Marketing Communications Today is a collection of resources for marketing communications
professionals filled with industry research, marketing trends, and career
information about integrated marketing and data-driven communications.
Learn industry insights through the Marketing Communications Today blog,
podcast, as well as Integrate Online.
The media landscape has increased in complexity and the ability to reach consumers
in a variety of different ways. In this podcast, we will look at the different
approaches that exist in the industry, the balance of art and science in these
approaches and how a blend of these methods can help an advertiser get a clearer
picture of how consumers are engaging with your brand.
Cyndi Greenglass: How has Big Data and Big Measurement evolved, and
how's the media industry adapting when yesterday and even, you know, a year ago
for sure, may not be the best predictor of trends moving forward? So what you
measured before may not be predictive of tomorrow.
In just a few weeks, the global pandemic has had immeasurable impacts on healthcare,
economic and communications. Social distancing to flatten the curve of infected
people needing testing and care has led to across-the-board cancellations and postponements
of in-person meetings and events communicators and advocates rely on heavily. The
coronavirus has also spurred wholesale remote work environments and a refresh of
planned message platforms on all communications channels.
The future scope and length of the healthcare and economic crisis is uncertain, forcing
us all to be flexible, patient and innovative in conducting and meeting our communications
and advocacy goals.
Today’s session will focus on virtual advocacy communications while incorporating
key elements of integrated marketing communications to help amplify our activities.
In today’s climate, I am more grateful than ever to be in an industry that allows
a great deal of flexibility with working from home — and of course, taking my courses
online which luckily required no transition being an IMC student. I have had the
opportunity to take part in a number of remote opportunities with remote internships
and remote teamwork through the National Committee for Public Relations Student
Society of America and I am well aware that it is not always a flawless process.
For those transitioning to remote work and burning through Spotify playlists, here
is a breakdown of what your first work-from-home conference call might sound like:
As data become easier to access, manage, and analyze, the responsibilities of data
professionals have changed. Once the wild west of specialization where few companies
were really investing in “data” people, today companies are a lot better at democratizing
insights and closing the data literacy gap. This shift has resulted in an evolution
of the data professional where pivot table gunslingers are a thing of the past
and now communication skills are coveted above all else. In this podcast, Tradd
Salvo, Data Strategy Director at Droga5, explains what’s expected of data professionals
today, what this means for people coming into the industry, and why data departments
are the modern-day renaissance capability.
Matt Cummings: You feel data departments are the modern-day Renaissance
capability. Can you tell me what you mean there by Renaissance capability?
Tradd Salvo: I've been thinking about this for a while. The term Renaissance
man or woman comes from Leonardo da Vinci because it just basically means that
someone that's good at doing a lot of different types of things. For instance,
da Vinci was an author, a painter, a scientist and a politician. Well, traditionally
we would think as data professionals we had one very specific job, but today
it has expanded throughout the entire process, especially in marketing to where
we have to handle a lot more things than just analyzing and delivering insights.
That's what I mean by Renaissance capability is it's not just data analysis,
but it's in much broader terms and much broader skills that are required.
In my last year of grad school, I had a course that covered a pretty big topic: rebranding.
I remember sitting at my desk reading articles on eCampus about major companies
that have rebranded in the past and thinking, “How cool is this?” It was amazing
to me how these companies we studied have successfully rebranded their entire identity
– because this didn’t seem like an easy task. I was early on in my career and wasn’t
sure if I would ever come across this, but loved learning about it.
Around the same time my current employer, Federated Investors, was in the process
of acquiring a London-based investment firm called Hermes Investment Management.
Two years later Federated publicly announced its plan to change its name to
Federated Hermes, Inc. As a member of Federated’s marketing communications
team, I found myself right in the middle of it all.
In addition to the merger of assets and employees, the two companies wanted their
union to reflect the same mission, vision and values. The rebrand work started
long before Federated publicly announced the name change. We hired a branding agency
to assist with creating a new logo, corporate messaging and an implementation and
execution timeline. After months of industry research, design proposals, idea workshops
and discussions, the agency unveiled our new identity this past February at a company-wide
event.
Consumers today expect businesses and executives to take a stand. It has never been
more important for the C-suite to have a voice and a platform on which to share
it.
Many companies dedicate time and energy to their brand’s social media presence but
don’t feel that it’s the right channel for executive communications, or that it’s
already too late in the game to get started from scratch. In this podcast, we’ll
talk about the shifting expectations for CEOs, how social media can help with positioning,
and ways for organizations to build or enhance a successful digital executive communications
program.
Lindsey Neary brings over a decade of client and project management experience to
her work as a Vice President on Edelman’s corporate team.
Sales and marketing go hand-in-hand and when you can use data from one to inform
the other, you’re in a better position to come up with strategies (and tweaks to
those strategies) to give your consumers what they want. But that’s easier said
than done. Tessa Burg, the vice president of user experience and technology strategy
at Tenlo, has been doing just that for more than 15 years. She shares tips on how
marketers can get started, what works and doesn’t work, and how data-backed marketing
has evolved over time. She also explores which digital marketing strategies work
best for specific channels.
Tessa Burg is vice president of user experience and technology strategy at Tenlo,
a pipeline marketing company that focuses on engaging high-value prospects with
relevant buyer experiences that get results. Tessa has been leading data-driven
marketing and technology product teams for 15 years and has successfully executed
the Rapid Testing process across hundreds of experiments, new product launches,
and omnichannel campaigns
This Sunday, March 8, is International Women’s Day. This is a global day dedicated
to the recognition of the achievements of women and call to action advancement
for gender equality within all industries and spaces. The first IWD event was a
public gathering of over one million people in 1911. However, the digital age has
transformed the celebration into this day to cross oceans and empower women to
come together, empower others and share their stories digitally.
Today, some of the industry-leading female alumni from the WVU Marketing Communications
Graduate Programs share their stories about being a strong woman in the industry
and the wisdom they wish to pass down to rising leaders.
Carrie Wood - Director of Marketing and Communications, James Madison
University
Content marketing can be a powerful tool when you really know your audience and can
provide information and insights they need and want. Gennifer Chenault, a
content marketing strategist for SOC Telemed, walks us through her creative process
and how to use data to measure your successes (and failures). She’ll help you determine
if content marketing is right for your organization and, if so, how you can find
the subject matter experts who can get at the issues and answer the questions that
are important to your consumers.
Matt Cummings: How do you define content marketing and how it's different
from what we traditionally think of as marketing or advertising?
Gennifer Chenault: Content marketing is focused on creating and distributing
valuable and relevant content to do things like attract, educate and retain a defined
audience. Ultimately, its goal is to drive action. That action could be reading
more of your content, signing up for your blog, chatting on the website, or even
hopefully filling out a form asking for more information. This content can take
many forms, but it's written or created specifically for your buyer. It isn't about
you, it's about them.