How to reignite your marketing communications for the digital era - David H Deans, Principal Consultant, GeoActive Group, Austin Texas | London England

1. DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
How to Reignite Your Marketing Communications for the Digital Era

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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