Marketing Cloud: Winning Content Strategies Marketing Webinar
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The Q1 Marketing Cloud webinar for 2012 will be delivered by Charlene Li and Rebecca Lieb from the Altimeter Group. The Altimeter Group will be unveiling new research results on Content Marketing and will discuss the need for organizations to rebalance their resources to become proficient content creators.
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Marketing Cloud: Winning Content Strategies Marketing Webinar
- 1. 1 Winning Content Strategies: Rebalance Your Organization to Deliver Effective Content For Marketing Cloud March 8, 2012 Charlene Li Rebecca Lieb Founder & Analyst Industry Analyst @charleneli @lieblink
- 2. Image by Mark Garbowski used with Attribution as directed by Creative Commons http://toomuchglass.net/2010/12/02/la-la-la-la/ We’re Tuning Out the Noise © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 3. 3 77% of Internet users do not engage with online advertising. A shift from ―push‖ to ―pull‖ marketing is imperative to brand survival. Source: Kramer, Staci D. "Pew: Online News Users Don’t Want To Pay—Or Look At Ads" The Economics of Digital Content. Mar. 2010. <http://paidcontent.org/article/419-pew-online-news-users-dont-want-to-pay-or-look-at-ads/>. © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 4. Shifting from ―Push‖ to ―Pull‖ Company culture Resources and staffing Budgets Service provider relationships Training Tools vs. strategy Advertising integration © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 5. Image by wjklos used with Attribution as directed by Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/wjklos/196781213 It’s Time to Rebalance © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 6. A Need for ―Rebalance‖ Advertising campaigns vs. continual initiatives New demands on marketing departments and the enterprise Emerging technology allows any brand to function as a media company © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 7. 7 Organizations that rebalance now will enhance and improve their marketing initiatives, spend more effectively, and align to meet changing consumer expectations. © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 8. Image by icebirdy used with Attribution as directed by Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/icebirdy/3153588850 Rebalance with Content © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 9. 9 Content marketing is a pull strategy— it’s the marketing of attraction. It’s being there when consumers need you, and seek you out with relevant, educational, helpful, compelling, engaging and sometimes entertaining information. © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 10. Three Types of Content Marketing 1. Entertains 2. Informs and Educates 3. Provides Utility © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 11. Determine Your Purpose 1. Entertain – IBM 2. Inform and Educate 3. Provide Utility © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 12. IBM Mainframe: The Art of the Sale video series entertains consumers, spreads virally © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 13. Determine Your Purpose 1. Entertain – IBM 2. Inform and Educate – American Express 3. Provide Utility © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 14. AMEX leverages branded content to inform and educate with OPEN Forum © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 15. Determine Your Purpose 1. Entertain – IBM 2. Inform and Educate – American Express 3. Provide Utility - GE © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 16. 16 GE Transformers iPad app proves useful to its engineer community © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 17. Image by lwr used with Attribution as directed by Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/839359065 The Impact of Content © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 18. Content Marketing Builds Stronger Brands Awareness Trust Purchase Intent Word-of-mouth Customer Engagement Lower Acquisition Costs © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 19. Content Marketing Changes the Game Earned and owned media Long-term initiatives vs. short-term campaigns New skills as publishers, producers and community managers Evolution from advertisers to storytellers © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 20. Content: The New Marketing Equation 1. Ecosystem Input 2. Top-Level Findings 3. Content Marketing Maturity 4. Content Channel Confidence 5. Q & A © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 21. Image by iandavid used with Attribution as directed by Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/iandavid/3532086917 Ecosystem Input © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 22. Methodology: 56 Interviews with 19 Brands and 23 Content Service Providers Adobe Systems, Inc. General Electric American Express IBM AT&T Intel Corporation Coca-Cola JWT Edelman Digital Nestlé Federated Media Story Worldwide Publishing Toys "R" Us Ford Motor Company Wells Fargo © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 23. Image by Zoagli used with Attribution as directed by Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/zoagli/49894253 Top-Level Findings © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 24. Top-Level Findings Content initiatives are a significant investment. Content and advertising should be interrelated. Marketers are distracted by new channels and technologies. Over the next five years, content marketing will permeate the organization. © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 25. Rebalancing Requires Departmental Integration and Cultural Shifts A cultural shift is needed across the enterprise, beyond the marketing department alone. New training and skill sets will be required. Content lives in all departments – stories are everywhere. Enterprise social networking can assist in collecting content and giving employees a voice. © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 26. Image by zetson used with Attribution as directed by Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/zetson/254608875 Content Marketing Maturity © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 27. Altimeter’s Content Marketing Maturity Model © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 28. Altimeter’s Content Marketing Maturity Model © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 29. Altimeter’s Content Marketing Maturity Model © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 30. Indium Corp Creates Engaging Blog Content Based on Targeted Keyword Phrases Indium’s 73 blogs and 17 contributors are fueled by keyword research, with the goal of turning content into contacts into cash. Rick Short, director of marketing communications, leads the hyper-targeted blogging strategy – one that increased customer contacts by 600% within a single quarter. © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 31. Altimeter’s Content Marketing Maturity Model © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 32. Eloqua Expands its Content Marketing with Creation of VP Content Marketing Role Joe Chernov launched Eloqua’s corporate blog and later used it to promote the company’s other content— made trackable by requiring users to provide contact information. This enabled Chernov to measure effectiveness, directly attributing $2.5M in revenue to four free guides in 2010. Lieb, Rebecca. Content Marketing: Think like a Publisher – How to Use Content to Market Online and in Social Media. Indianapolis: Que, 2012. © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 33. Altimeter’s Content Marketing Maturity Model © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 34. Nestlé’s Blackshaw Takes Senior Leadership on Inspirational ―Field Trip‖ to Silicon Valley © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 35. Altimeter’s Content Marketing Maturity Model © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 36. Red Bull Recognized as Content Empire, Adds E-commerce Site to Media Strategy © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 37. Content Channel Confidence © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 38. Where is Content Confidence Held? Base: 56 marketers; Size of bubbles above reflect marketers' intention to increase/decrease use of that content type over the foreseeable future. * Based on question: What are the most effective types of content you’ve used to promote your brand? ** Based on question: Which type(s) of content do you plan to phase out, use less of, or have found ineffective?; Source: Altimeter Group © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 39. How Will You Rebalance? © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 40. THANK YOU Charlene Li Rebecca Lieb charlene@altimetergroup.com rebecca@altimetergroup.com CharleneLi.com RebeccaLieb.com Twitter: charleneli Twitter: lieblink Disclaimer: Although the information and data used in this report have been produced and processed from sources believed to be reliable, no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the completeness, accuracy, adequacy or use of the information. The authors and contributors of the information and data shall have no liability for errors or omissions contained herein or for interpretations thereof. Reference herein to any specific product or vendor by trade name, trademark or otherwise does not constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the authors or contributors and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. © 2012 Altimeter Group
- 41. 41 ABOUT US Altimeter Group is a research-based advisory firm that helps companies and industries leverage disruption to their advantage. Visit us at www.AltimeterGroup.com or contact info@altimetergroup.com. © 2012 Altimeter Group
Editor's Notes
- Source:http://paidcontent.org/article/419-pew-online-news-users-dont-want-to-pay-or-look-at-ads/Pew Internet Project – 2010—Online advertising: The same survey looked at attitudes to online advertising: 81 percent said they didn’t mind online ads but 77 percent said they either don’t click on them (42 percent) or “hardly ever” click (35 percent). Younger users and the most frequent online news users are slightly more likely to pay attention to ads but not by a large enough number to suggest online advertising is a slam dunk.Shift from push to pull requires a huge degree of new thinking and processes.
- Company culture (goes beyond the marketing dept - enterprise level demands, breaking down silos)Resource & Staffing - new skillsBudgets (content isn't "free")Service provider relationshipsNeed for TrainingAbility to not focus on bright shiny objects, but instead strategyIntegrating content with advertising and other marketing initiatives
- Why content marketing mattersThe three types of content marketingWhy companies need to rebalanceStages of content marketing maturity we identifiedContent channel trends
- Content marketing, or creating and publishing media rather than “renting” advertising time and space, has always existed. Emerging digital technologies, platforms and channels now enable any brand to function as a media company, with very real advantages: building branding, awareness, trust, purchase intent, word-of-mouth, lowering acquisition costs and increasing engagement with target audiences. Unlike advertising, content initiatives are continual, placing new demands not just on marketing organizations but also across the enterprise as a whole. This report, based on qualitative interviews with 56 brands and agencies, looks at how organizations are shifting priorities and resources to strategically and effectively leverage content marketing to amplify marketing messages while lowering advertising expenditure. We believe there are four stages organizations evolve through in their quest to market efficiently with content. Not every company will reach every stage; the pinnacle is more aspirational than real for most. Yet to effectively market with content organizational change and transformation must be driven from the top level of the organization. Left to the marketing department alone, success will be limited. New skills must be developed and training offered, both in digital technologies as well as in job functions more aligned with the responsibilities found at a newspaper, magazine or broadcaster than in classic marketing functions. Content requires more speed and agility than does marketing, yet at the same time it must be aligned with metrics that conform to the business’ strategic marketing goals.
- Rebalancing, or realigning resources, budgets, staffing, company culture and agency and service provider relationships, will make marketing organizations both more effective and prepared to meet ever-changing digital challenges. Organizations that rebalance now will enhance and improve their marketing initiatives, spend more effectively, and align to meet changing consumer expectations.
- Opt-out vs. Tune-inEpisodic vs. OngoingOwned and Earned vs. Bought
- **Mainframe screen shot links to YouTube video for playing during presentation.The multi-episode The Art of the Sale is a terrific spoof on corporate training videos. Until the end of the video, you don’t even know who produced it. Hundreds of thousands of people have watched the series, humanizing a large company in the process.“We did an internal video in 2004 for our sales meeting,” says Tim Washer, manager of new media web video at IBM Communications. “It was the key things that people needed to know in 2005, but it also included some laughter. It went really well and people liked it, so in summer 2006 I asked the VP of communications if we could make some videos for external use.”Washer and his colleagues at IBM produced the entire video series in-house. “We wanted the videos to make sense for broad sales and corporate audiences,” he says. “Many people have seen The Office, so they get the concept of a ‘mockumentary.’ We wrote the scripts and cast the actors—all are IBMers, including the series star, Bob Hoey, who really is the vice president of worldwide sales for System Z, the IBM Mainframe. Lessons one, two, and three were all shot in just a day-and-a-half at our IBM offices.” The first three episodes came out in August 2006. Washer put them onto YouTube and linked to them from the IBM mainframe blog. “We originally sent the video to friends in a very informal way,” Washer says. “We also included it in one of the IBM newsletters to the sales team, and that helped it to go viral. Then some bloggers picked it up and pushed it along some more.” Washer wasn’t surprised when the videos started to take off via word-of-mouth. “Humor always works,” he says. “These videos are self-deprecating humor. There are often a lot of barriers to doing this kind of thing within organizations, but to be successful it is critical that this not be done by committee. We’re lucky because IBM is big on trusting employees, and they trusted us to do something that would work. The self-deprecation softens the image of IBM with many people—it puts a human face on IBM because we can laugh at ourselves.”Some of the ways that these The Art of the Sale videos have spread virally have been surprising to Washer. “Our first series was selected as one of Comedy Central’s ‘Staff Favorites,’” he says. “We even got requests from other large companies, such as Price Waterhouse, to show our videos at their sales conferences!”
- **Reference in book: Chapter 6 – Content That Informs and Educates, Branded Content That Informs and Educates (final section to the chapter) for Amex OPEN case study
- Sales are a criterion when new apps are considered for development at GE, but utility matters just as much, as does speed-to-market. As far as GE is concerned, the time to develop apps for customers is now, before the wow factor wears off and while the company can still impress customers with an app's added value. Ease-of-use is also key. One app, geared to engineers in the field, is avilable on the iPhone, but also on the iPad. Why? "Because engineers wear gloves."Transformers: This colorful and vivid app allows customers, GE sales teams, and field service engineers to remotely monitor and diagnose GE transformers and transformer stations that supply electricity to homes and business around the country. The real-time sensor data helps improves efficiency and problem solving, which benefits both GE and its customers.
- Content marketing, or creating and publishing media rather than “renting” advertising time and space, has always existed. Emerging digital technologies, platforms and channels now enable any brand to function as a media company, with very real advantages: building branding, awareness, trust, purchase intent, word-of-mouth, lowering acquisition costs and increasing engagement with target audiences. Unlike advertising, content initiatives are continual, placing new demands not just on marketing organizations but also across the enterprise as a whole. This report, based on qualitative interviews with 56 brands and agencies, looks at how organizations are shifting priorities and resources to strategically and effectively leverage content marketing to amplify marketing messages while lowering advertising expenditure. We believe there are four stages organizations evolve through in their quest to market efficiently with content. Not every company will reach every stage; the pinnacle is more aspirational than real for most. Yet to effectively market with content organizational change and transformation must be driven from the top level of the organization. Left to the marketing department alone, success will be limited. New skills must be developed and training offered, both in digital technologies as well as in job functions more aligned with the responsibilities found at a newspaper, magazine or broadcaster than in classic marketing functions. Content requires more speed and agility than does marketing, yet at the same time it must be aligned with metrics that conform to the business’ strategic marketing goals.
- Content marketing is owned and earned media.Unlike advertising, which is push messaging in rented time or space in print or broadcast media, content marketing is pull marketing, the marketing of attraction, in media that belongs to the organization creating the message. This can be a social channel, such as Facebook or YouTube, or a wholly owned web site or app.Creating and publishing media places enormous new demands not only on marketing departments, but on the enterprise as a whole.Due to shifts in consumer attention, companies are challenged to move beyond episodic, short duration “push” campaign initiatives into longer-term, often continual “pull” content marketing initiatives that require new strategic approaches. To continually attract and engage consumers requires companies to develop new skills. They must learn to think and to function as publishers, producers and often, as community managers. Content creation and distribution places new and continual demands on the enterprise as a whole, not just the marketing department. And frequently, content necessitates operating in real-time environments, including evenings, weekends and holidays. To meet this challenge, organizations must rebalance.They must evolve from advertisers into storytellers. Advertisers interrupt consumers with messaging that’s overwhelmingly ‘me’ oriented: my product, my service. Storytellers attract, beguile, entertain and inform. They are sought out and revisited. Often, they’ll enter into dialogue with their audience. They’re attuned to nuanced reactions and will adjust their narratives accordingly, whether a shift in tone of voice or a deeper dive into what was originally just a backstory.
- This report is based upon 56 qualitative responses from people who are actively engaged in the evolution of content strategy as it applies to marketing. The qualitative interviews were conducted with representatives from B2B and B2C companies between October and December 2011.Of the 56 interview subjects, 25 (45%) represented 19 brands, eight of which are included in the American or Global Fortune 500. Thirty-one (55%) are agency employees, consultants and thought leaders from 23 content service providers were also interviewed.For this report, 56 subjects were interviewed, including a high percentage of executive marketers in Fortune 500 companies. A full 100 percent of the marketers interviewed are currently undertaking initiatives to significantly shift their focus to content creation. All plan to increase these efforts in the short and medium term future.
- Not Free: Certainly, content marketing reduces media spend, but the more mature a company’s content marketing efforts, the better they understand that effective content initiatives require significant investment in internal staff, production and distribution resources, and often new sources of strategic support. Integrate: Increasing confidence in and reliance on content marketing is causing marketers to reevaluate, and often to cut back, on advertising and shift those dollars to content production and distribution. For optimal impact and maximum success, content and advertising should be integrated, or at least interrelated. In tandem, the two can more fully express a brand story. Bright, Shiny Objects: In their enthusiasm for marketing with content, we found many marketers who we interviewed for this report distracted by channels and technology at the expense of strategy and fundamentals. Organizational Change: We believe that over the next five years, content marketing will permeate the organization. Led by the marketing department, finding, producing and disseminating content both internal and external to the organization will become a core marketing function, but it will require cross-departmental support, primarily in the form of input and creation from senior management, sales and product teams. To seek out stories, trends, questions and the other “raw materials” of content marketing, shoe leather is a requirement. Like beat reporters, those charged with creating content must continually travel throughout their companies and indeed, their industries, to keep a finger on its pulse and to find the stories and ideas that can be turned into content.
- Culture: Rebalancing requires deep departmental integration and cultural shifts across the enterprise, as well as education, training and new digital skill sets for staff within and beyond the marketing organization.(From RL’s email):Content not residing in marketing and the necessity to break down silos and talk to colleagues in other departments to find stories. This could then let her discuss an intrinsic value of enterprise social networks, her most recent report.
- Description: An organization that hasn’t yet realized the value of content marketing starts in the Stand stage. This organization may have dabbled in social media or created a blog, but activity is infrequent and not generally viewed as important within the organization. The marketing department relies almost wholly on “push” communications, such as e-mail marketing, direct mail, and advertising.While organizations in this initial stage may have discussed elements of content marketing, no internal stakeholder has made a case for content. These organizations require a catalyst to demonstrate the value that content can have on their marketing, communication, and sales teams before they can move into the second maturity stage and begin developing strategy to guide their efforts.
- Description: An organization at the Stretch stage realizes the value of content marketing and begins to build the strategy and support necessary to create and publish content. Understanding develops that — while many of the tools and media are free — content requires an investment of resources. An executive sponsor is necessary to lead the program and communicate its value and reach to the organization. This executive sponsor is also tasked with identifying team members to engage with early channels, building basic forms of content, and evaluating potential agency relationships.Content is driven by the understanding that its focus must be around the company’s products or services, but very often not specifically about them. Content tends to be directed to one or two discrete channels (e.g., a blog, whitepapers, or articles; a Facebook page; or a YouTube channel).
- BACKGROUNDIndium is a 75-year-old manufacturer of electronics assembly materials. Rick Short, director of marketing communications, has been there 25 years. Short realized several years ago that social media could be a powerful marketing force and he began experimenting with it on his own, blogging about topics of personal interest unconnected to Indium. When he began thinking about adding social media to Indium’s marketing mix, he first needed to help people at Indium understand that the tools in social media are available and can be effective for B2B. A blogging strategy was initially fought, as leadership believed it would violate social culture. However, Short disagreed:“Through the 75 years of our company we have always been about earning (customers) by developing great products or showing them how to enhance their process whether it’s through a technique or a product. So we’ve always had this great need to be socially adept and appealing to the needs of our customers… so it was a natural process to say, hey, there are some new tools available, why don’t we throw those into our bag of tricks?” Indium’s CEO and other leadership also believed that blogging would not be a good idea for the organization, as “blogging can live forever.” However, Short argued that other media can as well in the digital age and that the long-lasting nature of a blog is not a reason to inhibit its use. Rather than creating an Indium policy specific to blogging, Short led the creation and implementation of a more all-encompassing social media policy as a kickoff to the company’s blog strategy, setting a solid foundation for Indium’s foray into social media.STRATEGYShort started formulating Indium’s blogging and social media strategy with keyword research. He identified 73 of the most important keywords his prospective customers would search for. Then he created 73 different blogs that focused on each keyword and assigned a dozen employees to write those blogs.Blogging is now the most prevalent social media platform at Indium. The ultimate goal is to produce face-to-face contacts and relationships. Blogging advances close contact and, through the inclusion of video, photos, commenting, emails and phone numbers, Indium can invite customers to engage in conversations offline.Indium now has 15 blogs with 17 dedicated bloggers maintaining them (many of whom are engineers). The bloggers write about the nuances of each market segment, focusing on the keywords uncovered by Short’s research. Indium’s blog posts feature buyer oriented keywords likely to be searched. Headlines like “Wave Solder Flux Deactivation Temperatures Explained” and “Using Integrated Preforms for Solder Fortification” may not be interesting to most people, but if you’re on the market for solder, these are the details you need to know to specify the right solder. RESULTSOnce the blogs took off, customer contacts increased 600% in a single quarter. And everyone who contacted a blog author, commented on a blog post or downloaded a white paper opted in to the company’s customer database. “Most people in the world can’t believe that people really care about this stuff,” Short told Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman, authors of the book Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business. “But my customers do… They love this stuff!” Customers like circuit board manufacturers, solar panel manufacturers and the semiconductor industry. So what can you learn from Indium? It doesn’t matter how obscure your product or service is. As long as you fill a need in the marketplace, you have customers.“The mantra of my content program is simple: content to contact to cash,” states Short.SOURCES:http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-create-content-that-engages-prospects-and-customers/http://sarahsturtevant.com/wordpress/search-engine-optimization/indium-corp-proves-the-value-of-birthing-a-corporate-blog/http://www.briansolis.com/2011/03/b2b-social-media-lead-generation-explained/http://books.google.com/books?id=sFhq-cdX89wC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=indium+corp+social+media&source=bl&ots=DpbAePsJif&sig=FFlQXZ4nSyKJBEZ1SoeLgnmBRI4&hl=en&ei=_5nmTpuHA8eziQLv7LX-Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=indium%20corp%20social%20media&f=false
- Description: In this stage, content creation and production get a solid strategic foundation organizationally. From channel specific (e.g., “we blog”), content begins to become channel agnostic and is distributed across a variety of channels and platforms. Processes are formalized. This is the stage at which a team begins to take shape, strategy is more fully refined and tweaked, and the team begins to establish governance to scale and shape content processes. Existing content, as well as potential sources of content, are identified and unified across the organization. Content is then formally audited and assessed, often with a formal scoring or grading process. Content is optimized for digital and social distribution, and efforts are made to identify repeatable, sustainable content modules and practices. The leader of the content group makes a more concerted effort to connect content development with all parts of the organization’s communication teams.
- Eloqua is a privately held company that sells digital marketing automation software. The company was already creating some content when Joe Chernov was promoted to the newly created role of vice president of content marketing. Given the metrics-driven nature of the company’s products and services, Chernov knew he would have to prove the value of his own marketing efforts while creating content that positioned Eloqua as a thought leader in the marketing industry. Chernov launched a corporate blog and worked on a series of free ebook guides, white papers, webinars, infographics, and other educational content. He also hired a former journalist as a full time corporate reporter.Leveraging internal experts as bloggers, Eloqua's corporate blog reached the Ad Age Power 150 within its first year. Chernov used the blog to promote the company’s free content, made trackable by requiring visitors to provide their name, email, phone number, company and job title in order to download it. This data enabled Chernov to connect the dots between revenue and content. Four free guides were directly attributable to $2.5 million in revenue in 2010. Not only can Eloqua directly connect revenue with content, they can also evaluate lead quality. On average, 17 percent of visitors to Eloqua.com are VP or higher, but 25 percent of visitors who find the site via content pieces are VP or higher. The Takeoff stage of Altimeter's content marketing maturity model requires an organization to implement a measurement framework to demonstrate content’s value to the organization.
- Description: This phase of the maturity model is the goal for most companies seriously committed to content marketing. The organization’s strategy is clear, as well as communicated throughout the enterprise at this stage. Focus shifts toward expanding the team and its ability to create experiential, engaging content rather than simply creating and publishing simpler stories and informational pieces. The processes for producing content are also more fully developed and strategic. Content is created with a view toward being reusable or repurposed across multiple media platforms. To achieve this, content must have a life of its own — decoupled from the brand, product, or service — to enable it to travel. Agency relationships are frequently deepened into longer engagements rather than episodic, campaign-based initiatives. Connections between the content team and the rest of the organization’s communication groups solidify, but there are still some growing pains/holdovers.Earned media increases in importance, as the organization’s efforts have existed long enough to sustain a constant flow of “earned” media that helps extend reach. Achieving earned content is often expressly a goal of the company’s paid advertising, while owned content is created with a view toward sparking conversation and other forms of earned media. A continual challenge is to achieve a resource balance that maintains both growth and equilibrium while remaining cost effective and to scale — and at the same time maintaining a high level of customer engagement. Yet even these sophisticated marketers can overly focus on “bright shiny objects,” the newest, most sophisticated, and technologically advanced digital channels, while overlooking basics such as search and e-mail.
- Nestlé is the world’s largest nutrition, health and wellness company with global revenues exceeding CHF 109M. When Pete Blackshaw became global head of digital and social media, one of his first orders of business was fostering a “culture of content” within the executive leadership ranks. While Nestlé had long recognized the importance of content proliferation as part of its global marketing and sales strategy, Blackshaw believed further development was necessary if Nestlé wished to remain top-of-mind with its social-savvy consumers and boost product speed to market.Blackshaw flew a team of senior managers from company headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland to visit entrepreneurial and fast-moving digital companies in Silicon Valley, notably Facebook. Nestlé’s executives were inspired by the social network’s constantly evolving and listening-focused company culture. Blackshaw cites the executive “field trip” as a success in helping the company more quickly adapt to changes in the digital landscape. He plans to continue content marketing training in 2012 with the launch of a company-wide training initiative. Other companies within the Ascend stage of Altimeter Group’s content marketing maturity model may pursue similar executive development opportunities to aid in the adaptation and advancement of their company culture and content strategies on divisional levels, as well as throughout the enterprise.
- Description: This is the most aspirational phase of Altimeter’s Content Marketing Maturity Model. Only a handful of companies have begun to Run, primarily global CPG brands with a strong commitment to pop-culture marketing initiatives. In this phase, a successful, real-time integration of content marketing and curation is part of the fabric of nearly all aspects of branding. The organization has become a bona fide media company, actually able to monetize innovative and highly polished content that is either branded and/or related to the brand proposition. Content is sold and licensed based on its standalone merit, with content divisions having separate P&L responsibility.Earned media (specifically, consumer-generated content) often significantly outpaces owned media. Media shared between the company and its partners becomes an important asset. Multi- disciplined agency relationships are efficiently producing content that is high in quality, creative, and professional. Production and creative are often a full, standalone business unit. Content opportunities are discovered and leveraged that relate to a brand experience more so than around products or services.
- Red Bull, the Austria-based energy drink company with 3.78B euros in annual revenue, has long been recognized as a content powerhouse. It produces high-energy, maximum impact, visually stimulating artifacts that directly tie in to its extreme energy drink branding and related sports and aviation sponsorship. Its focus on permeating global culture with its branded and brand-related content has proven so successful that Red Bull continued to “soar” with the addition of RedBullContentPool.com – an e-commerce website that allows (primarily commercial) users to license clips from the brand’s extensive video content library.In addition to the ability to license nearly 8,000 videos on RedBullContentPool.com, users interested in Red Bull’s photography may visit an alternate site that offers more than 42,000 photos free to anyone using them for editorial purposes. The company also offers specific pieces of content for download via iTunes, owns a record label and publishes a print magazine, among many other media initiatives. Red Bull’s complex distribution model allows it to utilize content to its maximum potential in both revenue generation and impact on global culture. Other companies within the Soar stage of Altimeter Group’s content marketing maturity model may pursue similar commercial media licensing, syndication and distribution models to grow the reach, impact and ROI of their content, ultimately creating additional opportunities to generate earned media in the process.
- IN CLOSING….