DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONHow to Reignite Your Marketing Communications for the Digital Era

Does your brand message stand out in the marketplace? Does your narrative convey bold ideas, new experiences and customer stories that engage and excite people to learn more about your company? Has your marketing team fully embraced the tools and techniques of content marketing? Or, are your efforts still being surpassed by more progressive competitors?

Can you relate to some of these situational circumstances? You work at a multinational company where the marketing communication practice hasn’t evolved significantly in the last decade. Your company’s marketing budget is still applied to ‘buying mindshare’—only instead of purchasing advertising in trade media publications, now you buy ads on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

First, move past denial, and accept the reality: Applying old, tired inside-out legacy mass-thinking to the online medium isn’t likely to result in progress. Move on: it’s time for fresh thinking and learning new skills. Traditional trade media will continue to disappear. People won’t miraculously start to pay attention to your inert online ads. Step up: self-publishing substance is the new normal.

Distinctive Point of View— Effective marketing communications starts with compelling ideas. If your narrative appears to be virtually identical to the other companies in your space, then you will struggle to convey any real value-added benefit. Invest the time and effort to get to the heart of customers choose your company, given the alternatives.

Managing Editor Guidance— You’re likely missing opportunities to present a compelling and strategic storyline that includes all related aspects of your product and service portfolio. Your company could benefit from the guidance and mentoring of an Editor, for ongoing editorial content development across BUs; for better search engine optimization; and for consistent social media amplification.

Story World for Content— An effective way to influence the production of more outside-in oriented content is to produce a market-centric ‘story world’ map. Armed with a plan, you’re now able to position individual storyline elements the context of an episodic story arc. You can describe your vision across the three phases of event chronology.

Content vs. Ad Campaigns— You are likely spending some of your product marketing budget on Paid Search advertising. You can foresee that numerous me-too vendors with larger budgets will out-bid you for your primary choices. However, can reduce your current dependence from ‘buying mindshare’ with Paid Search, to ‘earning mindshare’ with more meaningful and substantive content.

Commentary vs. Press Releases— You may still view communication within the marketplace through the lens of a legacy media relations perspective, and it’s limiting your company’s ability to effectively compete with progressive competitors. In contrast, corporate blogging is about opinion (thought-leadership) that more effectively conveys your forward-thinking perspective.

Buyer vs. Sales Enablement— Much of the current content from your organization likely focuses more on ‘sales enablement’ rather than ‘buyer enablement’. When the market becomes saturated with many me-too vendors, actionable information is highly valued. Uninformed buyers need guidance on the right questions to ask during the initial stages of the procurement process.

Influencing Sentiment vs. Counting Page Views — Overall perception shapes individual sentiment towards your company. Unique organizations that champion a cause lead a ‘movement’ in the The best narrative effectively targets the key buyer community within that movement, and will influence positive sentiment about your company.

Just-in-Time Editorial Publication— Your CEO likely has a corporate goal to create a unified story for your brand. If you truly want to reach the larger addressable market for your offering, then you must produce more meaningful and substantive thought-leadership content. However, the current approval process may inhibit rapid ‘trust-based’ online publication.

Repurpose the Content Archive— While you prepare to produce more buyer-oriented you’ll have a near-term need for content that’s useful and actionable. A small percentage of your published content is likely being consumed by its intended audience. You can repurpose superior content into other online assets (i.e. white papers into blogs).

Mobile Media Publication—More people discover new content via Mobile Search. You may have already invested in mobile applications. However, it’s unlikely that Business decision makers would download and use a vendor-specific app. In contrast, some mobile savvy executives already use the popular Flipboard app to consume a variety of content on mobiles.

Editorial Syndication— Once you have achieved the production of more thought-provoking content, you can utilize other platforms. Pulse is an effective syndication site, due to the business-centric membership. There’s no cost associated with re-publishing your best Your posts can also be shared in LinkedIn

Digital Marketing Community— Who are your most active digital marketers? Do they work together and share the best results from their activity? If you’re like most legacy-oriented marketing organizations, you need to gain more skilled practitioners that are able to plan, design, produce and then promote meaningful and substantive content online.

Raise the Bar of Expectations— say something that’s truly remarkable. Seek the guidance of a digital marketing practitioner that has proven experience creating a powerful message that’s in the vernacular of bold strategic business outcomes. Take action now, and reignite your marcom content for the 21st Century.

This presentation is a summary from an editorial entitled “How to Reignite Your Marketing Communications for the Digital Era” that was published on Medium.com