Apr 4

Is social share of voice critical to your marketing dashboard?

The short answer is that share of voice should be very, very, important to your marketing performance dashboard. Social share of voice, is similar to the more comprehensive marketing metric, share of voice. Its growing in its usefulness and insightfulness as listening platforms broaden their reach. If you are not a social media practitioner or familiar with social metrics, social share of voice can be defined as the number of times your brand is mentioned relative to your competitors. It is most often shown in a percentage format, so its actually calculated from the sum of mentions of you and your competitors.

So how and why is social share of voice becoming a more powerful measurement and benchmark. Here are a few points to consider when evaluating if share of voice has a place in your marketing performance dashboard:

Online visibility – Online visibility is a very broad term. In the context of this conversation and social share of voice, we are looking at online visibility as an organic/earned measure verus a paid marketing measurement. This can be a powerful measurement when working with marketing organizations that believe in the the power of thought leadership, content marketing and inbound leads. In order to acquire a reliable measurement, it requires selecting the right social listening tool. Many tools are limited in the number of platforms and properties they report from. Any share of voice measurement that doesn’t pull from at least 30 properties and span more than just “social media”, is not going to be an accurate online visibility indicator. Lately, I have been working with a software application that provides data inputs from over 80 online properties, and represents much more than just social media. It takes some “working around” the basic feature set, but once you learn how to stretch the limits of a social listening tool you can really make them met your specific demands. This particular solution helps broadens our reach by including general organic search data with the social media data. As we combine social property data with places like Google, bing, PRNewswire, and increase all data to a significant enough size, we suddenly have a good benchmark for online visibility.

Market share – As social media listening and share of voice have become more mainstream, serious research analysts have put time and effort into the statistical and predictive models that might link share of voice to overall market share. While the science is still relatively primitive, the early conclusions being drawn are interesting. Its predicted that market share could increase 1% for every 10-15% increase in share of voice. As with any statistical forecasting model, every marketer needs to look at these conclusions cautiously. There are always multiple variables that affect unique instances. Statistical validity aside, if you can start to make the connection between market share and share of voice, it can be an eye-opener to any marketer working on the organization’s performance benchmarks.

Getting the right social share of voice pieces (tools) and perspective (uses) into place, can help you extract real marketing insights that complement the overall marketing performance dashboard.

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Mar 4

Strengthen your business case for content marketing

by Ryan Campbell

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Content marketing is without a doubt one of todays shining stars. Its popularity has created vast amounts of noise, launching a content arms race. Successful content marketing can be a bonanza of inbound leads, and the reason most brands need to engage in the race. Many organizations hesitate in participating, because of the time and energy required to launch content marketing. Your business case should start with inbound lead metrics, but here are 4 additional benefits that organizations should not overlook when evaluating the decision to embrace content marketing.

1. Reputation – Today, good reputations are built from delivering exceptional products, service and experiences, not advertising. Content marketing is a tremendous opportunity to engage individuals without them fully experiencing your product or service. Incubating these positive experiences will build your reputation by backfilling existing customer testimonials and references. Not embracing content marketing places limits on the reach of your reputation growth.

2. Practice optimizations - When content marketing is organized and done right, it drives an organization to map valuable insights to customer needs. To do this, the team will need to evaluate existing marketing assumptions and transform their ways of thinking. Maximizing value from content marketing should include optimizations across current marketing practices. You should set goals for the external and internal outcomes. Internal benefits include: a content matrix, new customer segments and scoring rules, a content/PR calendar, and stronger distribution and governance models.

3. Trading on new relationships – Product, service and experience companies alike, are successful through trading on relationships. A blind spot exists for most organizations when it comes to hidden or unknown opportunities and relationships. In today’s hyper-connected world, content marketing coupled with social media distribution, affords organizations the chance to connect into new circles. Just one new circle of influence can create thousands or millions of new valuable relationships on which to trade.

4. People get involved – Content marketing done right will transform the way an organization consumes and shares information. The more employees thinking about creating and sharing unique intellectual perspectives, the better. Start with a small group of team members, and watch as participation becomes infectious. Over time the result will be new contributors, new ideas, and cultural enrichment for the organization.

In conclusion, your organization should be involved in content marketing and focused on the inbound lead opportunities that grow your business. Work on a business case anchored with inbound lead forecasts but dont forget to include these additional benefits: Reputation management, practice optimizations, trading on new relationships and getting people involved.

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Feb 14

3 compatibility tests for picking the right Marketing partner.

by Ryan Campbell

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3 compatibility tests for picking the right Marketing partner.

Partnering with a marketing firm can create a powerful alliance. But it can also be a challenging process that leads to disappointment, frustration and second guessing. I have witnessed too many companies test for the wrong qualities during their review. If you can isolate and test for the most meaningful elements of compatibility, you can improve your odds of picking the right Marketing partner.

3 tests for finding the right Marketing partner, Ryan Campbell blog.

Test # 1 = Professionalism- Test for a marketing partner that gives you a sense of security when you asses their professional working style. There will be challenges and rough sailing in any complex marketing endeavour. During your review process, interview fewer Marketing firms in order maximize the time you spend with each. Spend time with the people on the team and assess their level of comfort and confidence as they discuss the resources and tools they use (schedules, requirements, escalation communication, etc.). Learning the people will give you the perspective to project how they will respond under the challenging situations that are bound to come. You are looking for the team that has a working style most compatible to yours.

“Test” # 2 = Plans that get executed – Test for a marketing partner that can prove they are able to link planning and strategy with execution. Even if you are responsible for much of the marketing strategy, be sure to find a team that can effectively bridge the gap between the plan and the execution. Too often companies evaluate a firm’s experience within a particular industry, or around a specific type of deliverable. While both of these are factors in the decision, focus your compatibility test on questions about how and why things are done. Spend time understanding the thought processes of the people on the team, so that you believe in them. This will mitigate relying on the validity of past results, for other clients under different circumstances.

“Test” # 3 = Debate – Test for a marketing partner that is knowledgeable enough to challenge you at the right times. While anyone can argue a point that they think is right, not all partners will have the conviction or expertise to proactively challenge some of you established assumptions. Spend time with the potential team and discuss industry topics or marketing challenges that will solicit debate. They dont need to be isolated to your business, they just need to spark the genuine debate between your team and theirs. This activity alone will help you understand how their style of inquiry and debate will mesh with yours. In order to get the most from a Marketing partner, you will need them to challenge your assumptions but also respect your position under unique circumstances.

In conclusion, partnering with a Marketing firm should be a productive and energizing experience for your company. Rethink your traditional formats for conducting reviews, and use these 3 compatibility tests to focus on what will be meaningful to success.

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Jan 17

Accessible Key performance indicators, a 4 part framework

by Ryan Campbell

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Its amazing to witness the popularity that Key performance indicators (KPI’s) have seen over the past 15 years. Like many executives in planning, strategy and marketing, I too marvel at the thought of having magical KPI’s that will propel my programs or business. Unfortunately, in the process of consulting our clients, too often we see that organizations rarely understand and benefit from KPI’s. Those that do understand the effort and commitment needed to craft effective KPI’s, very often find it too daunting in today’s era of rapid change.

My original use of KPI’s came from practicing the principles in David Parmenters 2007 book, “Key Performance Indicators” where he states, “KPI’s tell you what to do to increase performance dramatically.” Its a good read, and really outlines the best and most thorough approach to finding effective KPI’s.

In order to make KPI’s meaningful, useful, and achievable, I use a simple 4 part framework that can help launch you on a manageable and focused path.

1 – Understand your platforms – The capabilities and power of the platforms you have (CRM, analytics tools, people, etc.) are very important in determining what you can monitor. Continue reading

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