4 Examples of Content Curation Done Right

In recent years there has been a lot of buzz about content curation, given its power to help fuel content marketing and better engage an audience. In fact in 2014, CNBC listed at as the #1 most overused word of the year. By now most marketers have heard of curation conceptually, but may not be familiar with how their peers use it in the real-world.

Here are four examples of how organizations, profit and non-profit, small and large alike, are effectively curating third party content to achieve business results.

Becoming a Green IT Leader

Verne Global, a wholesale supplier of data center space based in Keflavik, Iceland, and Washington, D.C., wanted to be recognized for its low energy footprint. The firm needed to educate prospective customers about the viability of green IT and the business value of the Icelandic data centers, powered by 100% renewable resources without a price premium. Facing a familiar problem for a startup, Verne Global had limited resources to invest in marketing, build awareness for green IT, and establish its expertise for operating energy-efficient data centers.

Verne Global data center

Verne Global began by taking advantage of free buzz generated through social media. Rather than relying on the company’s website, Verne Global launched a news and opinion site: Green Data Center News. This site has become the hub for IT-related energy efficiency information from sources around the world, recognized as a gold winner in Network Products Guide’s 8th Annual 2013 Hot Companies and Best Products.

The firm is building its global presence by becoming the go-to destination for high value content, developed both internally and curated from third party sources. More than 50% of Verne Global’s inbound requests for media and PR now come from Green Data Center News, and it usually only takes an hour a day to update — often from a mobile phone. Curation is an investment multiplier, a way for any firm to enhance brand awareness. As Verne Global builds its audience, customers who want and need green IT services will follow.

Establishing Thought Leadership in Communications Technology

As a leading innovator in communications technology, products, and services, Alcatel-Lucent delivers intelligent networks that administer communication tools and secure IP infrastructures. In the continually changing communications market, Alcatel-Lucent’s Enterprise group needed to display thought leadership and provide fresh, innovative ideas for customers and prospects. Their key to success was not only consistent, relevant messaging, but also unique, diverse opinions on a variety of relevant topics.

Alcatel-Lucent launched a curated microsite, the IT Strategist, to find, organize, and publish topic-specific content. This curated site emphasizes CIO/executive level strategies, designed to help organizations improve their businesses with up-and-coming communications technology.

The site now organizes content from top sources, producing between 5 to 30 curated articles per week that provide target audiences with relevant content from across the Web, along with the company’s own research reports and news articles. IT and business leaders can turn to one thought leadership hub for multiple perspectives on IT strategies and communications technologies.

Curated content has not only increased web traffic on the Alcatel-Lucent corporate website, it’s allowed them to better monitor industry chatter, provide ideas for new original stories, and provide “great Twitter fodder,” according to Ed Youngblood, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise’s Director of Content Strategy.

Reinforcing Customer Loyalty with Self-service Content

Lenovo Corporation, a $39 billion global Fortune 500 company and leader in providing innovative consumer, commercial, and enterprise technologies had a problem supporting Windows 8 systems. It needed to deliver all support information within a single app, preloaded on Lenovo PCs and tablets. The app enabled users to manage their system health, access Lenovo Support forums, find customized accessories, and check the status of their warranties.

The content support team turned to a curated content hub to reinforce its support capabilities and build customer loyalty. The team supplemented original, Lenovo-created content with third-party sources produced by popular local technology publishers and bloggers around the world, delivered in any one of eight natural languages — Brazilian, Portuguese, English, German, Japanese, Russian, Simplified Chinese and Spanish.

As a result, millions of Lenovo users have one place where they can check what’s new with their system and with Lenovo. They can access support when needed, and keep up to date with tech developments and opinions from a stable of Lenovo experts, partners, publishers, and bloggers.

Promoting Economic Development

The Economic Development Council (EDC) of Western Massachusetts has a basic mission: helping stimulate a vigorous regional economy by encouraging and sustaining capital investment and job growth. As the premier go-to resource for business development, the EDC needs to stay top of mind for local companies and those interested in entering the region. Digital information is naturally part of the mix. The organization began publishing a blog but quickly found that staff members did not have the ability to continually produce high quality content.

Content curation became a resource multiplier. With a curation system in place, staff-members could collect, organize, review, and select both news and opinion articles from multiple online sources. What was heretofore a ninety-minute daily task was reduced to fifteen minutes.

The curation program increased the exposure of blog posts while also reducing demands for producing in-house content. Whereas it previously took Graney’s staff 90 minutes to gather and curate articles, it now takes 15 minutes per day. For EDC and its stakeholders, the increased traffic on its website has not only drawn display advertising, creating additional revenue, it demonstrates how the EDC helps promote the economic benefits of doing business in western Massachusetts.

The Results of Content Curation

Content curation is integral to an overall content marketing initiative. There are multiple benefits for content development, including capturing insights from outside sources, building thought leadership and trust by sourcing the best content in your subject area, increasing the quantity and consistency of your content pipeline, lowering the resources required to fill a content pipeline, and increasing Web traffic. Content curation is an investment multiplier.

With the recent rise of content curation, it is important to know the direction that content marketing is likely to go. Download The Future of Content Marketing and stay ahead of your competition. 

from Oracle Blogs | Oracle Marketing Cloud http://ift.tt/293RHyZ
via IFTTT

6 Things Brands & Publishers Need to Know About Native Advertising

As brands look to create deeper connections with their audience and publishers search for new ways to generate revenue, native advertising as re-emerged as a tactic that both can take advantage of.

For those who aren’t familiar, native advertising, also referred to as sponsored content or advertorials, has taken on many forms over the years—from advertorials in newspapers in the 1940s to infomercials and paid programming spots on television. Today, native advertising is a content marketing tactic that typically involves publishing informational and educational articles and videos (with an underlying advertising message) in print or digital publications and blogs.

For publishers, native advertising allows them to generate revenue by not only lending advertisers their platform, but also offering their editorial expertise, brand reputation and audience. For brands, native advertising allows them to create valuable content and another touchpoint within in the buyer’s journey as they work toward being the best answer for their audience.

But despite native advertising’s long history and its growth as a content marketing tactic in today’s digital world, many brands and publishers are still weary to jump on board. Publishers worry about blurring the lines between commercial and editorial, as well as their making their audience feel deceived by poorly labeled ad content, while brands can struggle with understanding how to execute native ad content and wonder if it’s actually effective.

In its inaugural report, Native Advertising Trends 2016 – The Magazine Industry, the Native Advertising Institute and FIPP – the network for global media found that while native advertising can be challenging, it still holds some great opportunities. The organizations surveyed 140 magazine executives from 39 countries to understand what they think of native advertising, how they’re using it or plan to use it, and where the greatest threats and opportunities lie.

Below are some key findings from the report—as well as some tips from me—that could help brands and publishers overcome some of their skepticisms or concerns about native advertising, or help make your current native advertising services/efforts more effective:

#1 – Native advertising will grow.

According to the report, 52% of publishers already offer native advertising as a service and another 37% are likely or most likely to add the option in the future. In addition, those who currently offer the service expect that 30% of their overall advertising revenues will come from native advertising in 2018, which is up from 19% in 2015.

If higher revenues are anticipated and more service offerings are being considered, that leads me to believe that publishers and their customers must be seeing value and results with native advertising.

But native advertising may not be right for every brand or publication. Both should do some research and a little testing. Determining whether its a good fit will ultimately depend on who your customer/audience is and your business goals.

#2 – Native advertising adds value.

The goal for any piece of content should be to inform, engage and entertain your reader–and native advertising content is no different. The survey found that 74% of publishers believe that native advertising actually adds value for their readers and viewers.

The best way you can provide a valuable native content is to understand your audience. Publishers can provide excellent insight on who their readers are and brands can use that information to see if it fits with what they know about their target audience. If it’s a match, native content will be more compelling and valuable.

#3 – Native advertising does spark some complaints.

Native advertising is not every reader or viewers cup of tea, with 16% of publishers saying that they’ve received customer complaints because of native advertising.

The best way to avoid ruffling feathers is to clearly label native advertising as promoted or sponsored content, as well as ensuring that the content itself is of the highest editorial standards. Readers and viewers expect and deserve transparency, and giving it to them provides value and an honest connection with your brand.

As TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden once wrote: “Paid content only ‘works’ if the content meets similar standards to what’s normally published through editorial filters. ‘Salesly’ content published alongside high quality editorial will be ignored or worse, cause dissension against the publication and the brand that is doing the editorial advertising.”

#4 – Some publishers don’t label native advertising content.

More than half of publishers say they label native advertising pieces as “Sponsored Content” to differentiate it from editorial content, while others use other terms or change the actual look and feel of the content to set it apart.

However, 11% of publishers say they don’t label native advertising content at all.

As mentioned above, transparency is absolutely crucial to maintain the integrity of both the publication and the brand that’s advertising. Attempting to trick readers into believing that the content they’re reading is unbiased, journalistic content will almost certainly backfire on both parties.

#5 – Digital and printed articles, and video content perform the best.

Native advertising content can take on a variety of forms, but there are some that tend to be the most effective. According to the report, publishers see online articles (66%), video content (61%) and printed articles (50%) as the most effective types of native advertising content.

Again, use your audience knowledge to choose the type of native content that will be the most effective.

#6 – Telling real stories is key.

Native advertising is meant to seamlessly integrate with other editorial content, which means storytelling is an absolute must. Unfortunately, many publishers find that convincing their advertisers to tell real stories in their native content is difficult, with 37% saying it’s one of their biggest native advertising challenges.

Using overtly promotional language is not how you tell a story—or get your audience to connect with your brand. Telling real stories is a great way to engage with your brand in an authentic way, while also providing them with information and that entertainment factor.


Download the entire Native Advertising Trends 2016 – The Magazine Industry report through the Native Advertising Institute’s website.

What’s your take on native advertising? Love it? Hate it? Unsure? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

---

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2016. | 6 Things Brands & Publishers Need to Know About Native Advertising | http://ift.tt/faSbAI

The post 6 Things Brands & Publishers Need to Know About Native Advertising appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

from Online Marketing Blog – TopRank® http://ift.tt/298ukqf
via IFTTT

How and Why You Must Do Competitive Research

How and Why You Must Do Competitive Research written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The term competitive research often conjures up notions of spying and espionage, but the fact is, you must commit to ongoing competitive research as a way to grow and evolve.

When I talk about the concept of competitive research as a core practice, I sometimes encounter some pushback from business owners. The reality is many people can’t identify direct competitors in part because they aren’t paying attention.

Competitors come in all shapes and sizes and, in some cases, aren’t in your town or even in your industry.

You see, when it comes to digital competition a core competitor might not be someone who gets the job you just bid on, it might just as likely be a business you’ve never heard of that ranks well for the type of terms you need to rank for. Or, it might be an advertiser that does such a great job with the relevance of their ads that they are forcing your ad bids higher than they should be.

If you think of competitive research not simply as a way to get one up on a competitor, but as a way to grow and learn and discover, you might make it a priority.

For me ongoing competitive research contains a few of the following benefits:

• It helps you learn new ways to serve your customers
• It helps you understand why other sites are ranking higher than yours
• It allows you to use data to spot new opportunities
• It helps you seize opportunities to gain customers
• It gives you a roadmap for finding link building potential
• It helps you spot mentions of your brand for relationship building
• It shows you the exact content you need to be producing
• It unlocks new tools and practices for serving your clients

The key to consistent competitive research is to equip yourself with both a routine for conducting it and a set of tools that make it easy for you to do – sometimes even on the fly.

Below you’ll find the four primary categories of competitive research along with a few of my favorite tools for setting up and conducting your competitive research plan.

Alerts

The ability to receive an email alert when any company, brand,  or person is mentioned online had made it very simple to keep up on your mentions and opportunities as well as mentions of a competitor. I get a daily digest of mentions and quite often find ways to engage sites that are doing the mentioning.

As a competitive research play, you can set up relevant alerts and know when a competitor makes an announcement or what someone points out an opportunity related to a competitor

• BuzzSumo – is one of my favorite tools for a number of things and currently my favorite for alerts.
• SocialMention – is a search engine with real-time emphasis and can turn up some gems not found by BuzzSumo.

Online Advertising

To get the biggest bang for your online ad spend you have to target the right keywords with the right message. Using tools that help you understand what keywords and messages are the most profitable, is a great way to maximize your online ad budget.

• SpyFu – is a competitor analysis tool that helps you research and download your competitors’ most profitable keywords.
• AdEspresso – this is actually a Facebook Ad tool, but they have a searchable Ad Examples section that can help you find ads that are performing well on Facebook

Content

Content research is an awesome habit to get into! It helps you build a plan for your content that is based on reaching certain traffic objectives. One of the easiest ways to find content ideas is to understand what content is already ranking for search terms you covet and then find out why.

• BuzzSumo – shows you the most shared content from any site (your competitors perhaps) or for any search term. It also reveals who shared the content making it a useful tool for both identifying ideas and influencers.
• SEMRush – is one of the most versatile tools for keyword research and competitive rankings

SEO

If one of your goals is to figure out how to get more organic search traffic, then you’ll benefit from understanding how sites that rank above you are doing so. If you can understand how a page that ranks is optimized and what other sites of authority link to a site then you can stand a chance of matching them for your important keywords. Sure, you’ll still have to work at it, but at least you’ll have the roadmap.

• Monitor Backlinks – is a great tool for monitoring your backlinks – and something called negative SEO – and it’s a great way for you to zero in on the links that other competitive sites are acquiring. In many cases, there’s a chance that you can go after the same links, particularly if the link comes from a site in your industry.
• Ahrefs – is another useful tool for monitoring backlinks and claims to use their own database so you’ll likely find some links that don’t show up in other places.

All-in-one
There are some all-in-one type of solutions as well. One that we love to use is called RivalIQ. This is a great tool if you have a need to show clients a competitive landscape. And, of course, MOZ Pro and Raven Tools are great all in one tool with some nice local tools.

Google Operators

I love Google Operators as another handy search power tool. There are many useful ways to refine your search through operators, but the following three are the ones I use the most.

• site: Get results from certain sites or domains. – Find content on a specific site
• info: Get information about a web address, including the cached version of the page, similar pages, and pages that link to the site.
• filetype: Add this + doc or pdf and find only content in Word docs or PDFs. Great for finding ebooks and checklists related to a topic

Chrome Extensions

Finally, while many of these tools are great when doing research intentional, there are some great Chrome Extensions that keep competitive research front and center as you surf. When you add any of these tools to your browser you can get quick competitive data for every page you visit. Here are my favorites.

• MozBar – is a tool that gives you access to the MOZ domain authority data for every page in your search engine results
• Similar Web – is a tool that gives you some brief data on the traffic, keywords, and links for any page you visit
• Email Hunter – this isn’t a research tool, but it can help you find an email address for people related to any site or business you visit
• Wappalyzer – is a tool that gives you a rundown on the technology associated with any site – so you can see if they are using WordPress with Yoast SEO and Lead Pages – and that might just prove useful.

from Blog – Duct Tape Marketing http://ift.tt/293x30B
via IFTTT

The Poor Man’s Marketing Stack: How to Hack Marketing Automation

There are over 2,000 marketing technology companies today.

Each one doing something a bit different, filling some unique yet critical need.

That means on a daily basis, marketers might choose from 100 different software programs to fulfill relatively basic tasks.

That inspired somebody, somewhere, to misappropriate the word ‘stack’ from the development world to describe how a particular company might be aligning all their pieces of a marketing and sales pie.

The result often becomes a head-bangingly frustrating process where you’re piecing together several to deliver a single campaign.

Sure, you could opt for an all-in-one solution like HubSpot. But it’s also F&*#@*G expensive.

What if you don’t have that kind of loot?

Here’s how you can use even the most basic, inexpensive or free pieces of software to replicate sophisticated marketing automation and business process hacks.

How to Eliminate Bottlenecks with App-Connecting Tools

Marketing automation, when implemented properly, has the power to increase leads by 451% and boost sales by 34%.

But… a shockingly high 85% of B2B marketers admit to not using it correctly.

The secret ‘inbound marketing lie’ that no-one wants to admit is how F-ing time consuming this stuff is.

Not to mention, if you don’t have the right tool setup, it’s nearly impossible to pull off.

HubSpot is amazing. I’m a super happy partner and advocate. It makes marketing automation relatively easy to implement at scale. But most can’t (or won’t) fork over the ~$10k a year. That’s completely understandable.

When I started consulting, there was no way my clients or I could afford it either. (Although there is a compelling argument for making your money back relatively quickly if you’re using any all-in-one, database driven tool properly.)

That led to an endless search for tools that played well natively. Existing integrations between key pieces of software, like hooking up Gravity Forms with MailChimp, can make your life 10X easier.

But it’s difficult to construct an entire marketing funnel with only tools with native integrations. And it’s not realistic, as other departments or teams within your organization will probably have their own tools that need to work seamlessly with yours.

Fortunately, tools like Zapier and IFTTT (If This Then That) began popping up to help solve this problem.

They’re pretty basic once you get the hang of it. Simply connect two applications, create a ‘trigger’ (the thing that starts this process in motion) and an ‘action’ (what happens when the trigger is, well, triggered).

For example, Gravity Forms (an excellent WordPress plugin) can then automatically send new form submissions to your favorite CRM like Contactually – even though there’s not native integration between these two applications.

Best of all, with a little ingenuity, you can use them to re-create a marketing stack and begin automating your marketing.

We’re going to walk through examples in a minute, but first the theory.

Get Started by Outlining Your Marketing Funnel Steps

In an ideal world, strangers find out who you are and develop interest and trust in your brand before agreeing to become a customer.

Digital marketing 101 talks about creating a seamless customer experience by creating tactics that align with each stage of the buyer’s journey:

• Awareness: A stranger becomes aware of some problem in their life.
• Information: They begin looking for ways to help solve said problem.
• Evaluation: Recognizing a need, they begin actively searching for a solution between different alternatives.
• Decision: They make the conscious decision to move forward with the alternative that best meets their criteria.

Sophisticated tools can help you hit all of these points without ever switching around. But that’s gonna be tough with inexpensive software that typically specializes in one small area or another.

So instead, the goal is to recreate what these other platforms can do, moving people logically from one step to the next when they’re ready. Ideally, in the most automated and simplistic fashion possible.

The goal is to recreate what HubSpot and other sophisticated (read: expensive) marketing automation software does, for a fraction of the price.

Sounds nice in theory, right?

But practically, how would that look?

• Awareness: A new lead converts on a landing page, getting added to your email marketing software.
• Information: As the lead begins searching for more information on your site and interacting with other resources, they should be added and removed from other automated marketing sequences to continue nurturing.
• Evaluation: Once the lead begins getting serious about considering you as a solution, they need to be updated in your CRM system as such and qualified (if appropriate).
• Purchase: If they decide to move forward with you, things need to be paid, they need to become a customer or client, and their project or account needs to be set-up immediately.

The important thing to note here isn’t the tools themselves, but your process or workflow. Once that’s defined, you can figure out which tools might be best to slot in each category. For example, even the free Google Contacts might be a good CRM choice (and it integrates easily with Zapier).

Enough small talk though.

Let’s take a look at each stage of this funnel to see how you can use Zapier to recreate steps that typically only expensive marketing automation platforms deliver.

Awareness: Landing Page to Email Marketing

Rule #1 of Permission Marketing (which pre-dated Inbound Marketing by, oh, like a decade) is to get somebody to give you their info in exchange for something of value, allowing you to continue following up with that person over time.

This can be old school, like an email address. Or new school, like their Snapchat… um, err… I have no idea what these kids call it.

In any event, the process is the same.

We already spoke about Gravity Forms, which can be used to power basic eBook forms to collect submissions.

But how about something a little more complex, like a webinar?

Zapier integrates easily with GoToWebinar, allowing you to capture new registrations (and even new attendees).

This is perfect if you’d like to add these new registrations to an email list.

Even better, is if you create an automated workflow in for a specific email list for the upcoming webinar. That way, you can continually send out new messages to the contact to make sure that they attend the event (thereby boosting your Attendance Rate).

MailChimp is perfect for this. The pricing is very affordable, especially considering the beautiful templates, ease-of-use, and pretty decent automation options. Plus, that damn Chimp is so cute.

Simply select the upcoming webinar, add the new registration to a specific list in MailChimp, and you’re done.

Easy peasy.

But… what happens if people DO (or DON’T) show up? What happens if they DO (or DON’T) take you up on that customary end-of-webinar call-to-action?

You gotta update their status.

Information: Email Marketing Updates

Let’s say that you’re getting clever now, and that you’d like to create two different sets of messages based on if people did or didn’t attend your webinar.

Obviously, getting this right is important because if somebody receives the wrong email it could damage your credibility.

There are a few ways to do this, but the most straightforward is to simply create two additional lists in your email marketing service – one for those who do show up, and one for those who don’t.

THEN, you’ll want to unsubscribe people from the initial list (like the original webinar registration one) and add them to one of the new lists you created based on their actions.

Most basic email marketing services don’t have this feature already. However you can create a simple Zap to take care of it for you.

Another example where this comes in handy is if you offer a free trial or demo.

In that case, you don’t want a new lead (or even customer) to continue receiving promotional messages. Fortunately this same simple little hack, creating different lists for different segments of people, being unsubscribed automatically when they join a new list, can take care of a lot of the headache.

Evaluation: New Lead to CRM to Qualify (or Disqualify)

So far you’ve been nurturing this new lead with a few different campaigns or tactics. Everything’s gone well so far and they’re ready to get serious.

For product or software companies this is straightforward and easy: they download the discount or join the free trial and either purchase (or not).

However it’s a little more complicated for service companies.

How do you know if the lead is any good? You can’t just agree to speak with everyone nutjob who fills out your form (and there will be plenty, believe me).

You can start by filtering your results, setting up qualifying questions in your forms to make sure that you’re tailoring your follow-up process accordingly.

For example, you can set-up different zaps between products based on how people answer a specific question.

Now you can begin segmenting the people who ARE interested in your services, with the tire kickers who are primarily interested in wasting your time.

But you still have no idea if they’re even a good lead or not.

To be on the safe side, let’s automatically send an email to someone in your company to qualify each new prospect who’s interested in your services.

Simple! Just use Gmail based on the form filtered submission you just set-up. You can even pre-craft the message, pulling in form data, along with helpful links for the person who’s helping you to know exactly how you want them to be qualified (delegation FTW!).

You can send this email to an assistant, employee, or whomever, and at the same time create a new project management task to make sure they’ll see it immediately as it comes in (along with a due date to make sure each lead is followed up with ASAP).

With a few simple steps and some foresight, you’ve just set-up and delegated the first few steps of your sales process.

Congrats!

But you’re still not quite done yet. What happens when those people decide to pay you money?

Decision: New Client to Point of Sale and Project Management

Again, product or software transactions are insanely straightforward.

When someone wants to become a customer, they whip out a credit card and it takes a few seconds. Then you can update your email or contact lists accordingly with the previous tips.

However what if this is a larger transaction?

First, you can automatically create a new Freshbooks invoice when someone fills out an appropriate form. You can even have someone fill this out internally while on the phone with a new client-in-waiting.

Freshbooks already integrates with both Stripe and PayPal (along with a few others), so you can even take this a step further by automating all of the tasks related to onboarding new clients too.

For example, let’s create a new Dropbox folder for each client when a successful first payment is made.

<</center>

Pretty helpful. But let’s keep going.

Let’s also create a new TEMPLATED project in your favorite project management tool (like Asana in this case).

Just like we did earlier with the email message to qualify a new lead, you can select a pre-built template for the new client to get everything set-up in seconds (rather than hours).

Best of all, there’s no shortage of tips or tricks here. If you take notes during your Kick-Off Call with Evernote, a task can immediately be created in your PM tool to make sure these notes are added to the client’s project accordingly.

A Time-Saving Caveat

Tools like Zapier or IFTTT open up a brand new world of possibilities.

It’s super interesting and you can geek out on this stuff for HOURS if you’re not careful.

Just think about all of the possibilities you can accomplish if even the most basic software options like Gravity Forms and MailChimp can do this stuff.

But don’t start with the tools.

Instead, start with the process. What exactly are you trying to accomplish? How should people move seamlessly through your own marketing funnel?

Begin by setting up the basic stuff and testing as you go. Once you’ve got the process down, it’s easy to dive into the details and begin customizing each little aspect.

For example, just start by automating how each new lead is followed up with. Then you can get clever with implementing different marketing campaigns that funnel down to this step.

Not only with this approach save you tons of time on the front-end, but you’ll drastically increase your odds of this system delivering better results too.

About the Author: Brad Smith is a founding partner at Codeless Interactive, a digital agency specializing in creating personalized customer experiences. Brad’s blog also features more marketing thoughts, opinions and the occasional insight.

from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog http://ift.tt/28Yu9Z7
via IFTTT

Why CMOs Need To Be Bullish On Programmatic Advertising

Before I get to my thoughts on why CMOs need to be bullish on programmatic advertising, let's first take a look at just what programmatic advertising is. 

We define it simply as “Automated advertising buying coupled with machine learning.” However, there are no shortages of definitions of the term programmatic advertising.

“Programmatic ad buying typically refers to the use of software to purchase digital advertising, as opposed to the traditional process that involves RFPs, human negotiations and manual insertion orders. It’s using machines to buy ads, basically.” —Digiday

“Programmatic advertising helps automate the decision-making process of media buying by targeting specific audiences and demographics.” —Marketing Land

The first definition helps explain it in very simply terms whereas the second helps explain what it does. 

In terms of the different types of programmatic advertising, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)—which is an industry organization geared toward ensuring standards across the advertising ecosystem—there are two types of programmatic buying (the process in which you’re buying advertising):

1. Programmatic Direct
Also known as Premium Programmatic Advertising, this is an automated technology-driven method used for buying, selling, or fulfilling advertising. It provides for an Automated Guarantee Systematic automation of sales process. No insertion order (IO) or master services agreement (MSA) covered within the partnership.

2. Programmatic Real Time Bidding (RTB)
Two types of RTBs are Open Auction (audience targeting) and Private Marketplace Deals—which require a private marketplace and allow for fixed pricing and data overlays. We are beginning to see more and more of this type of programmatic advertising being used every day. 

Why CMOs Need To Be Bullish On Programmatic Advertising 

The shift to programmatic tactics means a few things for marketers and the industry as a whole. In essence, it has validated and delivered against the need for data-driven, and accountable ROI-based media delivery. Additionally, it has enabled an efficient method for publishers to monetize core inventory. 

In a nutshell, programmatic advertising aligns media with brand lift metrics for real ROI and only spends money where it will be effective. 

And it would appear that many of your fellow CMOs are planning on being bullish as eMarketer predicts that in 2016 programmatic TV spending will climb 127.8% to $710 million and by 2018 will account for 6% of all TV ad spending.

The New Currency of Advertising

Digital delivery and content is the new currency of advertising. Brands must find a way to connect while measuring returns on more than recall or click through rate (CTR). Only programmatic platforms can deliver that value.

Download The Programmatic Guide for Modern Marketers, Publishers, and Media Planners to learn how to deliver advertising that enhances the customer experience and a lot more. 

from Oracle Blogs | Oracle Marketing Cloud http://ift.tt/291dTrm
via IFTTT