Join NAMA at our monthly Power Lunch series on June 15 as we present Kent Cunningham, Vice President of Marketing for The Nutro Company, a Division of Mars, Incorporated. Cunningham will reveal the marketing approach that has shaped iconic brands such as M&M’S®, SNICKERS® and PEDIGREE®. Gain insight into the brand building process by seeing a case study of a brand well on its journey to becoming an icon.

As Vice President of Marketing for The Nutro Company, Mars, Incorporated’s natural premium pet food division, Cunningham leads demand creation efforts for the NUTRO® NATURAL CHOICE®, NUTRO® ULTRA®, NUTRO® MAX® and GREENIES® pet food brands. His previous roles with Mars were in brand management supporting the SHEBA® and WHISKAS® cat food brands and in cat food innovation management.

Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind opportunity to learn proven brand-building secrets from one of the best!

Thursday, June 7th
Hilton Garden Inn
1713 Broadway
Networking begins at 11:00

Members and guests are welcome.

]]> http://nashvilleama.org/2012/05/16/building-an-iconic-brand-nama-power-lunch-june-15-2/feed/ 0 http://nashvilleama.org/2012/04/18/questions-to-help-you-plan-your-content-marketing/ http://nashvilleama.org/2012/04/18/questions-to-help-you-plan-your-content-marketing/#comments Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:08:49 +0000 Liz Denning http://nashvilleama.org/?p=2553 Strategy is Key to Successful Content Marketing

Nicole Provonchee

Nicole Provonchee, VP, Parthenon Publishing

Content marketing consumes about a quarter of all marketing budgets today and 60 percent of marketers expect to maintain or increase their content marketing budgets in the coming year, according to the Content Marketing Institute. That has led many to proclaim, “content is king”. It is true that engaging content based on a strategy tied to business goals is the king of marketing tools. However, content with no strategy is, at best, a distant royal relative.

Whether they call it “content marketing” or not, almost every company practices some form of content marketing. To engage with current and potential customers, companies may create a print newsletter, send an email update, share items on Facebook or write a blog. It is all content marketing.

With audiences splintering across more and more media platforms, marketers need to create more content than ever before. And, in content marketing, one size does not fit all. Content should be tailored to each unique platform. How do you create content marketing that’s strategic and hits your audiences?

A plan is just the first step. Whether the plan will succeed depends not only on the volume of content a company creates, but on the quality.

While content strategies are specific to individual companies, there are three simple questions marketers should ask when developing or evaluating content:

1. Does it engage our target audience? To succeed, content needs to be noticed, inviting and relevant.
2. Does it deliver value? Successful content must deliver value through inspiration, entertainment or information. If you can achieve all three – all the better.
3. Does it make sense coming from our company? Content marketing efforts need to be consistent with an organization’s overall brand position and offer.

These questions create a strong base for a company’s content marketing strategy.

Parthenon Publishing helps clients grow their business through engaging communications through a variety of print and web-based platforms. Parthenon has been working with clients on content marketing needs for almost a decade.

Like it or not, social media is playing an ever more important role in the B2B decision making and sales process. As a B2B marketer, having command of  social media tools is critical to the success of your future.

A Nationally Organized B2B Social Media Conference Right Here in Nashville

The American Marketing Association is bringing one of its signature conferences right here to Nashville. If you’re a marketer in a business-to-business marketing position who is seeking to get a social media marketing program in place, or is looking to take their social media success to the next level, you’ll want to check out the event on May 15th and 16th.

What You’ll Learn in B2B Social Media

B2B Social Media will teach you how to drive leads, revenue and repeat business through B2B social media by engaging advocates, influencers and purchasers who are not just engaging online, but energizing your bottom line. You’ll learn advanced strategies and tactics for reaching business buyers and building a long-lasting online community around your organization using the best practices in B2B social media. You will also learn how to take social media beyond marketing and acquire the tools you need to deputize your sales team and front-line employees for enterprise-wide social media engagement.

Finally, you’ll build a multi-channel social media campaign, social media metrics dashboard and engage in case-based problem solving with a high-energy group of marketing peers that are keen to take their social media programs up a notch or two.

When: May 15 & 16 8am-5pm

Where: Courtyard Nashville Downtown
170 Fourth Ave North
Nashville, TN 37219

Don’t miss NAMA’s May Mixer, another great opportunity to mix and mingle with the best and brightest of Nashville’s marketing community. We’ll be heading down to Cozymel’s in Cool Springs this time around to better accommodate our marketing brethren to the south. It’s free, and NAMA membership is not required. Just bring yourself, a stack of business cards and be prepared to expand your circle of contacts and friends!

Tuesday, May 15, 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Cozymels
1654 Westgate Circle
Brentwood, TN 37027

Sherman Mohr, Principal and CMO, Mint Media Group

I like this Wikipedia definition of creativity.

“Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new (a product, a solution, a work of art, a novel, a joke, etc.) that has some kind of value.”

There is every reason to include marketing, marketing strategy, and marketing creative into this definition of creative. Cause marketing has become a highly trending segment in marketing disciplines. A recent blog post by Trisha Stezzi, Creative & Digital Director, Account Services for Momentum, states several reasons that cause marketing trends are positive.

First of all, according to studies from Fenton and GlobeScan, non-profit giving is forecast to remain at 2011 levels through 2012. Consequently, according to Stezze, it’s time for non-profits to up their game.

Secondly, the same companies slated to keep their non-profit giving at 2011 levels are asking their employees to become more heavily involved in volunteer activities associated with organizations to which they previously wrote bigger checks.

Thirdly, there are natural pressures to increase cause marketing programs. These programs continue to appeal to corporations, as they are a way to add legitimacy and drive revenues while helping the world in some capacity. If done authentically, such programs can enhance a firm’s reputation in the eyes of consumers.

In a recent post on Formonentum.com, Michele Egan Sterns writes, “Historically, as far as cause marketing goes, we’ve seen spending double in the last ten years from $816 million in 2002 to the current level of $1.7 billion. Beginning in 2005, cause corporate spending grew 16% annually on average for three consecutive years.”

Let’s break down a current cause marketing campaign and assess its potential.

Coupon Mint magazine is a 20-year-old print publication specializing in coupon space in Middle Tennessee. Recent management changes allowed for more marketing on the digital media marketing side, as well as integration of philanthropic efforts. Through observation of social media technology and social media platforms related to Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee, Coupon Mint introduced a concept called “Check in for a Cause.”

What are the problems Coupon Mint Magazine seeks to solve?

Second Harvest Food Bank always needs more donations and exposure and can always use positive brand messages. Coupon Mint wants to provide more value to its advertisers through positive brand messaging.

Coupon Mint also wants to increase good will and brand equity through good corporate citizenship.

Coupon Mint wants to add to its value by providing incentive to its advertisers’ customers for checking in and patronizing establishments.

Coupon Mint needs a metric around social media ROI that few agencies have any ability or willingness to obtain.

The value of a “check-in” is only now beginning to be understood. Check-ins, email addresses, and “likes” on social platforms are extremely valuable, and engagement opportunities of any type are significant

Nick Yeager of Checkd.in, a Nashville/Washington  D.C.-based “modern engagement” company, puts it this way.

“At Checkd.in we think of the ‘check-in’ as an action that helps drive unique experiences which captivate people and convert them into producers of meaningful impact for the enterprise. It’s more than just Foursquare or Facebook. Increasingly, the check-in is becoming an action that signals when a user is engaged in the brand experience. The challenge lies in empowering organizations to lay the foundation of what we at Checkd.in call ‘Modern Engagement’ (whether it’s cause-marketing, selling tickets, or courting voters) as a cornerstone of their brand experience. Checking in is a great activation tool, but you must always have a ‘next.’ Once someone says ‘I’m checked in,’ what are you going to do with them?”

According to comScore MobiLens data, about 7% of US mobile phone subscribers and 18% of smartphone subscribers used location-based check-in services on their phones in March, 2011.

This number is growing at a significant clip. The majority of people who use location-based apps check-in several times per week.  According to a spring 2011 study from digital marketing agency White Horse, 19% of location-based app users check in at least once a day.

With all of this engagement comes opportunity for creative marketing. In Coupon Mint’s creation of the Check-in for a Cause campaign, considerations were given to solving all the above issues. With Coupon Mint’s commitment to donating a canned good to Second Harvest every time someone uses one of its advertisers or checks in to an advertiser’s establishment, the mission and success of Second Harvest is moved forward and a canned good is added to the list. The exposure generated by Coupon Mint’s philanthropic efforts is greatly increased, and good will develops around the cause. Coupon Mint’s advertisers are instantly woven into the effort at no additional cost.

Check in for a Cause allows the Coupon Mint advertiser to benefit from cause marketing good will, social media engagement, and social media exposure. It also provides real incentive to the customer to check in at an establishment whether or not a coupon is redeemed. Coupon Mint is committed to driving traffic into establishments with these cause marketing initiatives.

Finally, a metric associated with social engagement is far preferable to measurements surrounding other forms of marketing. As a marketer, you have an opportunity to ascertain who is in a relationship with your brand and cause. Social media platforms have the digital power of databases, true real-time reporting, and much more demographic information.

What will the future bring? We will certainly have the ability to monitor almost all of the check-in activity through social media monitoring tools. We’ll know who is checking in, to whom and to how many they are connected across social platforms, and we’ll have an entirely new set of metrics to deliver to our advertisers.

This all sounds pretty creative. Below, you can check out the creative designed for the Check in for a Cause campaign.

Sherman Mohr is a Principal and CMO for Mint Media Group, parent company of Coupon Mint magazine and Friendsthatshare.com. He has 20 years in marketing financial services, web services, software, and social technology. Mohr currently serves as Hospitality Chair for NAMA.      

The Soft Sell of Branded Content

Nowadays, most companies are looking to get new fans and customers thats an unobtrusive, soft-sell. Branded content. It’s the idea of creating content that tells a story to an audience and as a second priority includes a brand. Branded content

Branded content is a relatively new form of advertising medium that blurs conventional distinctions between what constitutes advertising and what constitutes entertainment. Branded content is essentially a fusion of the two into one product intended to be distributed as entertainment content, albeit with a highly branded quality. Unlike conventional forms of entertainment content, branded content is generally funded entirely by a brand or corporation rather than, for example, a movie studio or a group of producers–Wikipedia.

Many companies–such as American Express, Gatorade, Red Bull and smaller ones too–are now using branded content as a way to connect with their audience.  It’s a shift in thinking from advertising in the way the brand wants to communicate to the way the consumer wants to hear the message. It makes more sense as many people tune out the sales-only messages. Leading with the soft sell instead of the sales pitch may be the right play if this is your goal.

Looking for a Bigger Bandwagon

With so many channels and video outlets, and with how much video helps SEO and how easy it is to track video, it seems like more companies should be jumping on the brand content bandwagon with video. However, we’re hearing from marketing folks that branded content often gets lost in the overall discussion of marketing strategy with a client unless a few people have a passion for it.

Why we wonder? We know marketing professionals are making the best decisions for their clients and brands with the information that they have. But we do run into a couple of misconceptions about video and branded content:

The brand’s message will be lost.

In fact, many people are investing in branded content because it creates a stronger emotional connection for the brand. In a recent FastCoCreate article, Linda Boff, Executive Director of Global Marketing for GE said that for GE, branded content had a much greater impact on consumer perceptions than standard display ads.

They’re worried about the cost.

But since branded video is often unscripted storytelling, it is usually less expensive than a traditional commercial, or scripted corporate video … and for gosh sakes, branded content is more fun.

Since, we’re doing a lot more video branded entertainment at Gamma Blast lately– specifically for some of our national clients, we’re here to give a few tips. We hope this helps your company’s brand become stickier and more profitable.

Some thoughts about branded entertainment:

• The brand has to fit the story to make the best connection.
• While the brand is integrated into the story, you don’t want the piece to feel like the brand is first priority. That makes it feel, “icky”.
• Many people, especially Generation Y and younger, accept a branded message as long as they get something that they want. I could care less about the GE stove shots in Top Chef since I get to watch these chefs.
• Whatever branded entertainment you create, it has to be something that you’d want to watch.

Is your company using branded content? How is it going? NAMA would love to hear from you.

Post written by Liz Denning, Gamma Blast, a video production boutique

7 Keys to Zappos’ Culture of WOW, shared by Jon Wolske

#1: It Takes Everyone to Deliver WOW

At Zappos, every employee starts with the core understanding of how to deliver wow, by serving and starting on the phones with customers as part of their initial training–even if you’re the new CFO. This experience is important since managent and leadership make decisions regularly that affect the environment of those providing customer service and the experience customers receive. Everyone should be involved in delivering wow.

#2: Now is the Right Time for WOW!

Unfortunately in 2012, Jon noted that customers expectations aren’t often that high. This makes creating WOW for your customers not as hard you may think. Its always the right time to wow.

#3: Find Opportunities to WOW

Its not that hard to find unique ways to create a wow experience. For example, every Zappos product can be returned for one full year, but thanks to Leap Year, all products bought on February 29 can be returned for 4 years. What opportunities can you find to create a wow experience?

#4:WOW Should be Personal.

No one likes talking to robots. Or people that sound like robots. Likewise, there are no scripts in the call center at Zappos. Employees are encouraged to make their communication personal. That is also why they prefer the phone to web chats or other methods, although they do employ them. What are you doing to make your work personal?

#5: WOW takes True Empowerment

–And what’s true empowerment? To Zappos (and their employees), its “when you are given the right to make decisions and your manager’s job is to support those decisions.” Taking responsibility is rewarding when you have the power to do it. 

#6: WOW Culture is Transparent

Jon mentioned that Zappos creates “the Culture Book.” It contains unedited and uncensored comments from employees about the Zappos’ culture. Surprising to some, its all pretty amazing–people commenting on the ability to do what they love, express themselves, and have a sense of pride, family, and community where they work. What would your employees say about your culture? And would you share it with everyone?

#7: WOW Takes a Little Luck

Zappos hires for culture as much as skill, if not more. Their philosophy is that anyone can do a job, but not everyone is able to freely be themselves. They like their employees a little crazy, but not too far gone.

To offer a true wow, you need a culture of wow. So, one of the questions they ask is “How lucky do you feel you’ve been in life?” Zappos finds that when hiring, people who consider themselves lucky are also more open-minded in problem solving–and take ownership of their opportunities. How lucky do you feel? How much empowerment and ownership do you take?

WOW. Want to see the presentation?

Head to NAMA’s Slideshare: to see the full slidedeck.

As a sponsor of this presentation, Comcast Business Class helped NAMA deliver a WOW speaker to our audience. Comcast Business Class provides advanced communication solutions for business, including cable, internet and phone service.

Since I couldn’t narrow my focus, the name was particularly difficult for me. I didn’t have anything in particular that I wanted to say…so it wasn’t easy to come up with a name that said nothing yet sounded amazing.

In fact, I actually named the firm one day while I was over at Centresource, one of Nashville’s great web design and development shops. Now-CEO Evan Owens was introducing me to someone and he said, “What’s the name of your company again?” And thus, of desperation, Creekmore Consulting was born!

Well, whether I knew it or not, we did have a great specialization, and we quickly built a nice portfolio of content strategy and information architecture work. I hired some employees, and we’d talk from time to time about the name of the company. “Creekmore Consulting” could be an accounting firm…or almost anything else. We did consult, but all our consultations focused on content strategy specifically. So it seemed silly to keep such a generic name.

Then the crazy-making began. We came up with name…after name…after name…after name. We really liked several, but every time we came up with one we liked, we discovered the URL was not available.

A couple of words on URLs:

Even though we’re in 2012, we still believe that you need to own the URL that is your company name. Yes, it’s hard to find a URL that is available, but it really makes a difference. The more stuff you have to append to your name, the harder it is for people to remember.

And all of you out there sitting on URLs and not using them? A pox on you! We had several great names and the URLs were taken, but not in use. Just maddening. Of course, you can always try to buy an unused URL, but you don’t have any way to know in advance if the person who owns it is crazy or not. While we came up with some good names, we never hit on one that we felt we’d just die without, so we kept searching.

In the end, our new name [Creek Content] happened by accident. Last year at South by Southwest, I decided we really should start tweeting. [An effort at which we're still only sporadically good.] So I created an account while eating lunch one day, and I named it CreekContent. I meant to name it CreekConsult, but I didn’t realize my mistake until I’d finished creating the account. And I thought, Hey! I’m on to something there! I discovered the URL was available and I bought it right there at the bar at P.F. Chang’s in Austin, on my phone.

We didn’t officially decide to rename the company until the summer, however. We spent a day with fabulous business consultant, David Baker, and one of the first things he said to us was, “Rename this company!” It pushed us over the edge.

We got the website rebranded, a new logo, new business cards, and off we went. Of course, the administrativia continued for months — renaming the bank account, filing the name change with the city, the state, our insurance company, the IRS….getting our ongoing clients to update our billing information. But it was absolutely worth it.

While no name can completely explain what a company does, our new name plants us in the right universe before we even start talking to a prospective client. It is easy to remember and spell, and — I still think this matters — it’s shorter than our old URL.

Bill Selph, owner

I’ll share with you my history with flipbooks. I would imagine that they have been around since maybe the 40′s or 50′s. In those days, flipbooks would have been made on an offset press with each sheet collated by hand. Much more labor intensive than the variable data type printing we use today. As a matter of fact, it’s only been maybe the last 5 or 6 years that we could produce them in an efficient way.

I first saw a flipbook at Peter and Karen Cronin’s place. The Cronins have always had fun and unique ideas. Karen had some really old flipbooks that she had saved for years. One was of Elvis Presley. These books would surely have been assembled by hand.

“When Bill saw Karen’s flipbooks, his eyes lit up and you could almost see his printer’s brain kick into action,” Peter says. “He found a practical and affordable way to get them printed and into the hands of people everywhere. Bill’s “Me Having Fun” flipbooks are just amazing.”

That meeting started my obsession with flipbooks. Marshall & Bruce Company had the technology to produce these books, I just needed to figure out the front-end. Our partner from Xerox introduced me to a man who had been doing this for several years. He had already figured out the processing, so we struck a deal and started making flipbooks.

We can produce a single flipbook from a 10 or 15 second video for under $15.00. Ten years ago, that book would have cost $500.00 and you couldn’t shoot the video on a cell phone. I wonder what we will be doing on our cell phones 10 years from now?

NAMA Co-Chair of Membership and an Account Executive for Signal Inc.

Ann Howard

Q: Hi, Ann. What do you do?

I’m in charge of Nashville business development for Signal, a creative communications agency.

Q: Tell us a happy marketing story. Maybe how you got into marketing?

Once upon a time, I was a college intern at a law firm. I was tasked with selling sponsorships for a trade organization and was instructed to do so by phone. It was quickly clear that busy attorneys do not want to talk to interns selling sponsorships, so I designed a creative appeal and sat by the FAX machine sending it to everyone in the membership list. I surpassed the goal by a multiple, made my boss look awesome, and was thereafter hooked.

Q: Can you tell us about your past jobs?

I’ve been a Marketing Manager, Corporate Communications Manager, Researcher and a Business Counselor.

Q:  We’d love to know your favorite movie/album/TV show?

• Movie — The Triplets of Belleville
• Album–Elvis Costello – My Aim is True
• TV show –Boardwalk Empire

Q: What’s one of your favorite activities?

I read to kids through Love Helps.  It is the best volunteer gig ever.

Q:  What would people be surprised to know about you?

I performed in a musical once…in the chorus.

Q: How can people find you?

ann@signalinc.com, (910)512-3101, http://www.signalinc.com

Here’s Courtenay Rogers

NAMA Co-Chair of Programming and Marketing Coordinator for Bone McAllester Norton, PLLC

Courtenay Rogers

Q: Courtenay, give us a sense of what you do.

I assist 32 attorneys in their marketing efforts to promote their practices, along with maintaining brand awareness and overall marketing strategy for the whole law firm.

Q: What’s a best lesson learned about marketing?

Marketing isn’t a science. Sometimes you have to just try something, track it and see if it works.

Q: Can you tell us about your past jobs?

Surface Warfare Officer, the US Navy and then Co-Owner, Primarily Rye

Q:  What’s your favorite movie/album/TV show?

• Movie–Top Gun
• Album–Will Hoge
• TV show–Grey’s Anatomy

Q: What do you like to do when you’re not marketing?

Cooking, networking, wine tasting (drinking)

Q:  What would people be surprised to know about you?

I don’t make my bed.

Q: What’s your contact info?

crogers@bonelaw.com, (615)742-6889, http://www.bonelaw.com