SEO Werkt!

Jeff Rohrs discusses the lunch session he will be moderating Thursday, September 6th, 2012 That includes 42 minutes of “Shotgun Sessions”. Plus he talks about a couple of ideas he will be presenting in his “10 Email Secrets that Will Help Drive Your Content Strategy” session.

About Jeff Rohrs:

A recovering attorney, bacon-lover & Cleveland sports victim, Jeff heads-up the Marketing Research & Education Group at ExactTarget. In this capacity, Jeff co-authors the SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS research series—and ongoing examination of how today’s online consumers interact with brands through email, Facebook, and Twitter. Jeff also spearheads ExactTarget’s Connections User Conference programming and SUBSCRIBERS RULE! philosophy. Over his career, Jeff has presented at a wide variety of industry events including ad:tech, Argyle’s CMO Leadership Forum, The CMO Club Summit, the eec’s Email Evolution Conference, MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit, MediaPost’s Email Insider Summit, SES, SMX, and WOM Supergenius. Follow Jeff on Twitter @jkrohrs.

About Content Marketing World:

Content Marketing World is the largest gathering of content marketing professionals in the world. Content Marketing World is the one event where you can learn and network with the best and the brightest in the content marketing industry. You will leave with all the materials you need to take a content strategy back to your team – and – implement a content marketing plan that will grow your business and engage your audience. Content Marketing World 2012 takes place on September 4 – 6, 2012 at the Columbus Convention Center, Columbus, Ohio.

Transcription (edited):

Arnie: Hello I’m Arnie Kuenn, President of Vertical Measures, a search, social, and content marketing agency in Phoenix, Arizona. Today I’d like to introduce you to Jeff Rohrs. He’s the VP of marketing at ExactTarget. Hey, Jeff, how are you doing?

Jeff: I’m doing well Arnie, yourself?

Arnie: Great, great. So, I just learned that you’re in Cleveland. It’s a little bit toasty though, huh?

Jeff: It’s is. We’re about 90 degrees today and have not had a lot of rain like much of the country.

Arnie: Yeah, that’s a real shame.

Jeff: Yeah.

Arnie: All righty. Well, we’re here to talk a little bit about Content Marketing World, and you’re going to be moderating the luncheon I think on Thursday, September 6th, which is what, 42 minutes of shotgun sessions or something like that? I was wonder if maybe you could just explain what it’s all about?

Jeff: Sure. So, we did this last year at the inaugural Content Marketing World. Basically over lunch, Joe Pulizzi and his team line up about five to seven speakers and I serve as kind of an MC. The idea with the shotgun sessions is to get some really great thought leaders in content marketing.

Both authors and folks, who are in-house perhaps at a particular company, to just distill their thoughts down into a short format, in really digestible bits that folks can enjoy over lunch. We give extra points for those folks who can be entertaining or cause folks to laugh. So it’s fast, it’s furious, and it makes for great lunch time conversation.

Arnie: Yeah, it does. I remember I was there last year and I just thought, how are they going to pull this off?  It was great. It was amazing that people kept to their time frames.

Jeff: Yeah. I love that format. That’s a fun format especially when you have a multi-day conference. So, you’ve got multiple types of formats. You’ve got panels. You’ve got keynote speakers. It’s just a great one to kind of throw in the mix, especially over lunch, when people do need some filler while they’re eating. Then they want to foster conversation with some of their peers. This really just stirs the pot right in the middle of that.

Arnie: Yep. I don’t know if you know yet, do you know who any of your seven guinea pigs might be?

Jeff: I don’t as of yet. I suspect I’ll be finding out in the next few weeks as Joel distills that out to me. But we usually kind of assemble that group virtually. Just kind of bring them up to speed on the format, and then challenge them to really bring their best in that short period of time.

Arnie: No planning allowed.

Jeff: Exactly.

Arnie: All righty. Then you’re also doing, I’m going to read the session here, “10 Email Secrets That Will Help Drive Your Content Strategy“. The title I think pretty much describes what the session is all about, but I’m wondering if you might be willing to share one or two secrets with our viewers?

Jeff: Yeah. I won’t spoil too much, in part because I like to reflect on what’s happening kind of in the moment, the month or so before an event. Because often you’ll see some things in kind of current marketing that will point to some additional secrets or additional things we may want to share.

But I think one of the – I don’t know if you want to call it a secret, I will for purposes of our interview if you’ll give me that latitude – but one of the secrets is that an email subscriber and that whole mentality of being a subscriber, is very akin to being print subscriber.

Even in this day and age of decreasing print subscriptions, even in this day and age of social and mobile, the expectation when somebody is actually signing up to receive email from you is that of a print subscriber. So, if you think about what you do when you sign up for a magazine or something, right?

You’re signing up and you’re giving somebody your address. You’re giving them something of value, right? Your credit card or whatever the cost of the magazine is. It creates an expectation that you’re going to receive unique content delivered to your doorstep.

When you look at email, even in this day and age of very filled inboxes of fragmented communications across text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, email, apps, in-app communications, the expectation of consumers around email is still very in-line with those print subscriptions.

We can take advantage of that as marketers. That is to say that we want to make sure that we’re establishing a cadence. What is the expectation of our subscriber and are we meeting it that we set?

If we’re going to change it, how can we communicate that to them so the expectation is changed or morphed? Secondly, are you giving them any unique content? I think in the rush over the last couple of years to get social we’ve given a lot incentives for people to become fans on Facebook without any depth of meaning about what that really means or what the return of investment is for us.

With an email subscriber, however, they give you an email address, right. A uniquely addressable, I can reach you Arnie. Right? That is a different thing. When they sign up for email, they’re expecting that they’re going to kind of get the best of the best.

I think a lot of brands kind of forgot that. They forgot that this is a different crew. This is a different sort of hand-raising, where they do want it delivered to their doorstep and they want it delivered in a fashion that is perhaps different than social media, different than mobile.

I think we’ll all begin to understand this better in the next couple years as, number one, consumers become more set in the ways they use all of these fragmented channels and also as they become more set in their ways as to how they use the devices. I think we’re just at a really unique moment in marketing where you have the devices explode.

We’ve gone desktop to laptop, to smartphone, to tablet, at the same time that you’ve had the channels explode. Where you’ve gone from email, to instant messaging, to text messaging, to social messaging and Facebook, where it’s one to many, to social messaging and Facebook where it’s one to a few, to something like Google Plus, to something like Twitter.

That’s a lot to process. As people are processing that and they’re experimenting, they’re coming back to email.

So another secret is that people are actually reverting back to a comfortable format that doesn’t change on them all the time. They understand the email inbox. So, if you can really align with their expectations and understand that they expect some exclusivity, you’re going to get a better ROI out of those audiences.

I think you see some brands who are beginning to understand that. They’re also understanding that you don’t have to just be singular in your communications through that one channel. You can begin to leverage email, to improve the engagement metrics on Facebook, or Twitter, or Pinterest. That these things can work in collaboration with each other. It’s not a rock, paper, scissors where one is going to destroy the other.

Arnie: Yeah.

Jeff: So, that’s kind of a little taste of what we’ll dig into. I want to try and be very practical, but also dig in and share perhaps some case studies with folks that might resonate.

Arnie: Well that’s excellent. I thought I’d seen a slide that your associate Joel Book has and a couple of his presentations that shows the explosion of the communications channels. Just the slide is exhausting.

Jeff: Well, that’s actually our number one most requested slide. Joel and I put that together a few years ago. It’s a very simple slide that shows you the eight or so tactics that marketers had in pre-1990.

Arnie: Right.

Jeff: Then you look at today in 2012 and there are well over 40 to 60. The reason it’s requested is that a lot of CMO’s, not just directors or managers of marketing, want to print that out and give it to their CEO, and say, “See this is the challenge we’ve got. Yes, we can do more with less, but when you’ve got more channels and more devices, somebody’s got to be manning the ship.”

This is why I think it’s very important for all marketers to recognize this period of time is very different because everything is shaking out. It’s very hard to make long-term proclamations when consumer behavior and usage is unsettled. It’s unsettled, principally because they just haven’t had enough time with these devices. Look at the tablet, right. I mean when the tablet came out, I remember a lot of folks carrying them around with them all the time.

I’ve now noticed a lot of those people don’t have the tablet with them, they have the smartphone. They realized, for their behavior the smartphone was the better device. But then when they’re in a meeting and they need to take notes, or when they’re at home and it’s prime time, the tablet’s becoming a prime time device. That’s something you can only learn with experience, and personal experience, making decisions for yourself.

Arnie: Right.

Jeff: So, that’s going to shape everything that content marketers do. In my world, it’s going to shape the way that we think about the means of delivery and communication of that content through these different channels.

Arnie: Yeah. That’s great. Well, that’s all the time we really have. I encourage everybody to go and hear the other eight secrets that Jeff’s going to have in his presentation. If you didn’t go to Content Marketing World last year, I really encourage you to go this year. I don’t know about you Jeff, but I think it’s one of the best events that I’ve attended, and I go to a lot of events every year.

Jeff:  Yeah, I love it. Whether you’re official title is content marketing or something else in marketing, it has a lot of great stuff that’s relevant to you.

Arnie: Yep. It’s super. Well thank you for your time, I appreciate it.

Jeff: Okay.

Arnie: I will see you in Columbus in a couple of months.

Jeff: All right, will do.

Arnie: Thanks, Jeff.

Related posts:

1. Joe Pulizzi Discusses Content Marketing World 2012
2. Mitch Joel Discusses CTRL ALT DEL at Content Marketing World 2012
3. Jeff Walters Makes Search Predictions for 2010

Like many revolutionary technologies, it’s taken the human species a little time to figure out the best uses for Twitter—and along the way we’ve discovered some glorious mistakes, as well. Twitter Product Management Head Elizabeth Weil and Cotweet CEO and Founder Jesse Engle shared their perspectives with the CMO Club Summit in a discussion moderated of Jeff Rorhs of Exact Target on where Twitter does—and doesn’t—drive business forward.

Nobody can deny it—Twitter is crossing into the mainstream. With approximately 175 million users and about 90 million tweets each day across the platform, Twitter has become the marketing opportunity—and threat—we can’t afford to ignore. No argument there.

So what do marketers do about it? Twitter would suggest marketers first take a look at three new advertising products they’ve launched: Promoted Tweets (which lets advertisers broadcast specific tweets to broader audiences), Promoted Trends (which lets advertisers kick-start or seed a viral discussion by leveraging a highlighted discussion trend on Twitter) and Promoted Accounts (which boosts the visibility and following of a specific advertiser on Twitter).

But even those promoted products are just the beginning. Weil was quick to note that only discussions that are truly resonant—that are interesting, organically followed and re-tweeted—will break through and achieve meaningful results for marketers. “Tweets are supposed to be spontaneous and right for the moment,” Weil commented, adding that when marketers over-think tweets and try to make them brand-compliant and on-message, “it makes it artificial and it starts to not feel like Twitter.”

According to Engle, the first task is to find ways to take advantage of conversations taking place on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, and to find the most natural place for a brand to dive into the discussion.  Weil concurs. “One of the biggest misperceptions around Twitter is that you need to Tweet,” she noted. “Such a great way to get into Twitter is to observe just what’s going on.”

Engle also points to a fundamental difference between Facebook and Twitter: the speed at which bad news travels. “Facebook is something you can choose to do or not to do as a marketer,” he noted, “but Twitter is something you have to pay attention to. A single tweet can disrupt your whole brand.” He advised being ready, knowing what discussions to watch for, and having a response plan in place.

But one thing Facebook and Twitter do have in common is the massive database of information and insights they are gathering about their ever-growing populations. What we tweet, when we tweet, where we tweet from, and what we do with other tweets all speaks volumes about our connections, our desires and our preferences. One participant was curious to know what kind of data Twitter is in fact capturing, and at what point Twitter could transform into a data targeting and research entity.

“I can’t tell you,” noted Weil, “But advertisers tell us they want to geo-target better and demo-target better … and we have something unique.”

In an environment where marketers face such fierce pressures to cut costs, deliver fast results, and continually adjust to the ever-changing business requirements and sales strategies of their internal clients, it’s easy to think of your agencies less as partners and more as outsourced commodities.

But according to Brad DeHart, Practice Leader with ICG Commerce, thinking of your agency as an extension of your in-house team—and treating them that way—can actually lead to long-term cost savings and improved ROI from your agency spend. He and Ivy Bennet, CMO of Harris Bank, presented their approach to marketing and PR agency partnerships at the recent CMO Club Summit in San Francisco.

According to DeHart, a procurement specialist with an intimate understanding of the value of good agency relationships, simple things like giving your agency team access to senior management, letting them in your strategic plans and business initiatives, and asking your agency for their ideas on how you and your team can work more efficiently all have an impact on productivity, cost and program success.

What’s more, it’s in CMOs best interests to quickly resolve issues they may have with their agency team rather than going straight to an agency review. “Re-pitching your business costs a ton of money and takes months,” DeHart noted. “Onboarding a new team can take as long as a year. It’s not something to do lightly.”

“One-hundred percent of major agency-client financial disputes I have been involved in took two to tango,” DeHaro added. “Make sure your people know how to actually work with agencies and manage them, and make sure your agency lead is doing the same.”

Bennet concurs. She also says a best practice is to conduct regular account reviews with your agency teams to “get beyond the nice talk” and get down to quantitative and qualitative assessments of how everybody’s doing.

And throughout the relationship, Bennet advised CMOs to respect the financial constraints and concerns of their partners. Don’t just go for the lowest cost, go for the highest value, and negotiate for mutual benefit. “It’s all about communication,” Bennet reminded the audience. “Be up front about the parameters they’ll be working with, constraints and managerial challenges.” That, says Bennet, is how to turn the “agency” into your “trusted partner”—and to make sure the whole team is on the bus with you.

Mobile marketing. We know it’s coming. With all the CMOs have to juggle right now, some of us might wish it weren’t.  But it is, and the time is now to decide when and how we’re going to embrace it. At the recent CMO Club Summit in San Francisco, CMO Club CEO Pete Krainik convened a panel of three progressive marketers to share their views, early experiments and lessons learned in the nascent field of mobile marketing.

The first most important lesson any CMO who’s ever dabbled in mobile marketing learns is this: it’s not just about cramming laptop-sized content onto a palm-size screen. Adriana Rizzo, VP Mobile for ESPN, takes a content company’s perspective. “We’re guided by the three-screen philosophy,” Rizzo shared. “You have to develop content and think about all three screens at the beginning of your process, not just retrofit it.”

Sophie-Charlotte Moatti, Head of Product Management for Nokia, says it’s also about translating the experience to the device. “Take advantage of location-aware functionality and social graph-aware applications,” advised Moatti. For example, she points to Nokia’s work with OASIS, a fashion brand in the UK, who created a treasure hunt that led consumers to their stores through the use of location-aware messages.

It’s this sort of visceral immediacy that creates such compelling marketing experience on the mobile device. Bill Gajda, head of Global Mobile Product for Visa, says being able to message to a customer when they’re in a specific frame of mind at a specific point in time is very powerful, when architected correctly. Imagine a scenario in which a shopper swipes their card at a coffee shop known to be in a shopping mall, and the shopper receives real-time coupons redeemable at their favorite stores at that mall. It’s the ultimate win-win scenario. “Real-time interaction is going to be a very valuable tool for merchants,” Gajda predicted.

But there are challenges. For example, ROI can be tricky to measure. And for B2B marketing, the promise of mobile is not quite as compelling. As Forrester CMO Dwight Griesman noted from the crowd, mobile content and service adoption is driven by location-based relevance, real-time relevance, and being away from a desktop or laptop screen. But for B2B buyers, who are more likely to take their time comparison shopping from the comfort of their desks, these factors just don’t play as big a role.

And there’s the ever-present concern around privacy and permission—never more relevant then when marketers reach consumers on a device many consider to be their most personal mode of communication. Making sure experiences are opt-in, rather than opt-out, and keeping the marketing messages as relevant and alluring as possible may help to mitigate consumer annoyance and privacy concerns, but given the privacy and security regulation already underway in Europe, the panel advised the US to get ready—because we’re next.

It’s no secret that the paradigm shift toward digital marketing is accelerating. Depending on which research you read, offline marketing spend is down in double digits, while online marketing is up about 10% and mobile marketing is up nearly 20%. But the open question for marketers in 2011—and especially B2B companies—is what kind of digital marketing experiences to create, and what bets to make. Recently at the CMO Club Summit in San Francisco, Adobe CMO Ann Lewne shared some views around the principles that drive digital marketing decisions and the illustrative marketing priorities at Adobe, whose self-described mission is “to change the world through digital experiences.”

A few clear themes emerged from the group discussion. First, the most viral and valuable digital marketing experiences are those that feel the most immersive to the customer. Lewne observed that digital marketing provides unique opportunities for creating experiences that draw in customers, hold their fascination, and drive engagement all the way through funnel. Second, digital marketing allows you to measure not just engagement, but conversion  both on and off your web site (even through sales channels), which is essential for proving the ROI of your campaign. And third, the single most important bet for marketers to make in 2011 is on mobile marketing.

“Next year is the crossover year for mobile,” Lewne observed. “Everybody now has to reformat their content and create experiences that are mobile-oriented rather than taking what you have and slap it onto a mobile device.” And after a robust group discussion around the multi-screen revolution now underway among consumers, Lewne encouraged the audience to get ahead of the digital curve, now. “Get ahead of it and mandate it at your company. Because that’s where people want to get their information, purchase products, read magazines, watch movies. That’s where the world is headed.”

What was most interesting about the discussion was the discussion around which metrics matter most when it comes to digital marketing. Many attendees seemed to be thirsting for a hard ROI argument to take to their CFO, and while digital does offer a variety of metrics miracles, which one you turn to depends on your business objective—and your culture.

“Making it beautiful isn’t enough,” Lewne told the crowd, citing various metrics such as customer loyalty, sales conversion, brand position and consumer engagement. Even reputational standing can be enhanced through philanthropic endeavors such as Adobe’s Museum of Digital Media. “We’re not selling on this thing,” she noted. “This is just about connecting to our customers.”

And that, perhaps more than any other statement, captures where the smart bets in digital marketing appear to be right now—making meaningful, beautiful and authentic connections with your customers.