Tommy Puglia
By: Tommy Puglia – Bayshore Solutions Digital Marketing Manager
More Insights from Content Marketing World Conference 2014: Got Drewed, Kraft’s Content Model, and Look Before You Leap
Hello again from Cleveland! Today is the 2nd day in our 4-day series of Bayshore Solutions’ reporting from Content Marketing World 2014 (see day #1 recap here). Today was absolutely packed with some of the leaders in the industry. We got to see the full audience: 2,500 in attendance in fact!
One Theme though: Mind. Blown.
Funnel That!
Andrew M. Davis kicked off the day’s keynote with a kick in the gut for most marketers: The “Marketing Funnel” we know and love: the standard approach to how marketing is thought of… Do you know when it was created? 1950s?
How about 1898.
This begs the question: Why on earth are we using a model that is over 100 years old to channel most of our marketing efforts? Especially in the age of digital, there is nothing close to a linear approach to a customer’s journey.
Most funnels start off with some sort of “Awareness” for a Brand, but this is completely off the target. It starts with Inspiration to buy, or really to act. Nothing even close to a brand or a product at this point. Andrew encouraged us to become M.O.I. (Masters of Inspiration), and he gave the example of the true Masters of MOI: Disney.
When 101 Dalmatians was released in movie theaters, there is a direct correlation with the amount of adoptions of Dalmatians as the result of the movie. Not only in buying Dalmatians, but adoption stores taking them back (because apparently they are not the best pet, and they don’t talk!).
When Disney released Finding Nemo into theaters, this created something known as the Nemo Effect. Basically, the rise of clownfish in stores was so large that there was an actual crisis off-shore of people importing clownfish to the states illegally.
Now these two examples show what direct inspiration can do, but think a little wider: What else do you need when you buy a fish? A tank, fish food, filters, etc. Same thing with a dog. The markets of demand for the indirect product rose just as dramatically as the main source of inspiration.
Your product or service has an initial moment of inspiration, and it could come from a movie, a TV show, a magazine, or even a blog. It doesn’t even need to reference your brand or even industry, but still can cause this ripple effect across your company.
And that is the job of content marketing – creating the content that will inspire the users. This means we must know the users and what we can do to inspire them.
C. Williams of Williams-Sonoma said it best: “We don’t sell the drill bit or the drill, we sell the hole”.
As Andrew said after his keynote: You’ve Been Drewed!
Move Fast and Break Things
How do you think Kraft creates all of their recipes, their videos, and their content? Do you think it is just mass produced focusing on their products and brand? Or would you be a tad surprised that every piece of content starts with mass amounts of data that is drilled down into highly-segmented audiences in order to curate content for specific users, all of the time? If you picked B, you are correct! Kraft’s model is precisely to mine data, create content, and go back to the data to see the results. For them, data drives ALL of their content creation.
It wasn’t always so for Kraft. When they mass produced their catalog, it was one of the most read/bought magazines, but they had no way to prove any value (sales) to it. So Kraft went to the white board (literally), and brainstormed, “What is the world we want to be in?” From there, they realized that in order to create the best content for users, they need to have the customer data.
Main Takeaway points: All content and all efforts should be focused on ROI by the following:
- Increase in Spend-Driven Decisions by our Content
- Increase in Brand Metrics like Purchase Intent
- Increase in Engagement Rates
- Value of First Party Data
- Value of in-house Research Tools
- Increase in Ads Effectives Off-Platform
And finally – “We [Kraft] wouldn’t have gotten to where we are without rethinking where we were”.
The Heart of Marketing
I have a book I am purchasing for my plane ride back from Cleveland, by Kristina Halvorsen on Content Strategy. By far one of the smartest and innovated marketers I have met on this trip so far.
As much as we hate this word, it is so prevalent in client meetings, management meetings, sales meetings, production meetings, emails, and so forth:
Strategy.
But too much of the time, we probably do not have a firm grasp on what it looks like, but just that we really do need one.
Strategy should, in its essence, guide planning for creation.
This is true in content creation and content strategy – and every piece (really, EVERY piece) of content should be able to answer these questions:
- What
- Why (Do we need this?)
- How (No really, how is this getting done?)
- When (is our Deadline, and what needs to be pushed back?)
- Where (If content goes everywhere, it disappears)
- Who (is it for?) If content is for everyone, it is for no one.
So what does the “Strategy” in content strategy look like, and how does it show itself? It is all about the structure in being able to focus. Strategy helps us FOCUS on what to prioritize and what to say no too. If your strategy is to increase global readers and become an industry leader (Who isn’t?); If that is your Strategy statement, then every piece of content sounds like a good idea (Mr. CEO, you should really start to Vine!). But a good content strategy has a FOCUS, and measurable outlook, so you can easily choose the right pieces of content you need, and making sure every step of the way that any content you produce aligns with your strategy.
Which brings us to the heart of marketing. If our strategy is focused on pure sales and what we want, we lose the focus. The heart of marketing is our customer: customers ultimately do not want our product as much as they want our attention. Look at Apple yesterday – their success from the Mouse to now, the Apple Watch, goes back to what is best for the user and what is the best experience for the user – not what is the best sales margin for the company. And I think their margin is doing just fine.
Tomorrow should bring more the same! Feel free reach out to me (especially if you are in the Cleveland area this week) on Twitter at @puglia24thomas. Now, what food is Cleveland known for?
Tommy Puglia is on the Digital Marketing Team at Bayshore Solutions—a Web Design, Web Development, and Digital Marketing Company.