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Thursday, December 3, 2015

As marketing has been transformed by the digital revolution, so has the role of the Chief Marketing Officer.

Marketing executives are called upon to lead their teams through rapid changes, adjust to evolved buyer behavior, and drive growth for their organizations. The CMO must find ways to be relevant not only to the business as a whole, but to each customer through authentic and personalized experiences.

Ken Wincko (@KenWincko), SVP of Marketing at PR Newswire, discussed marketing executives’ evolution during The CMO Council webinar CMO Rising: Reshaping the Role.

"In the era of mass advertising, when traditional broadcast was very effective in reaching consumers, CMOs spent a lot of time and energy on branding and communications," states Ken. "While having a clear, compelling story for the marketplace is still very important from a branding and communications perspective, in the digital era other complementary skill sets are required—such as application of technology, analytics, and operational processes."

If the role of the CMO is to champion growth and the customer experience, how does a marketing executive get there? Here are four skills a CMO must employ if they want to succeed.

Speaks the Language of Data

Traditionally, marketing has been focused on the creative. And while there will always be a need to create compelling content, the digital age requires marketing executives to be data-driven.

Because today's CMO might not have started in the data and financial world, there's an urgent need to learn how to generate revenue and prove marketing's value. This requires a language shift as marketers seek to demonstrate bottom line impact to the rest of the C-suite.

"Marketing leaders need to become data-driven decision-makers and utilize insights to optimize buyer experiences," explains Ken. "To maximize marketing impact, your strategy needs to incorporate a holistic approach to effectively engage buyers—spanning data, people, processes, technology, and content. This will enable you to clearly articulate the impact marketing activities have on buyer behavior."

According to a recent study from Forrester, 61% of marketers are using predictive analytics. This data helps CMOs gain greater insight on buyer behavior, and how to run their teams more effectively and efficiently.

It also leads to a rise in expectations, authority, and opportunity. Data-driven marketing leaders who deliver growth are often called upon to lead broader initiatives in areas outside of marketing, such as product, operations, and customer service.

Creates Exceptional Experiences

The intelligence a marketing executive gleans from data will also be instrumental in creating more authentic customer experiences.

It's not enough to make grand, sweeping assumptions about your audience and call that personalization. To ensure frictionless interactions, marketers need a deep understanding of their buyer personas and what makes customers tick.

"Ultimately, our marketing success at PR Newswire has been based on transforming the way we go to market, with a buyer-centric philosophy that helps meet the changing expectations of our clients," says Ken.

"We have worked very hard to produce compelling content that helps educate marketing and communications professionals on the best practices they can use to drive better results. We then share this content with buyers through an integrated, multichannel experience based on their unique needs, and optimize it based on data and analytics. This has resulted in a double digit increase in qualified leads and closed deals, as well as shorter sales cycles."

Leverages Technological Innovation and Channel Convergence

As Amanda Hicken wrote in The Future of Content Marketing: Creating Contextual Connections, the "phygital" revolution is upon us. Thanks to the introduction of wearables and the Internet of Things, the merging of the physical and digital worlds has opened new ways for marketers to connect with buyers.

Because of this, CMOs must develop marketing models that are informed by and include these emerging information and commerce channels.

"Connected devices, wearables, and virtual reality will enable more opportunities to create valuable experiences," states Ken. "Marketers need to understand how to utilize and integrate different technologies to craft compelling and relevant buyer interactions across channels."

At minimum, today's marketing executives must adapt to rapid buyer adoption of mobile technology—and design contextual and interactive experiences with that environment in mind.

"By the end of next year, Forrester forecasts that smartphone subscribers will represent 46% of the global population," says Ken. "One third of transactions will have a mobile cross-channel component which will generate $140B+ in phone/tablet commerce. Yet, today just 18% of companies surveyed are mobile-first and using mobile to transform the entire customer experience."

Welcomes the Unknown

Effective CMOs know how to evolve and encourage others' evolution through collaboration.

"It’s all about how agile you are and how fast you can move," states Ken. "In today's multichannel world, marketing executives must innovate and anticipate market disruptions to survive."

For instance, as adblockers and a general over-saturation of the online marketplace continue to impact results from paid advertising, marketing executives need to increase focus on an earned media approach.

According to Ken, it's critical to invest time and resources in building relationships with trusted experts and customer advocates. As buyers turn to search and social, the voices of their peers will help shape their opinions and drive action.

Above all, Ken says, forward-looking CMOs are willing to take risks — and they do so with the customer in mind.

"Focus on customer wants, not just needs. Think outside of your own boundaries to identify new possibilities. Determine how you will deliver a profound experience. Do these things and you'll distinguish your brand – and yourself – from everyone else."

Ken will discuss marketing executive best practices in more detail next week at CMO Council’s CMO Summit, where he will present with executives from Visa, TE Connectivity and Intel during the panel “Assess Where You Need to Progress in Digital Marketing: Creating Better Value + Return From Marketing Technology Investments.”

Visit cmosummit.org for details about the summit and download our executive white paper The Modern Marketing Fulcrum to learn more about balancing big data and content to power PR and marketing results.

Author Danielle Capriato is the manager of strategic communications at PR Newswire. Follow her on Twitter @dcapriato.

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Wednesday, December 2, 2015

[New Post] The Ultimate Guide to Planning Your 2016 Editorial Calendar [SlideShare]

The Ultimate Guide to Planning Your 2016 Editorial Calendar [SlideShare]

Amanda Hicken

As the books close on another year, some marketers and PR pros may be tempted to sit back and relax until January 1st, pleased with the goals they hit in 2015.

However, the content landscape is increasingly competitive and the demand on marketing and PR to drive more revenue is always on the rise.

If you aren't already planning 2016's content calendar, you may be disappointed with your progress this time next year.

In the research report Promoting Your Content Marketing, Content Marketing Institute's Robert Rose shares that 95% of the most effective content marketers have a strategy vs. 55% of the least effective. Furthermore, 54% of the most effective content marketers have documented this strategy.

Read on for a step-by-step guide to planning your content and press release strategy for the year ahead. Then check out our sample editorial calendar at the end of the blog post to get started.

Step 1: Understand the Big Picture

When considering your strategy for the coming year, the #1 rule to remember is that these are not individual campaigns you're planning. Your communications don't exist in a vacuum. Every white paper, every tweet, every blog post, every press release – it's all a piece of your brand's PR and marketing program.

Take a holistic approach and connect content together. You will be more likely to achieve the cohesion and consistency your audience craves. That means balancing the specific topics, content formats, and content types (i.e. traditional corporate news vs. informational content) you use.

Your previous years' outreach can clue you into what balance will work best. Take stock of what you did this year: What was a home run? What was moderately successful? What underperformed? And what were the reasons for your content's success or failure?

When reviewing the efforts that underperformed or were moderately successful, weigh which ones are worth repeating with adjustments and which should be cut.

While it may be disappointing to cut something, doing so opens up opportunities to experiment and try something new.

Step 2: Dig Into Details

After setting up your content framework, your next step is to identify when you will publish and promote specific content. Look at what is happening during each three-month quarter or season, then narrow it by month, week, and day of week.

When planning your quarters and months, go through the holidays, seasonal events, and conferences that impact not just your industry, but also the industries related to your target audience. Uncover other newsworthy topics and trends by using a monitoring tool.

Don't get overzealous, though. Only schedule out the amount of press releases and content your resources allow – quality over quantity is key.

If you decide not to publish content tied to a particular event, you should still mark that event on your calendar because it may impact the pickup of other news you plan on publishing at that time.

Once you have a selection of events or projects you want to publish content about, ask yourself these questions:

Where is this content going to be published (owned, earned, social, paid channels)?
Who is your content's audience (media, direct customers, investors)?
What actions do you want your audience to take?
If you were a member of your content's audience, how far in advance would you want/need to receive the content to take action?

Each channel's timing will be influenced by a specific set of factors. Leave enough time for that channel's audience to take the action you want.

Step 3: Guarantee Success with the Right Research

Because your gut will only get you so far, you need to leverage research and monitoring tools to determine the optimal day to publish and promote content.

Study the media and influencers who can help get your message out to your customers. Build and maintain relationships with them to find out when and how they want to receive content from you. Many publications even make their editorial deadlines available online.

Tools like Google Trends can show you the waxing and waning over time of a particular topic’s news coverage and search queries. Monitoring this can help you avoid promoting related content too late or too early.

Remember that certain events will present content and coverage opportunities over the course of many months. In 2016, for instance, the presidential election and Olympics will be talked about months in advance and demand early promotion by brands who want to jump into the conversation.

Step 4: Avoid Autopilot with Regular Check-ins

Planning out your calendar for the year ahead is only the beginning. Once the year is underway, don't fall into the trap of operating on autopilot.

Each quarter: Check in and make sure your overall revenue and content goals are being met. If they're not, adjust priorities for the upcoming months.

Each month: Compile and analyze all of the reporting from the past month. Organize the results across output, outtakes, and outcomes. The analysis you pull each month will drive the decisions you make on the macro level.

Each week: Record what content you published and promoted that week, the communication channels you used, and any early feedback you received.

Each day: Continuously monitor what's going on across your industry and the world to make sure it doesn't conflict with the content you plan to publish and promote. It's important to stay flexible and have a backup plan so that you can reschedule content when needed.

Maintaining an editorial calendar is key to staying on track when content plans have to change. To get you started with 2016's planning, our senior creative manager Jamie Heckler created a 2016 Editorial Calendar for your brand’s content and press releases.

The SlideShare presentation features additional tips for specific times of the year, as well as important dates and deadlines to keep in mind.

Use the information in our calendar to guide your planning. For best results, couple it with a monitoring tool that provides you with intel on journalists and influencers to target and potential story ideas to publish and pitch on.

Download our guide At What Cost? Justifying a Media Monitoring Service to determine whether your current monitoring tools meet your needs.

Amanda Hicken is PR Newswire's senior manager of strategic content and managing editor of Beyond PR. Follow her on Twitter @ADHicken for tweets about the media, marketing, Cleveland, and comic books.