Photo credit: videoal @ Flickr
In the wake of a Wall Street Journal story earlier this month about Google shifting from viral marketing to advertising, I wonder if the company has its backwards. I recognize GOOG wants to increase mainstream media awareness of its numerous products beyond “search,” but is TV and print really the way to go?
I continue to run into people who I tell about the recent New Marketing Summit I attended at Gillette Stadium (where the New England Patriots play) and when they raise their eyebrows, wondering what I refer to, I begin with a few case studies about the changing rules of business engagement I heard during the two-day event.
One of my favorite panels (in terms of takeaway points and which is relevant to GOOG) was on content marketing – delivering value and impacting sales.
Discussing the notion that banner ads and click rates are no longer effective for lead generation, and where the best online indicator is targeting content at the consumer, were the following four panelists:
- William Cava, chief technology officer at Ektron
- Darren Guarnaccia, vice president of product marketing at Sitecore
- John Munsell, CEO at Bizzuka
- Peter Nieforth, CEO at docmetrics
What is content marketing?
- Bill: “Ease of management”
- Darren: “Driving behavior”
- John: “Conversation at the point of consumption”
- Peter: “If you can measure it, you can manage it”
Bill explained the purpose of content marketing is to “hook into someone’s flow,” suggesting a company should publish photos, videos, and blog content of its new products before they are released. In this vein, a customer will feel more engaged by the company’s transparency.
Darren succintly said a website should be a “holistic experience channel,” whereby every company is judged how that online experience is matched to the customer.
John summed it for me with his motto, “If content is king, then conversion is queen.” He cited an example of an attempt by Cox Communications to penetrate the Louisiana cable TV market, but when the state public utility advised a different tactic based on how certain customers might react, Cox turned to the social web to measure what constituents thought. Ultimately, Cox changed its goal and successfully converted its prospective customers.
Echoed by Peter, “If you’re not measuring it, how are you responding to it?”
If you’re a business professional reading this, are you transparent and both measuring and converting people who visit your holistic website? If so, how? If not, why not?
If you’re a consultant or agency executive reading this, can you offer any additional tips for the business professionals?
Thoughts?
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Comments:
Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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{ 6 comments }
Content-marketing is the other face of what you can call “social network support”, and this is clearly something that companies cannot afford not to do these days.
What we are talking about is monitoring content (any feed – blogs, forums, twitter, etc…) from the internet and then manage the information that is being circulated.
It requires:
- setting up a list of these feeds
- organizing your team to monitor collaboratively
- then you can start pushing ads that will be much more relevant, because you will have a better understanding of your audience, what they discuss where
- and then even better: because you are plugged into it to monitor, you can measure the impact of the campaigns you do: what is being discussed where, before and after.
One company I am working with that I would recommend to do this is eCairn (www.ecairn.com), something you may want to look at…
Marc Dangeard´s last blog post..Entrepreneur Commons Emergency Fund
If the goal is to convert visitors to clients value and differentiation must be articulated to the person who you are trying to convert. One way to do that is to focus content to be role specific, a busy mom, a dad trying to green up his lawn, or a CFO trying to gain a competitive advantage. Haven’t content editors been loading up content to nameless, faceless people for years?
Developing and releasing content with a specific stakeholder population in mind helps achieve the mantra of content marketing: provide quality relevant content. Further, in this age of information overload, anyone who can provide information that directly addresses the needs of a particular population can gain loyalty. Individuals waste enormous amounts of time looking for specific information. Often, even after all the looking, they may not find what they need and end up giving up or creating what they were seeking. By directly speaking to and meeting the needs of a stakeholder, you are telling them “I understand your needs and I can meet them.”
Ari,
You make some excellent points here about the power and potential of social marketing.
But, I don’t think it’s an either-or proposition.
I think viral marketing campaigns can be strengthened through banner ads and traditional media buys.
The goal is to be where your prospects are at the time they are thinking about you (or the services you offer).
To that end, it’s best to be agnostic about the tools and instead be focused on the goal.
-Josh
Mark: You mentioned eCairn. Can you elaborate what you like about the company and tool? How has it helped you?
Seamus: You provide valuable insights, especially when you allude to a company speaking to and meeting the needs of a shareholder. I can identify with that image. It’s important, though, that the company not merely TALK TO the shareholder but LISTENS to him or her. The feedback needn’t necessarily be implemented but the goal is not just push information without a balance of drawing ideas in.
Josh: Of course, you’re right. Every company is different, which I suppose is why Google is looking at some marketing avenues that other firms don’t need.
Ari, on the company I should say that they are friends, and I have only good things to say about them: strong team, experts at what they do, a company to watch because they really have something.
On the tool itself, I think this is a must have for any company that want to do content-marketing or social network support. I have described how I use it in my blog here: http://shortlinks.dangeard.com/ecairn
In summary:
- I have built a list of blogs (and other RSS feeds including forums and twitter search) related to my project
- I monitor on a regular basis using filters on posts, to extract whatever is relevant
- when I comment, I can make a note of it, so that I keep track of where I started conversations
- when I do I can share it through a widget (http://www.widgetbox.com/search?q=ecairn) which is also on my blog and other places
- I keep growing the list through their “suggested blogs” feature, which is based on what I read and comment, and which is where they have a big chunk of their IP. This allows me to build up the value of the asset (blog list) as I go. And this is how I found your blog by the way
I have also used eCairn to do buzz for startups I work with, and the beauty is that I can identify in the list of relevant blogs for a product or service which of them have what type of ad network implemented on the blog. So you can do very targeted ad campaign through any of these network, and even better you can monitor the results by looking at how the bloggers react to the campaign.
I have seen downloads on a website go from 5 per day to 75 per day on the exact same Google Ads budget after we had done that.
So I definitely recommend that people take a look at this
Marc Dangeard´s last blog post..VentureBeat talking about Social Capital – the word is getting out
I think Seamus has some really good points, specifically the need to provide ‘quality relevant content’.
Starting with your buyer personas it’s not difficult to get a feel for the kinds of information they need. By providing that information you attract new business, hold onto existing customers and position yourself as a trusted resource in your marketplace.
Measurement is important but we should be looking not just at conversions ratios but also attrition rates, attitudes and engagement levels, long term changes in lifetime customer value and even how many calls the customer service people have to take.
Good content – of the lack thereof – can impact on all these areas.
Mark Nagurski´s last blog post..Are you using content to reassure your prospects?
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