2013 was the year where CMOs could test drive new campaigns, collaborating with their CIOs to leverage technology and provide better measurement and metrics for these new approaches. In 2014, CMOs will no longer be able to kick the tires and take their campaigns out for a spin. Results need to be proven. Every click will be analyzed, and every dollar will be scrutinized.
Ok, time for a little context. People throw around the CMO word very liberally. Many of our clients are not marketers at the c-suite level – often they are directors of field or industry marketing. While they are supposed to use Eloqua or Marketo or LeadLander or any variety of engagement tools, the further they sit from the corporate marketing function or headquarters the less their campaigns seem to get measured. It is easy to do a webinar or event, report back to corporate that the campaign generated 200 “leads,” and then move onto the next campaign.
For years we have talked about the fact that, because of the nature of most campaigns living in a digital world, any activity is easy to measure, evaluate, and evolve. Unfortunately many clients don’t take that to heart. They work hard to launch a campaign, turning to Bluetext for great creative and execution as well as new ideas, but then they move onto the next one before it is fine tuned. In 2013, we had a number of clients who launched campaigns, looked hard at the metrics, and despite huge kudos from their corporate offices, decided not to just sit back and relax. Instead, they are devoting new resources to evolve the campaigns to address changing market conditions and feedback. On our end, we are ensuring that clients are giving the proper financial and time resources to drive traffic and leads for their campaigns so there is no question about their effectiveness and impact.
I think this is a trend that will continue in 2014. CMOs and, more importantly, field and industry marketing leaders will take the time to analyze and measure their campaigns leveraging new technology. And they will course correct as needed.
Before shaking your head and wondering if this is a blog post that you read 12 or 24 months ago, take a step back and think about how much time and effort you are really putting into measuring your campaigns. Many of the people we work with would be hard pressed to look in the mirror and say that they are leveraging metrics to truly validate their campaigns and spend. Our goal in 2014 is to change that for our clients.
From the second we wake up until the moment we fall asleep – our time and attention is dispersed across multiple screens, devices and media channels – this mass audience attention deficit disorder is further exacerbated by the fact that our primary screen of interest seems to change by the minute.
Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet and American Life Project summed up this phenomenon best, calling it “a constant state of partial attention”. So for marketers – this begs the question: How are you going to get my attention – and more importantly – get me to take action?
Roy H. Williams, author and lifelong student of humanity, wrote in his “Wizard of Ads” Trilogy that marketers typically assume that their audience is seeing and hearing their ads – yet rarely is this the truth. In reality the sheer volume of advertising that gushes toward the mind is like a fire hose aimed at a teacup – there simply too much coming at us to contain. Most of the information aimed at our brains is deflected, spilled or lost. And at the end of the day, precious little is actually retained.
As technology continues to drive how we communicate – it is also forcing marketers to innovate and embrace the powerful role that technology can play in driving demand above the funnel through brand engagement – or get crushed by their peers who have already adapted their strategies to stay one step ahead of an audience dispersed across an increasingly digital media landscape.
Roy Williams quipped that your audience will only ultimately recall an experience it was actively engaged in. So for your marketing to be truly effective, the audience must be a participant in it. The one tool Roy didn’t have access to when he wrote those words was digital marketing – for now anyway, and with the right agency partner – the easy button for today’s marketer to catch and actively engage his or her audience as they move ever so swiftly through their multi-screen lives.
We love pushing the envelope with our clients who understand the only way to stay visible – and relevant – is to continue to engage their audience in bold and innovative ways that gets them to stop and pay attention to their message. I have embedded a few examples of that which I am hopeful will get you to do the same.
How do you provide effective communications support to a high-ranking individual whose behavior is out of control? Not easily, Bluetext Partner and crisis communications expert Don Goldberg tells CNN. Asked to compare Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s situation to President Clinton’s during the impeachment scandal, Don says that there’s a pretty big difference, and it has to do with not knowing what’s coming next. Watch the video to hear Don’s perspective on the ongoing crisis in Toronto.
Noise. This is a word that in some ways lies at the very core of what PR professionals must deal with every day. Often, our time is spent trying to create noise for a product, service or company; yet as much energy is spent trying to help clients rise above noise created in the market that threatens to drown out whatever message we are trying to deliver.
Noise is relevant in other areas of communications, and in my opinion can play a hand in common yet easy to fix mistakes that PR professionals often make. Here are five ways noise is negatively impacting the effectiveness of PR efforts, and why they are easy to fix.
Eliminate Noise Pitching HARO
Help A Reporter Out (HARO) needs little explanation at this point. It can be a tool for PR professionals to find out about media opportunities they might now have otherwise uncovered. But my guess is that 95 percent of PR folks follow the exact same template: 1) spot a query that looks relevant to a client, then submit a pitch along with the hundreds of others doing the same thing. That’s fine; there is little choice in this case to pitch into the noise, understanding that most of the time you will be drowned out.
But instead of only reaching out to reporters when a query is posted, how many of you take note of the types of stories a reporter is posting on, and then use that data at a later point to pitch a related angle at a time when the reporter won’t be slammed with pitches? If a reporter HARO query is about, for example, predicative analytics and your client is more focused on data visualization, investigate to see how wide the reporter’s coverage extends, and if relevant, pitch an article related to your client during a time when the entire HARO world isn’t also clamoring for the reporter’s attention. Even if you aren’t 100% sure the reporter will find your pitch on target, by referencing the initial HARO query you can at least provide credible context that you pay attention to what the reporter writes on.
Eliminate Noise With Speaker Submissions
We’d like to believe that each speaker submission is given equal attention – no matter if the submission is received the day after the call for speakers is posted or on the final submission day. But of course that is often not the case; submission reviewers aren’t just going to twiddle their thumbs during the speaker entry period and then wait until after the submission close date to plow through everything. They will no doubt feel less pressured and have more time to evaluate submissions on the front end of the submission period when the volume is lighter. It would not be outrageous to speculate that 60 percent or more of submissions come in during the final few days or week of the submission process, which means that judges and organizers have less time to devote to latter entries.
Eliminate Noise At Press-Attended Events
How many times have you showed up for an event where perhaps media are sitting on a panel, leading a topic discussion, or just attending to cover the event content? And how many times do you end up in a single file line behind other PR professionals who are forced to cram several minutes of conversation topic into 30 seconds of introductory chitchat? If you have a previous relationship with the reporter great, but if not, these events are terrible places to try and make an introduction. The environment is literally noisy, there is competition for the reporter’s attention, and there is pressure to try and have a meaningful conversation while several other people are impatiently waiting for their turn.
I’m going to add a caveat to this one, because I get the appeal of showing up at events where desired press is attending. Even if you can just spend a couple minutes dropping your name so that the next time you send an email or call there will at least be some recognition, there is potential value there. As opposed to trying to establish a first connection via emails and voice mails (which the reporter can easily ignore), an in-person exchange ensures you can at least get on his/her radar. But I’ll stick to the belief that beyond a name drop, these events are not well suited to have deeper conversations about your clients or pitches.
Eliminate Noise Around Social Media Efforts
We all have at least one person or organization we follow on Twitter that basically social media vomits all over our Twitter feed. It’s absurd, and highly ineffective. Too often, PR professionals and clients equate volume to engagement. In other words, the belief that the more an organization tweets and posts, the more engaged consumers and customers will interpret it to be. Social media noise exists when the organization uses popular channels to spew out content devoid of strategy, or content that does little to spark conversation or engagement. Yes, it is important to prevent social media profiles from going stale with outdated content, but the flipside is that too much content – particularly content that is of little value to the online community – is equally damaging.
Discussions around the current state of public relations – relative to where the industry was five years ago – inevitably boil down to the slow but steady demise of print newspapers and magazines, or that an organization absolutely must use social media, infographics, Slideshare, and so on.
I think that all kind of misses the point. Sure, maybe there aren’t as many CMOs busting into the Executive Suite brandishing a copy of The New York Times with a feature on their company with the assumption it will vault sales, or the brand, into the stratosphere.
It’s more about, ok, so I have a piece of content here that could be valuable for my company – in this case it’s a news article but it just as well could be a case study, or research paper, product launch announcement or marketing campaign – and now I have to figure out how to fully leverage it. Could the content be multi-purposed into a lead gen white paper campaign or speaker series? Can I use the content to capture new leads through a dedicated e-mail or search marketing campaign? And if I do these things, is my website optimized in a way to fully capture these leads? Finally, do I have a way to get these leads to my sales team to translate the content into new business?
Moving beyond the content, there is also a breakdown of what had been considered traditional channels to distribute content and communicate with consumers, partners, and customers. The channel is really anywhere that these target audiences reside. It might be the website for an industry publication, a webinar audience or physical Conference, but it could just as easily be Kickstarter, YouTube or Pinterest.
That, to me, is a big part of where public relations currently resides. The need for an integrated perspective that governs individual initiatives for PR, branding, digital, creative, social, advertising is key to ensuring that public relations efforts do not simply wander from one announcement to the next. This isn’t to say that today’s PR firm has to offer every single service, or that there isn’t a critical role for PR specialists to play. But it does mean that these moving parts must communicate and align with one another, and my opinion is that PR firms moving the needle today are the ones who understand how to make the pieces work together for the benefit of the client.
Company Adds Leading Industry PR Content Marketing Executive and Global Clients to Its Growing Roster
WASHINGTON June 12, 2013 “ Bluetext, one of the nation’s fastest growing digital marketing, branding, and strategic communications firms, today announced that it had acquired Lustig Communications, founded by Brian Lustig, one of Washington’s top public relations specialists. Lustig Communications’ clients joining Bluetext’s growing roster include Broadsoft, GCE, and Canvas. Brian, who is joining Bluetext’s team as Partner, brings more than 17 years experience in media relations, public affairs, content marketing, social media and digital strategies to the growing list of Bluetext clients.
Lustig Communications was founded in 2007, following Brian’s successful career at some of the largest public relations and public affairs firms. Lustig Communications focus on emerging and established technology brands and its record of success with media relations and content marketing make it a strong fit with Bluetext’s global brands. He has worked closely with Bluetext’s founding partners for more than a decade, and has supported many of Bluetext’s largest clients.
The melding of Lustig Communications with Bluetext brings an incredible mix of creative thinking and proven client results said Bluetext Partner and Co-Founder Don Goldberg. I have worked with Brian and his team for more than a dozen years; he is not only the best media relations specialist in the business, but also one of the most creative minds in Washington. The successful campaigns he has executed for his clients will be very beneficial to our current growing list of clients.
Brian’s expertise includes working with technology companies at all stages of development, and across the business-to-government, business-to-consumer, and business-to-business sectors. Brian’s work also extends beyond technology to include a diverse range of clients, including law firms, non-profits and trade associations, consumer brands, and real estate firms.
“Having worked with the Bluetext team for several years, I have been consistently impressed by the creative work and communications campaigns they have been developing for leading local, national and global brands”, said Brian. I’m thrilled that Lustig Communications is now a part of Bluetext, and believe it is a move that will greatly benefit our existing clients, and uniquely position the agency to serve additional clients going forward.”
About Bluetext
Bluetext delivers comprehensive digital marketing, branding, and strategic communications services to our clients, who range from global leaders in their industries to emerging companies at the forefront of innovation and technology. Organizations turn to Bluetext because of our reputation for developing robust and highly scalable digital platforms designed to optimize brand performance in an increasingly digital environment. Our team has delivered some of the most creative and effective campaigns for organizations looking to increase their presence and brand in this market. We have successfully positioned lesser-known organizations as thought leaders, and taken better-known organizations to a new level, differentiating and delivering a brand promise that resonates with the market. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Our goal is to get a seat at the table with you, understand your goals, audit what you have done and what resonates with your audience, and deliver an integrated strategy that will give you a long-term platform for success.
by Brian Lustig, Partner
Today I officially join Bluetext as a Partner as Lustig Communications becomes a part of Bluetext.
Joining a communications agency – in any capacity – is in all honesty not something I ever planned to do after founding my own firm six years ago. Even though Lustig Communications has worked closely with Bluetext since its inception and my work with the Bluetext Partners dates as far back as 13 years, this decision should have been much harder than it was. Any individual who has launched his/her own firm can tell you that it becomes your ‘baby’ that you work tirelessly to nurture as it grows.
Greater Washington does not suffer from a lack of talented PR agencies and practitioners, and I’ve had the good fortune to interact with many of them. But in watching the work Bluetext has been doing for organizations since its 2011 launch, I was repeatedly blown away by the creative, high-impact communications campaigns the Bluetext team created and delivered. It is not an accident that the world’s leading brands – ranging from Google, Cisco and Adobe to the USO, Reznick Group and APCO – have turned to the Bluetext team to solve their communications and branding challenges.
The path leading Lustig Communications to Bluetext began nearly 18 years ago. Some people might say that makes me a PR veteran, but to me it just kind of sounds like I’m really old. After spending the early years of my public relations career working on behalf of political campaigns and policy initiatives, I eyed a buzzing technology community in Washington, DC and could not help myself from gravitating towards the energy of the dot com boom. It was August 2000.
Within weeks, of course, the boom busted. It turns out that getting a sock puppet to interview people on the street does not mean that your company has figured out how to sell and deliver pet supplies online. But despite the ups and downs in the tech sector that succeeded the bust, I was hooked on technology…not just technology really, but helping growing companies and entrepreneurs with big ideas.
It was this passion that led me to go off on my own and found Lustig Communications six years ago and to assemble a team focused on working with technology innovators, growing firms and startups. I’ve always felt there is a right way to practice public relations. To me, this meant investing my team in each client fully, challenging clients when a kick in the rear was needed, and ultimately, walking into work each day with a goal of developing a new idea (or ideas) that could help the client succeed.
I could start rattling off the tired old buzzwords you often see when two firms align, how it is about synergies and complementary services and how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. None of that matters, they are just words really. Ultimately, it is about two firms committed to working with any organization, of any size, in any sector, that has a challenge to solve, and figuring out how to help them solve it. And I’d like to think that with this move today, we are better positioned to do just that than we were yesterday.
Sales teams can be very quick on the draw to reach out to potential leads. That is, after all, their business. But sometimes that sales call may be too soon for the customers. When does that outreach look more like nagging and less like effective nurturing during the journey through the sales pipeline? A recent survey by IDG—a technology-focused multimedia company whose publications include Computerworld, NetworkWorld, CIO, and a range of other magazines—offers valuable insight into the process. IDG surveyed more than a thousand IT decision-makers to get their perspective, and some of the findings should provide some guidance.
Two of the more interesting findings show the difficulty in making the judgment call between nagging and nurturing. Nine out of 10 survey respondents said that speaking with a knowledgeable company representative increased their likelihood of making a purchase. However, before you pick up that phone too quickly, only three percent of respondents want to be contacted by a salesperson after receiving just one piece of content related to that purchase. That increases to 34 percent after downloading between two and four pieces of content. But on average, they need to have consumed five pieces of content related to the sale before they are ready to talk with a sales rep.
Those are numbers worth pondering. This research suggests that every campaign should have multiple selections of content that are timed to educate and inform the buyer. Here’s what Bluetext recommends for our clients’ campaigns:
During the early phases of the decision-making process, IT buyers are determining their needs and requirements, and should be served general information including articles about trends and strategies, management and technologies. This is a good place to be seeding case studies and use case examples.
· As they move through the process and are trying to narrow down potential vendors and evaluating possible solutions, their needs evolve to information more specific to the solutions our clients have to deliver. Test results, product reviews and independent opinions will keep the vendor top-of-mind when the decision-maker creates their short list. More case studies can also bolster the vendor’s standing.
· In the later stages, IT decision-makers need to make the business case for their decision. At that point, we recommend ROI tools, product demonstration videos and calculators. Our clients need to make it easy for the customer to get buy-in from their own team.
In our next blog post, we’ll discuss how companies can leverage social media to engage with IT decision-makers throughout the process, and will offer other tips for providing customer leads with the information they want when they want it.
In today’s media environment, the goal with public relations is still to get reporters and publications to stand up and take notice when an organization has news it wants to deliver to the market. Our work with HelloWallet proves that good content and a solid strategy can result in widespread attention, and put a company on the map. Many reporters, and especially those with the trade media, are hungry for company news, product launches, and customer case studies to meet their print, broadcast and online demands. Yet HelloWallet demonstrates that if the four ingredients of a successful story are developed and integrated into the strategy, coverage on a national level can be the reward, even for a brand that is still trying to make its mark.
The Backdrop. HelloWallet is a leading provider of behavioral technology applications that help organizations improve the financial stability of their employees through online tools that lead to better financial planning and preparedness. It was founded by Matt Fellowes, a Brookings Institution scholar who wanted to take what he was seeing in the U.S. workforce and offer a solution to the private sector. As researchers by training, Matt and his team analyze vast troves of government data to find trends that illuminate the population’s true behavior and problems, and lead to possible solutions to those problems.
Because there is a lot of attention being paid to 401(k) retirement programs, Matt wanted to take a look at how employees across the spectrum were using these tax-advantaged accounts. Using consumer data from the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Census, he put together a detailed study showing that more than a quarter of participants in these accounts were cashing out or taking loans prior to retirement—with significant tax penalties. In other words, a large amount of the workforce that was supposed to be helped by 401(k) programs were not using it for that purpose, and instead had immediate financial needs that had to be met. This is a serious problem for organizations which are not seeing the results for their large benefits investments, as well as many employees, who would be far better off with adequate emergency savings than funding retirement savings accounts and then “breaching” them to pay pending bills.
Our challenge was to create a strategy that would bring the maximum attention to these findings, and then to execute on the strategy.
Element #1: The topic has to be of significant interest. HelloWallet’s research hit a nerve for several reasons, and these are all important to keep in mind. First, it had to do with the overall financial health of the U.S. workforce, and given the recession and slow economic recovery, this is top of mind. Second, it had to do with saving for retirement, which is also of interest in light of the inadequate savings that Americans have put away for their future.
Element #2. It should challenge the conventional wisdom. Simply telling readers what they already know is never that interesting. Offering insight to a trend that runs counter to that wisdom will get attention. The HelloWallet research found that 401(k)s—the premiere program being used for retirement savings—was actually not as successful as we all thought, and that in fact more than 25 percent of participants were putting the cart before the horse. They really need to establish financial stability for their current needs before locking away savings in a retirement account.
Element #3. The facts of the story must be convincing and beyond question. HelloWallet put forth an academic-style study, complete with footnotes and review, and based its findings on government data. This type of research cannot be readily challenged by competitors or adversaries, and it hasn’t been. Of course, not all stories have this type of research behind them, yet it is important that the information being released to any news outlet be solid.
Element #4. Set a Strategy and Follow It! With HelloWallet, we began in the fall, approaching a broad range of reporters at target publications to introduce ourselves and provide background information to the larger issue in the fall. We let them know that we would be providing some interesting research after the Holidays, and take note of their interest. Next, we contacted a handful of those whose ears perked up the most to give them a heads up several weeks prior to the study’s release. As part of the strategy we offered it to several major publications ahead of time with an embargo date (this included the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and The Washington Post among others), thereby giving them time to drill deep into the research and prepare for a more in-depth article than if they had less time to consider the study. Finally, as soon as the research was released and published by the Post—on its front page, no less—we did a larger outreach to trade media, larger newspapers, radio and the broadcast networks with a reference to the Post coverage, in order to validate the significance of the research.
While we could never be sure in advance of what the coverage would be (after all, a big storm could easily have sent it to the back pages of oblivion), we nevertheless stuck by our strategy throughout the course of this campaign—precisely because we had confidence that it would give us the best chance of success.