Spend on digital advertising continues to grow by leaps and bounds as companies allocate more and more of their ad budgets to digital.
But that doesn't mean that everything is going great in the online ad market.
Thursday, 18 June 2015
Wednesday, 17 June 2015
Overt or Covert: What’s Your Content Culture?
I tell these people what every great sales person knows – you don’t convince anyone of anything. Despite what the old adage says, it can be nearly impossible to lead a horse to water, much less teach him or her how to drink.
This drives those wanting to create a culture of content nearly batty. But what do you do if you’re wanting to spawn an environment that instills shared values around content?
Show, don’t tell
This is basic psychology for people of any age. And as content marketers, this is where your storytelling chops really come in handy. Don’t justify things to death. Show how you’d like to run a small pilot program and how it’s tied to bigger business objectives. What does it look like, feel like, sound like? Marketers have to get that initial first step before they can earn any kind of broad acceptance for creating content-driven brand experiences.
If you’re just starting down the content road, the response that you get back will probably lead you to one of two approaches.
Overt
This sounds like the real deal. We don’t have to sneak around or whisper about content marketing. We can label it and talk about it with wild abandon. That doesn’t mean that everyone gets it, so you still need to spend time educating people about content marketing and how it fits into the overall marketing structure and performance.
But, nicely, since you have buy-in for a content program, you’re able to talk about priorities and where to invest. You can create a collaborative strategy that has content supporting larger business objectives. You’ll be able to organize a cross-functional team that has a greater interest and a shared focus around developing a portfolio of valuable and delightful experiences.
Content becomes a recognized function of the business, and you have a fundamental level of trust and credibility.
Covert
Changing long-held beliefs in some companies can be way harder than it is in others. In some engineering-driven B2B companies, getting buy-in for something that isn’t sales driven can be a big risk. Except that changing these fundamental belief is the first step. This is where your pockets of inspiration come into play – you don’t have to have everyone interested and on board before the boat leaves the dock.
If your culture is more of a covert operation – for whatever reasons – it doesn’t mean that you still can’t make tremendous headway. It just means that you’ll need to go about it in a roundabout way until you have some successes to show.
Where do you start? Come to someone’s rescue. And one of the easiest places to start is with sales because you already have relationship with them….right? (judgmental tone intentional…)
What problems are they trying to solve for customers that they need help with? What’s the one brand they been trying to crack but haven’t been able to? What information will help them make a customer’s life easier or help them do their job easier? I can guarantee you that if sales likes the work that you’re doing, they’ll help you grab the ear of management for your covert content operation.
Be the dude on the hill
It doesn’t matter which route you take, just realize that YOU may need to be the “dude on the hill.” You may need to be the dude (or dudette) who starts the content dance that everyone else joins in. People don’t like being the first but if you’re going to create a culture of content, you have to start someplace.
Why not with you?
The post Overt or Covert: What’s Your Content Culture? appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.
Amazon targets teen shoppers with Amazon Allowance
In an apparent effort to capture more spending from teenage shoppers, Amazon has unveiled a new service that makes it easier for parents to fund their kids' online purchases.
Tuesday, 16 June 2015
Social Media Advertising Success: How To Stand Out
10 Steps to Successful Social Media Advertising Social media is where we spend our time. As such, marketers must be present to attract your attention for their products and services. Yet, social media is no longer the “free” marketing platform. If you had any doubts, the senior management shakeups at Twitter and Pinterest underscore the need for these media entities to yield sales, not just equity valuations. Translation: Show me the money!!! This shouldn’t be a surprise. The “freebie” party doesn’t last forever. Investors generally want more than eyeballs in return for their money. For most social media networks this translates to advertising. Most notably, Facebook’s revenues have been driven by advertising sales. Its growth during the past year is mainly attributable to the increase in higher priced mobile traffic. Next year, it’ll come from more expensive, video advertising as evidenced by … Continue reading
The post Social Media Advertising Success: How To Stand Out appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Advertisers struggle to find premium video ad inventory: report
Despite significant and growing demand for video ad inventory, and publishers eager to meet that demand, advertisers are finding it challenging to find premium video ad inventory.
Content Marketing Manager Job Description
Apparently, this is a pretty hot category as LinkedIn reports more than 15,000 results for “content marketing manager job description.”
But that still pales in comparison to the more than 110,000 marketing manager job descriptions on Linkedin and the more than 18,000 social media manager positions out there.
I’ve written before about how to put together your all-star content marketing team and the resources required to get the job done.
In the end it comes down to 3 core content marketing skills. You need to have experience:
- Creating content people actually want
- Sharing content on the channels they use
- Measuring the results of content marketing activities
But I know that sometimes, the good folks in HR need a formal job description to help get the process rolling and to start looking at all those great candidates that will become your next content marketing rockstar. So here is the job description I’ve shared with a few folks lately to help them.
Let me know what you think. Or if you would add anything to your own content marketing manager job description.
Content Marketing Manager Job Description
- Accountable for all content marketing initiatives to drive traffic, engagement, leads, that deliver sales and customer retention.
- Collaborates across functions and silos to deliver an effective content marketing strategy and editorial plan to met the business objectives at the lowest possible cost
- This role requires a brand publisher mindset: the create the content our audience is looking for and then to optimize the path to conversion
- Editorial requirements include basic SEO understanding, content categorization and structure, content development, distribution and measurement. Development of editorial governance so content is consistent with our brand voice, style and tone.
- Editorial calendar and organization workflows must be developed and managed.
- Channel management of digital content hubs and all supporting social channels including email / newsletter distribution. This person must understand the basic best practices of the main social media channels, which content and approaches work on each and why
- Measurement and optimization of the program will be required on a regular and ongoing basis
- Management of all creative resources including designers, writers, and other agency personnel
- Integration of content programs with brand campaigns to drive brand to demand.
- Executive presentations on the program approaches and results will be required.
Requirements
- BA/BS or equivalent working experience
- Experience creating content for the web and growing a social audience
- Editorial mindset that seeks to understand what audiences consume and ho to create it
- Ability to analyze and present content and social performance
- Experience with wordpress, Google analytics, Slideshare, and the top social channels
More Resources
There are a couple of great resources I was able find as well. One was an awesome and downloadable Chief Content Officer job description template from the Content Marketing Institute.
And Hubspot provides 10 Marketing Job Descriptions including content marketing manager, social media / community manager and more.
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The post Content Marketing Manager Job Description appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.
Why is email seen as the poor relation in digital marketing?
We use email in our everyday lives and it has certainly been around for a while, since 1972 courtesy of Raymond Tomlinson.
Email allowed us to seamlessly send electronic communications then, and today it is a common marketing tool to drive customer engagement.
So why is email seen as the poor relation in the world of digital marketing?
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