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Success Through Strategy!

Strategy Matters delivers news, tips and strategies for effective communications through traditional and social media. 
The Role of Contributed Content in Your Marketing Mix

There are basically four ways, listed below from most to least impactful, that consumers learn about companies' products and services that influence their purchase decisions. They are: 
  • Their own personal experiences
  • Word-of-mouth from people they trust
  • Third party endorsements through media channels
  • Advertising (what businesses say about themselves or their own products and services)
All are important, but consumers have a tendency to discount the things we say about ourselves in comparison to the things that others (especially trusted others) say about us.

Enter contributed content. What is contributed content? Think of it as a bylined article that appears in a magazine targeted to an audience that represents your market. So, if you're attempting to connect with healthcare leaders, Hospitals & Health Networks might be a publication you would like to appear in. You would write an article (or have someone write one for you), submit it and, if it's of sufficient quality and the content is relevant to the audience, the article would be published with your byline. You pay nothing (of course, you're paid nothing either), but you now have a byline in a reputable publication that you can use to promote your services through social media, your website and a variety of other potential channels.

Here's an example of a piece we contributed this year to Communication World, the digital magazine of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC).

From a brand management standpoint we (marketers) need to be focusing on delivering good products/services/experiences to impact all of our potential influencers. Contributed articles, when they appear in credible, relevant and reliable channels, can be a great way to do that. The byline lends credibility and clout.
 
  
Marketing Planning: An Ongoing Process

In an industry like marketing that's driven by having its finger on the pulse of cultural trends and attitudes, a major fear is becoming stale, outdated or thought of as "yesterday's news." At the same time, there's a very real danger in being too quick to move away from the tried and true, especially in established businesses and industries. 

So, with the obvious need to strike some sort of balance, the clear question becomes, "How often should I update my marketing plan?"

At a fundamental level, any strategic plan, including strategic marketing plans, should be a "living/breathing" document. They aren't static creations that are built and then set aside while other activities take center stage. This doesn't mean, however, that marketing plans need to be constantly tweaked.

As Grasshopper pointed out in a 2011 post on its blog, there is no magic, one-size-fits-all timeframe or schedule for updating your marketing plan. Instead, Grasshopper points out four key elements that should help determine when, and to what extent, to update your marketing plan:
  • Your industry - a tech firm will probably want to update its marketing plan more frequently than, say, a steel manufacturer.
  • The presence of change in your company - if your company has changed in a major way, you should definitely think about how that impacts your marketing strategy.
  • Your consumer base - how have the tastes and attitudes of your base changed? How have the demographics of your base evolved?
  • The effectiveness of your current plan - obviously, if what you're doing now isn't working, it may be time for a change.
Even if factors like the four above tend to favor a conservative, steady marketing approach given your particular situation, that doesn't mean you can turn a blind eye to your marketing plan and rest easy. It's a good practice to establish a regular (preferably monthly) review process, so you can review results and make any plan changes that may be required.

The business world moves too fast these days to develop a plan that takes a 3-5 year outlook, creates strategies and tactics, and then lies dormant until the next planning cycle. Ignore your plan at your peril!

How often do you review and update your marketing plan?
   
Managing the Noise on Twitter

When Twitter first hit the social media scene, it seemed implausible or even inconceivable to many that 140 characters could provide any real value to social media marketing efforts, yet this application has emerged as one of the giants in the field. So popular, in fact, that it's a daunting task to keep track of all of the activity on Twitter. There's almost too much information. Some organizations get lost in the noise and fall victim to fear of missing out (FOMO), spending far too much time trying to pay attention to everything.

At Strategic Communications, our top tip for getting the most out of Twitter and avoiding FOMO is to be very strategic in terms of how you are using your account and, most importantly, how you are consuming information. For our accounts, that generally means three things:

1) We maintain a list of thought leaders who we include in a Hootsuite stream so that we can easily see what this select group of individuals/organizations is talking about. A Forbes article based on an interview with "The Tao of Twitter" author Mark Schaefer touches on the same concept. "The concept of 'social listening' is now in vogue. But for Schaefer, that simply means it's worth making the time to connect with your ideal audience. One of his favorite ways to find them is by 'mining lists.' He explains, 'People organize descriptive lists of their favorite people, customers, leads, competitors, etc. Most of these lists are public. In essence, individuals and businesses are curating groups of potential leads for you if you can find the right lists.'"

2) We maintain keyword streams in Hootsuite as well and use them in much the same way to track topics we're most interested in.

3) For specific needs or trending topics, we follow hashtags. This is a great way to focus what you're paying attention to. You don't need to follow every single tweet, so pick a handful of the most salient items of interest to you, and start tracking the relevant hashtags.

There's so much information out there these days, not only on Twitter, but virtually everywhere. You can't possibly consume it all. As with any other communication issue, it starts with strategy. 

Know, specifically, what you hope to get out of your participation on Twitter, identify the types of accounts that are most relevant for you to follow, and think strategically about how you can efficiently manage the noise, using technology tools, wherever possible, to help you automate these processes.

Featured White Paper

"70 Tips for Effective Strategic Planning"

As we've worked with clients over the years we've developed some core processes that we follow and teach, along with a number of tips that can make the process both easier and more productive. In this white paper we share 10 tips for each of the 7 steps in our recommended strategic planning process.

 Request a copy.
Volume: 7 - Issue: 10
 October 2015
Strat Comm logo
In This Issue
Contributed Content
Marketing Planning
Twitter Noise
We're In the News! 

50+ Entrepreneurs Explain How They Came Up With Their Business Name (#11)


Research Matters
Some recent news and  research you may be interested in--we were!