August 31 st
The Content Marketing Sweet Spot
By · CommentsI just finished reading this year’s latest marketing survey results over at the Junta42 site. It’s interesting to see the popularity of different marketing content pieces as part of the overall marketing strategy. You can download the report for yourself here.
Social media marketing (with the exception of blogs) is now in the number one spot. 72% of those polled have now incorporated social media into their marketing activities. What I’d be even more curious to know though, is have they seen and improvements? More hits to the website? More inquiries? Even more sales?
The next five things on the list are what I consider to be the new marketing sweet spot. They are the heart of content marketing. When done well, they cover the full spectrum of the AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) marketing concept. Each piece can serve one or more AIDA goals, but the suite should include pieces that cover the complete AIDA spectrum.
From the 2010 Content Marketing Spending Research by Junta42
Each of these content terms mean different things to different marketers. Personally, I’ve seen each term over-used and under developed. Too many times, companies will label the content with a term below and not fully back it up with meaningful content. These are the way I see each piece
- E-newsletters – Publish monthly and include product and company news, customer success stories, technical “how-to’s”, and business ideas. Combination of short (100 words or less) and longer (up to 1000 words) articles.
- Blogs – Keep topics fresh, at least weekly, and relatively short (less than 500 words)
- White Papers – Don’t fall for the short attention span, 2-pager. Do your topic justice by demonstrating a business problem and how it can be solved. Typically 6-10 pages.
- Articles – These might be in your own publications or industry publications and are probably best as a deep dive on a topic at between 1000 and 2000 words.
- Case Studies – These can be as short as two pages, but make sure you provide concrete information about the customer’s initial challenge, how it was solved, and lessons learned.
Effective marketers take the time to do it right. It’s not an area you want to hand off to your already busy product managers or the new marketing coordinator you just hired. Make sure the topics are well researched, the “story” told is coherent and professional, and that you accomplish your goal of what you want them to think and do after they’ve read it.
Content marketing is not an easy task and not every company has the resources in house to get the job done well. This is probably why the Junta42 survey also shows that smaller companies are spending twice the amount (as a percentage) on content marketing as their larger counterparts. Find yourself a content marketing professional you can trust and start building your content library, making sure you get the marketing assets you need to be successful.
August 24 th
Organize Passion Create a Movement
By · Comments
I recently watched a Ted Talk video of Seth Godin discussing tribes. As Seth so clearly describes it, we are at a pivotal moment in time, where we are changing the way ideas are spread.
No longer is it about money or power. It’s about leadership—the ability to organize passion. And, social technologies allow us to do that quite easily. We can now find and align large numbers of people and create our own movement.
Being the serious animal lover I am, I was particularly drawn to his example of Nathan Winograd, a former animal control officer in San Francisco. According to Godin, the SPCA’s original charter was to rid the city of stray dogs and cats. This meant picking them up and killing them, often within 24 hours.
Nathan could no longer tolerate this, so together with his boss, set out to make San Francisco a no-kill city. They went to the city council meeting but were met with people from SPCA shelters across the country who successfully shot the idea down. But Nathan didn’t give up. He found power in organized passion. Within just a couple years, San Francisco became the first no-kill city. Since then, he did it again in Tompkins County, NY, North Carolina, and Reno.
If you want to see Seth Godin’s complete Ted Talk, take 18 minutes and watch this video.
The beauty of organizing passion to create a movement is that it can work for both non-profit and for-profit causes. Essentially, it works like this:
- Tell a story that resonates with people who want to hear it
- Use that story to connect a group of people who share the same passion
- Combine social technologies and passion to lead a movement
- Harness the power to create change
If your passion is your product, find a way to tell a story that people will repeat. Initially, it won’t be as easy as producing mass marketing, but once you’ve found that connection, it will definitely be much more fruitful!
July 13 th
SAP Sets the Bar for BI CSR
By · CommentsSAP just released their 2009 Sustainability Report and I must say I am impressed. They have really raised the bar for corporate sustainability reporting (CSR). Not only are they one of the top reports in the BI and even the software vendor category, but they’re report is top of the line for all CSR reports.
It opens with a video message from the CSO (Chief Sustainability Officer) Peter Graf, who reports directly to both of the SAP CEOs. His two-minute message gives a high-level overview of their strategy and progress toward sustainability. SAP’s 2009 report takes sustainability reporting to a whole new level by including video clips, interactive metrics in dashboards, and allowing readers to leave comments and feedback. You can see an 7.5 minute overview video here. It was a little hard to find, but I finally found it in the bottom menu, far right under Take a Tour.
SAP is wise, taking a two-pronged approach to sustainability. Not only do they support sustainability internally, through both environmental and social measures, but they also help their customers meet sustainability goals through the solutins they offer. It’s exactly what I’d expect of any BI company.
With this in mind, their report is broken down into three sections: Performance (internal), Solutions (external), and Feedback (engaging readers and stakeholders).
Performance – Each major objective, along with supporting objectives has interactive dashboards that offer filters to explore the data and timeline sliders to change data parameters. For example, the carbon footprint dashboard by default shows the world view but that can be changed to show just EMEA or US. The charts can be switched between pie charts and bar graphs. They even offer quarterly results in addition to the annual report. Finally, you have a choice to download to Excel or print. Nice way to show off their own product functionality.
Solution – SAP has structured their solutions to help companies drive profitability through sustainability. Take a look at their sustainability map which covers most all potential sustainability requirements for an organization. By offering solutions that cover business process management along with metrics and reporting, SAP breaks down the barriers to entry on sustainability programs for their customers. They even include a few case study examples you can read.
Feedback - Sap interviewed hundreds of stakeholders, including customers, employees, shareholders, NGO’s, partners, and analysts, to best understand their priorities for SAP. You’ll see the results in their materiality matrix, where bio diversity was ranked lowest and areas like green house gasses and employee satisfaction ranked highest. You can even create and submit your own materiality matrix and contribute to SAP’s sustainability priorities. It’s a great example of what companies managing sustainability programs should do on a regular basis.
You will also find the unedited letter from their strategic advisory panel that applauds SAP’s efforts, and you see their Assurance Report from KPMG auditors. SAP follows the GRI guidelines and was rated an A+, the highest rating available.
If you’re still new to corporate sustainability and wonder just what a good report should look like, I encourage you to head out and take a look at SAP. They’re truly setting the bar.
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