Ideas, insights and inspirations.

Second in a three-part blog series on a concept that author R. Todd Erkel calls “the battle for meaning.” We will look at the evolution of cause marketing and its relationship to code, content, Google’s algorithm, and page one organic search results. Organizations and companies once believed that possessing knowledge was enough to win hearts and minds. Later, they believed that communicating knowledge – through traditional media and conventional cause marketing methods – would suffice. More recently, causes and companies have acknowledged the need for deep and sustained digital content campaigns – blogs, microsites, video – to engage customers and advance a cause. The next frontier requires even more intentionality so that all content efforts converge to produce a renewable source of organic traffic and an ever-expanding, loyal and engaged audience. Three cause campaigns expanding into wider “battles” for meaning. Air BNB: “We Accept” A few years back, Airbnb faced backlash when customers raised concerns about hosts discriminating when accepting guest … Continue reading

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First in a three-part blog series on a concept that author R. Todd Erkel calls “the battle for meaning.” We will look at the evolution of cause marketing and its relationship to code, content, Google’s algorithm, and page one organic search results. Organizations and companies once believed that possessing knowledge was enough to win hearts and minds. Later, they believed that communicating knowledge – through traditional media and conventional cause marketing methods – would suffice. More recently, causes and companies have acknowledged the need for deep and sustained digital content campaigns – blogs, microsites, video – to engage customers and advance a cause. The next frontier requires even more intentionality so that all content efforts converge to produce a renewable source of organic traffic and an ever-expanding, loyal and engaged audience. The battle for meaning around a pandemic virus and the human response traces back more than two centuries, long before we associated a phrase like “vaccine confidence” to a … Continue reading

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Great marketers are a rare breed. They are shapeshifters who play ten crucial roles and gracefully switch between them: S T R A T E G I S T As strategic thinkers, they imagine new possibilities, combinations and offerings that don’t yet exist. They don’t confuse strategy with planning or tactics. They play to win. D I R E C T O R The daily work of a marketing leader is to orchestrate in-house and out-sourced talent in service of larger goals. They recognize, motivate and unleash talent…wherever they can find it. I N T E G R A T I V E   T H I N K E R They understand that marketing is a highly interconnected, mutually reinforcing and complex ecosystem of paid, owned and earned media tactics – part digital and part traditional. They have the capacity and the desire to work through its complexities. E V A N G E L I S T They help … Continue reading

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As an agency that has served more than 250 corporate, higher education and non-profit brands, here is what we have concluded: successful brands invest in cultivating and nurturing these seven powerful habits with fierce intentionality: 1. Keyword Habit: The SEO Keyword Lexicon includes a variety of keywords that prospective buyers will use on Google to search for your products and services. It includes groups of keywords related to your brand, decisioning, reputation, thought leadership and products and services. Great brands develop an Institutional SEO Keyword Lexicon which informs creation of new content based on keywords of strategic importance. Successful colleges and universities include keywords for brand positioning, signature academic programs, areas of thought leadership, college search by prospects and institutional reputation. After all, what’s the use of creating new content if it’s going to become a lotus flower in the Himalayans, which only a few people can enjoy? 2. Data Habit: Great brands develop an institutional data framework that includes sales funnel and metrics that measure … Continue reading

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A familiar Chinese proverb instructs: “To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.” The current situation in higher education defies that enduring wisdom. Change arrived suddenly, with little regard for institutional history or might. In this respect, all colleges stand on relatively common ground. All college presidents, to a degree, have become new college presidents. It might be tempting in this moment of great uncertainty to think that successful colleges/presidents will be those that summon deeper reserves of managerial will or command with greater “corporate turnaround” intensity. More likely, how you and your college navigates this public health crisis and its aftermath will come down to something as fundamental — albeit elusive — as how effectively and artfully you communicate. Every college has crisis communications plans in place, and these plans have served everyone — especially students — well through the initial weeks and months of this crisis. We know that eventually, the urgency of this moment will give way … Continue reading

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After two decades of brushing aside concern for how digital would disrupt higher education, college presidents recognize that the wolf may be arriving in the form of large, gold-plated public universities investing hundreds of millions to capture a winner’s share of the adult/online and military market. Penn State Global, Arizona State University, and Purdue Global will soon be joined by the University of Maryland Global Campus, which plans to increase its marketing budget by $500M to grow online students from 90,000 to 120,000. The University of Massachusetts system vowed to become a leader in online education by investing heavily in marketing, as has the University of Missouri system looking to invest enough marketing dollars to grow their online enrollment from 75,000 to 120,000 by 2023. They’re pursuing a digitally savvy market of over 8 million non-traditional students — working professionals, active-duty military personnel and veterans — either starting or re-starting progress toward a degree. Welcome to the marketing arms race … Continue reading

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Great marketing campaigns are powered by a brand-inspired strategy followed by the creation of high-fidelity content. The attention-grabbing content is presented to right-fit prospects using micro-targeting by placing it in the right channels at the right time. Campaign teams measure the performance, and adjust the campaign based on the insights gleaned from analytics data. 1. Brand Inspired: Campaigns are infused with brand essence. 2. Strategy Directed: They are informed by research insights that steer the campaign in a direction most likely to succeed. They don’t meander. 3. High-Fidelity Content Powered: In the age of “show, don’t tell”, they are comprised of authentic high-fidelity content to win hearts, minds and bots. 4. Micro-Targeting Aimed: They are personalized, then adjusted based on A/B testing of the creative. They lean on algorithms to augment human judgment. They result in little “ad waste”. 5. Multi-Channel Deployed: In an era of rapid media channel growth, the campaigns are released in the fewest – but best … Continue reading

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Well-capitalized, community banks often grow new customer relationships by acquiring other banks. However, as their geographic footprints expand, many find it challenging to also grow new customer relationships organically. As their DMAs widen, their marketing budgets are spread thinner and thinner. The idea of spending money on television, radio and outdoor grows more untenable, and digital becomes more important than ever. If this is where you find yourself, your digital marketing strategy should take the following realities into consideration. Focus on Fundamentals 1. Relationships are everything. The lifetime value of a customer whose financial needs evolve through many stages of life is worth far more to your bank than the interest earned on a one-time transaction. It’s interesting when you ask people “Who is your bank?” Invariably, their bank is where they keep their checking and savings accounts. The same is true with business customers. This is where long-term banking relationships begin. 2. You sell more loans to existing customers … Continue reading

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After 25 years of generating prosperity for clients, we have learned that successful digital marketing initiatives must have these 7 fundamentals: 1. Start with Strategy: Ready-aim-fire, not ready-fire-aim. Lead with strengths. 2. Build Your Brand: In the sea of sameness, brands win. Build it. Fearlessly guard it. Imbue it at every touch point. 3. Develop Your Keyword Guide: Before you bake your product/service, reputational, decisioning and geographic keywords into every content asset, you must first discover them and know them. 4. Fortify Your Website: It’s your conversion machine. All roads lead to it. Bake in your SEO Keyword Guide. 5. Surround and Engage Prospects with an integrated campaign: On search, social and mobile, where the prospects live. 6. Invest in Marketing Technology: Know what truly performs, so you can feed the winners. 7. Measure, Test, Adapt: Measure what matters. Know what works. Tease out stories. Change boldly. Learn more about our digital marketing and integrated marketing services.

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A new generation of talent recruitment is upon us. Recruitment 1.0: Run classified ads in the Help Wanted section of newspapers. Recruitment 2.0: Run job postings on third party sites like Monster, Indeed and Jobs.com. Recruitment 3.0: Take control of your own destiny. Manufacturers are increasingly challenged by a national talent shortage for the new jobs they’re creating. Instead of relying on tired old ways, Recruitment 3.0 demands a better digital strategy. One that doesn’t commoditize businesses by constantly putting them side by side with everybody else looking to fill seemingly look-alike roles. After all, the best person for your opening isn’t just looking for a job, they’re looking for a better career. The answer begins with an overlooked part of many manufacturing websites—the Careers and Job Listing pages. Look at yours through the lens of smart SEO practices like optimizing your code, “baking” keywords into your job listing pages, and spreading them with social media share buttons. Every job … Continue reading

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