Before diving into the three differences, first two observations. 

Fact: we are too slow

‘Compared to the East, we are too slow in capturing the opportunities ecommerce offers.’ 'We need to speed up to implement the available technology.'

There is no need to explain people buy more online. Not even to mention the exploding sales numbers of Asian mobile commerce, in value and in volume. Asia is leading the way, notably China.

In the west, you need many different apps, and the experience of seamless shopping is frankly quite broken: inspiration, information, actual sales, fulfilling the payment to finally the confirmation. Nothing compared to the all-in-one-experience in WeChat. Where content and commerce offer much better integration.

Fact: ecommerce still stands alone

In 2020 we continue to define ecommerce as a separate silo, not at the core of the business processes.

Sounds fuzzy, to be more clear: in many cases, there is no integration between the marketing department that is responsible for the content, and the ecommerce department that is responsible for the sales. Instead, there is a focus on short-term marketing campaigns with (vanity) KPIs. We jump from campaign to campaign. We still do not measure the relationship between the content on the year-on-year overall sales impact. 

In short, there is no inter-departmental KPI to measure the success of the content efforts, measured in the most important business metric: sales. There is no long term holistic view of how the content production budget and allocated media budget actually contribute to the business objectives. Of course, there are companies that get it right. But these are far and few between.

Three opportunities

Jacco continues, ‘there are three differences that hold us back: the company silos, lack of integration, and suboptimal usage of data.' Just being aware of these differences, is the first step to fix it.

Unfortunately, there is no quick and easy plug and play fix. The change is in the mindset and it takes time to build a new organization and the processes that go with it. 

Null the online and offline split

In line with the observation that e-commerce still stands alone. This is a mindset in the business processes and organizational structure. ‘There still is a split between online and offline. Between digital and non-digital.’ How often do we see a job posting for a ‘Digital Marketeer’? As if not all marketers are digital these days.

I would like to add from my own experience that ‘we, the slightly older generation', who were the pioneers in internet and e-commerce, embraced ‘online’ as a new exciting and separate channel. Our current generation does not know these pre-internet days, they do not differentiate between online and offline. And they don't care. 

We try to bring the ‘offline’ towards the ‘online’ by starting a ‘digital transformation’. Yet as long as we use the term ‘digital’ for this ‘transformation’, we have a long way to go. Using these words, we still make the split between ‘digital’ and ‘non-digital’.

And that split is exactly what we want to eliminate to transform into and seamless integration.’

This digital non-digital split is also noticeable in commerce. Having ecommerce as a separate entity from the commerce / offline sales doesn’t help in speeding up the processes nor shifting the mindset. You need to think about consumers and journeys in an integrated way. Not in the on- and offline department.

Integrate content and commerce

Nowadays brands easily can bridge the gap between product research, product design, product content, and the consumer. Using data we have real-time insights into what content they consume and what they buy. Add the feedback loop with their reviews and recommendations and you have a golden circle with the ecommerce platform in the middle.

• Data-driven content from brand to the platform: e.g. branded content at Amazon
• User-generated content from users to the platform: e.g. product reviews

Consumers go to these ecommerce platforms to be inspired and informed first, to buy second: the gap between entertainment and transaction is getting smaller and smaller. Think about Facebook Shops or Instagram commerce as our first gentle steps to integrate content and commerce.

More simply said: as a brand, develop content directly related to your point of sales. Feed the e-commerce platform, help them to close the sale. Develop content to inspire the consumer, to explain your product in the benefits for the consumer. Be more creative than boring product pictures and the standard product description. 

And use data to feed that creativity: what are the consumers' content needs, what works, what doesn't: first, second and third-party data tell you all if analyzed and interpreted correctly. 

Better usage of data

‘How we use data is in many cases only related to the activation of content: usage, performance, optimization, etcetera.' Jacco mentions.

The opportunity lies in using that same data for content strategy, defining audiences, and the production of creative content assets. ‘Data is information and information provides insights. And you should use those insights to your advantage.’

‘We are missing a tremendous opportunity, as we are simply not integrating and combining these different data sources. Due to scattered ownership and to the costs of analyzing. We should break the silos of the data ownership between brand, agencies, and media to collect the first, second, and third party data. Analyze to get those insights. And only then write the creative brief for the agency. Not vice versa.’

'This is an opportunity, with costs companies need to pay. It requires resources, and money, to optimize your data strategy and use it for strategy, audience definition, and creative ideation. Yet, if a brand doesn’t operate in the ‘now’ they probably will not be here in a few years.

Integrate the customer insights to stay connected to the customer needs. Customer insights based on that first second third party data in real-time to define content.'

Next to this, I (Fleur) would like to add that using data in the right way, is a skill. Interpretation in the right way, and using these insights for creativity (to solve the problem) is specialized work and should be done by the specialists (at the agency). 

As a final nugget, Jacco adds…

Content is still too focused on faster and cheaper

We value quantity over quality. And that is a burden. In 2020 producing content gets easier, faster, and cheaper. Content isn’t that magical rocket science anymore. Simply said, any nitwit can produce content with the current apps and available tutorials. All you need is some (low-end) technology and some guts and you can get yourself out there. As an influencer or as a brand.

And that is the danger. Because it is so easy to develop content, mostly based on vanity KPIs, we over-focus on quantity and not on quality. Resulting in a landfill of content that doesn’t contribute emotionally to your brand, establishes your brand values, or even contributes to the business objectives. Yet another hook for a holiday or an event isn’t working anymore. We have been there and done that.

We need to think about the role of the brand at a specific moment for that specific audience: something with the right message at the right moment. And comes data into play. Again. And strategic seniority at the client-side. Yet this is a completely different topic.

About Publicis Groupe

Under the heading of a little bit of Jacco-marketing and credits where credits due... some more information about Publicis Groupe. For transparency, I am not affiliated with them and there is no financial relationship. I just adore Jacco as a professional, an expert, and as a human being, ever since our first cooperation in 2007. A copy-paste from their www:

'Publicis Groupe believes in the power of creativity, intelligence, and technology to pioneer change and become a driving force in the market.' '8 Disciplines under one roof: Commerce, data, technology, media, digital, creative, PR, and production. Thé place for powerful partnerships. Our modular setup allows our clients to have access to our expertise and tools. This way, we are able to build personalized customer experiences based on an impactful big idea. We combine creativity and intelligence to pioneer change.'

'Publicis Groupe has transformed itself from a holding company to a platform company. With one P&L, one CEO, and from one location. Organized by scalable client teams with one client lead.'

As the origin of this type of broadcasting comes from a passion and not a commercial perspective, podcasts are all about sharing knowledge, experiences, insights, and visions. It is about the content and not the euros. It gives you a stage to go full-blown nerdy on your niche. A unique way to build a relationship with your audience in their own personal time. 'Your podcast is selected by themselves to be consumed at a scarce and valuable moment of their not-working time.' This side effect is creating a community of like-minded listeners. Up to you to set up and use the feedback loop for inspiration or for new episodes.
 

* What to expect in this blog *

First: requirements for success
Second: business case and costs
Third: behind the scenes by Wayne Parker Kent

Requirements for success

Almost every brand is jumping on the bandwagon of podcasts. How do you create your own podcast and have an impact?

• Find your niche. Set your strategy and define your topic and sub-topics in line with your brand and values. Claim your leadership and display a different sound. Publish your own sonic magazine.
• Have one ‘golden nugget’ per episode. Meaning, one topic. And give a heads up on the catch in the intro so your listeners know what to expect.
• As all content, a podcast must add value for the listener. Why should your audience listen, what is in it for them. Keep in mind, people don’t like to be marketed. The podcast is not about you, it is about sharing knowledge, experiences, or to entertain. 
• Have a logical fit with your content on your website. Even better, provide some long read background information to create a consistent experience and emphasize your leadership claim.
• Stick to a format. Steal with pride and cherry-pick what works to create your own format. Do a few dry-runs, test it, ask your listeners for feedback, and improve continuously. Great read on formats, unfortunately only in Dutch available. 
• Create a detailed playbook. It becomes easier to stick to your format and to speed up the production. Start with the preparation of the episode, how to invite guests, and prepare them, up till the end of the evaluation of recording and the feedback from listeners and the guests. 
• Set up your distribution using your own channels, your guests, your employees, and the obvious podcast channels. Also think about partnerships with thought leaders in your industry, such as a marketing blog or publisher. 
• When developing the format, keep all distribution channels in mind. Meaning, make sure you can cut sound snippets or use written quotes to be used in social for the seeding. 
• Create an introduction champaign. The first impression counts and there is only one opportunity to launch. 
• Yet, give it time. Creating an audience and build your listener base takes time. A podcast is not a campaign asset, it is part of your long term content strategy. 
• Circle back around and close the loop. Get feedback from your listeners and guests for new topics and episodes. With your podcast you create a community of like-minded people, use that for inspiration and ideation. 
• Have fun! It is always nicer to listen to people who are passionate and who have fun, instead of taking themselves overly seriously.
• Last requirement. ‘A job well done speaks for itself’, there is absolutely no need to have your own commercial sh*t in the podcast. If you really really need to, do it where your listens expect it. In the intro when it is easy to skip. Or even better, at the end. Please don’t have any call to actions or ‘subscribe now’s in the middle of the script. Rule of thumb, don’t mention it more than two times.

I repeat... Don’t use a podcast as a disguised way to promote your product or brand. People listen to a podcast to be entertained and educated, not to be marketed to. No exceptions.

Business case and costs

The business case of a podcast is simple. Don’t expect to generate direct sales. There is no direct attribution. You create reach by sharing your knowledge and insights that add value for your listeners. And you claim your leadership along the way.

Be there for the really long term to see a revenue. That's why you need to spend serious time on your strategy and map out your topics. 

Strategy first

As goes for all content: the more effort you invest on the strategy, you more effective and efficient you can produce the actual assets.

Take your time to develop your strategy, set up the format, and define the topics. My gut feeling, you should spend a minimal two months figuring out the details and to do a dry-run. The rule of thumb for the topics, create a list of about 25 to ensure that long term commitment. 

Once you have that in place you can produce fast with a short time to market.

Budget for facility

You can start your own podcast facility for a fairly low budget. A detailed breakdown of an in-house production room is about € 1.850 for sound quality: 4 microphones, 1 audio mixer, and sound isolation materials to turn an office room into a studio. Next to the euro’s, they had an intern to buy and set up the equipment and installation of the isolations materials.

Wayne Parker Kent is a hands-on agency. When they started with 'The Brief' they were still housed in their former undersized office building. Their so-called ‘studio’ was a random office and keeps its office functionality, only during recording hours this office is converted into a studio.

They strongly advise to 'invest in a good facility from the first moment as this will improve the quality of your show. Substandard or even worse bad sound quality is absolutely killing, no matter your content excellence.' In the meanwhile, they built a professional studio where they do all recordings, for their clients and their own podcast.

Budget for production

An agency can produce your podcast, the minimal costs per episode will be roughly around € 3k. Add another minimum of € 5 to 10k for the strategy, format, and setup.

Wayne Parker Kent advises developing the concept and format together with your agency. Let them run about 10 episodes. Once you got the show on the road, move the production in-house, and save on budgets.

For their own podcast per episode, they spend about 20 hours, divided over 3 employees and the intern.

• 12 hours for research and editorial work. The key elements are to balance the topics and the outtakes over all the episodes. To be diverse and inclusive for their guest speakers. And to prepare the guests.
• 8 hours to produce: record, edit, and publish.

Please notice these budgets are indications and can vary in line with your podcast; the brief, the format, the presenters, adding music, and the complexity of the topics. In short: the usual agency budget disclaimer.

Distribution

First is to embrace all common publishing platforms, expending this in line with feedback from your listeners. Next, use your own usual channels as www, social, and email. Last, ask your guests to publish and promote their episode.

Already mentioned in the requirements for success; 'When developing the format, keep all distribution channels in mind. Meaning, make sure you can cut sound snippets, or use written quotes, to be used in social for the seeding.' 

For Wayne Parker Kent their most brilliant move is the exclusive cooperation with a leading marketing magazine. Podcast content in exchange for reach. Unnecessary to say, this can be done if the podcast truly adds value for the listener.

Behind the Wayne Parker Kent podcast scenes

A unique behind the scenes and great insights by the award-winning podcast of Wayne Parker Kent. Their podcast launched in 2016, the early adopters. They aim to give a stage to the most influential peers, biggest thinkers and disrupters in the content industry. With the sole focus to add value for their listener, not to promote Wayne Parker Kent as a content agency.

Their main reasons to start a podcast are based on research and insights in the market:

First, there was an opportunity to be the first business podcast on content marketing. The year 2016 was between the first wave and the current second wave of podcast popularity. Not one agency claimed this ‘content domain’ and Wayne Parker Kent grabbed this opportunity.

Second, the belief ‘to practice what you preach’. ‘Do not trust a content marketing agency that lacks its own content strategy’. You cannot be credible if you do not have your own content in place.

Third, their target audience of senior marketing management is hard to reach. Wayne Parker Kent defined a gap in their agendas and time allocation, the commute between home and the office. This daily hour can be used to entertain and educate their audience on the content industry. A podcast is for that specific commute the most accessible and easy to consume content format.

Last, not least. They themselves are huge fans of the podcast from the very beginning. For their format, they did their homework: have a top 3 favorite podcasts, analyze and dissect to cherry-pick the elements for their own. Their recommendations: Joe Pulizzi, Joe Rogan, and Tim Ferris.

Time spend

On and off thinking and brainstorming about the concept, finetuning, developing the actual format, and getting all the details in place, took a runtime of about four months. The actual production of the first episode was one week.

Last advice

If you are going to produce a podcast, do it well or do not do it all. Get the creative agency on board and please do not do any DIY. ‘Sounding shitty never looks pretty’.

My own experience with Wayne Parker Kent

It was great fun to be a guest in their podcast in 2017 on ‘how to develop your content strategy’. They nudged me a few weeks upfront and send me a list of questions. Nerdy as I am, I prepared all my super-detailed answers to the exact questions. Never could I have guessed they asked me totally different questions in the recording. Yet, by being prepared and their way of interviewing me, we had a natural flow and a real conversation instead of a stiff ‘talking heads’ interview.

Your first time recording is a bit exciting. Big headset, impressive microphone, three guys around me in a small studio: one to interview, a second interviewer and to moderate, and one guy for technical stuff. You do not know whom to face in the beginning. Gentlemen as they are, they helped me with tips and tricks. With the test run, they put me at ease before getting into the actual recording. Though, in all honesty, I still haven't listened to the recording as I am still anxious to hear my own voice :).

Being a guest in their podcast was a party and I loved to share my knowledge and experiences. Businesswise, I had some great feedback, and still, after 3 years people are reaching out to me.

https://soundcloud.com/thebriefpodcast/012-fleur-van-beinum-over-het-ontwikkelen-van-je-contentstrategie

Sources

With thanks to the insights and knowledge from Matthijs Tielman Head of Strategy at Wayne Parker Kent, an ‘audience-first content marketing agency’. For transparency, I am not affiliated with Wayne Parker Kent. I like them as an agency and I have worked with them a few times. In my opinion, they are one of the best content agencies out there and really put the audience first and brand second.  https://www.wayneparkerkent.com/.

Other sources
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2018/10/12/why-are-podcasts-gaining-in-popularity/#166c6ac75321
https://www.podcasthero.com/what-is-a-podcast/
https://mnykstudios.com/why-podcasts-are-popular/
https://discoverpods.com/why-are-podcasts-popular/ 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeirevzin/2019/03/21/podcast-trends-in-2019-that-you-should-know-about/#94805fc53e8a

Data supports creativity

Quite an open door, yet MediaMonks brings this into practice with two hands-on tips on how to get there. They speak from almost 20 yrs experience, working for top class brands and recognized by some impressive 131 Cannes Lions and 250+ FWA awards. You better take their advice and listen to them. 

First: Trust your agency

'If there is no trust, there is no relationship, and that magic will never happen.' As a brand provide your agency with your internal confidential data and those insights. There are used in your benefit. And this facilitates your agency to produce content that is way more relevant, to the point, and contributes to your business objectives. Win-win. 

Sicco explains 'this (strategic) data does in NO way hamper creativity. It is used to create a dynamic framework where flexibility and creativity are fed by data to create “bespoke” expressions -- the content assets.’ ‘This is where (content)marketing and business meet the interests of consumers.’

Second: Continue to use data

'Use this data-driven-way-of-working not only for the strategy but also for your content production. To be effective and efficient, it is important to adopt a performance-driven approach that recognizes the context in which users interact with the brand. With the note that 'it’s vital that the (content)message is designed from the ground up, to best fit its (distribution) platform.'

This performance and best-fit are measured in KPIs and real-time data. This data continuously feeds the dynamic framework to improve content assets. 'Be cheaper, faster, and better by using data to strengthen your content.' 

Not affiliated

Small side note for transparency. I am not affiliated with MediaMonks, I just like the agency. In my humble opinion, they are one of the best agencies out there. I have been working with them since 2008.  Back in those days, they saved my ass by going 24/7 to launch the website for my client within a few days. And in 2020, my clients and I are still going strong with them. Sure they got their flaws like any other agency, yet when they say they deliver, they deliver. 

MediaMonks, the content practice of S4

You can use social media to build a brand. There are a few requirements and rules to follow to make it a success. Perfectly captured by Callum McCahon, Strategy Director at Born Social. Callum has done his research and homework on how you can use social to build your brand. A shameless copy-paste-editing of his work, enriched with an interview. Callum is not only an expert, he is also a pretty awesome dude.

Five rules of brand building

‘The tools for social might be different, yet in reality, it isn’t that new, shiny and different. The fundaments did not change. The ultimate job is to influence decision making. Take a long term view and set your strategy as the brand building doesn’t happen by accident.’

1. System 1 and system 2 - Daniel Kahneman in ‘Thinking fast and slow’

Our brains work in two different ways. 95% of the time we think fast, using system 1. Like being on autopilot, responding immediately and using instinct and intuition.

The other 5% we think slow, using system 2. when we have to stop and think to arrive at a rational decision. This is based on logic and takes effort. It is about rationality and reason. This is where the more rational campaigns work best: talking about a product, pricing, and reasons to believe. This is where the short term sales activation campaigns are the most effective.

Yet, if you want to build a brand, system 1 is the place to focus, where we spend the majority of our time. You want to influence this fast and automatic decision making.

2. The long and the short of it - Les Binet and Peter Field

Short term sales uplifts come from sales activation campaigns. These are rational and designed for immediate response. Short term sales uplifts don’t lead to long term growth. To build a brand for long term growth, you need to involve the creation of memory structures that prime consumers to want to choose your brand.

In short, long term brand building is to focus on the long term brand growth. This is done with brand-building campaigns. Designed to generate fame and prime us emotionally. Long term means long term, a matter of years, not months.

3. Cultural imprinting by Kevin Simler in ‘Ads don’t work that way’

In his article, Kevin makes the case that advertising doesn’t work through inception, by planting ideas in the subconscious. Advertising works through cultural imprinting. A shared understanding within a society, of what the brand means.

The mark of a strong brand is when everyone has the same understanding of what the brand means and what it stands for. In short, brand building has to work on building and reinforcing the collective understanding of the brand.

The catch is that this cannot be done on a one-to-one, personalized level, as everyone has to buy in on the same idea. Brand building is about building a collective understanding.

4 Growth through penetration by Byron Sharp in ‘How brands grow’

His book explains how advertising really works, by building a set of 7 rules about how brands can achieve growth. Two are important for social.

First, brand growth comes when you gain more buyers. Most of them are light buyers, who buy occasionally. Growth is not about getting your existing and loyal heavy buyers to buy more. Combine this with ‘growth comes through penetration’.

So, if you want to build a brand, you focus on reaching all the potential buyers in your category, continuously and in the most efficient way possible.

5. Be distinctive also by Byron Sharp in ‘How brands grow’

Second, be distinctive and to stay on top of mind. Distinctive brand assets are crucial to brand building and need to be reinforced time over time. Get noticed and do this consistently. In this way, you increase the mental availability of a brand, that the buyer actually thinks of your brand in buying situations. It takes years to build this recognition by being distinctive.

Being distinctive is more than your logo. It is your brand cues like color, the tagline of the specific style of advertising. Unique to your brand and famous to be linked to your brand.

Impact on current beliefs for social

Keeping these 5 rules for brand building in mind, the impact is huge on the current beliefs for social as a channel. From audience or follower metrics to engagement KPIs and micro-targeting beliefs. If you want to use social to grow your brand, a few pointers by Callum.

1. Audience growth doesn’t build brands

Applying the ‘brand growth by increasing penetration’ by Byron Sharp means to focus on reaching all the potential buyers in your category, not only the heavy ones. Yet, by nature of the characteristics of social, it is mainly the heavy buyers, or fans, that follow a brand. Meaning, if you want to grow your brand, you need to think beyond growing your followers. Focus on all your potential buyers in your category. Think broad and use the media budget for reach.

2. Engagement doesn’t build brands

The engagement rate is a common key metric on social. If you zoom out, think about who are the people who are most likely to engage. Your heavy buyers, your fans. And to actually engage, you can presume these are probably the heaviest of the heavy buyers.

Even Facebook doesn’t see the value of engagement as a key metric, based on research:

- less than 1% of people engage on Facebook. Most communication happens in the dark social

- engagement and clicks bear no correlation to brand metrics as recall, awareness or purchase intent. Just because something is engaging, it doesn’t mean it is effective.

3. Micro-targeting doesn’t build brands

Think about ‘cultural imprinting’, for a brand to grow, it needs to exist in the collective consciousness. All of the potential buyers need to have a shared understanding of what a brand means and stands for. Micro-targeting with personalized messages conflicts with building this shared understanding. Point made.

How to build a brand on social

Creative

The creative is not about the creativity and execution itself. It is about the right types of content. You need a threesome: fame builders a few times a year, short stories a couple of times a month and distinctive cues a couple of times a week.

Fame builder content. To build brand fame. By making work that creates an emotional reaction and touches your heart and soul. This is the ‘hero’ piece of creative. With your most effort, time and budget allocated. You need like once or twice a year. Make it outstanding. Relative long-form for social, optimized for full screen. This builds a collective understanding and reaching all your potential buyers.

Short stories.  Pretty self-explanatory. The objective is to tell a story. These work to reinforce brand fame, and integrate the distinctive brand assets. Short means short, like 10 to 15 seconds. Best produced in an integrated production with the fame builders. For alignment and for optimization on the production budget.

Distinctive brand cues. The goal is to keep your brand top of mind and foresting the mental shortcuts (in system 1). It takes creativity to balance the recognizable distinctive brand assets and be creative for social platforms. Notice these brand cues only work as a reminder and cues, if you have built the brand fame and short stories.

Media

Pay to play. Organic is dead. Quoting Born Social 'media means first to make sure to reach most of the potential buyers in your category, at the right frequency at the right costs. Second, you need media to ensure that you are reaching these people in the right places in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.' For more media details, see Callums great deck, slide 27 and onwards. 

Measurement

A no-brainer this is super important. Though, when it comes to social, most key metrics are very short term and campaign-only focussed. As a brand, you need to break out and keep the long term brand building metrics in your view. Track your metrics over a longer period of time and over several campaigns. This goes for your creative and for your media.

Resume

You can build a brand on social, if you understand the game, keep a long term view, and have a strategy and planning in place.

Amazing work on 'Brand building on social' by Callum of Born Social to bring the work of Kahneman, Les Binet, Peter Field, and Byron Sharp together and apply this to how brands are built on social. Please reach out to them for more information and how they maybe can help you. shout@bornsocial.co.uk or +44 (0)2033933290.

I am not affiliated with Born Social or Callum. Sharing this because this is too good not to share.

‘To set up an effective content campaign, you need time. At least a year. And you need a budget for production and for media buying. With just ‘great content’ you will not get where you want to be. You need media exposure to grow.’

‘There is no proven way forward’ he continues. ‘You need to experiment and dare to be different. Show your guts. If you do what you always did, you will get what you always have gotten. If you want to change, you need to change.’ This sounds like a no-brainer. In reality, it is a bit more challenging to set up provocative campaigns that are significantly different. Then, all of a sudden the C-suite gets hesitant and lacks the real guts to break the status quo to be different.

Get Mandate

To surpass and prevent that last-minute change of mind, get your mandate in place. Manage upfront your boundaries and limits for the execution of the concept. What you can and cannot do on those politically sensitive subjects, such as edgy content about your competitors.

‘Inform management and stakeholders once, and then just do it.’ Willem explains. ‘Prevent that they interfere in the content details. The management almost always gets a bit nervous and switches to the political safe game, once the real edginess and details become visible.’

The indispensable requirement to run an edgy campaign with mandate upfront is to have the trustworthy seniors in place for the execution of the details. You need trust. Trust they will not go overboard, have the political and sensitivity radar, and they truly do understand the boundaries of the mandate.

Make Mistakes

Next, to manage the mandate, Willem recommends managing upfront that you will make mistakes. Pushing the boundaries, doing new stuff and making that next step, will never be flawless. Where people work, mistakes can be made. Manage that the management doesn’t panic at the first flaw. You and your team need to have the trust and the time to fix the mistake and learn from it. Given the mistakes made are not major and do not immediately impact the business. Often the small little flaws in innovative projects are blown out of proportion at first view.

Again, here you need the senior on board. Gain and maintain the trust earned for the mandate and mistakes-topic.

Last not least two hands-on tips from Willems years of experience

Speeding up content production

If you want fast content production and shorten the timelines from idea to publication, set up your in-house team. Or work with smaller execution specialist agencies. Have the topnotch agency for the creative big idea and be agile in execution with your smaller suppliers. Great for speed and for your budget.

Attention makes the content magical

Creating high quality and effective content takes time. And it is your personal dedicated effort that creates the magic. It shows when the topic touches your own heart and you go the extra mile. Simply put ‘attention makes everything more beautiful’.

Example by the book, the production of the content for the Winter Olympics 2018. An amazing and emotional video with Paralympic snowboarder Chris Vos that really made an impact. Excellent scouting for the athlete, crazy short production timings, storytelling at the most personal level and all for a budget on peanuts — compared to the usual TVC budgets. 

‘Creating beautiful content with meaningful people that contributes to the business objectives’ is what makes Willem love his job.

Aim to make the best better

’Talk to the customer every day. Selling is not a one-way game’ Pete tells me. ‘We advise our customers and our customers advise us. We learn from each other’. Often claimed, seldom brought in practice as Pete does. ‘We aim to make the best better, and in the meantime put a smile on our customers’ face’, he shines while he explains his passion.

Of course, in the end, it is always about sales and generating revenue. Yet there are big differences in how to close the sale, time over time again. Given the fact Pete’s sports shop is open for over 30 years in a very competitive and sales aggressive-Austrian-by-few-families-owned-market, says enough. 

Online one-way communication

‘In digital, it is one-way communication. Brands do claim they listen to their customers, yet they listen to reply. Not to understand. The key fact for the online sales in technical gear is that there is an 80% miscommunication between what the brands produce and what the customers want.

When the customer needs and the clothes get technical, online will not reach that level of connection and advice the customer needs to get the most out of those technical specs of the jackets or pants.’

Sure, there are online reviews and recommendations by influencers. Yet, ‘this is crazy’ Pete explains. ‘These are all N=1’s. In a store, you can connect, via the staff, to hundred of customers and peers instead of the few reviews online or the paid influencer.’

‘For a lot of brands in retail, the practical knowledge base of the designers is missing.’ ‘The (design) world gets better if the people who create the products, actually wear and use them in all circumstances.’ He adds ‘step down, talk to the people and your customers, involve them. Use that valuable feedback in your design process.’ Pete only sells brands that embrace and live this mindset, therefore you will not find the big commercial brands in his shop.

Customer input

Pete’s advice for premium brands ‘Go out there. Talk to your end-customers and ask them for their needs. Do this personally and locally. Come back, and use that knowledge.’ ‘The costs of the management or designers of a brand going into a retail store and collecting input are low, and the output is priceless.’

‘All you need is some effort and a little budget to spend on traveling. Keep an open view and get input from all the customers, also from other brands. Be openminded, it is about the needs of your customer and not the needs of the brand. Then follow up and continue. Collecting input from the direct source is not a one-off. You should do this once every season.’

Retail versus online

Online is an evolution. With e-commerce, customers are more flexible and have more opportunities. Yet, for retail (like us) everything happens in the building. ‘As a retailer, to run an e-shop, that costs about as much as having the bricks and mortar store’ Pete explains.

‘As a retailer, you will never reach the level you are able to reach as a brand.’ For example, Icebreaker made merino fabric big. Ortovox took a part of that wool story and build their own brand around it. Super smart. ‘We retailers cannot compete with the big brands in manpower, budget nor time. We do not have the margins the brand DTC shops have.’ ‘Hence we compete on a different level. We compete on knowledge, service and, for us, also on the footprint.’

Service and footprint as advertising

‘If you like us, you will come back’ Pete explains. ‘We have service as advertising. Don’t buy a new jacket if you don’t need one. And we also don’t want to cross or up-sell you. There is no need to sell some new ski thermo underwear if the customer can wear his e.g. running thermo gear. Be aware of what you buy and your footprint.’

Next to that, ‘we want to keep garments in the loop. We prefer to repair your gear than to sell you a new jacket. Why throw away something that still can be used? This also goes for items that are not bought in our shop.’ Sounds a bit like Patagonia, doesn’t it? With their footprint awareness behavior, they want to inspire their customers. And besides, it authentically sets them apart from the other shops.

If you buy a high-end technical jacket or pants in the Pete’s store, they give you a voucher for € 50 repair, to be used whenever from wherever. This is a mindset. For the customer to take better care of his product and don’t throw it away. For Pete’s sport shop to drive an honest and low footprint business with a long term strategic thinking of serving the customer in the best way possible.

Customers do return to the shop, even after 10 or 20 years. Amongst them, myself. Why I return to the bricks and mortar and not to buy online? I prefer to spend my money with them than any other shop. Even if I maybe pay full price. Excellent advice, superb service and never ever had the feeling I ‘needed’ to buy something there, like being ‘forced’ by the staff.

Just before our interview, I drop by in the shop. Pete is seated behind his sewing machine, repairing a gore-tex jacket at the side seams. ‘Since recently, people started to carry their skis in a different way. Not on the shoulders anymore, but in the hand, like some grocery bags.’ ‘This causes damage at the seams, the manufacturers were not aware yet of this new behavior. Yet, if we tell them, we hope to get enhanced seams in next years’ collection.’ The ‘them’ in this story are brands like Patagonia, Peak Performance, Arcteryx, State of Elevenate and Hestra to name a few of the wanna have high-end high tech outdoor brands.

What big brands can learn

If you are a big brand or a small local store, the behavior of the customer is always the same. It is about excitement. It is about passion. And if you can add a smile on your customers’ faces, they will return for more.

Go from ‘listen to customer’ to ‘invite your customer’. ‘Invite them to your process.’ Small costs, priceless output, and insights on the desired details that create your distinctiveness. ‘If these details are not done in the right way, you will not close the sale.’ Dare to do listen, to invite and to implement this as a brand.

Visit Pete when you are in St. Anton or go to sportpete.com

WodBottom sells booty shorts for CrossFit. For those who are not familiar with these bootylicious booty shorties, the special thing is the fit and if they stay in place during the workout. Next, a bit controversial, some people are quite opinionated about all shapes and size women wearing these short shorts. By a lack of shorties with excellent fit, high-quality fabric and with some sparkling designs, Emily Ruyle founded WodBottom. ‘WOD’ stands for ‘Work Out of the Day’ the name for the daily training in Crossfit. ‘Bottom’, well, that speaks for itself.

With a profound background in marketing and product development, Emily is very explicit about the brand voice of WodBottom. ‘What makes a person love it and buy again and again, is the emotional pull.’ In two years’ time, she developed the current slightly controversial and authentic brand voice. Sticking to it and standing firmly about it. In times of feedback, WodBottom showed that they were not stepping down due to negative comments from others about all women wearing booty shorts. Customers embraced the brand for being firm where they stood for.

‘Put your money where your mouth is.’ Strive to focus on the brand message and be who you are. ‘Sure you want to be profitable, yet it is not so much about making sales.’ ‘Focus on the long term game to keep customers happy and engaged.’

Brand voice

In Emily her own words ‘Everybody has their unique way to shine.’ ‘I wish I could convey to people they should forget about the word ‘should’. I don’t like it when someone says ‘they should’. Whatever… Who created those rules what people should and should not do? Accepting what other people do, would make the world a better place.’

Key elements to her brand

• Create what people talk about. A lot. Online and offline. This has two elements. Design to show off your personality on the but cheeks. Her first design sold out immediately, unicorns and rainbows. From there on expanding into florals and abstract. Nowadays, at request by the fans, also solid colors. The second is quality. Creating shorties that stay in place, cover your cheeks and are squat proof. No matter the workout.

• ‘Don’t be in the game for the money. Be there to create a relationship that matters.’ Listen to what they want, what they love and are passionate about.

• ‘Trust in the brand is essential. Give them a great product and even better experience. Value the customer more than their wallet.’

• Honest feedback shows her how valuable the customers are. Customers want to be heard and they like sharing their ideas and frustrations. What makes them happy or sad.

• Customers define your brand and give authentic feedback on how you are performing. Plus it is unique feedback on how to grow and expand your brand. Emily listens in several ways to keep up and to improve customer experience: Facebook Groups, email, and text, Ambassadors and Influencers program. 

Content strategy

The brand voice comes to life in the content strategy. The fun and funky designs that show personality with humor and a sarcastic tone of voice define the assets. The visuals are a bit raw and unpolished. Authentic in the typical recognizable very not photogenic CrossFit box settings. Emily has made a deliberate decision not to use the professional-looking polished picture-perfect photos for her products. This doesn’t resonate with who the brand is.

The customer-centricity also resonates in the posts. Honest, open and raw feedback. The reviews, quotes, and pictures taken by the ladies themselves are used on the website, on social and even in Facebook advertising.

Two types of content

The posts are split into two categories. Next to the bootylicious product posts, Emily speaks up via her blog. ‘Supporting women’ to ‘accept the way we are’ in ’all different shapes and sizes’. The blog that most impressed me is about ‘Body Positivity’. This is a common topic amongst female athletic brands such as Nike, Under Armor and many others. The big difference in the brand voice of WodBottom is that she takes it a step further. In the second part of this particular blog, a big shout out for women themselves not to judge the other women ‘What about how we treat others?’. Love this distinctiveness! Read her blog

Customer care the makes you giggle

For the sake of the great fun-loving and slightly different customer experience that makes you giggle, order a pair of booty shorts at WodBottom. Get onboard Emilys’ customer experience journey. Steal with pride that best fits your brand and your brand voice. For a small investment of $42 you get a pair of these shorties and you gain a great example by the book for customer experiences and the feeling there is a real person behind the brand. wodbottom.com/

Some brands fall in the pitfall and turn into a sales machine once they grow from a start-up to a mature brand. They risk losing their distinctiveness to the sales figures. But, if you have a solid fundament of who you are and why you do what you do, it is easier to stick to your brand story. And let that resonate in your content. Consistent and recognizable.

The devil is in the content details

For G-Star, we strive for a combination of a recognizable basis enhanced with surprising creative freedom’. If you do not have your basics in place, your audience will notice and feel the inconsistency. They sense the clutter and messiness.

The devil is in the details. Make sure your fundament is described to the last detail, solid and very recognizable. Only then you can vary in your individual and local campaigns. Give each campaign its own creative character. Create freedom and diversify with the allocation of your budgets and resources. Not one campaign is the same and whilst the brand story stays recognizable G-Star.

Local relevance and shorten time to market

Once you have set up the global campaigns with master assets, you can roll out and localize to the different markets. Tune and tweak for local relevance and market maturity. Because you have this solid fundament for your brand character, you can maintain ‘the same’ identity over all the markets.

Another advantage of having your fundament and character in place, besides this creative freedom, is to shorten your time to market. And you can be more efficient with the (production) budgets. Not reinventing the design wheel over and over again.

The work actually starts after launch

‘Last but not least’ Dennis adds ‘the next step is to track and improve your individual campaigns based on sales data once the items are available in stores and online'. ‘The work doesn’t stop once you launch your campaign, it actually starts once you launch'. ‘This is a common mistake within the fashion industry, the data is too often overlooked and seen as a burden on creativity.’

‘Show your true character in all your content. Remember it is that personal creative touch that sparks the magic for a brand’.

WARC: One of the things that we've heard out of the WARC Toolkit survey is that (marketers) have a challenge making the case for long-term brand investment to convince the CFO, who is dubious of giving that money for something that they can't see is working straight away. How do they make that case?

Binet: “The first thing is to start talking the language of finance. We don’t help our case when we talk about brand-building in terms of awareness, image and ‘touchy-feely’ terms. Brand building is about selling. It’s about revenues and cash flow, but it’s about durable revenues and cash flow, over longer time periods. We have to help CFOs to understand that some marketing activity gives you an immediate short-term delivery of sales,”

Over-reliant on performance marketing

WARC: We’ve recently seen Adidas and eBay acknowledging that they had become addicted to performance marketing and were looking to make a change. How do you think some of these enormous brands have become over-reliant on performance marketing?

Binet: “The addiction to the short-term is not a new phenomenon, but it has got a lot worse. One of the problems is that (for) short-term activities, you get immediate feedback: responses, clicks, or short-term sales. If you are a marketer who's spending money and nervous about what you're getting for your money, you can immediately see that this stuff pays back. It's become easier and easier to see these short-term effects because we have more granular short-term data that comes through faster and faster. With the arrival of e-commerce in particular and digital metrics in general, all of the business is now afflicted by the same problem. All businesses now have short-term metrics, which can distract them from long-term growth. I think that's the real reason why business is becoming a short-termist. It's not quarterly reporting. It's not the short tenure of marketers. It's the data.”

Key metrics

WARC: Is there any specific metric that a brand should be looking for as an indicator that they should make a change? And if they do make that change, what type of metrics seem to see the most improvement?

Binet: “The most important metrics to look at first are financial and business metrics… If you got a strong brand, you will see it in the financials. If you've got a weak one, you'll see it in the financials. The most important brand metrics are to do with sales, profit, price sensitivity, and hard financial spend.

WARC.com

These and more great insights in the interview by WARC

For those who are unfamiliar with WARC, it is an amazing research platform with the best insights and publications on everything that's happing in the marketing world. As they say themselves 'Let’s save the world from ineffective marketing. At the heart of all great marketing is an insight. At WARC, we have the most trusted insights based on evidence enabling your work to be effective.'

From own experience, not cheap to get a subscription, worth every penny.

This is a non-sponsored nor an affiliated post. Sharing this because these insights and this platform are too significant not to know.

‘The more difficult it is to produce the content, the easier it is to stand out.’ ‘The more difficult it is to obtain content about products or brands, the higher the margin. And the less competition there will be…’ And that is exactly what Flinders does. By stepping up and raising that bar. 

The secret of success is the content Flinders creates. The numbers speak for themselves. In just 8 years from the launch of the website in January 2011 to the amazing flagship store in Zaandam (2000m2), Flinders Cafe Groningen, warehouse (9000m2) in Amsterdam, Design Studio Gent. Geert-Jan adds, all shiny and proud, that Flinders is awarded as the ‘Best Furniture Shop’ of the Netherlands in 2019. With an expected sales volume of € 24 million in the same year. 

In-house content team

They mix the traditional product shots provided by the furniture manufacturers, with their own in-house produced content showing the room setting and giving inspiration. The problem with the traditional shots is that is lacking that information for the customer to make a well-funded decision.

‘Yes, It is very time-consuming to make your own content. Especially the images. One shot of a nice room setting can take up to one day. But then again, that makes it possible to differentiate ourselves from the other furniture webshops.’ ‘The content you create and collect should be high res and flexible in size and form so that it can be used for every channel, platform, and social medium.’

The third source of content is the customers themselves. With the MyFlinders program, they collected 700+ inspirational user-generated pictures. Uploaded by the customers with #myflinders. Starting in 2017 the in-house photographer visits their most inspiring homes to extend this content. Used online and in the magazine. Priceless content to tell the Flinders stories and to help sell the products they love.

The Flinders extensive in-house content team consists off

• 2 Copywriters
• 1 SEO specialist
• 1 Visual designer
• 1 Social Media Marketeer
• 1 Trendwatcher and Photographer
• 1 Photographer

The Customer Care and Advice Department give advice to the content team. From insights on the type of interior and furniture advice, the customers are looking for, what information is missing on the website, to how the website should improve from the customers' perspective.

All these content assets are used in the online and offline formats. From obviously their website, with all the product content, trends and inspiration chapters, advice and room setting modules to their print magazines. They even provide interior advice at home. Including taking care of all the hassle that comes with buying and placing new furniture. Flinders is the data-driven e-commerce platform adding value by giving inspiration and providing 'retail as a service'.

Three tips

Use data to set your product and content strategy.

Flinders focuses on the data first. Not on the furniture. Do your research on what your audience is looking for to develop your product inventory. And use the brands to create the Google and YouTube search volume and traffic to generate immediate sales volume in your webshop.

Another really valuable often overseen source of immersive data is the Customer Care department. Involve them for the insights on the first contact with the customers. Align these two sources with the Google trends and the international Furniture Fairs — and you are setting up for success. 

Have your PIM in place

The Product Information System is the heart of the brand. Filled with their own and supplier content. By working closely together with their suppliers, the basic content like pack shots and life pictures are provided in a format that can be uploaded/connected right into the PIM (API, XLS, feed).

Every piece of content is tagged with multiple labels and topics. This is a hell of a job, painstaking and a monumental task. This can be partly automated. However, with the devil in the details, the manual check of all the tags is what makes the difference. 

Content needs attention

After a year your content becomes outdated and definitely needs to be updated. Plan this within the daily operation as it takes a lot of work. Do not only focus on the production of new content.

Source: Flinders, MyFlinders program, Flinders tag on IG

Martijn is a smart entrepreneur with balls. With his origin in the beauty industry, he stumbled upon the plant-based formula for an all-natural and effective deodorant. Challenged by his peers ‘this is far too niche and never will be viable, let alone profitable’ he proved them wrong. Very wrong.

Let the sales numbers speak for themselves; Launched in September 2017. And +400% growth from 2018 to 2019. Currently approaching 250.000 tubes sold. The secret of their success is to have your audience in the heart of the brand.

Context first

The first step is to define the context. Use the insights on society and within the industry. What are the big trends, define the ‘gap’ with the current products in the market, and how can your product fulfill these needs.

‘People are looking for products that are harmless to the body and the environment. Going ’natural’ is the trend. The ‘innocent’ products are the answer. Up till the launch of Nuud, there were plenty of all-natural deodorants. But none of them worked in the long term or was always effective for a broad audience. Without jumping into details, if an all-natural deodorant works or not, co-depends on the skin of the user. The Nuud formula is the exception. You only need to apply it every 3 to even 7 days and works for many more people.

Content second

The next step is to develop the content in line with the needs and feedback of the audience. Given the ‘natural’ trend Nuud initially launched with starting to explain what was ‘wrong’ with the existing not-natural deodorants and why they were the better all-natural alternative. And their audience reacted, not always in a positive way.

Lesson learned a positive message works better than a negative one. Five months in, they shifted their communication strategy. It is more effective to confirm that their all-natural product actually works than to give the scientific explanation ‘why people should switch’ to all-natural. Stepping away from the ‘make the switch’ into the ‘it works’ as the basis of the content strategy.

The cherry on the cake to kickstart this new direction was their shout-out for real customer reviews. Overwhelmed with the response, they selected 30 users to produce the ‘happy movies’. Real people, with real stories, without incentives, to share their experiences with the product.

They incorporated social feedback to further develop the content strategy. Using the feedback loop with comments such as ‘works perfectly for my smelly teenager’ Nuud expanded their campaigns. With thanks to the agile in-house team, the time to market from ‘user comment’ to a new campaign is a maximum of two weeks.

Reviews third

Why I started to use Nuud myself, is due to the raving reviews by other users. No need to explain that reviews by others are more convincing that the marketing by the brand itself. Besides, a review doubles as valuable inspiration for new content and campaigns.

Currently, Nuud has about 500 reviews on nuudcare.com, 600 on Google, and some 800 recommendations on Facebook. All between 4,5 out of 5 stars. If that many people are happy with the product, it for sure has to work. Keeping in mind that they do got balls, as the reviews and recommendations on Facebook cannot be edited by the brand. Once a Facebook review is given, it is there to stay including all ugly or beautiful truth.

Smart usage algorithms

Last not least, Nuud is doing social marketing by the book. Integrating the ads and the media-buying based on the same set of KPIs and objectives. With over 4.000 ads running simultaneously they have all variations with the differences in the details. As there is no accounting for taste, they let Facebook and Instagram data work the magic. The social algorithm selects the best ad for the specific audience based on their split-second behavior.

Specific to their media buying audience Nuud has an open approach. The product doesn't dictate the audience. Helped by Facebook, they continuously test, learn and develop new and broad target audiences. From vegans to sports, teenagers, travelers, and all-hairy-let-it-grow-super-naturals.

Nuud tunes and tweaks their social advertising on a daily basis with an agile team of a content producer / visual designer, social media buyer and webcare agent.

Local to Global

‘There is no real differentiation between countries’ Martijn admits. The Google van Youtube Search Query data shows more or less the same pattern for the second keyword: ‘review’, ’buy’ and ‘discount’ or ‘coupon’.

For the advertising, again, they let the FB and IG algorithm work for them. Without going into too many business-sensitive details, the algorithm selects the target audiences based on the objectives and doesn’t differentiate between countries or regions. The key is to offer the right content at the right moment in the funnel. Hence the 4.000 ads.

Wear out of content

One of the current lessons by Nuud is the wear-out effect of campaigns on social. Compared to traditional TVC the lifetime of a campaign on social is shorter. Integrate the development of new campaigns in your daily business. Allocate enough time and resources for that daily optimization of the current campaigns, and at the same time develop the new ones.

In-house team

All this is done with their in-house team. On the webcare and customer care team Martijn is specific. ‘We value them’. ‘Not only financially, but we also give them freedom and mandate to reach excellence and customer satisfaction’. ‘It is a matter of trust and respect and that exponentially gives back to the brand’. Please, note not all roles are fulltime employees.

“Four Founders, among them a Marketer and two Creative Content Producers. In addition to that an Online Media Specialist, a PR and influencer marketing specialist, a senior marketeer, a creative producer and three Webcare and Customer Care Agents. They all work seamless together as a cohesive team and are conquering the world. 

Sounds a bit like a no brainer. Yet in reality, as soon as the content assets are delivered to the media agency, most marketers wrap up and move on to the next campaign. Speaking from experience, even the evaluation afterward is quite superficial and scuffled away in a folder on the company drive. A missed opportunity to learn and improve your content efforts based on insights and data. 

How to and what you need

How to use data and set up an iterative learning campaign after campaign. Create, test, measure, and repeat. Continue the learning cycle. 

What you need:

• KPIs: what do you want to reach producing and distributing content. By preference, you align your KPIs with your business objectives. Content should always contribute to the business and you need to step away from vanity metrics such as followers and engagement. 
• Testing plan: know what hypothesis, audience behavior, you want to test within and between campaigns.
• Threesome between brand - media buying - content creation. These three must work seamlessly together to get insights. Just shifting the procuration and assets list back and forward will not do the job. 
• Real-time data: keep track of success.
• Content assets: a lot, and even a bit more. Variation is key. And use the social algorithm to your advantage and let it decide what content assets are best for your campaign KPI.
• Focus: make the testing and reporting a dedicated task to ensure it gets done.

'Focus on long term learning instead of short term ROI optimization'. Joseph Harper, E-commerce Marketing Manager - Western Europe at Kellogg Company, is a firm believer and shares his three tips for long-term testing of content assets. 

Frequency kills

Yes, you build a brand and imprint your message by repeating your message. Yet, 'most of the time the adds are 1:1 repeated without any variation, let alone testing. For me personally, as for many others, seeing the same ads over and over again, cause irritation. Make sure you have different variations and assets to test. Learn what works, and take from there.'

Channel shapes the content

By lack of budget or time, or maybe even knowledge, you see a lot of ads in the wrong format for the (social) channel. 'The most obvious example is an (edited) TVC shown in social. Allow the channel to shape your content, and not your content to shape the channel'. The social channel has a different heartbeat and asks for a different storyboard, adjusted script, and vertical or square.

Sounds like a no-brainer, in reality, more often than not the same assets are used for different (social) channels. To get the most out of your content production budget, media buying budget, you need to invest in content assets that actually work and do contribute to your objectives. The only way to discover what works is to test and adjust based on data. 

No best practice

'There is no kind of best practice for content.' 'Look at your consumer and your brand what fits and whatnot.' Joseph continues 'It is bespoke. There is not wright of wrong. Just know your audience and use data for long term learning what works for your brand.'

'Things change continuously. Nobody knows what the future will look like. So stay true to what you believe in, who you are, and stay authentic.'

Joseph Harper 

Read the interview with Joseph Harper by the Drum, including photocredits. Copy-paste 'Joseph Harper has developed and executed social and digital strategy, brand side, for the past six years. He spent almost three of these as Bet365’s social media editor, where projects included launching new digital channels and initiatives. At Kellogg's, he works on the digital transformation as social media manager for UK & Ireland across brands like Pringles, Crunchy Nut and Special K.' 

In our interview, she captures the essence of HBR ‘Branding in the age of social media’.

Social media made a significant impact on the world. The communication power is even within the smallest communities who now have a voice via social media. Society and human behavior have changed. How we consume content has changed. From the centralized broadcasting owned by the brand to the democratized content model owned by the public. The customers amongst each other tell each other what your brand is about. As a brand, your new starting point is the voice of the customer. Tap in, listen sincerely, embrace the conversation. And in the meantime take notice of these insights provided by your audience. Use them.

New distribution system

The marketing system is still in a transition trying to catch up with these changes. The brand communications fundament has changed from ‘inside-out’ to ‘outside-in’. The conversation between customers and fans of the brand now defines the brand. Use this information to sculpt your brand message and marketing. Most brands still do not know how to handle customer feedback.

As a brand, you still can broadcast your brand message. ‘How’ you set up your distribution ecosystem is the big change. For influencer marketing, this major shift is very clear. From old school plugging the influencer in your brand content ecosystem, to nowadays plugging your brand message in the content ecosystem owned by the influencer.

Use data

Brands need to change the internal organization to facilitate this direct contact with the consumer. Know what is going on in their conversations, tap in and use these insights. More often than not, the customer care department is in its own silo.

Next to tapping into these conversations, use the data provided by the platforms. Do an extended analysis of your audiences on Facebook and Instagram. What are their characteristics, behavior and conversation triggers and only as last, their demographic statistics? Do a research on Google and YouTube on what keywords they use in relation to your products, your brand, and competitors. Go discover on the social networks for the # used. Be entrepreneurial, don’t over-engineer, start small and make this change happen. One step at the time.

About influencers

IMA would not be IMA if we did not discuss the influencer marketing that is here to stay. Started as a channel, nowadays this is the starting point for the brand conversation. Yes, the reach of an influencers’ network is smaller than a TVC of paid social campaigns. Yet, effectiveness and effectivity are much higher. And in the end, it is about the value-added to the business objectives of the brand, not about the eyeballs.

The perception of the influencers is still subpar; ‘the simple millennials that crave attention and sell their soul and audience for too much money’. Reading all opinions in the industry network, there are two opinions. First as described above, the non-believers and skeptical marketeers. Second, the new school marketers who know how to use the shift in society in brand communications.

How to succeed

The success of influencer marketing is not within the influencer, it is within the brand. And starts with your strategy. Be selective about the long term cooperation with authentic matching influencers, only the perfect fit will pay off. And involve the influencer from the very starting point of your brand combinations and or campaign. Keep in mind, the perfect-fit-influencers can create more effective and more efficient content than your expensive creative agency can do.

(The right) influencers create their content from an authentic passion and eagerness to share this with the world. They keep their audience in mind, to create content for them that is appealing and relevant. After all, if the followers of the influencer don’t value the content, they will unfollow and dislike. Resulting in the influencer losing its stage to broadcast their passion. They are their own publishers and creating their digital magazines. Food for thought for brands to use this same audience-first strategy.

Circular effect

Embrace the circular effect. The brand taps in the influencers’ network. The feedback from their audience provides golden insights for the brand. These can be used for product development or communications. Than given back to the influencers to be broadcasted again.

Get serious about influencer marketing

As a brand, take this seriously. Don’t just work with your creative agency, get the specialist on board. I am not biased, nor do I have stock options for IMA or S4. I truly believe they are one of the best agencies out there with a no-nonsense fair approach to influencer marketing. They dare to say ‘no’ and are bold to setup qualitative campaigns only. Their reviews and clients speak for themselves, next to the great bunch of inspiring people working there.

A little sidestep, more about involving Customer Care in your content strategy. Case: Webcare for Content, Case: KLM Webcare and Content and Case: Nuud on Customer Care.

Source IMA

3 Layers of content

Dick explains ‘Good content is based on three layers:

• First, the long term big idea. Authentic, in line with your brand story and origin.
• Second, the content to build the brand. Show and tell who you are and what makes you tick - from a customer's perspective, the 'what's in it for them' in the core of your content.
• Last the sales activation content’. Nothing wrong with a strong call to action or an offer they cannot refuse. In the end, it is about sales to continue your brands' existence.

‘You cannot skip the first or the second layer and expect to create an impact.’

Advice: show and tell your brand story

His advice for briefing an agency is for the brand to ‘show and tell their extended brand story, include the heritage, the origin, the journey and the vision for the future.’ ‘If you get your agency to truly understand your brand story, they can incorporate it as the leading element in the heart of all campaigns’. ‘Only then the business will follow the brand, instead of the brand following the business.’

The proof is in ACHTUNG!s award-winning work for Volkswagen. After the diesel gate, the brand trust in the Netherlands restored significantly faster than in other countries. How did they do this? With ‘Volkswagen Memory Lane’ they go back to the roots of the brand, embracing the heritage. Bringing to life those extraordinary and special memories people have with their first Volkswagen. In a pure and authentic approach of the ATL, branded content, social and direct 1-on-1 communications, Volkswagen sticks to who they are and connect to their fans. The result is not only the restored trust, it even resulted in an increase in the market leader in the aggressive automotive industry. Effie case description 

Source ACHTUNG!

'Focus on the long term to produce effective content'. ‘Look at the long term in line with who you are and the domains you want to claim. Stop with those short term shiny nice to have one-off ad hoc campaigns without having the bigger picture. These do not contribute to your long term goals and business objectives.’

Frustration: lack of insights

‘One of his biggest frustrations is the lack of real insights provided by the brand. They should help the agency to really understand their business challenges. Define and describe the problems and issues the brand is facing. Do research on social circumstances and conditions. Discover the trends in the industry. And clearly state your business objectives’.

He continues ‘if a brand can define their problem and doesn’t just provide their solution in the brief, the better the creative agency can do their job and help them to solve it. A problem well defined is a problem half solved’.

Long term content advice

Kees suggests ‘to have the creative agency work on the long term big idea to guard the consistency between campaigns. This improves both the effectiveness of individual campaigns and the long term results.’

He adds 'to get your content execution power in-house. Build an agile and nimble team for fast production and very short timings to publish. Or if that’s not an option, find a dedicated partner for the long term which acts like an in-house team that fully embraces and understands your brand.’

Read more on how to set up your (in-house) Content Team.

Source DDB Unlimited

‘Content doesn’t directly and immediately add to your sales volume, yet it should be a bigger part of your marketing strategy than you imagine.’ ‘Content shows who you are and is more than just your attention-grabbing and sexy posts on social’.

If you want your audience to consume your content, you have to think like a publisher. Step away from the old school campaigns in which the TVC is the hero. Start publishing your digital magazine with continuous content in line with the help, hub and hero model to spice it up.

Align content with webcare

Within most brands and corporates the webcare is too much stand alone. Marketing creates a campaign, informing the webcare department is the very last step in the process. Instead of the first step to involve them in the concept phase. As webcare is the reflection of the customer experience, it should be an integrated part of the business. The webcare and customer care agents are the first lines of contact with your customers. They know what is going on. Not always backed up with stats and data in top 10 lists of FAQ’s, always founded on their gut feeling and intuition.

Quite a simple hack is to have the C-suite work along with the webcare team for a few hours. That input is golden. It closes the gap between the strategic philosophy and the hands-on realization and experience by the customer. Practice what you preach. If you preach you are customer-centric, bring it into practice by incorporating your customer care department in every campaign you make.

Read more on webcare integration in Case: Webcare for Content, Case: KLM Webcare and Content and Case: Nuud on Customer Care.

Don’t over-engineer content

Just try it. Start small. And be pragmatic. Make mistakes. And learn from them. If you do what you always did, you will get what you always have gotten.