Big Scary Cranium Wins Top Honors For Content Marketing and Marketing Automation

Big Scary Cranium, an Atlanta-based digital content marketing agency, was named Silverpop’s “B2B Agency Of The Year” at Amplify, Silverpop’s twelfth annual customer conference in Atlanta. Big Scary Cranium, the only Atlanta agency in a field of national competitors to receive recognition as a SilverpopTM 2014 top Agency partner, also took home the award for “Best Use Of Marketing Automation.” Much of Big Scary Cranium’s recognition resulted from a campaign promoting Alliance Bus Group – also based in Atlanta.

“As a company trying new things to make marketing more relevant and less bothersome, it is tremendously satisfying to receive this type of recognition from Silverpop, one of our most valued technology partners,” said Rich Wilson, Creative and Strategy Director of Big Scary Cranium.

“We believe our commitment to data-driven content tailored to specific points in a customer’s buying cycle is what sets us apart from our competitors and continues to deliver superior results to our clients.”

Big Scary Cranium and other Silverpop 2014 partner award winners were recognized for having “gone above and beyond to ensure their clients achieve the next level of digital marketing success,” said Will Schnabel, Senior Vice President of global business development at Silverpop.

“Whether providing consulting advice for the most effective use of technology, or actually deploying campaigns, this year’s partners and agencies of the year have consistently provided exceptional service to our customers, and we are thrilled to recognize them.”

Rich Wilson also added, “Award-winning campaigns are generally the result of visionary clients like Alliance Bus Group.” As a leading bus distributor in the US, Alliance Bus Group tapped Big Scary Cranium to turn its marketing campaigns into an extension of its brand by extending its desire to be a helpful resource at every stage of the ownership lifecycle to prospective customers. The marketing campaign for Alliance Bus Group combined online advertising, an advanced landing page strategy and email marketing in a way that “revealed without a doubt that investing in customers by taking time to provide helpful resources yields big returns in an information-starved market,” said Nick Corley, Director of Marketing for Alliance Bus Group.

About Big Scary Cranium

Big Scary Cranium is an Atlanta-based agency focused on brand positioning, inbound marketing, content creation and marketing operations. The Big Scary Cranium team helps businesses craft content marketing strategies tied to sophisticated marketing automation environments to make communication more relevant and timely. For more information, visit bigscarycranium.com.

About Alliance Bus Group

Alliance Bus Group, headquartered in Atlanta, Ga, is a full service bus sales dealership with locations throughout North America. Offering bus and transportation products from every major manufacturer, Alliance Bus Group is one of the largest commercial bus distributors in the nation and two time ACG FAST 40 recipient. Its continued success is due to a unique focus on customer engagement and satisfaction; for more information for how you can be “Along For The Whole Ride,” visit AllianceBusGroup.com.

About Silverpop

Silverpop is a digital marketing software company focused on helping marketers transform the customer experience— increasing engagement and driving revenue. Silverpop makes this possible by using customer data and each individual’s behaviors to inform and drive every interaction in real time. Silverpop uniquely enables marketers to automate these highly-personalized interactions at scale. Silverpop’s top-ranked email marketing and marketing automation tools serve the needs of B2C and B2B marketers from a wide range of industries. Silverpop is trusted by more than 5,000 brands around the globe. For more information visit silverpop.com.

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The New World of Content Marketing: A Brief Overview

The world of content marketing has changed significantly in the last 50 years, and even more so in the last ten. In order to fully grasp this new-world-order of marketing, it is necessary to have a foundation on what exactly the content marketing, in its current form, is all about.

Here is a brief overview of content marketing, its history, and what strategies and tools marketers are using to be successful.

Overview

This isn’t your grandfather’s marketing. 
We now live in a digital world, and this evolutionary (and revolutionary) change has made a huge impact on the way marketers attract their target audience. 

Content Marketing, in particular, has become the go-to strategy for B2B marketers – and it too has evolved. The challenge most marketers face in this new world is to be able to effectively distribute their content through these new digital channels, and measure their actual business value.

Content Marketing Objectives

Marketers, particularly (though not exclusively) B2B marketers, are using the strategy of Content Marketing for a variety of objectives. However, when it comes to B2B marketing there is only one ultimate objective: Lead Generation

Content Marketing Measurement

A recent study conducted by the B2B Technology Marketing Group found that, while the number one objective of Content Marketing was lead generation, the main metric that marketers look at is web traffic. Obviously, this indicates a disconnect between goals and metrics that must be addressed in order to have a successful content marketing strategy.

» Free Webcast: Driving a Highly Personalized Customer Experience

Content Assets

1. Blogs

In the age of digital marketing, blogs are a Content Marketer’s most powerful weapon. A successful Content Marketer knows that a highly promotional blog post will not only not interest your target audience, it will make them view your company negatively. The key to a good blog strategy is all about providing value to your reader.

2. Case Studies

Many benefits can be reaped from creating a case study. While being overly self-promotional is a no-no when it comes to Content Marketing, highlighting how one of your customers benefited from using your product or service will effectively convey your value to the reader.

3. Webinars

Content, in the context of marketing, does not exclusively relate to written material. The modern marketer can choose from a wide variety of dynamic media content. Webinars are just one of the many none written types of content that can provide real value to your target market. Webinars are often gated and require the attendee to “sign-up” by inputting their information, making webinars a fantastic lead generation tool.

4. Podcasts

An audio element to your content marketing mix allows you to capture an audience that may not have time to sit down and watch a video or read an entire blog post. Having a regularly scheduled podcast with interesting guests in your field can help you attain thought-leadership status.

Infographics

65% of people are visual learners, meaning even the most well written piece of content might not be good enough for some people. A well-done infographic can tell the same story as a long, drawn out 1,000 word essay could. Many industry-related blogs are keen to include this type of visual content, and would be more inclined to cover your company if you provided them with an infographic.

Repurposing Content

Putting together a great piece of content, whether it be a blog post, case study, infographic, or podcast can be a lot of work. Content Marketers can maximize the benefits of their blood, sweat, and tears by repurposing this type of content. For example: a single webinar can be turned into multiple posts for your blog. Content repurposing is the key to a strong Content Marketing strategy.

Social Media

What is “Content”? Content can be a 2,000-word blog post, a 30-page white paper, but it can also be a 140-character tweet. The advent of social media as a marketing tool has also ushered in the area of Social Content Marketing. Social channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, even Pinterest and Instagram all have great potential for Content Marketers. But, the most effective social channel for a B2B marketer is LinkedIn, and mastering it is not as easy as it seems

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SAP Leverages Content to Drive BI Sales ON24-Powered Business Intelligence Webinar Series Helps SAP Fill Sales Pipeline and Close Deals

SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2014

SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Analytics and business intelligence (BI) are key offerings from cloud and enterprise software leader SAP, and the North America Field Marketing team has leveraged the ON24 webcasting solution to engage with customers, drive lead generation and close new sales opportunities.

Through the award-winning "Best Run Business Intelligence and Analytics Webcast Series," SAP delivered a data-driven, multi-touch campaign to help BI sales prospects on their own buyer's journey. The campaign was built around customer engagement and a systematic approach to delivering quality content to end users, driving awareness and interest for SAP's range of business intelligence and data analytics solutions.

SAP designed an end-to-end marketing program, combined with multiple customer touch-points, and backed it up with accurate measurement. The narrative-driven program consisted of five webcasts, three video white papers, three YouTube videos and one "deep-dive" video presentation that showcased a customer success story. In addition, SAP made audience materials available via Slideshare and a dedicated BI and Analytics online resource center. A combination of pre-event online marketing and efforts by SAP's telesales team drove webinar registration and attendance, supplemented by regular customer follow-up throughout the life of the campaign.

By leveraging SAP's own deep library of content and subject matter experts, the company used the webcast series to illustrate how customers can benefit from, utilize and implement SAP and be successful.  The popular webinar series reversed diminishing webinar attendance and reduced "one and done" online events. Thanks to savvy pre-event marketing, deep integration with SAP's social media marketing team and multiple customer touches, interest was strong – with more than 1,400 registrants. Most importantly, during and after the webcast series, the sales pipeline for SAP BI and Analytics solutions experienced direct benefit, including:

• 17 documented sales leads
• Four sales opportunities totaling $775,050 in pipeline revenue
• Two closed sales, totaling $300,050

Because it achieved meaningful ROI for a very low spend, the BI and Analytics webinar series put webcasting "back on the map" at SAP. The internal team documented and shared best practices across SAP's marketing and sales organizations, creating a model for other groups within the company to follow.

For the innovative use of content and achievement of sales ROI, the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and ON24 recognized the SAP North America Field Marketing team for its performance with a Virtual Communication Excellence Award for Best in Content Marketing. "Our clients have recognized that virtual communication is a key to marketing success in today's global economy. Award winners like the 'Best Run Business Intelligence and Analytics Webcast Series' define best practices for the industry," added Lars Christensen, ON24 Marketing Vice President.

"Our customers truly connected with the content because we created a better experience, moving them through the entire sales cycle within one comprehensive program – a clear example of strong content and strong teamwork producing strong results," commented Deanna Ransom, SAP Marketing Director. "With the need for consistent digital conversations and engagements with our prospects and customers, virtual communications are now woven throughout the lifecycle of everything we do to keep the conversation flowing and the thread utilized to bring consistency and measurability to our entire marketing strategy."

About ON24, Inc.ON24 is the global leader in cloud-based solutions for webcasting and virtual communications. ON24 offers a broad and innovative product portfolio accessible from any device and supported by industry-leading reporting and analytics.

More than 1,000 organizations, including IBM, CA Technologies, Merck, JPMorgan Chase, Deloitte, Credit Suisse, Rosetta Stone, Ernst & Young and SAP, rely on ON24. Applications for the ON24 platform include demand generation, customer engagement, talent development and town hall meetings. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices throughout the world.

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Doing digital marketing effectively Mobile, social marketing is up—but how well does it pull?

Indications are that businesses in general, including banks, see marketing in the digital realm equaling and surpassing in importance more traditional marketing venues such as television, magazines, newspapers, billboards, and the like.

While digital marketing budgets increase, however, the effectiveness of digital marketing generally remains suspect. Penetration is one thing; getting positive customer response is another. It seems there’s a real and distinct art to transforming those pop-up ads, email blasts, and little mobile phone banners into actual customer response.

Nevertheless, the experts say an increasing amount of money is and will be spent on digital marketing. Gartner Inc., is a good place to start. It predicts digital marketing budgets will rise by 10% this year, following a double-digit percentage increase last year.

“Marketing leaders are securing bigger budgets to define markets, develop offerings, and attract, acquire, and retain customers,” says Yvonne Genovese, managing vice president at Gartner.

Thinkvine, which produces marketing mix optimization software, says in its own survey that more than half of the marketing executives it polled expect to spend more on digital media than traditional channels within the next two years. Most say they are confident that digital spending will eventually exceed traditional spending, with only 3% of respondents saying the shift will never happen. It includes the finance industry among those that are leading the way in digital adoption, with 36% of these marketers reporting they already dedicate half or more of their budget to digital.

The thing is, even as more and more resources get dedicated to digital channels—websites, mobile apps, social profiles, directory listings, on-site search, email, and more—actually getting the desired customer response is harder and harder to achieve.

Content Marketing Institute, in a study sponsored by Marketo, another marketing software producer, looked at the quality of business-to-business marketing content. It found that 70% of B2B enterprise marketers are creating more content than they did a year ago, but only 41% have a documented content marketing strategy in place to guide their efforts.

The biggest marketing challenges were found to be a “lack of integration” and “producing engaging content.” To this point, it found that social media content and videos are among the top three marketing tactics that B2B marketers use. LinkedIn and Twitter have overtaken Facebook as the preferred social media platforms.

“When we look at year-over-year data, we see that B2B enterprise marketers are doing a better job producing enough content. It’s producing engaging content that continues to be their biggest challenge,” says Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute.

“Tracking and responding to audience intent and delivering contextually relevant experiences to influence a complex purchase path is among the great challenges faced by digital marketers today,” says Jake Sorofman, research director at Gartner. “This requires a marketing technology leader who understands the requirements and issues associated with joining together disparate data sources and technologies, and who has a vision for future marketing requirements.”

At the same time what works for one enterprise doesn’t necessarily work for all, and that’s where the marketing art comes in. “Marketers shouldn’t blindly follow the crowd,” says ThinkVine CEO Mark Battaglia. “Consumers in general spend more time with digital media, but it’s important for each brand to know how their specific customers consume media and how different media types work together to achieve sales and brand objectives. Companies can’t take a one-size-fits all approach to their marketing mix.”

That’s why Gartner notes that, among the admittedly bigger enterprises it polled, 77% now employ a chief customer officer, and 81% employ a chief marketing technologist, or equivalents.

For businesses that can’t afford such dedicated in-house staff, there always are third-party sources. ABA offers extensive resources through its affiliate ABA Marketing Network, athttp://www.aba.com/Tools/Function/MarketingNetwork/Pages/default.aspx.

And there are vendors. Jacobs and Clevenger is one, and is mentioned here only because it has posted an interesting blog about the pivotal role of technology in retail bank marketing communications. In it, Sheera Eby, executive vice president, strategy and client services, offers a few tips that are condensed here:

• Make mobile a priority—74% of mobile users rely on mobile devices to check email. Size the email’s format such that it can be readable and workable on a mobile phone.
• Use behavioral marketing—For example, suppose a potential customer clicks on a link in your email, but then quickly abandons the website because he or she didn’t want to make a quick decision. Follow up with another communication to that individual with additional information.
• Personalize communications—Assure the recipient that you know each other, in order to cut through clutter and boost the sense of security.
• Coordinate multichannel messages—Online and offline marketing communications, such as email, direct mail, and landing pages work better together than as stand-alone tactics.

Of course, there’s always hope, no matter the size of the organization. As ThinkVine’s Battaglia says, “The survey results show that most marketers are moving budgets to digital channels before they have all the information they’d like to have. They told us that they rely more on factors like experience, perceived current performance, and historical spending and trends than tracking and model-driven analytics. As a result, there is still an opportunity for marketers to improve results and gain a competitive advantage by using data and analytics in new ways across the marketing mix.”

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Brightcove launches Video Marketing Suite

Brightcove, a leading global provider of cloud services for video, have launched the Brightcove Video Marketing Suite to help marketers drive awareness, engagement and conversion with video. The Brightcove Video Marketing Suite is a comprehensive suite of technologies built for the needs of the modern marketer, combining industry-leading video management, video marketing and analytics to help brands maximize the reach and ROI of their video campaigns with a single solution.

“The digital marketing space is evolving and expanding rapidly, with marketing budgets reallocated from traditional advertising models to experience and content-driven marketing,” says Steve Rotter, vice president of marketing at Brightcove. “Brands are becoming digital publishers, creating original content to attract and retain customers, and video is a crucial part of their marketing mix. With today’s announcement, Brightcove is making it easy for marketers to utilize video as part of larger campaigns with a single, unified interface that supports new discovery, delivery and conversion models.”

Video has quickly risen to be one of the most critical components of the marketing mix. This dramatic growth has been driven largely by the global shift in audience consumption patterns from text to rich media, the disruptive changes in buyer behaviour toward a self-directed, content-driven buyer experience, as well as an explosion of technologies focused on supporting marketing’s new role as the primary driver of digital demand. As a result, today’s digital marketers need integrated, interoperable solutions to help drive all of their content marketing and demand generation activities.

The Brightcove Video Marketing Suite addresses this need by providing a comprehensive suite of video technologies that combine industry-leading video solutions to help marketers maximize ROI. The Video Marketing Suite consists of the Brightcove Video Cloud online video platform and Video Cloud Live, Brightcove Gallery, and a number of marketing automation software integrations, including a new Brightcove Cloud Component for Oracle Eloqua.

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PlaceWise Media℠ Client Roster Now Tops 600

PlaceWise Media, a leading digital marketer for malls and retailers and the nation's largest shopper marketing network, today announced its recent growth has pushed its client base to more than 600 malls in the United States and Canada, an 83% increase over last year. Currently, PlaceWise Media's shopper marketing network represents an average of 10 million total monthly shopper visits.

"The ubiquity of mobile, the rise in content marketing's importance and PlaceWise Media's unique ability to monetize digital properties for malls has driven tremendous growth for the company," said John Dee, president of PlaceWise Media. "Combine those factors with PlaceWise's track record of innovation and we find ourselves where we are today-- and we're still growing.

"PlaceWise recently signed several new contracts with developers and operators, pushing them to this milestone, including: American Assets Trust, General Growth Properties, Howard Hughes Corporation, Retail Properties of America, Inc., RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust and Spinoso Real Estate Group. The company launched 42 client websites in the first quarter of 2014, and has another 186 in various stages of development for the second quarter.

"Shopper marketing--and mall marketing in particular--is in flux. It wasn't too long ago that a mall website was nothing more than a directory of retailers and business hours," said Dee. "Today marketers need to have geolocation tools, they need to know how to take on showrooming, they need to create both on-premise and digital experiences that move shoppers from being eyes on a screen to being foot traffic in a store."

In addition to the company's innovations in mobile shopper marketing and monetization enhancements, PlaceWise continues to optimize its mobile and web offerings. The company recently launched: 

• Flexible Options: Clients are now able to join PlaceWise's advertising network, access its deal and/or editorial content feed and develop widgets for their sites on an individual basis.
• Featured Promotions: PlaceWise is now featuring retailer deals, promotions and new product arrivals in ways that increase shopper engagement with these offers by more than 600%. This capability allows retailers to buy featured placement and generate additional revenue opportunities for PlaceWise Media mall clients.
• Video Content: In addition to expert-written articles, PlaceWise now features fashion and lifestyle videos for client content feeds. Recommended products from stores within the malls are highlighted alongside each video, encouraging on-premise purchases.
• Segmenting: PlaceWise now offers multiple versions of editorial content (videos and articles) to mall clients based on geographic location. Neighboring centers in the same market don't receive the same content.

"We're in the midst of a dramatic shift of power to the consumer that is changing the dynamics of shopping. PlaceWise is developing tools that ensure our clients are ahead of the curve," said Dee. "Our new partners pushed us over the 600-mall milestone, but we couldn't have continued to transform shopper marketing tools over the years without those who have been with us for years. We truly appreciate their continued support."

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Digital videos – the future of content marketing

When most people think of content marketing, they think of news articles or blogs, but in today’s quickly-changing digital atmosphere, it is now necessary to invest in multiple forms of online marketing.

One medium that is becoming increasingly important is online video. Nowadays, brands from all different industries are creating engaging or informative videos to put on their website, or post on video-streaming sites such as YouTube.

This interest in online video is on the rise. A recent study by Advertiser Perceptions surveyed 297 executives about their attitudes towards digital video and found a keen interest.

The study found 65 per cent of advertisers plan to spend more money this year on digital video than they did in 2013.

Out of this percentage, two-thirds said they will pay for this by reallocating their budget from their existing TV advertising spend.

Now it seems many brands are creating videos solely for the internet. Three quarters of advertisers said they foresee original digital programming starting to become as important as TV ads within the next three to five years.

Videos have not only become a powerful advertising tool, but they are also a great way to keep consumers engaged.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau IABlog series, they asked some industry professionals for their views on the future of digital video marketing.

“It’s about highlighting ways that brands can do really compelling, sharable, video content.” said BuzzFeed’s General Manager of Video & VP Agency Strategy, Jonathan Perelman.

While VICE Media’s VP Sales & Business Development, Ben Dietz, said “We think longer-form video is going to continue to be a mode that people adopt. A quarter of all videos on YouTube right now are 20 minutes or longer.”

This growing interest in digital video content means there is enormous potential. YouTube, for instance, has over 12.5 million unique active users a month, according to Frank Media, so this is something businesses should take advantage of.

Whether you choose to post humorous and entertaining videos, or informative and helpful tutorials, as long as you have a content strategy set up customised toward reaching your target audience, it will undoubtedly be worthwhile.

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Offerpop Introduces Next-Generation Digital Marketing Platform to Reach Connected Consumers Innovations enable marketers to connect with today's social and mobile consumers to deliver unparalleled marketing performance

via PRWEB - Offerpop, a leading software-as-a-service company, today introduced the industry's most advanced platform for driving consumer action throughout the customer lifecycle. With Offerpop's products, leading global brands and agencies are empowered to create connections with today's mobile and social consumers and drive marketing results through authentic, engaging digital experiences powered by user-generated content.

"Marketers today must reach the new mobile, social consumer to generate real business results," said Wendell Lansford, chief executive officer at Offerpop. "With our new end-to-end platform, it is now possible for marketers to create meaningful consumer connections, drive revenue, and build brand loyalty fueled by user-generated content."

Offerpop's new product suite empowers brands to capitalize on the mobile-social marketing opportunity with a platform that makes it easy for marketers to:

• Automate the collection of user-generated content at scale
• Aggregate data collected at each point of consumer interaction
• Showcase content in real-time across all marketing channels and devices
• Generate website visits, conversions and revenue

"Our consumers are passionate about sharing their affinity for our brand – this we know. We love how Offerpop's digital marketing platform is unlocking our visibility to that passion and enhancing our consumers' experience by enabling us to showcase their colorful photos and engaging content on our website, as well as measure the impact that social content has on sales."
~ Jane Schoenborn, Lilly Pulitzer VP of Creative Communications New capabilities drive closed-loop interactions with on-the-go consumers Offerpop empowers brand and agency marketers to create engaging digital experiences:

• Offerpop Content: Brands can transform websites into social hubs by gathering and showcasing user-generated photos and videos. With Connect by Offerpop, marketers can automatically reach out to consumers as content is submitted to collect contact and demographic data, as well as manage permissions for re-use. Marketers can also easily incentivize and reward consumers for sharing content.
• Offerpop Commerce: Retailers and brands can now harness the authenticity of user-generated content to drive purchases and other consumer activity. With Activate by Offerpop, brands can enrich consumer content with promotional content and showcase it in visual galleries. Brands can also embed user content directly on product pages and other websites to improve conversion rates. Rich reporting and analytics measure sales, reach and brand loyalty.
• Offerpop Campaigns: Marketers can build consumer relationships quickly and easily with a suite of mobile-optimized applications powering social experiences across a brand's social networks and owned digital properties. First introduced in 2011, Offerpop Campaigns have been trusted by thousands of brands and agencies to engage audiences with compelling, relevant promotions and content – such as contests, coupons, sampling programs, and referral initiatives – while collecting consumer data, including email opt-ins, preferences and demographics, and tracking impact on customer acquisition, engagement and sales.

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2014 Digital NewFronts: Five Content Marketing Trends to Watch

As the third annual Digital Content New Fronts unfold, digital marketers are eyeing emerging trends. The Internet Advertising Bureau event, which took place from April 28 to May 7 in New York City, is a hub for the launch and discovery of digital marketing innovations with a focus on video.

The cast of featured presenters includes key players such as Buzz Feed, Hulu, The New York Times, AOL, Google, and Yahoo. The NewFronts are designed to imitate the TV upfront marketplace and are geared toward digital publishers and networks that want to compete with traditional media for advertising dollars.

As an ex-media planner from the world of digital advertising, it’s interesting for me to observe the NewFronts through a content marketer’s lens. Although they’re targeted at media planners and buyers, content marketers can learn from trends in the paid media landscape to shape strategies and identify integration opportunities. Here are five themes to watch:

1. Integrated Analytics

Measuring the impact of integrated marketing strategies that span both traditional and digital channels is one of the most significant challenges for marketers today. To more effectively report on multichannel performance, AOL and Yahoo announced partnerships with measurement giants Nielsen and comScore at the NewFronts.

The collaboration between com Score and Yahoo aims to streamline integrated measurement by offering advertisers access to com Score’s validated Campaign Essentials metrics, which equate video, display, and mobile performance to TV metrics.

AOL and Nielsen’s partnership focuses on testing gross rating points (GRPS) to measure audience reach for AOL’s original programming. GRPs allow marketers to report on impressions by a percent of the total audience reached rather than the exact size. The growth of cross-media measurement is a trend that content marketers should similarly incorporate into measurement strategies to prove return on investment (ROI) alongside other media forms.

2. Original Programming

Publishers and networks are focused on promoting original programming to expand their audience and subscriber bases and to develop an authentic presence.

According to Mike Hopkins, Hulu’s CEO, the company is planning to quadruple its investment in original programming. Similarly, AOL is launching short-form, unscripted shows featuring stars such as Ellen DeGeneres and James Franco.

“Our main goal is to go after authentic voices,” said Ran Harnevo, AOL’s president of video.

The growth of original video series underscores the power of original content to engage online audiences based on its authenticity and viral tendencies. As advertisers shift budgets toward original programming, content marketers can bask in the industry’s increased respect for original content.

3. Real-Time Measurement

Brands increasingly want to monitor and participate in real-time digital events and conversations. Therefore, it’s critical to be able to measure the results of real-time engagements.

At the New Fronts, DigitasLBi and Simple Reach launched the New Front Brand Content Index, a measurement tool developed to provide comparative performance data within a brand’s industry and across the Web. Enabling both real-time and historical insights, this tool optimizes content distribution.

“As content marketing becomes an increasingly important way to build brand equity, agencies and brands have struggled to prove the ROI of their efforts,” SimpleReach CEO Edward Kim said while summarizing the tool’s impetus.

Google-owned YouTube also announced a new feature that allows advertisers to measure brand interest according to real-time searches as a result of its collaborations with comScore and Nielsen. Content marketers should also seek to develop measurement strategies that capture the impact of real-time content responses.

4. Influencer Content

Publishers and networks alike are leveraging the personal brands of celebrities and influencers within new video programming. Condé Nast Entertainment introduced digital video series across several of its publications featuring people like actress and fashion icon Sarah Jessica Parker and fashion blogger Leandra Medine.

Similarly, AOL’s programming will include stars such as actress Nicole Richie, stand-up comedian Mike Epps, and Olympian Bode Miller.

“We’re trying to get people with a meaningful digital footprint who can help us push the shows and market the shows,” Harnevo said.

Influencer engagement isn’t a new phenomenon for content marketers, but its multimedia prevalence reinforces its relevance and impact. Influencer content appeals to marketers who want to team up with individuals who capture their brand essence and messaging, and it boosts the content’s viral potential.

5. Interest Targeting

Digital content in all its forms should be constructed to appeal to specific personas and audiences. BuzzFeed highlighted this trend as a core component of its strategy to produce highly targeted content that engages consumers and inspires social sharing.

Ze Frank, BuzzFeed’s executive vice president of video, and Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed’s CEO and founder, outlined the benefits of interest targeting in appealing to an audience’s identity, emotions, and information needs. BuzzFeed applies this personalized strategy to both editorial and video content.

YouTube also announced Google Preferred, a new targeting technology that lets brands target pre-roll ads to the top 5 percent of the most popular content within specific topics on YouTube. This ensures that a brand is aligned with quality, interest-based content that audiences are consuming and sharing.

Despite the tactical differences between video advertising and content marketing, new digital trends are affecting both. Marketers should take an integrated approach to strategy development and measurement methodologies across all platforms and content types. Industry events such as the Digital Content NewFronts help marketers identify areas to implement parallel efforts.

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Chic Marketing by Grammar Chic, Inc. Reveals Unique Inbound Marketing Campaign Procedures

Chic Marketing by Grammar Chic, Inc. innovates a streamlined content creation process for clients.

Chic Marketing by Grammar Chic, Inc. is taking spring by storm, CEO Amanda E. Clark stated. It has expanded its services to include complete editorial consulting, content and inbound marketing, campaign management, and social media for clients across the country.

“The Chic Marketing branch of Grammar Chic has become an all-in-one resource for our clients,” Clark said. “We utilize a set of tools to tailor strategies to fit each client’s needs, whether they are the owner of white collar firm or a local contracting business. The client’s industry doesn’t matter so much as how we approach inbound marketing in such a way to reach more customers, build an online presence, and develop content.”

Online marketing, according to Clark, is an often misunderstood concept for business owners. While most are familiar with emails, social media, and blogs, few comprehend the time and talent it takes to launch a worthwhile campaign. To educate new clients, Chic Marketing creates unique marketing plans for prospective clients. These editorial plans go into the different processes it uses, such as content marketing and social media management, and proposes possible solutions to help clients meet their goals.

In addition, Clark believes in complete transparency when it comes to building relationships with businesses and professionals. The first step is contact, followed by research and creation.

“Chic Marketing emphasizes consultation calls,” Clark said. “The objective of the call is for us to understand what your goals are, the industry you fit in, what makes you unique, and what you expect from content marketing.”

Following the call, Chic Marketing’s content strategists research the client’s existing social assets and find innovative ways to market them. During this stage, the writers will develop the aforementioned proposal to help the clients better understand the strategies it will use throughout the campaign. Next, the online marketing company begins creating unique content for social media, blogs, websites, and other online assets.

“We usually start with websites and social media depending on the client’s existing assets,” Clark said. “Websites are like a home base for these campaigns, and social media is a constant game of posting, response, and outreach. We also work to streamline a client’s blog and start writing content to drive traffic to the blog and website.”

Clark said it is important to note that all of the content Chic Marketing creates is reviewed by clients before it is posted. This encourages feedback from both parties and ensures that the blog posts, social media content, and other marketing materials align with the client’s style. Over time, Clark said a majority of clients become comfortable with Chic Marketing’s strategies and the review process becomes automatic.

Once the base assets are created, Chic Marketing will start sending weekly content schedules to the client that includes social media, blog posts, and other materials. Following every post, Chic Marketing engages with feedback, comments, and shares from followers to maximize exposure.

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Software Development According to Your Requirements

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Windows Apps Development for Business Purpose

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Push to Put Brands in Video Content

Consumers must know when content is paid for and when it is editorial, said Trevor Fellows of The Wall Street Journal. Credit

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AS an annual presentation of new digital offerings to Madison Avenue enters its second week, marketers and publishers are focusing on ways to work together to integrate brands and products into video programming in the same way they are woven into the plots of television shows.

Such integration, known as content marketing or branded entertainment, was one of the subjects discussed most frequently and ardently during the first week of the presentation, known as the 2014 Digital Content NewFronts. Branded entertainment is a reason for a race among publishers to develop original video programming, because the deals that can be made with fresh content are a potential source of revenue. By contrast, no revenue results from deals previously made for video that is picked up from other sources.Advertisers and agencies are interested in embedding brands in what people watch on desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets for the same reason they are interested in embedding brands in what is watched on television sets: Incorporating products into what viewers really want to see is typically more effective — and less annoying — than intruding on that programming with commercials.

Another aspect of online video works in favor of branded entertainment, in that viewers who want to watch clips may deem preroll — the unavoidable commercials that run before the desired content — more obnoxious than traditional commercials.

Advertisers making content marketing deals with media companies are seemingly being lionized during the NewFronts, which run through Wednesday, as much as the Hollywood stars acting in or producing the content. For instance, at an event on Thursday sponsored by Time Inc., a screen flashed the names of deal-making brands like Bacardi, Chase, Chevrolet, Du Pont, Ford, Kraft, Jeep, Lincoln and Toyota.

And a lavish promotion video — sizzle reel, in marketing parlance — at an event on Wednesday sponsored by Crackle celebrated brands that included Acura, BMW, FedEx and Honda.

The goal of product integrations is “creating a brand conversation with consumers,” said James Smith, head of digital media sales for Crackle and PlayStation and senior vice president at Sony Pictures Entertainment.

For all the benefits that accrue to brands through content marketing, executives acknowledge pitfalls, too, primarily the damage that can be done when the line between news content and advertising is deliberately blurred, smudged or erased.

“There can be no doubt in consumers’ minds when content is paid for and when content is editorial,” Trevor Fellows, head of global advertising sales at The Wall Street Journal, said after a NewFronts event sponsored by the newspaper on Friday.

“It’s a key principle,” Mr. Fellows added, that is held dear by “too few publishers.”

Another difficulty with what he called “bespoke content” is that, “I’m not sure it’s a key differentiator” in the video marketplace because so many publishers are now producing it.

Although “it’s part of what we do,” he added, “what sets us apart is our ability to distribute content to our amazing audience” of affluent professionals, particularly “high-quality content.”

After another NewFronts event on Friday, sponsored by the Time Warner Cable Media division of Time Warner Cable, Joan Gillman, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Time Warner Cable Media, described branded content as “one tiny aspect” of the “custom marketing solutions” that can be created for marketers.In fact, content marketing was not discussed at the event, which emphasized the ability of Time Warner Cable Media to produce commercials for marketers that are enhanced with localized appeals to subscribers of cable systems owned by Time Warner Cable. Steve Jacobs, group vice president for sales at Time Warner Cable Media, announced the formation of “an internal creative agency” named Kernel, which will also be staffed with “production and account specialists.”

(According to Ms. Gillman, Time Warner Cable Media decided to take part in the 2014 NewFronts “long before the deal was announced” for Time Warner Cable to be acquired by Comcast. The circumstances were acknowledged with a wink by David Rone, president for sports, news and local programming at Time Warner Cable, who began his remarks by saying, “So now, about Comcast,” then grinned and changed the subject.)

The growing interest in content marketing will be demonstrated by an announcement scheduled for Monday by the Corbis Entertainment division of Corbis, introducing an interactive platform, the Branded Entertainment Network, or BEN, that seeks to give marketers access to placement opportunities in digital video, television shows and movies.

“We’re looking to change the way branded integration works,” Gary Shenk, chief executive of Corbis, said in a telephone interview on Friday, transforming it from a realm of “one-off” projects to a mainstay that can be found, planned, tracked and evaluated like “any advertising.”

Placements must be perceived by viewers as “organic and authentic” to the programming, Mr. Shenk said, or “the effectiveness will tank — exponentially.” The platform will be financed by “a commission, a percentage of the advertising spend,” he added.

BEN is to begin with 600 placement offerings, Mr. Shenk said, in scripts provided through an alliance with the Producers Guild of America. BEN also has a partnership with the Universal McCann media agency, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

“We’re actively working to identify opportunities for our clients,” Scott Donaton, global chief content officer at Universal McCann and head of its studios unit, said in a separate telephone interview, adding that he welcomed “anything that brings scale and efficiency to what we do.

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