Tag Archives: Digital Marketing

Make today your new day

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I was recently invited by the team at Digital DNA to contribute a guest blog in advance of the upcoming conference in Belfast on 8th June 2016.

The focus for my article was the opportunity for us as marketers to seize the new opportunity that exists for us to not only be content producers but also to be the distribution channel in this new digital world.

You can read the full post on the DigitalDNA website.

You can read my thoughts on the DigitalDNA conference here – penned after a previous visit.

 

The 3 C’s of a successful content marketing strategy

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We’re all producing new content on a daily basis which we hope will be eagerly consumed by customers. This involves the distribution of this content to our target media – both online and offline so what is it that will get our content selected for publishing?

The Chartered Institute of Marketing in Ireland (CIM) held an event in Malmaison Belfast today which sought to address this very issue and one of the contributors was Gavin Walker. Editor, Business First of the Business First publication. As the gatekeeper who is in ultimate control of whether our content gets the airtime we desire when Gavin (or others holding editorial positions) speaks it’s worth listening.

What I took away from Gavin’s presentation was the 3 c’s to a successful content marketing strategy:

  1. Context
  2. Content
  3. Conversations

Context in content marketing1 – Context

The first point in relation to context refers not to the subject matter of your material but instead focuses on the infrastructure and resources available to the majority of publications that we target.

Gone are the days when editorial teams are staffed with an army of willing copywriters and journalists who will have either the time or the inclination to redraft your content to make it suitable for publication.

Therefore, in order to maximise the opportunity for your content to get published you need to think about how it will be formatted.

The copy that you send to your target media will have a much greater chance of success if it can be lifted and placed with minimal additional editing.

This requires you to make sure that your copy does not make unsubstantiated claims about how good your product, service or company is.

A simple way to overcome this is to first write about yourself in the third person. Construct your copy as if it is being put together by an impartial journalist – this ensures a focus on the facts and the key messages you want to get across and avoids it reading like a paid for advertorial (which won’t get published – unless you’re paying for it).

Another key element of context is an understanding of where the content will be published.

Is it for a magazine or newspaper or is it for an online publication?

It’s increasingly likely that it’s for both as most print publications will have a website as well.

If the content you’re sending is specifically for print or online then specify this within the release.

A technical article or detailed project case study is probably best suited to a print publication where people will most likely give your content some more time.

A release about the event you’re hosting, a new product launch, new appointments may be best suited to the online publication as a result of the immediacy it offers.

Gavin made some very interesting points about the formatting of releases destined for online publication:

Headlines – keep these to 65 characters or less to ensure search engine optimisation and make sure they include relevant keywords

Description – include a meta description of 160 characters or less which is keyword focused and can then be used by the online publication to describe your content.

Images – name your images with relevant keywords and include the caption to accompany the image as separate text within your release.

Links – if you would like your content to link to a specific landing page on your website rather than the home page then include the details within your release.

Social links – include details of the links to all your relevant social media channels so that if (and when) the publication decides to share your new content they are able to include you in the post.

the content in content marketing2 – Content

Now we’ve got the structure sorted it’s time to focus on the content itself.

Gavin observed that too much content is focused on what the MD wants to talk about rather than what our customers will actually find interesting.

With editorial departments being swamped by over sterilised corporate releases a little bit of extra thought and consideration for your copy can greatly improve not only the potential for it to be published but for it to have real impact.

This links nicely with the other contributor to today’s CIM
event, Chris Fielding-Martin, from UK hotel chain Malmaison.

Every piece of content Malmaison Belfast produce has an edge to it. From their new approach to ‘do not disturb’ signs to how they encourage breakfast room service orders to the signage they use to brand construction works at new or existing hotels.

They are able to do this successfully because they understand what their value proposition is, they understand their target audience and they understand the importance of consistency in all their communications.

As Chris pointed out during his presentation, as they’re in the hotel game what goes on behind the bedroom door is very much their business.

Of course we can’t all be as edgy as Malmaison but we can learn from their approach.

Understand what the objective of the content we’re publishing is. What are we trying to achieve? What do we want the customer to do once they have consumed our content?

Does the content we’re producing make it clear what our value proposition is in relation to the product or service that we’re promoting? Does it answer the ‘what’s in it for me?’ question.

Is the content we’re producing consistent? This is fairly easy to achieve if you have one person producing all of your content but if this is not the case you need to take steps to ensure this consistency.

This will require that you have clear brand guidelines which include a ‘tone of voice’ element.

What sort of language will you use – will it be formal or informal?

How do you describe what it is that your company offers?

What words or phrases do you use to describe the value that you are adding for your customers?

While it can all seem a little daunting it is essential that you take all of these steps to maximise the return from all the content development activity that you are involved with.

With the volume of content being produced across so many channels on a daily basis it’s essential that you take the time to carefully consider your content strategy as this will ensure you stand out from the crowd.

conversations in content marketing3 – Conversations

Maximising the success of your content marketing strategy is an ongoing process that continues well beyond the placement of your material in your target publications or on your own blog, website, social channels.

As a marketer I believe that the biggest potential benefit of the rise of social media is the ability for us to speak directly to our customers.

If our content marketing strategy is successful the result will be an increase in the volume of conversations about our product, service or company online. These conversations will happen whether we are involved or not so it is incumbent on all of us to make sure we are aware of all the conversations that are going on.

It’s important to stress here that this doesn’t necessarily mean we should get involved in every conversation – there are some conversations that we should take a step back from if they have the potential to damage our brand. There may also be cases, as highlighted by Chris from Malmaison today where getting involved may just be adding fuel to the fire.

While we should be a aware of these conversations sometimes it’s best to say nothing.

Negative feedback is probably impossible to eradicate so we need to know how to deal with it. This has to be considered on a case by case basis – some issues may be quickly sorted out in public on social media but in other instances it may be best to show an initial response in public but encourage the individual concerned to take the communication offline where it can be dealt with better.

Thanks to the CIM in Ireland for organising another great event today. I found it a very useful session and hope that this post gives those that didn’t attend an opportunity to be benefit from the presentations given by Chris Fielding-Martin of Malmaison and Gavin Walket of Business First.

I’ve included the Twitter handles for the relevant contributors to today’s event below:

Malmaison Hotels on Twitter

Business First Online

Chartered Institute of Marketing (Ireland)

Choosing the right social media tools for your business

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social media marketingI was talking to a guy recently who told me that booking a conference room in a hotel and delivering a sales presentation worked really well for his business.

So here’s what I’m going to do.

There’s a really nice conference centre in a hotel near our offices so I’m going to book it for next month. We’re going to put together a killer presentation, build a stage, make a video, lay on some nice food. I’d say 100 people should cover it.

That’s it organised – all systems go.

What’s that you say? What about the audience?

Not a problem – sure that guy told me it worked really well for his business.
I hope you’ll agree that this is a completely ludicrous idea. Ill conceived with no consideration for the requirements of my business.

Yet people are doing this day and daily in marketing departments all over the world.
Maybe not with the conference room booking but instead with their choice of the social media channels that they use.

Like magpies people are drawn to the latest shiny new toy in the pursuit of the coolest way to deliver their marketing messages.

People flock to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn with no knowledge of whether their customers are using this media.

Across the board there seems to be a universal reason for this behaviour – because they’re free.

They only way they are free from a direct financial cost is if you are working for nothing (which I’m guessing that the vast majority of you are not).

Even if you are working for free then there is the cost in terms of your time to consider. Time that you would surely prefer to be spending on activities that will add some value to what you are doing.

And then there’s the opportunity cost – what new business are you missing out on by wasting time on marketing tools that will deliver no results?

How much more business could you win by stopping focusing on all the shiny new toys and narrowing the focus to tried and tested channels that you know will bring you results.

You wouldn’t deliver a sales presentation in an empty room so don’t use any marketing tools until you know your customers are there.

Stop using delivery channels for your marketing messages based on how new, how cool they are or based on other trendy, cool people and companies that may be using them.

Do your research. Understand your customers. Select the right channels. Clearly define the message you want to communicate and the customer interactions you are seeking.
Only then will you be extracting maximum value from every penny in your marketing budget and making the most efficient and valuable use of your time.

Dealing with the Digital Skills Gap

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Digital Marketing Strategy Petrac Marketing

Digital marketing is an essential part of the modern marketing mix

With the amount of technology now available and the pace of change it’s never been as challenging for anyone working in marketing to understand all of the channels that are available when trying to get your product or service to market.

This has led to the creation of new Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing roles  – but I can’t help feeling that this is just an abdication of responsibility by those in charge.

Digital is simply a delivery mechanism for all your marketing efforts. There is no digital marketing – it’s just modern marketing.

In an increasing number of organisations there is a recognition that there is a skills gap in relation to digital marketing. However, it’s the response to this problem that I think is focused in the wrong place.

For too many companies and organisations this skills gap is addressed by the creation of a new role within the marketing team – Digital Marketing Executive, Social Media Marketing Executive being two such positions.

I don’t think anyone would argue that digital marketing represents a huge part of the modern marketing mix – so surely there is a requirement that every member of your marketing team is a digital marketer?

When creating the person specifications for all members of your marketing team surely some sort of digital capability must be included in the ‘essential skills’ box?

You wouldn’t employ a software engineer without the relevant qualifications. You wouldn’t employ a engineer without knowing that they had training in the relevant engineering discipline. You wouldn’t employ an accountant who hadn’t had the appropriate training.

The same should apply with your marketing team. Creating separate digital marketing roles is simply abdicating responsibility for digital to a single person in order to avoid having to learn about it yourself.

Digital marketing is no longer a ‘nice to have’ for anyone working in marketing. It’s essential that you have these skills or you will end up being surplus to requirements.

The other side of the same coin is that by skilling yourself up in all things digital you are giving yourself a serious competitive advantage over a lot of other people.

There’s simply no excuse any more – there are shed loads of formal digital qualifications out there and as much online content as you can cope with.

As with anything though the only way to really get it and understand how you can use it to improve your business results is to get involved.

So stop passing the responsibility on to others and embrace the challenge and the opportunity that digital marketing presents.

Get started now – Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing from the Digital Marketing Institute (Ireland and UK)

If you would like some help working out how you can take advantage of digital within your marketing strategy then get in touch.

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Digital DNA – time for a rethink?

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Digital DNA Belfast

Digital DNA is a business conference in Belfast

The 2nd Digital DNA Conference was held in Titanic Belfast this week with a series of events running across 4 days. I was lucky enough to be asked to deliver a presentation on the work that we had done at CDE Global to maximise the impact of digital technologies.

I’ve long been a believer that we shouldn’t be putting ‘digital’ in a silo – it needs to be integrated with the rest of our business strategy. Digital is simply one of the mechanisms we use to deliver the company strategy.

Actually, it’s the single most important consideration in how businesses will deliver their strategy. For far too long ‘digital’ has been the reserve of the marketing and IT teams. If the Digital DNA conference taught me anything this week it is that there are thousands of companies missing out on fantastic insights because of a mistaken belief that digital isn’t relevant for them.

We all need to embrace the opportunity that digital presents. For those who do the future is very bright. For those who don’t the end is nigh.

Congratulations to Gareth Quinn for organising a great event this week. It was fantastic to get the opportunity to speak at the conference and I’m already looking forward to Version 3.0 in 2015.

If you’re based anywhere in Ireland and you’re involved in any sort of business and you haven’t been at Digital DNA in Belfast – It’s time for a rethink.