retail re-emergence post-covid

“Retail Re-Emergence” in a Post-COVID World

For the August 2020 edition of our KG Connects webinar series, we hosted internationally known retail experts Manolo Almagro and Ben Gauthier from Q Division. They are experts in commerce and technology, working with startups and brands worldwide to promote and deploy emerging retail tech and take advantage of key trends. They joined us for a conversation on what to expect as the retail world resets, recovers and advances in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn.

COVID-19 creates an opportunity for retailers

While “post-Covid” may be overly optimistic to say at this point, retailers and technology companies need to know what to prioritize and where to focus to shore up infrastructure while the “opportunity” of closed or limited store capacity, so to speak, still exists.

While big box retailers including Target, Lowe’s and Best Buy have performed exceedingly well in recent months, mall-anchor retailers such as Macy’s, Nordstrom’s and Kohl’s are facing big challenges. In all cases, most of the response to the pandemic was cemented well before 2020, as they deployed or failed to deploy the right technology infrastructure, customer engagement strategies and assortments that served customer needs.

changing-consumer-behavior

A big part of that is that the way people shop for regular items – from groceries to back-to-school items to holiday shopping – is changing. Of course, that was true before the pandemic and those changes have accelerated tremendously since.

Retailers must go virtual to meet changing consumer behavior

Just like the way we communicate and entertain ourselves as communities have gone fully virtual, retail has to as well. And it’s benefited the big retailers who have pushed innovative solutions to sticky problems and punished the laggards hanging onto old glory. 

As foot traffic in physical stores continues to slowly but steadily regain momentum, it’s essential to remember that it’s human nature to be social. Shopping in person is part of that, but in a “post”-pandemic world, the digital influence can’t be ignored.

Of course, the way technology is deployed needs to be strategic and what works for one retailer would be foolish for another. That said, technology investments shouldn’t be patchwork, hole-filling remedies. Retailers need to truly reconsider how their business model plays with their consumers’ wishes – now and into the future – and respond in kind.

Technology is ready to power future retail success

Ben and Manolo took us through some of the most important innovations. Of course, the pattern will be different for everyone, but what’s true for all is that a service or process that was once radical may quickly become foundational, and what was once foundational may seems suddenly secondary.

retail-post-covid

One stat that stood out was that 75% of shoppers have tried a new shopping behavior since COVID-19 struck, according to McKinsey. And according to IBM, we’ve advanced up to five years ahead in e-commerce because of the fundamental need.

For example, curbside was a forced behavior among most grocers. A somewhat slow-to-innovate industry with customers who aren’t always highly tech savvy, curbside quickly became a lifeline and is now very popular across demographics.

When we look at restaurants, we also learn a big lesson on loyalty and owning the customer relationship fully even when launching new services. Restaurants obviously took a huge hit. But some sectors, such as pizza, did well. They were structured to thrive on quick delivery and had the ecosystem in place.

For others, the fees were so high on partnering with a service like Uber Eats that they struggled to really take advantage of the profit those services bring. And when the customer interaction with the restaurant goes through the app, brand identity and value take a hit, too.

That said, consumer loyalty across retail segments quickly shifted from an enjoyable in-person experience or goods rewards program to more fundamental needs, and availability became paramount for driving loyalty.  Now, success is all about delivering those new services with efficiency and transparency, and providing great results with availability, quality, speed and consistency.

How to identify the best technology application

Want to learn about the specific technology applications that will take center stage as retailers look to own their customer relationships while reimagining what retail experiences mean to their brand? Watch the webinar to learn more about:

  • Customer experience
    • BOPIS
    • Walk-up, curbside, drive-through
    • Cashierless/unattended stores
  • Home commerce
    • E-commerce
    • Virtual shopping / telepresence
    • Home delivery partners
  • Customer-centric convenience
    • Buy now pay later
    • Contactless transactions
    • Loyalty = availability
  • Operations and supply chain
    • ML demand forecasting
    • Micro-warehousing
    • Autonomous everything and robotics

Next up: discussing inclusive communication

It’s also critical that no business loses sight of the power of communication to develop and maintain strong communities. In September, we’ll host Kia Jarmon for a conversation on The Art of Inclusive Communication on how to do just that. We hope to see you there!

catch covid-19 retail webinar on demand
the future of b2b media

The Future of B2B Media

The future of B2B media is a topic worthy of a book. It’s a huge industry with a lot of moving parts, but there are a few trends that stand out to me as defining the future of the industry more strongly than any others.

In general, beyond just B2B, the most successful media companies have the full attention and trust of their audience. Regardless of what they promise – information, entertainment, perspective – they thrive when they capture time and attention better than anyone else.

In my last blog on the future of journalism, I dug into the monetization challenges facing online publishers battling the two-headed monster of Big Tech and the COVID pandemic. While I am confident that the best publishers will benefit, emerging from this inflection point stronger than ever, others are at risk of defeat.

As PR and communications professionals, it’s important for us to consider what the future of B2B media looks like, and how the roles and powerful voices within it will evolve over time.

The short answer is, media companies are finding new ways to stay competitive, while individual experts and corporate brands are simultaneously taking on characteristics of media companies to survive and thrive in the attention economy. We see it playing out something like this:

B2B media consolidates

In a market where revenue disappears overnight, only a few players will remain strong—mirroring the media industry at large. We’ll see the most trusted names in each market consolidate their influence by bringing in the lion’s share of the reduced available revenue.

Those who were already struggling will have to close. The big players will capitalize on the opportunity by investing in new services and staff who help them further monetize their attention share. They have the time and resources to wait out the storm.

Publications monetize new services

“Successful media companies have to have two things. They have to control their own distribution and they have to have their own programming. People that don’t have both either have to rectify that or go out of business,” said Michael Bloomberg, as shared in a great Twitter thread on Bloomberg’s experience.

With big tech platforms like Facebook and Google taking a larger role in distributing the media’s content, publications must quickly build out their own distribution methods. They need to shift from relying on search and social to reaching their own audiences where they are.

We talk about it all the time with our retail tech clients – retailers must be everywhere their shoppers are. It’s no different in media.

In terms of programming, we’re already seeing the most well-respected B2B publications scale services well beyond online and print articles. They host webinars, conduct sponsored research, curate multiple regular newsletters, create video, run conferences (and will find ways to take leadership roles in virtual events), award programs, and more. Those who continue this content mix and find ways to own the distribution will come out on top.

Independent experts change the game

Adding new services that go well beyond reporting the news isn’t the only reason the definition of ‘media company’ is changing.

New content creators are entering the mix, often without affiliation to any media brand. They’re not in it to compete for ad dollars; their currency is attention. They might be company executives, consultants, investors, academics or industry analysts. As long as they have deep expertise and a platform to share thoughts, they can play the game.

These high-relevance industry experts and brands are the thought leaders and entertainers that news organizations can never be. They can take positions that exist outside of pure fact; they can challenge conventional knowledge and accumulate loyal followers.

Social platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube have given SMEs free platforms to become the go-to experts in any domain. They provide a “boots on the ground” sense of reporting objective truth.

influencers aren't truth-tellers

What’s more, these influencers don’t repute themselves as objective truth-tellers. That makes it easy for them to say what they think and use personality and entertainment to elevate their spot in the intellectual hierarchy.

These SMEs will challenge publications for the title of the most reliable and influential voices in the industry. As they do, they will continue to monetize their position. They will offer their own secondary services – selling products, services or time without the overhead or scrutiny that media companies deal with. As this proves an increasingly powerful sales tool, more players will enter the field.

Corporate brands double down on ‘content marketing’

The industry’s savviest entities won’t be left behind in this paradigm, either.

Digitally intelligent and highly engaging brand “publications” will increasingly become entertainment hubs for their industries. This will take the form of both robust blogs and brand-agnostic, semi-independent media entities.

publications become entertainment

Without the need to supplement content with advertising revenue, they will build platforms that offer cutting-edge storytelling experiences.

Funded by corporate profits, they can invest heavily in being at the forefront of every industry conversation. Eventually, corporate profits will help them be among the first to deploy new storytelling technologies such as augmented or virtual reality, or 360-degree video.

In the attention economy, pervasive brand awareness and affinity leads to sales of their core product or service offering. Their media platform can operate at a net-negative cost and still drive significant gains in corporate profit.

Communications professionals take control of audience engagement

Every company today, in some way, is (or should be) a media company. Everyone has an online presence, competes for views and attention, and wants to be a key voice in their industry.

As B2B media, corporate, and individual players compete for attention, they’ll overlap and collaborate more; we’ll continue to see the splintering of long-held industry roles.

But we can’t just wait and see how the future of B2B media affects our approach to brand building. The new market context demands that we also take control of our own content creation and distribution. We all need to be media companies now.

Do you want to propel your company’s growth by adopting a media company mindset, but don’t know where to start?

We’re offering a free 30-minute conversation to help get you started. We’d love to brainstorm with you! Just get in touch.

The New York Times Building at Night

The Future of Journalism

The future of journalism will be defined by two parallel forces: algorithms and trust.

Online media has been in constant evolution since print newspapers and periodicals first moved online.

Industry innovation since then has mainly delivered new ways to cover and share news: podcasts; webinars; video; social media.

But the non-stop battle for readers and revenue never disrupted the fundamental business model of publishing. Outlets continue to generate revenue through either subscription-based or ad-supported coverage.

More recently, powerful new forces have put this model into question – one slowly and one suddenly. The response will define who maintains their positions as the gatekeepers of information moving forward.

Big Tech is poaching ad revenues

One major financial burden for digital publishers is Big Tech. Google and Facebook, in particular, have built their own news distribution and advertising platforms that offer larger audiences and more personalization options.

Quote with image of wrinkled newspaper: It's more appealing for advertisers to circumvent the publishers

It’s a natural if not inevitable evolution. Newspapers and periodicals curated and distributed great writing to a broader audience than the writers could reach alone. Big Tech simply does the same at a greater scale. It curates the best of the best for the biggest audience.

The publishing industry model has always financially rewarded the organizations with the biggest audiences and best ROI for advertisers. Big tech now wears that crown.

In response, many of the biggest publishers are lobbying to require tech companies to pay for the news they use. This would provide some relief for content producers but doesn’t address the competitive disadvantage of the model itself. It’s a band-aid option that prevents the industry from addressing larger issues at hand.

Money flowed from inefficient print newspapers to online publications because it delivered a better user experience and better ROI for advertisers. Even if regulators force Big Tech to share revenue with publishers, the same forces will continue to disrupt the online news industry from within.

The pandemic effect

The throes of a pandemic offer a fascinating glimpse into the true state and future of media and journalism.

Decision-makers and stakeholders need answers, guidance and insight into the factors influencing their livelihoods and lifestyles. That’s why many reliable publishers are experiencing huge surges in web traffic and engagement.

Publications like RIS News have built a reputation in their industries as being the gatekeepers of great content – and are rewarded for doing so, especially in times of increased need for information.

In a vacuum, this would be a harbinger of a revenue windfall.

However, the pandemic has led many brands to cut back on their ad buys with publications. This has resulted in a slew of media layoffs and furloughs, a cruel irony at a time when public interest in consuming content is high and the need is great.

Ultimately, a protracted pandemic and its economic fallout will accelerate the trends already underway. Ownership groups will consolidate risk, stack premier writing talent within fewer publications and double down on making sure those few outlets maintain profitability – at the expense of the rest.

The industry will get more top-heavy.

A symbiotic relationship

Although the pandemic will continue inflicting pain on the publishing industry, it eventually will come to an end. Similarly, Google and Facebook aren’t in the business of putting media out of business. In fact, it’s the worst thing they could do.

These tech platforms can’t – and don’t want to – create their own content. They prefer to identify and elevate the best content for each audience. Their algorithms do just that. And that’s why they’re so successful.

In a way, big tech is bringing rigid order to the Wild West of online publishing. They are the new gatekeepers of ‘good journalism’. And for better or worse, they don’t define winners subjectively. Behavior and preference data and search ranking algorithms leave no room for those who don’t follow the rules.

The role of trust in an open internet

There is another important factor working in publishers’ favor: platforms have issues of their own when it comes to policing their pages. Facebook especially has been battered by the fake new phenomenon. 

In an unregulated and open internet, trust comes at a premium. Ethical publishers will have a monopoly on trust that advertisers and brands will gravitate towards.

This does not mean that all online publishers will recoup the revenues they pulled in before big tech stole the show. Rather, well-defined and highly loyal audiences will continue to rely on digital publishers who exemplify those characteristics.

A new playing field defines the future of journalism

The importance and role of high-value content are the same as they have ever been. In fact, with questions about fake news and overt bias running rampant, it’s more critical to media sustainability than ever.

Publishers are just operating on a new playing field where new referees have reset the rules.

This game, like any game, will have winners and losers. But the players who create the best content for their audience’s needs will forever have a key role in defining the future of journalism. And readers and advertisers will reward them for it.

Old time general store representing the basic retail model built on relationships

Coronavirus Puts the Focus Back on the Basics

Like nearly anyone offering a few words of reflection on the Coronavirus phenomenon, I’m far from an expert on the matter. I have tried for weeks to write this blog, and every two days the situation has changed so rapidly that I’ve had to essentially start over.

While I can’t offer any advice on how to assuage the public health, mental health, or economic threat this pandemic has affected, the process of learning, acknowledging, adapting and persevering that these few months have mandated from all of us is something I believe we should all take a moment to consider and to find great value in.

Like many, my first connection to Covid-19 was watching the virus take grip of China from the (physically) safe haven of Twitter, wondering along with everyone else whether what we were seeing was an authoritarian overreaction to assert political power or a global crisis exploding before our eyes.

When it burst through the border and put Italy under lockdown, I felt the emotional stress of being limited to FaceTime updates from my brother living 45 minutes from the country’s outbreak center with his wife and two kids – who as of this writing, we still understand to be healthy and safe.

When SXSW along with the City of Austin – where I live – canceled the event last minute, it felt like the most significant public acknowledgment that this crisis wasn’t just a blip on the radar or concern of only a foreign ‘other’.

Now, as we hunker down with our frozen pizzas, 1000-piece puzzles and the most organized junk drawers the world has ever seen, it’s provided the time to contextualize the moment and think about where we go from here and the lessons we should take with us.  

The benefit of being proactive

While I’m bummed that SXSW was canceled, it has proven to already be the right decision. The same goes for our clients who have had to cancel or postpone their customer events at their own expense.

Some things are just bigger than the bottom line, and I applaud the companies and executives being proactive about their broader long-term role in society even when they do so to their own short-term detriment. Their foresight and compassion had a massive effect on our ability to dampen the barrage.

It’s not always about being first to market with a new gadget or service. It’s not about being a fast follower. It’s not about taking credit as a pioneer in your field. The value comes from being quick to adapt and change to new conditions, for the betterment of all.

Flash vs substance

Having worked so closely with retail technology vendors for the past four years, it’s been very clear that most of the emphasis for building a modern retail business has been on customer engagement. When engaged, shoppers are likely to take desired actions.

We think about personalized marketing, same-day shipping, on-demand merchandise and endless aisle assortments. We talk about hyper-localization within a global economy and dynamic pricing in stores. It all sounds pretty wonderful, and it is.

But engagement doesn’t come from an innovation lab alone. It comes from personal understanding and connection to shoppers. For example, personalized marketing can only be done once you build real relationships with customers and learn enough about them to know what they want, when they want it.

If you can’t deliver on a shopper’s fundamental needs, all the work you’ve done to create new conveniences and ‘engagement’ is for naught.

Relationships and values are everything

What we’ve seen in recent weeks emphasizes this point. Families are paying more attention to grandparents than ever before. Businesses are finding ways to create more flexible, human-centric employee schedules. Dogs are getting more walks and parents are spending more playtime with their kids.

In times of crisis, we gravitate towards comfort and connection. We are drawn towards truth and fulfilling our fundamental needs. We realize more clearly what matters to us and what has been a distraction. And we see that much of our time and attention is dominated by clutter.

But who we are and what we mean to others is eternal.

When considering the future of business – all other considerations of financial management, product value, and bailouts aside – I’m sure that the companies who fare best and emerge from this with momentum will be those that have always emphasized building a brand and a culture of authenticity and responsibility, and actively cultivated customer and employee loyalty above all else.

Because when everything else gets called into question, our identity, our values – and what others know of them – are all you can rely on. It’s not only in times of stress that they matter, but it’s as good a time as any to realize the depth of their impact.

A most helpful Covid-19 legal resource:

Our client, national law firm Foley & Lardner, is offering a terrific library of support for companies navigating the complex legal ramifications of business disruption. If you’d like to get in touch with them, let us know!

play the game

Spring Training Routines Aren’t Just for Athletes

I grew up a diehard sports fan in Boston. Spoiled rotten by now, the city’s motto in those days was, “there’s always next year.” It was an unfortunate existence, but one that leveraged optimism to handle the frustration of defeat. Fast forward to this week when I tuned into a Red Sox spring training game. I was struck by the unique approach sports leagues take to prepare for the nature of business. There are dates and processes that define team building year in and year out. Spring training gets players and coaches comfortable with the daily grind. It establishes routines and provides the practice that teams need in order to win more often than not throughout a grueling season. And it dawned on me that within this rigid structure lies a key lesson for all PR pros.

Living in Organized Chaos

I’m lucky to work for one of the most successful retail technology PR firms in the country. With that, every day brings a new schedule, new challenges and new opportunities. It’s a job that requires preparation, organization, dedication and creativity. Yet, unlike professional athletes, we don’t get an offseason to reset and refocus. With limited regularity to our days, it can be hard to establish effective systems and frameworks that withstand the pressures of day-to-day expectations. Superstitious baseball players would probably hate it.

Identifying Routines

Superstition is a funny thing, really. Most athletes know that putting on their socks in the wrong order doesn’t shift the balance of the universe to mandate their failure. Rather, they understand the need to establish routines that create consistent triggers in a chaotic profession. Yes, they have endless travel, non-stop media attention and families to raise. But little routines help them find stability in the chaos. With a sense of control comes the ability to handle changing environments, situations, and opponents.

Establishing Productive Habits

This approach can teach us something about our own work. As you do your own personal and professional spring cleaning, think about ways that you can declutter your daily schedule. Look for ways to take control of your morning routine. Analyze your lunch break, the way you spend time between tasks, emails, client calls, and everything else you regularly do. You’ll quickly notice that among the chaos, there are plenty of opportunities to take control, find the calm and establish consistency.

The arrival of spring is a played-out analogy for new beginnings and new growth. Indeed, the optimism driven by longer, warmer days offers a notable divergence from the dutiful commitment to New Years’ resolutions made during the pits of winter’s misery. But growth doesn’t have to come from establishing visions of grandeur or reaching lofty goals. Rather, it can simply mean finding the little things in your day that trigger success, that bring regularity, comfort and calm to a hectic day.

So, put in the work to do the little things right. Do them every day. Do them right. Ultimately, you’ll establish routines that last a lifetime. Next spring when they start over once again, you’ll already be hitting home runs.

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson

7 Steps to Successful LinkedIn Marketing

In recent weeks, we’ve explored how to develop a content strategy, how to set up a social media program from scratch, and how to use thought leadership bylines to earn media coverage. All of these content approaches complement each other and help reinforce a brand’s identity. But the power of the written, or recorded, word can only get as far as the audience you’ve built to consume it. Luckily, there’s a way to amplify the reach and impact of this owned and earned content that we find quite valuable and our clients are consistently curious about: LinkedIn Sponsored Content.

 Adding a paid element to your PR program helps bridge the gap between traditional PR and traditional marketing, which shouldn’t operate in silos anyway. We like to take a strategic view of LinkedIn promotion, using a step-by-step practice to develop and continually optimize a highly-targeted LinkedIn ads campaign that complements existing content development and organic social media initiatives. The approach outlined below helps identify hyper-relevant prospects, target them with the right content, understand what content to create in the future and serve your company’s ultimate marketing goals.

 Step 1: Identify Ideal Audience

As with any marketing process, you can’t succeed if you don’t know who you’re talking to or trying to reach. But if you know who the decision makers, influencers or buyers are that you want to influence with your content, you can target them at a granular level on LinkedIn. By combing criteria, you can hit a hyper-targeted user set and ensure you’re not spending money promoting content to users who will never make a difference for your bottom line.  You can target audiences in three ways:

  • Demographics – Job function, seniority, company name, geographic region, industry, etc.
  • Interest-based targeting – Group membership, skills, fields of study
  • Company audience data – Target account lists your sales team is using (Note, you’ll need a lot of names for this to be effective, but it guarantees a precise audience.)

Step 2: Define Campaign Goal and Associated Content Formats

Once you know who you want to read your content and ultimately to engage with your brand as a potential customer, you’ll need to define the goal of your campaign. This will determine the kind of content you promote. For content you don’t already have, you’ll need to focus on developing it as part of a comprehensive owned, earned and paid media program. For the following goals, you’ll want to emphasize the associated content:

 Brand awareness

  • Company blog posts on LinkedIn
  • Press releases
  • Long-form posts
  • Visuals/videos
  • Product announcements
  • Promotion of tradeshow attendance

Thought leadership

  • eBook, whitepaper, video, research
  • Industry commentary
  • Long-form posts
  • Guest blogs on other blogs
  • Industry trends or data

 Lead generation

  • eBooks­
  • Webinars
  • How-to guides
  • Blog posts with calls-to-action (CTA)
  • “Freemium” downloads/gated content
  • Industry-related reports

Step 3: Develop an Editorial Calendar

Once you know which content to share, set up an editorial calendar – this will help you to visualize the rhythm of content being published and ensure that you’re addressing different aspects of your brand’s value proposition. Having everything written out will also help make sure you share different forms of content to keep things fresh and engaging for all members of your target audience, depending on their interest, challenge, or stage in the buying process:

  • Awareness: Have realized and expressed symptoms of potential problems or an opportunity.
  • Consideration: Have clearly defined and given a name to their problem or opportunity, actively looking for ways to address the issue.
  • Decision: Have defined their solution strategy, method or approach and ready to take the next step.

Step 4: Identify Assets and Messaging to Promote Content

Identify and/or develop compelling ad copy (150 words or less) and visual content that make readers want to click on or download the content you’re promoting. If you can’t sell your content, no one will read it no matter how informative or well-written it is.

Hint: Include calls to action, statistics, quotes, actionable text.

Step 5: Determine Ad Method

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content campaigns are promoted through paid channels based on posts you have also made directly on your Company Page. They are best used to attract new followers to the company website or landing page and drive engagement with company-specific content.

Company Page posts (status updates) can be promoted in the newsfeeds of both followers and non-followers whose demographics have been specifically targeted. This is a good option for posting blog content, articles about your company or to showcase commentary, award wins, customer or product announcements, and more.

Direct Sponsored Content

The direct sponsored content option allows you to post content directly in the LinkedIn feed without the content originating on your LinkedIn Company Page. This is useful if you don’t want the post to clutter your company’s LinkedIn profile page, but otherwise operates the same as sponsored content.

Website Ads

LinkedIn also offers more traditional website ads, which lead readers to the company website and often start at $2.00 per click and up. These are best leveraged for sending interested parties to your website to download gated content – whitepapers, e-books, case studies, webinars – for lead generation, or to product pages for direct sales promotion. If you choose this option, you should set up goal tracking in Google Analytics to count how many contact form submissions are received as a result of a given ad. Then judge what your cost per lead is and determine if it is delivering appropriate ROI.

Step 6: Set a Budget

Finally, you’ll need to decide what your total monthly budget for LinkedIn ads will be, and how you’ll allocate your spend – either emphasizing CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) if your goal is brand visibility, or CPC (cost per click) if your goal is lead generation or website traffic conversion.

LinkedIn Ads work on a bidding process, so depending on the audience you compete for, the price will change to show an ad. Bids are only processed at $.01 more than second-highest bid, so you can set your bids at the top limit of what you consider a fair value for the click or impression.

Step 7: Reporting/Continuous Improvement

It’s essential to monitor and analyze the key metrics of your campaigns on an ongoing basis. This review process is critical for finding opportunities for improvement to your campaigns, whether it’s improving reach, accuracy of targeting, CPC or CPM, website conversions, engagement and much more.

You should use the LinkedIn campaign manager to review all the metrics available on the platform itself, but also refer to your Google Analytics reports to see how successful you’ve been at driving increased traffic to your website as a whole or to specific landing pages on the site. There are also tools like LinkedIn Insight Tag to your website that will help you evaluate deeper insights about your campaign and users to continue improve your LinkedIn, content marketing, and overall marketing goals.

To learn more about how LinkedIn can help drive brand awareness and lead generation as part of your PR or marketing program, feel free to reach out to me directly – [email protected] – and don’t forget to follow Ketner Group Communications on LinkedIn and Twitter for more valuable tips like these.

 

Tips for Developing a Content Strategy

Blogs! Social media! Whitepapers! Webinars and email newsletters! These are only some of the content marketing tactics that hold a tremendous amount of potential for getting your business the attention it needs to grow as fast as it deserves.

It can be truly dizzying for marketing teams to crank out the amount of content needed to make an impact. And unless your marketing team requires a fleet of Uber XLs to get to an office happy hour, it’s just not possible to do it all. Yes, PR firms can be terrific allies in developing and executing on your content strategy, but how should you set one up in the first place?

Brand awareness vs. lead generation

An effective content strategy serves two equally valuable and competing (yet complementary) purposes – brand awareness and lead generation – neither of which your marketing can succeed without. It’s finding out how to balance these that takes work. So, take a step back and work from the top down. Define your organization’s unique needs and goals. Ask questions like:

  • Do our customers know who we are?
  • Is our pipeline flooded or flowing at a trickle?
  • Does our sales team close every sale they work on or are we struggling to convert leads?
  • Do we have a competitor or competitors regularly winning deals over us?

Once you know where you stand, where you’re already succeeding and what gaps you need to address, you can determine the type of information your intended audience would most benefit from. Then, leverage the three overarching channels available to you – owned, earned and paid media – to get it to them.

Owned Media

Think about the advice we’d all give to a friend feeling overwhelmed by a situation, something along the lines of, “you can only control what you can control.” Although sometimes frustrating to take that advice at face value, it’s essential to get the basics right before branching out to more nuanced arenas. Unsurprisingly then, owned media should always be the first and most fundamental element of any content strategy.

Website

To that end, your focus should be on ensuring your website is the rock your content strategy can build off of. It allows you to tell visitors who you are as a company, what you stand for, what you sell and why it’s worth the investment. It has unrivaled power to tell your story how you want it told – everything you want someone to know about your company should live here. You should also have simple components like a ‘Contact Us’ page for lead generation, and any gated whitepapers, case studies, e-books, or webinars can live in perpetuity on your website to generate traffic and leads, long after you publish them.  Managing a regularly updated blog is also a key part of becoming a well-rounded brand; it will serve as an outlet for the promotional and thought leadership messaging you want your customers to associate with your business.

Social Media

It’s not exactly a cutting-edge revelation, but social media channels allow you to disseminate any info you want to the people that follow you. All the content you post to your website should be shared on the social channels you run, as this drives traffic to specific landing pages and your site as a whole, further driving lead generation. Just don’t forget to share and engage with the broader community on your social media platforms, as no one likes a “me, me, me” account!

However, it’s also important to note that not every platform is perfect for every brand or audience. We’ll share another post on social media content marketing in a few weeks (and will link to it once it’s live), but we tend to be major fans of LinkedIn for our B2B retail clients, using Twitter and Facebook as complementary outlets. Based on your audience and goals, pick and choose your platforms so you don’t waste time and resources building a community that won’t drive online engagement.

Email

Often left out of the ‘thought leadership’ bucket, but rarely forgotten by traditional marketers, email can play a key role in reaching an audience of customers, prospects, partners and others who care about your company message and sign up to receive information from you. Don’t just use email to sell; use it to inform, engage and entertain whenever possible to maximize its potential and keep your readers from going for an instant ‘delete.’

Earned Media

Along with content strategy and development as a whole, earned media is the bread and butter of our PR firm, and one of the most compelling reasons to work with an agency with a long history in a given market. Earned media provides a major boost to your brand’s visibility, recognition and authority. But using content to earn media attention doesn’t end with press release pitching.

My colleague Adrienne Newcomb wrote a great blog on using bylined articles to secure thought leadership coverage in key trade publications, and we’ve found that case studies, proprietary research reports, and pitching executive commentary on developing trends (great for sharing on social too) can have a big impact on a brand’s ability to get media coverage.

Whatever content you create for your owned channels, think about how you might be able to convince someone else to use it on their own platform. Without reinventing the wheel, you’ve greatly increased the value of a given piece of content.

Paid Media

Paid media can be a terrific option to supplement your owned and earned content strategies but should rarely, if ever, be relied upon to have a strong impact before the brand has developed those initial content foundations. We recommend thinking of paid media as the final exclamation point on a well-executed organic program that helps take successes to new heights. This doesn’t mean you need to have a killer email marketing program in order to promote high-performing blog posts on LinkedIn, but it does mean you shouldn’t be investing heavily in LinkedIn posts that direct back to a useless website. Determine the gap in your growth plan, create enjoyable content people want to engage with, build an audience that cares what you have to say, and use paid to take you over the top. If your foundation is strong, the potential ROI can be huge!

We’re here to help

Want to learn more about developing a content marketing strategy from scratch or optimizing a program already in motion? Reach out to us. We love talking about content and it’d be our pleasure to help you use your own media effectively and efficiently.

Tara Building outside

Coworking in Dublin

As a remote employee, I’ve found a lot of ways to keep myself on a regular schedule, focused on the task at hand, and well-socialized. I even wrote a blog about working remotely earlier this year that helps showcase the ins and outs of shifting from home office to coffee shop and back again. Working remotely is as good as it seems, but there’s always room for improvement.

The Tara Building

Tara Building outsideTo help make this good thing better, the Ketner Group executive team has arranged a coworking membership for me at one of Dublin’s more recognizable and funky places of work, The Tara Building. Located right in the heart of the city, a stone’s throw from Trinity College and across the road from the Irish Times headquarters, it’s a great environment to settle in for a few hours and get some serious work done.

The open floor plan and floating desk environment make it a casual space to work, and it’s easy to catch the productive vibes from pros in other industries. Chats in the kitchen range from technical design concepts to Irish politics to the next great vacation spot or new restaurant to try. Weekly workshops on everything from leadership to Chinese Art make it impossible to feel like there’s a lack of innovation or culture in town. All of it combines to keep the creative juices flowing, and there’s also the opportunity to network just a walk downstairs away.

New Opportunities

Tara Building Coworking InsideWorking remotely allows for an unrivaled sense of control over schedule, location and wardrobe. It means if it rains, hard, I’m not going anywhere and that’s just fine. But it also means that I have a unique opportunity to work alongside professionals from across the world, from a wide number of industries on a day-to-day basis and expand my perspective into how the world really turns.

I’m very much looking forward to getting more comfortable and meeting new people through the networking events and free workshops. Plus, the promise of free coffee from one of the most innovative and socially responsible suppliers I’ve encountered, Moyee, has me buzzing with excitement

What You Need to Know about Working Remotely Abroad

Last August, I penned a blog about my recent move to Ireland and my excitement both personally and professionally, and for Ketner Group as we continue to expand our international client base. I’ve been incredibly lucky to find myself in this situation. It’s been a life-changing move that has lived up to every expectation.

For me, the hardest part of starting to work remotely from another country wasn’t deciding where to go – Irish citizenship made that easy (thanks, Dad). It wasn’t convincing my boss to let me do it – the leadership team at Ketner Group were my biggest supporters. Rather, the hardest part was learning how to keep up the same level of productivity that being in the office every day encouraged.

There’s a lot of advice out there about how to work remotely or how to quit your job and travel the world. But for those lucky enough – and I mean lucky enough, because maintaining a full-time salaried income while living remotely is a blessing – to work abroad for companies based in their home countries, there are ten things I think you should know before you get started.

1. Be indispensable

This is somewhat of a guiding principle that makes the whole thing work, and it starts well before any exploration of remote work can start. If you want your boss to give you the green light to pack up and move across the world, they need to know that you’re dedicated to helping the company, your clients and your colleagues succeed. Yes, this move is about your personal journey, but it’s made possible by those at home. Put in great work, be trustworthy and reliable, and never lose sight of the work part of work abroad.

2. Full-time can’t mean all the time

However, once it’s in your head that you need to keep kicking ass to make this arrangement work, it can be easy to take it too far. Greg Caplan, one of the founders of Remote Year, says “remote workers actually work more hours. The time they’re working is focused, because they have the flexibility to do whatever, whenever.”

That’s the blessing and the curse of remote work. No one walks into your office to distract you but there is also no ‘closing time’ where everyone goes home. Those emails keep coming, and you just absolutely have to learn to close your laptop and move on with your life at the end of the day.

3. Time zones are your frenemy

For anyone moving east or west to live abroad, time zones can be a massive adjustment. In Ireland, I have until 3 p.m. before the rest of my team logs on, and I rarely get an email before noon. I can’t lie. This is amazing. I get to sit down and just… work. No fire drills. No meetings. No giphy threads dropping on Slack. It’s just so easy to get work done!

It’s also just as easy to not start work. No one knows when you sign on, so why wake up when it’s still dark out? What’s 5 more minutes in bed? And at the end of the day, when I’m wrapping up the day’s tasks, way more are coming in from my American teams. An urgent client question here, a quick review of a document for a coworker there, and boom, it’s 7 o’clock. And Lord knows, dinner ain’t going to cook itself. Do we have Uber Eats in this country??

4. Create a routine or destroy it; there is no middle ground

Working remotely from another time zone gives you the flexibility to really work whenever you want, as long as the work gets done. Of course, one of the reasons office life is hard is that sometimes, you just don’t have it on a given day. At home, you can take that brain-dead, useless-to-society time and do laundry, hit the gym, take a nap, or go down wormholes trying to figure out how in the world the Flat Earth movement has gotten so popular. This is an endless wormhole, there is no good answer.

But because it’s so easy to get distracted when no one is around to get you back on track, you need to decide whether you’re a no-routine person who can snap out of it and get everything done at 11 p.m. when your brain comes around, or if you need to just suck it up and persevere on a regular schedule. I found out I need the schedule. The sooner you realize which person you are the better. Floundering in the middle is a death sentence.

5. Use Your Breaks Wisely

Part of that schedule includes breaks. No one can sit still for 8 hours and crank out press releases. But use your breaks wisely. In the office, a break can mean checking Facebook or reading sports scores. Maybe you take a walk around the block. It’s really important to disengage from work so you can refocus, but at home, these breaks can get long in a hurry.

During work hours, it’s best to put away the phone, save reading articles about the wine revolution in the NBA for lunch-time, and use breaks to maintain productivity that isn’t work related. Need a walk? Walk to the grocery store. Need to feel social? Call your parents who miss you (work is also a great excuse to hang up). Hungry? Make a snack that will fill you up enough that you don’t visit the fridge 14 more times that day. Being productive when you’re not working is a unique privilege to remote work, don’t waste it! You’ll be happy when the day is over or the weekend rolls around and those tasks are done.

6. Communicate thoroughly; not constantly

It can seem critical to over-communicate when working from the other side of the planet. Shoot, we preach that habit when we sit five feet away from each other! But that doesn’t mean constant chatter and emails is the answer. In fact, that’s a terrible way to communicate, and worse when you’re not in the room to explain context that gets lost in the written word.

It’s much more effective to schedule regular meetings with your internal teams to discuss everything live. Develop an agenda to guide the conversation and use this time to talk about all recent problems, identify upcoming deadlines, set goals, distribute responsibilities and brainstorm new ideas. Doing this all at once limits confusion, makes sure everyone is on the same page, and gives your teams the confidence that everything is running smoothly even though you’re not glued to your email after work hours in your time zone.

7. Pimp out your workspace

Having a dedicated, great workspace is key. Used to having a second screen to work from? Buy one. It’s worth the money. So is a good chair. And a desk. And a lamp. Put stuff on the walls and keep things organized. Your workspace needs to be somewhere that you just work. That’s it. Not the kitchen table, not the couch, definitely not the bed. Freedom to work from wherever you want is a great part of working remotely, but good scenery is a huge boost to productivity.

8. Shower, get dressed and eat breakfast immediately

Being viewed as a valuable member of society requires a few simple things. Part of that is having a job, looking like you have a job, and starting the day like someone with a job starts the day. If you don’t start the day right, it’s really hard to get started later. Laziness sets in fast; beat it to the punch.

9. Go outside

Leaving your apartment is the best thing for you. It might not seem like it when it’s raining sideways or freezing cold but the beauty of working from home is that you don’t ever have to in those conditions. But most days, at least for a little while, changing scenery and working from a coffee shop or library can really stimulate your brain. It’s also a really good way to see a new city and explore new neighborhoods. And if you get an unlimited mobile data plan, you can work from anywhere, from parks to pubs. A worthy investment indeed.

10. Take full advantage of being abroad

Working remotely abroad is a tremendous opportunity. Take advantage and get out of town as much as possible. Go see the small towns in your region, go hiking in mountains you’ve never heard of, visit museums and learn stories of movements or creatures you never knew existed. Get on a plane and go see cities on your bucket list and work from coffee shops in those places, exploring on weekends or at night. Why? Because now you can!

Ketner Group Moves to Dublin

Lebron James famously once said, “I’m taking my talents to South Beach.”

But this isn’t about Miami. Or basketball. Or my next multi-million-dollar contract.

In fact, this post is about moving to another iconic place – a wonderful, scenic little island famous for its coastline, culture and pints of heavy black beer. And while there is no South Beach in the North Atlantic, I could not be more excited to be the lone Ketner Group team member calling Ireland home for the next 12 months.

Over the past few decades, Ireland has emerged as a cultural hot spot, benefitting from a booming tourism economy driven by golf, ancient castles and Guinness. Now economically humming once again, after a sharp crash in the recent global recession, Ireland is a destination not just for those seeking leisure on a grand soft day, but for the international technology firms that benefit from a highly educated workforce, low corporate tax rate, and welcoming population.

As an Irish-American armed with a passport from both nations and a background in retail technology, it’s fascinating to see how the country has changed from the first time I came here as a young child. Of course, sheep still create traffic jams on country roads the width of your driveway, but there is a buzz in the air of Dublin and Ireland’s other cities as its global potential starts to be recognized.

From Facebook to Google to Airbnb and Apple and so many more, Ireland has recruited some of the world’s most important technology companies to its shores. Of course, with Brexit leading to concerns about access to the European market, many more are expected to follow. The Irish-American business bond is catching up to the personal bond created by waves of Irish emigrants to American shores. The Irish culture of innovation is threatening to catch up to the rich culture of its history, a promising premise for the country, and for those who are lucky enough to call it home.

Of course, it’s only been my home for less than two weeks, but I can’t wait to play my small part in keeping that connection strong and growing.