Philadelphia Advertising Agency, Stream Companies, Attains BrightEdge Certification

Stream Companies, a fully integrated advertising agency, is thrilled to announce that they are now a BrightEdge Certified Partner.
BrightEdge, the leading search engine optimization company, offers the only integrated SEO management technology platform that combines SEO and business metrics into one-click reports that provide actionable recommendations on the best opportunities to gain market share of organic search traffic. Realizing the value of their agency partners mastering the intricacies of this tool, BrightEdge developed a certification program to assess a user's skills, ability to leverage the full BrightEdge platform, and drive results within search and digital marketing.
To achieve agency certification, each member of Stream Companies' SEO team was required to pass the BrightEdge assessment.
"Stream Companies is a prolific user of BrightEdge, making them a valued and trusted partner," said Brad Mattick, vice president of marketing and products at BrightEdge. "By achieving BrightEdge Certification, the agency has ensured that its clients stay ahead of competition and benefit from the growing demand for industry recognized and validated skills in the areas of search and digital marketing technologies."
Aware of the increasingly important role of search and content marketing across industries such as automotive, retail, education, healthcare, and beyond, Stream Companies partnered with BrightEdge to evolve their search engine optimization services and continue generating measureable organic search results for their clients.
"As one of the few full-service, traditional, and digital marketing agencies, I am proud that our search engine optimization services continue to be some of the most competitive in the industry," said David Regn, co-founder of Stream Companies. "We are elated to partner with a company like BrightEdge, whose leading, cutting-edge platform has allowed us to truly advance our SEO services and the results we're able to achieve for our clients."
To learn more about Stream Companies' search engine optimization services and methodology, please click here.
About Stream Companies – One of the most successful and fastest-growing advertising agencies in the Philadelphia area, Stream Companies is an integrated advertising agency founded in 1996. Stream Companies has been named to the Philly 100 and Inc. 500/5000 seven times and has also been named one of the Best Places to Work in Philadelphia by the Philadelphia Business Journal. Adnomics, Stream's proprietary approach to marketing, drives results through integrated advertising campaigns, technology, and analytics. Stream is uniquely positioned to have a holistic approach when guiding clients to make strategic business marketing decisions.

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How Print Magazines Can Help Your Content Marketing

So, magazines are now a ‘non-traditional’ form of marketing. I first read about this development in a blog I stumbled across recently by content marketing guru and all round good egg Joe Pulizzi that he wrote back in October 2012 (he’s always ahead of the curve). Digital content, whether that’s blogs, web articles or social media, is now the default position for many marketers. But in any content marketing campaign it doesn’t hurt to throw in a curve ball every now and then. That’s where a print magazine can be a powerful addition to the content marketing mix.

These days a magazine is unexpected and deliciously retro.  In fashion terms, a magazine is the equivalent of the Dr Martens and oversized jumpers I used to love wearing so much as a teenager – de rigueur in the early nineties; part of a grunge revival at the end of last year.  But while I may balk at the idea of revisiting the sartorial choices of my late teens, I remain a massive advocate of magazines. Not just because I still get a kick out of the feel of a new issue in my hands and the smell of the print, but because a niche, targeted publication is a powerful marketing tool.

A word from John Lewis

Unlike its consumer, newsstand cousins who for the most part see their circulations decline every year, free magazines from brands consistently take the top spots when the circulation results, the ABCs, come out.  John Lewis Edition is currently the biggest magazine in the women’s lifestyle market according to the latest ABC results covering July–December 2013, recording an average monthly circulation figure of more than 435,000 copies.

According to a Content Marketing Association case study, the goals of John Lewis Edition are to “remind customers of the breadth of assortment, tempting customers to shop departments previously not explored; to encourage reappraisal of the fashion offering, and to create standout against the competition.”

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The magazine does not achieve a high circulation simply because it is free. Its mix of high quality writing and original photography is doing the business and meeting those goals: a reader survey from 2011 revealed that respondents spent an average of 30 minutes reading John Lewis Edition; 89% reported doing something after reading it, and 70% said it prompted them to visit more departments either in-store or online.

Giving Shell a Refuel

Print magazines can also foster positive feeling in a B2B space – our own anecdotal evidence about Refuel, a magazine we produce on behalf of our client Shell, shows that the account managers like it because it’s something tangible they can take to meetings that acts as a conversation starter and the Shell fleet customers like it because they see themselves reflected in its content. That’s where targeting comes in – working out brand personas is as important for magazines as it is for another piece of content marketing. Real magazine geeks may remember a title called Carlos, launched in 2003 for Upper Class passengers on Virgin Atlantic (and no longer in production). It was a mould-breaker for many reasons: articles were accompanied by illustration only, but it was way ahead of its time in terms of targeting too. The team had sat down and really thought who their ‘passenger’ was, his likes and dislikes, right down to what his name was – yup, Carlos.

Colouful stories

Once you’ve identified your audience, magazines allow for brand storytelling in a more in-depth or even oblique way. Benetton’s quarterly, global magazine Colors was launched in 1991 and is still going strong despite its £14.45 cover price. Its co-founder was Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani, who from 1982 to 2000 was also responsible for Benetton’s hard-hitting ad campaigns. He’s said of the magazine:

“We set up Colors as a way of communicating the intelligence of the Benetton brand to an extremely sophisticated consumer,” he says. “That consumer doesn’t respond so well to traditional advertising. Colors is a real magazine about the rest of the world, but it’s also a way of marketing the ideological commitment of the Benetton company.”

The magazine’s remit has always been to tackle difficult or controversial subjects and by doing so it not only complemented the provocative Bennetton ads of the 1990s, but allowed for a more in-depth look at global issues.

Colors is a great example of a magazine supporting a brand’s identity. Publishers of online fashion retailers Net-A-Porter recent magazine launch, Porter, will be hoping for similar success. It’s not a hard sell – the calls to action are very subtle – but it’s reinforcing Net-A-Porter’s reputation as fashion authority, while blending content and commerce.

I don’t fit the fashionista, six-figure salary persona of Porter magazine but I’m still excited that brands such as Net-A-Porter are adding print to their content marketing mix. Maybe I should give Porter another go, it may stop me reconsidering dusting off those Doc Martens….

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Op-Ed: 4 steps: a customer-led, goal-driven B2B content marketing plan

Content marketing is effective, but it's not easy to plan. If it isn't strategic, based on corporate priorities, it won't get the right results. Without focus on customer needs, it won't get attention. Here's what to do.

A recent study showed that nearly 50 percent percent of the 88 percent of marketers using content to market don't have a content strategy.

This is a drawback with any marketing program, but for content marketers it is particularly fatal. Why?

- Producing excellent, useful content can be costly and 80 percent of it is not read, according to Sirius Decisions. The primary culprit is content that is not interesting to the audience and created based on internal priorities (product launches, sales needs, company events)

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- A customer's bad experience with one content asset generally means they will not engage with more

- The Law of Content Attraction: content developed to appeal to everyone will appeal to no one. But strategic content targeting needs of a specific persona or segment will attract that segment. Without that strategic audience focus and research, the likelihood your expensive content will miss the mark is high.

Beyond those drawbacks, a non-strategic content marketing program misses one of the biggest benefits of content marketing: context data. When properly planned and set up, a well-structured, strategic content marketing program can not only generate leads and other interactions for years, but they can also generate a great deal of usable contextual data about content interactions, who is interacting, what content performs where: in other words, the elusive marketing context, pre-purchase behaviour data that every marketer seeks.

Here are the four steps to a strategic, focused, customer AND corporate aligned B2B content marketing plan that will generate great data .

You will need :

- ability to talk to ten customers

- sales and corporate goals and objectives for the year

- calendar of company/line of business events for the year

- editorial calendar template

1. Get your customers to tell you about their information needs when researching or buying products and services in your industry. Ask to talk to ten customers (five if you can't get ten). Ask them their 3 biggest information needs related to your product/service/industry. When you have a list of 10-20 information needs, prioritize and rank and plot the top 12 on a calendar: one theme per month

2. Match each information need to a persona and create a content asset plan for each channel where you are active, based on each persona. (Note: content assets should supplement and complement other digital marcom activities )

3. Align the calendar and content to corporate/business unit/department timelines and priorities. How many leads/appoinments/conversions do you want to generate and when. Consider everything from events to opt-ins to This is the most delicate part of the exercise: some topics will be high priority to customers and not a priority to the company (and vice versa). Assign measurements.

4. Finalize a measurable annual content marketing editorial calendar — based on customer priorities and company objectives, broken down by persona and content asset.

(Note: It's important to take the steps in this order or customer priorities do not get prioritized. If enormous gaps are exposed between customer goals and company priorities, you'll have a tough time executing a content marketing program (and you probably have bigger challenges than that).

Without the corporate alignment to goals, you may attract attention but it may not be the kind that supports business results. Generating leads for a product that is going to be discontinued is not only a waste, it's an avoidable problem. And while it should be obvious, your content marketing strategy will only be effective and funded long term if it supports business outcomes. )

Can this type of planning work in large enterprises? Yes. Each departmental or product — based calendar can roll up into a larger plan that can be supported by corporate programs and vetted to support corporate goals. And that's how a corporate pilot can also be scaled. The editorial calendar itself is a great starting measurement framework and by looking at content asset performance, it will become clear where to invest and in what type of content over time. Look at data monthly and revisit the program quarterly and make changes based on data (and don't be paralyzed by it; here's how!) In our next article, we'll look at the key metrics you need to understand to know if your content marketing program is working.

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Grammar Chic, Inc. Explains SEO’s Role in Content Marketing

 

Google wants you to create content that is 

original, useful and engaging—so if you write with readers in mind, rather than search engines, you are almost surely going to improve search engine visibility."

The content marketing experts from Grammar Chic, Inc. evaluate the ever-shifting role of search engine optimization.

There was a time when online visibility was defined almost solely by search engine optimization, or SEO; businesses and marketers alike deployed keyword-stuffed webpages and an ever-evolving array of gimmicks and tools to launch their sites to the top of Google rankings. Over time, Google began cracking down on SEO practices, to the extent that many have claimed SEO to be effectively dead—replaced by content marketing. According to the content marketing professionals at Grammar Chic, Inc., however, things are not quite that simple. The company has released a new statement to the press, in which it weighs in on the complex relationship between content marketing and SEO.

“Reports of SEO’s demise have been somewhat exaggerated,” says Grammar Chic Editor-in-Chief Amanda E. Clark. “While it is true that many of the gimmicks of old are no longer effective, it is also true that businesses still need to boost their search engine rankings. Doing so means complying with Google’s standards of practice, and integrating sound search engine optimization principles into content marketing.”

Clark goes on to explain that a sound content marketing strategy encompasses SEO concerns. “There are several ways in which you can build SEO benefits into your content marketing strategy,” she affirms. In fact, Clark says that the best way to optimize content for search engine visibility is simply to fall back on the basic principles of content marketing. “Google wants you to create content that is original, useful and engaging—so if you write with readers in mind, rather than search engines, you are almost surely going to improve search engine visibility,” she states.

She goes on to note that keywords are still useful, though perhaps not in the same way that they used to be. “While keyword stuffing is dead, content marketers should still do keyword research to better focus and categorize their content,” she says. “Natural, organic keyword use can be beneficial.”

Clark also emphasizes headlines and titles that are compelling without being misleading. “Try to catch attention, but also be clear and honest in the value you’re offering,” she notes

.

Concludes Clark, “Content marketing at its best is about producing something that offers real, substantial value to readers—and if you can do that then you’re also improving your chances of search engine visibility.”

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New Multimedia Designer and Digital Strategy/SEO specialist

Remuneration:	negotiable Basic salary
Location:	Johannesburg, Sandton
Job level:	Mid/Senior
Type:	Permanent

Job description

Our client is a full service digital agency, based in Johannesburg.
The relaxed atmosphere is made up of 50 - 60 people, some of which enjoy the regular agency beer o'clock!

They have a portfolio of amazing clients, that range from entrepreneurial to retail and corporate.

They're looking for a new multimedia designer/digital strategy/SEO specialist to join their team.

This person will develop, maintain, and publish optimised online content.

Requirements

Your primary responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Helping drive the digital marketing efforts of the company and its clients forward, with particular focus on website management, digital content marketing, SEM/SEO strategy, graphic and multimedia design, UI/UX design, and web reporting and analytics.

Key responsibilities:

• Work with internal teams to develop goals and requirements.
• Produce and/or coordinate the production of all digital content from concept through publication, proofing and approvals.
• Manage vendor relationships and internal resources to complete assigned projects on time and on budget.
• Apply best practice UI/UX processes, and drive app/web design standards.
• Audit websites and report bugs and/or usability improvements
• Ensure created digital content meets target audience needs and contributes to business objectives
• Be the go-to person for online marketing systems.

Desired skills and experience:

• Experience with content management systems
• Proven experience writing and publishing online content
• Familiarity with social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
• Strong web-based technical experience (Photoshop and HTML knowledge is a must)
• Knowledge of SEO standards and practices, and proven experience creating search optimised copy and content
• Experience with Google Analytics and using website metrics to refine and optimise online content to support business objectives
• Experience in managing multiple projects simultaneously
• Sales experience in any industry

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Content marketing the winner at AMES

The jury is in: Online content can deliver real results for brands, way beyond the likes and clicks.

Josie Brown

As a judge on the Digital Effectiveness panel at the recent AMES awards in Singapore, I was privileged to see a range of the region’s best digital work. What struck me most across all the entries was how strong the use of content has become in driving effective business growth.

There are still too many examples in our industry where brands and agencies are happy counting shares and “viral” impressions as a measure for success, rather than moving the needle on measures a CEO would lay on the boardroom table.

But content is not marketing without a strategy, and content will not be effective without creativity.

It was inspiring to see work demonstrating how strong strategy and creative ideas in online content are delivering measurable impacts to brand health or business growth. The content examples covered the many-varied nature of content—delivered on mobile, on YouTube, streaming radio and through games. Brands are using content to entertain, to inform, to educate and to inspire.

Examples range from National Australia Bank’s FootifyFM’s inclusive approach to AFL sponsorship. The campaign used entertaining and relevant social, video and online streaming content to deliver on the idea of bringing AFL to all Australians through recruiting and training foreign language commentators for the 2013 Grand Final.

Unilever in India won awards for its idea to bring music entertainment to remote communities through a pioneering mobile phone radio service Kaan Khajura Teshan, sponsored by the brand but delivered to anyone for free.

Entrpreneur.com defines content as non-interruption marketing where "Your story is always about the people who use the thing you sell, not the thing itself. In other words, cast your customer as the hero, rather than you or your product."

Tui Beer (New Zealand) won Gold for an online film which put the consumer at the centre of the action. Tui’s beer drinking Kiwis are the star of a reality-TV style stunt showing how our hero’s mates plumb his entire house with Tui beer.  Strong content distribution strategy ensured the content piece delivered growth for the business.

A more informative way of putting the customer at the centre was Amnesty International’s “Trial by Timeline” – an innovative and impactfully executed Gold award winning idea to bring to life how Amnesty campaigns to fight against human rights injustices. The content from your own Facebook timeline was analysed and shows you what your behaviour could have cost you in other countries just for being you and living your everyday life.

If content marketing is defined by the Content Marketing Institute as “The art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling.” AMES winners have demonstrated how to use content to achieve business success without selling.

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Digital Marketing and Content Manager

Remuneration:	R20000 - R30000 per month Cost to company
Location:	Johannesburg, Bedfordview
Education level:	Degree
Job level:	Mid/Senior
Own transport required:	Yes
Travel requirement:	Occasional
Type:	Permanent
Reference:	#HIODigital

Job description

We are looking for a passionate, vibrant person to fill the position of a digital marketing and content manager. This person will be responsible for managing a variety of digital marketing activities, producing original, optimised content for the website and various other digital platforms (including social media), in order to generate brand awareness and drive traffic to the Home Ideas brand. 

Daily activities include:

- Writing, editing and maintenance of content on the Home Ideas website and digital platforms.
- Writing, editing and maintenance of content for the vendor portals.
- Optimising content using SEO principles and copy-writing.
- Liaising with vendors.
- Supplier management.
- Monitoring and maintaining brand presence and integrity on social media.
- Data analysis.
- Remain up-to-date with the latest digital marketing trends and best practices.

Requirements

• A relevant marketing, communications or journalism degree.
• Experienced web-editor with strong writing skills.
• Proven experience working on a website and across digital platforms
• Experience using various CMS systems (WordPress, etc).
• Relevant onsite SEO and SEO copy skills.
• Online advertising and ad serving.
• Understanding of web analytics (Google Analytics) and relevant related tools.
• Medium to advanced Microsoft Office use (Word, Excel, etc).
• Excellent communication skills and a strong command of the English language - verbal and written. 
• Meticulous attention to detail and focus on deliverables.
• Ability to work autonomously with keen problem-solving skills.
• Ability to work under pressure, still prioritising accuracy.
• Strong administrative/time management and organisational skills.
• Must be a team player.
• Digital creativity a must.

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Kentico Digital Experience Survey: Customer Trust in Content Marketing is High but Fragile

NASHUA, N.H., June 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ Kentico Software, the Web Content and Customer Experience Management provider, today unveiled the results of a new Content Marketing Survey, the latest installment of Kentico's ongoing Digital Experience research series.

According to the survey, 74% of the general public trusts content from businesses that aim to educate readers about a particular topic. It is however a fragile trust that businesses must take care in protecting: even signing off an otherwise objective blog post or newsletter with a product pitch will bring the content's credibility level down by 29%.

Other content marketing offenses that impede customer trust, as reported by survey participants, include presenting information that:

• Can't be corroborated with other non-company sources: 46%
• Doesn't address other perspectives or viewpoints: 17%
• Isn't clear that it's coming from a particular company: 15%
• Talks down to the reader: 12%

When it comes to content credibility, longstanding business-to-customer relationships seem to matter little: 85% of those surveyed aren't any more trusting of educational content simply because they buy from the company that posts the content. The majority of those surveyed (60%) also believe a company's size has no bearing on the credibility of its content marketing, though 29% do feel educational content from smaller businesses is more trustworthy than that of larger businesses.

Corroboration

Of those surveyed, 49% will generally trust what a company says about a particular topic but will also corroborate with other sources. While such findings demonstrate the importance of posting content that can be corroborated, it also suggests this requirement may be met by including genuine third-party sources within the content: 57% claim educational information from a company is more credible when it contains verification from named sources, such as parents or doctors.

Shareability and Discoverability

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the shareability of content is also key with 69% stating a company's educational information is more credible when discovered through a friend or family member, and 94% claiming they have shared educational information from a company with someone. Women tend to trust content shared though friends and family members 20% more than men.

When asked how often a company's educational content comes up while searching for topics related to a particular problem or need, 27% report it happens often, 57% sometimes, 11% hardly ever, and 5% never.

Age and Gender Breakdowns

Women generally appear 11% more trusting of content marketing than men. 60+ year-olds are 17% more trusting than 18-29 year-olds, but the same 60+ age bracket is 14% less trusting of content passed through friends and family members than the 18-29 age group.

"Our latest Digital Experience survey goes to show what professional marketers hopefully already know," said Kentico CEO and Founder Petr Palas. "While customers will for the most part give a company's content marketing the benefit of the doubt, businesses must take care in not breaking that trust with information that can't be corroborated or strays from the truth altogether. In this way, content marketing and transparent marketing must go together at all times."

The Kentico Content Marketing Survey is the sixth installment of an ongoing Kentico Digital Experience Research series that was kicked off last year with the Kentico Customer Experience Survey and continued with the KenticoMobile Experience Survey, Email Marketing Survey, Website Marketing Survey, and Digital Brand Interactions Survey.

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Movers and shakers: Paul Lyrek, StoneArch

Paul Lyrek, StoneArch, director of digital strategy and development, age 47

Paul Lyrek is helping to define content marketing strategy for businesses responding to health care reform as director of digital strategy and development for Minneapolis creative agency StoneArch.

Lyrek leads development and execution of content marketing plans in digital formats for the agency’s clients. His responsibilities include working with health care and medical companies and providers to adapt their digital and mobile platforms to market changes driven by the advent of health care exchanges and the Affordable Care Act. That increasing consumer involvement is generating greater demand from clients for content that educates and engages consumers, Lyrek said.

“When we do a strategy, it is all about having valuable and relatable content,” he said. “It’s exciting to move into this new role where I get to formulate the ways that we can reach people.”

Because of the agency’s health and medical focus, the strategic goal often is to build relationships between a medical device company and its customers or between a provider and a patient with whom he or she is seeking to develop a lifelong relationship, Lyrek said.

Video content is an increasingly popular way to forge those connections, Lyrek said. The agency’s video production department, however, emphasizes developing content that supports “holistic relationship marketing” rather than “big splashy TV commercials.”

Lyrek joined StoneArch 15 years ago. The agency, founded in 1984, has helped launch or market more than 500 medical devices.

Q: Why should a health care or medical device company come to StoneArch for marketing services?

A: The biggest thing that is important to our clients … is the fact that we do focus on health and medical. We really understand the implications of the health care law. We have it covered on both the device and provider sides and understand the pressures and the opportunities of the health care market.

Q: How has reform affected marketing strategies?

A: With the [Affordable Care Act], patient outcomes and patient satisfaction are part of how providers and hospitals are compensated. With marketing automation, you’re collecting information on each interaction with marketing and automating the process of continuing to follow up.

Q: How has changing technology affected your work and the agency’s?

A: One thing that keeps me motivated is how quickly this digital world and marketing world can change based on the tools that are coming out. Each time that happens, it kind of feels like a new career. StoneArch has changed, but what hasn’t changed is that we feel like we’re doing something important here.

Todd Nelson

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