to respect their process. Doing a whole lot of work to set up for one promotion that gets one order. Piling on non-critical requirements.
- 29. A Possible Procedure Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com 1. Create a “bare bones checklist” for the project. 2. IT reviews the checklist and meets for clarification. 3. Business side provides wireframes of major pages to be built. 4. IT writes a “here’s what we think you want and how we’d do it” document. 5. Business side buys in (or goes back to step 2).
- 30. Sample Bare Bones Checklist Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com The checklist focuses on what you want, not on how it’s done. Elevator pitch – two sentences on what needs to be done and why. Scope – how many pages / visitors / sales will this project effect? Is it a one-off project, or part of a larger effort? Return – what do we hope to get out of this? Timeline – when does this have to be completed? Other Drivers – is there some Big Factor to be considered (e.g., it’s the CEO’s pet project)?
- 31. DIY Can Be a Bad Idea Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com You can create a blog in 5 minutes on WordPress, but … Will it integrate with your current database? Will customers be able to use their existing accounts? Will you be able to market to the emails you collect? Will it work on mobile? Will you create a completely new workflow problem for updates? Are there security risks?
- 32. But Then Again … Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com Playing with WordPress for a while would be a good way to get the background you need to write a very good requirements document! Sometimes you should bypass IT. Sometimes you need an IT reality check, especially with security.
- 33. IT’s Trump Card Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com “Security.” IT has to protect the company’s data. IT can make a legitimate claim that unless they’re able to follow best practices and proper procedures, the company can get in loads of trouble.
- 34. Greg Krehbiel - gkrehbiel@gmail.com Try to see things from the IT perspective. … not because IT is right.
- 35. Yawning Gaps in Perceptions Create TurnKey Solutions for Your Implementation Partners
- 37. Why shouldn’t you utilize your editors’ or reporters’ writing skills to produce copy for company promotions? They’re writers for goodness sakes, aren’t they?
- 39. Create the Tweet with sized image ready to go for your reporters, then insert into an Outlook reminder. Tactical? Sure. Practical? Yes. Easily executable…definitely.
- 40. Reach out to us for further info! Greg Krehbiel, Kiplinger (202) 887-6428 · gkrehbiel@gmail.com @gregkrehbiel Matthew Cibellis, Education Week (301) 280-3191 · mcibellis@epe.org @EdWeekEvents · @mcibellis
Editor's Notes
- title slide (keep up for :15 seconds) Matthew: Hi and welcome. I’m Matthew Cibellis, the director of live and virtual events for Education Week.
- Greg: We’re going to start by briefly discussing two possible approaches to the challenge
- Greg: You know the drill. Print is dead. Newspapers are dying, and so is the old publishing model. Editors have to become businessmen, and social media mavens, and bloggers, and …. Everything is different now and we need a revolution to survive.
- Greg: One way of dealing with this problem is to hire the hotshot biz dev guy. He’s a change agent. He’s a “leader” who wants to fire everybody and start fresh. Q: How many of you have had success with this model?
- Greg: Another way is to recognize that no single solution will work everywhere, and you have to work with the people you have. You recognize that you can change people incrementally, but generally speaking … they don’t change much. They also have institutional and industry knowledge that you need. You need to learn to deploy the strengths of the people you have. If you have a worrier, how can a worrier help you? If you have an OCD person, how can he contribute? If you have a social butterfly, or a guy with aspergers, how can that personality promote the mission of the group?
- Greg: In addition to the tactics discussed in the previous slide, you need a new frame of mind. You don’t need to brow beat people with things they already know. All you’ll do is make them nervous. Instead, look at things from their point of view and find ways to motivate them according to their professional and personal goals. You need to employ a very old concept – Management.
- Matthew: What my company does My company, Education Week, has been a print publication for over 30 years. With the massive upheaval in the journalism world, we went online in 1996. We moved into virtual and live events in 2008/2009. And I was hired in 2010 as Editorial Projects in Education was building on our flagship paper with a bevy of digital and other projects bringing in new diversified sources of revenue, including our nationally recognized research division.
- (:15 seconds) Legacy Publication We went from being a stand-alone, must-read, legacy publication that was in a category by itself for K-12 administrators and policymakers, to one that was fighting to for people’s attention with startup news sources online.
- (:08 seconds) “What Editorial projects in Education is and how Education Week live and virtual events fits into the company.”
- (:30 seconds) Education Week’s portfolio of products and divisions Education Week diversified into a portfolio of work including original research, information targeted specifically at the c-level, job seekers, and folks who consume much more than print—in particular live and virtual events that provide either PD or networking opportunities. We had to monetize new forms of content, against an ingrained culture that often distrusted the motives of “the second floor” (business floor) to do so. This culture shift has morphed over time, some of the distrust between church and state remains. My job is situated in editorial, not business, so the trust can be established over time and the work can be done effectively. When Education Week hired me, they reached outside the newsroom to find an experience live events professional who could take charge of the work and get it accomplished, even if I wasn’t familiar with the dynamics of “church and state” between newsroom/business floors.
- (:30 seconds) Getting to “yes” on both sides of the business floor/editorial fence. From a “getting work accomplished” perspective, it’s tempting to be direct with the newsroom or with the business floor. “Editorial doesn’t have the time to do this new sponsored project of yours. We’re writing our annual Quality Counts report, and Sally Jones isn’t available to moderate your latest client’s webinar.” Or “The Business Floor has a $25,000 sponsor, we have to work with them on this sponsored event.” But the Gap in Expectations that ensues can be seriously detrimental to success—for both the company and the client. It’s not about the obvious: “Why on earth would we pass up this $25,000 opportunity?” It’s how we get to a “yes” on both sides of the business floor/editorial fence.
- (2 minutes) Education Week Leadership Dinner Series: Sponsored dinners are 2 ½ hour dinners at nice restaurants all around the county. They involved recruiting 10-25 key target audience attendees for the sponsor to attend. They come for free; our reporter or editor who writes on the topic the sponsor wants to address comes in and moderates a discussion to get all attendees talking about: Their successes, Their pain points, The things that keep them up at night and more. Begun in 2013 as an off shoot of c-level live events we used to have twice a year from 2009 to 2013. In 2014 we had our first full year of dinners. After years of trial and a few errors, we have our costs down to manageable levels. In FY 2015, we produced 19 nationwide FY16 = 26 dinners scheduled. We have a key growth opportunity for the publisher, but limited staff resources. We have worked out ground rules on editorial vs. business roles by focusing on the word “Editorial” in our name, Editorial Projects in Education. We have found that these dinner cannot be a sponsor pitch. Our readers get those at work all the time. These need to not only have the imprimatur of our brand, but also in real time, these 2 ½ hours need to be a deep content-driven discussion about what c-level folks in schools are facing. Our reporters can glean all sorts of leads and ideas for future reporting as they conduct these dinners “on background.” Our reporters have even followed up with individual guests later for on–the–record conversations.
- (2 minutes) Editorial conflict: How is this “sponsored dinner” journalism? I’m a reporter for god’s sakes. How do I as a journalist maintain my editorial independence from the sponsor in the room? Solutions: First, try to recruit your editor-in-chief to lead these dinners. This shows that your top brass is in on this and willing to be a part of this new editorial project. Next, find allies in the department. Editors who are already curious about or voicing their own ability and willingness to be innovative. Same with reporters. If you have a well-respected staff writer or contributing writer, who has the gravitas, begin with them. Have them work directly with an their editor to develop the vision for the dinner, write the copy to describe the content of the dinner. Introduce to the entire newsroom after you’ve already launched a few of them. I did so in 2014 long-range planning meeting. Where we discussed the role of the most seasoned reporters moderating these dinners. After another year of these successes and few reporter complaints, we again discussed the first full year’s results in next long-range (2015) planning mtg. I provided handouts documenting the names of the respected newsroom personnel in the enterprise, the number of topics they covered, and the like. And next month, I will be holding a brownbag lunch with four of the respected newsroom journalists (editors and reporters) and incorporating the business floors challenges that they’ve faced. We’re working from a place of candor. We are prepared for the continued concerns we hear from reporters who haven’t done them. However, we are emphasizing moderating best practices, tips and tricks, challenges and solutions with—again—seasoned, respected reporters in the newsroom leading the discussion.
- Matthew: (2 min) Yawning Gaps in Perception: Create TurnKey Solutions for Your Implementation Partners from other departments. Weigh the relative value of an “ask.” Not all “asks” are equal. (I’d like to ask you to moderate a dinner? I’d like to ask you to send a tweet to your followers) Easy “asks” can be your undoing (#TagTuesday). Plan ahead as much as possible, so you know what is going to be a hard “ask” and what will be an easier “ask.” You aren’t begging, you aren’t kow-towing. You are working within the constraints of your colleague’s busy schedules. The extra work doesn’t kill you or your team. In fact, it makes your team more precise, effective, and your team appears more on top of the project when you can clearly articulate and define the relative value. Hand it over to Greg: Let’s have Greg examine this idea, “Not all ‘asks’ are equal” in the context of working with your IT guys. Greg take it away.
- Greg: We all know what this is, but could you build something from this? The front fork is angled the wrong way. There are no spokes Does the handle bar turn?
- Greg: Since IT works with computers, they think of projects in terms of what computers do well, which is to follow a set of rules and do the same thing a trillion times.
- Greg: Servers manage millions of requests and responses. They are inherently not “one off” devices. IT people want something that will work over and over again, and they absolutely don’t want the system to go down. They want things to be predictable and dependable.
- Greg: The biz dev people are thinking about the project in a radically different way than the IT people. The IT people remember when the plugin update crashed the server, or when they were told at the last minute that the new site had to integrate with a completely different system. And if you mention Wordpress, they’ll pull their hair out.
- Greg: It’s fine to have a big picture, but IT has to make it work. They want to know the details. They want to know what they have to build, what it has to do, what systems it will integrate with, and when it has to be done.
- Greg: This applies to all your staff, but especially to IT because of their operational nature. They need to know what’s involved and why, and you need to give them time to think about other solutions.
- Greg: There is no substitute for somebody on the marketing or biz dev side who understands the technology – at least at a high level. Learn the basics of what you’re talking about. Don’t tell them you need a new CMS until you have at least read and understood the Wikipedia entry on content management systems.
- Greg: It is not IT’s job to come up with creative solutions. It’s their job to make the systems run smoothly. They might be creative, or they might not, but don’t count on it. It’s your job to be creative.
- Greg: Talk to your IT people. Learn what drives them. You’re not going to be able to use marketing or sales motivational tactics with them. They’re a different sort of fish, and you need to respect that.
- Greg: IT can sense ignorance like dogs sense fear. If you come in with a half-baked idea, they’re going to ask you for details – in writing. With pictures. This is not their way to be difficult. This is their way to process your crazy, half-baked idea. They are trying to impose order and structure on the project, because the systems they work with are orderly and structured.
- Greg: Beware of the different personalities in IT. Some of them want to work and work and work until something is perfect, and others just want to get your project off your desk so they can get back to Reddit. Some will take an easy project and make it way too complicated. Others will think they’ve solved your problem because they’ve done the easy 80%. Working with IT is not a fire and forget mission. You have to stay with it.
- Greg: “We’re going to do all this set up and we’re going to get one order.” IT hates being Sisyphus, and they hate instructions from people who haven’t made any effort to understand what they do and why they do it.
- Greg: Here’s a procedure you might try. The key is that you go back and forth, and fill in the details as you go.
- Greg: Think about these things and be able to answer them before you go to IT with a project.
- Greg: Generally speaking, trying to do it yourself is a bad idea. But DIY can teach you valuable insights into the process that can help you write your requirements document.
- Greg: After playing with your DIY experiment for a while, you might realize that this particular project actually doesn’t have to integrate with anything. It can live on its own. Maybe you don’t need IT.
- Greg: Getting hacked is no joke. IT can always play the security card on you. Pay attention and listen to their concerns.
- Hand it over to Matthew.
- Matthew: Back to a few examples to show you simple ways you can create integrated solutions for busy newsroom personnel.
- Matthew: Wasn’t it Gandhi who said, “Work with the army you have, not the army you wish you had?” OK, maybe I got that wrong, but the sentiment applies…
- (2 minutes) Why should you not make your editors or reporters produce copy for promotions? They writers for goodness sakes! Many of them will go on to lives as copywriters in Corporate Communications. Surely this is an easy ‘ask.’ But no. You shouldn’t ask them to because: Everybody is doing what they’re already good at They don’t like having to shift like this. Their heads are in their daily work. You are asking them to step away from deadline-driven reporting, editing, and production. Instead: Respect editors and the things they can easily operationalize Don’t try to make your Editor or for that matter your social media mavens to be something they’re not. Stop asking yourself or your employees, “Well, why can’t editor X do this?” That’s what being a manager is. The LinkedIn example on the next slide is illustrative of my larger point. Provide a turnkey solution whenever possible to drive your agenda, when another person or department holds the access to the channel you need to operationalize. This summer, my team discovered the way to get retweets or to get actions on our other social media channels can be as simple as operationalizing our “asks” through the use of Outlook reminders. We recalibrated our email communications and found sending the person you want to tweet a message to our company’s 400K+ followers an Outlook reminder with the date and time you want it posted, and vetting the image and the content for size and length, you make joining in the process easy and effortless for them. At the appointed time, the reminder pops up, they post it, and you also get a reminder. If you don’t see it go up, you can gently remind them, “Hey there, just letting you know, you have an Outlook reminder to communicate with your audience today!”
- (2 minutes) Linked In Outlook reminder Show aud how the Outlook reminder has the content, the image to attach to the post and the date and time in the communication, so all the recipient has to do is “accept” the Outlook reminder and execute it on the specific date and time. The use of Outlook as an auto reminder for your primary @TwitterHandle manager works because it simplifies her work: Copy for promo can be edited by a cooperative managing editor in an email on which your social media manager is cc’ed. Approval of the copy by a respected managing editor makes agreeing to do the task asked easier for the social media manager. Hew precisely to LinkedIn length requirements and image rules (or for that matter Twitter rules), so your social media manager knows you know what you are doing. Results: Weekly postings happened for the first time ever Opened up a new platform for future promotions Impressions: 1,700+ in company’s LinkedIn group. Over 600 nominations gathered. In retrospect, our LinkedIn approached worked, and it could have worked for our Twitter campaign too, breaking down and even removing the step of the reporter having to develop the tweet themselves and finding the artwork. As you see with LinkedIn, we made it more “turnkey” and the issue goes from being an interruption to their journalistic work and instead becomes more about, “OK, if I have the time, I’ll post that.” Basically, if they accept the reminder in their Outlook calendar, they know they can make the time to do this. Then it’s just a matter of deploying the editorially-driven action you want them to take. And ultimately, the special report this LinkedIn announcement references is a big newsroom-wide enterprise, so while the promotion of it isn’t something reporters normally do, this is a way they can engage easily and appropriately. If this were a marketing venture, the same would probably hold true. If you can hew your marketing message to a journalism-driven agenda, “Subscribe today [URL HERE] so you can find out daily what you need to know about how to manage your investment portfolio with our reporter @TWITTER HANDLE OF REPORTER HERE.”
- If this were a marketing venture, the same could probably hold true. Take for example this tweet. If you can hew your marketing message to a journalism-driven agenda, “Subscribe today [URL HERE] so you can find out daily what you need to know about how to manage your investment portfolio with our reporter @TWITTER HANDLE OF REPORTER HERE.” Basically, if they accept the reminder in their Outlook calendar, they know they can make the time to do this. Then it’s just a matter of deploying the editorially-driven action you want them to take. And ultimately, the special report the LinkedIn announcement referenced is a big newsroom-wide enterprise, so while the promotion of it isn’t something reporters normally do, this is a way they can engage easily and appropriately without feeling like company shills. And it engages them in the process of promoting fellow reporters’ work as well. Your reporters feel collegial. You are providing solutions. Your promotions land more often than not through editorial channels. All because you sought a turnkey solution.
- (:30 seconds) Our contact info slide. Thanks so much. We’re really interested in your questions. And if we do not have time for them, I’d really like to encourage you to email me at this email you see here. Thank you so much for your time and attention today. I’m Matthew Cibellis from Education Week, and I’ll be around for the entire conference. Please come up to me and ask me any questions you have, even after we leave this session. Greg, do we have any questions?