Win With a Comprehensive Digital Marketing & Communication Strategy



Before I dive into three case studies that help shape my perspective on why a “T-Shape” model can work for any business. What does T-shape even mean? Well, for a digital marketing campaign to be truly successful, one needs to harness a combination of earned media, paid media and owned media. You’ll see from my examples below, I focus on one of these three areas for each example from past/current roles, but please keep in mind that most - if not all - of my strategies include elements from all three core areas. I'm merely taking a deep dive in one bubble for each role. It’s worked well for me over the last decade (wow, that just made me feel old) and I’m sure it will prove successful at your own organization. Also note that each case study could not have been a success without partnership collaboration both internally and externally. It's a area I see so many marketers and communicators overlook as they execute.

Now let’s begin:

  1. Paid Media - This is a channel that leverages advertising, pay-per-click, display ads, retargeting, paid influencers, paid content promotion and/or social media ads.

At Disney Consumer Products I was able to successfully put in place a CRM and email marketing strategy that tapped into the Corporate CRM database, which at the time, consisted of millions of individuals. This database presented enormous opportunities for the division to monetize products that were new to teams across categories such as music, DVDs, video games, toys, clothing, etc. A CRM strategy wasn’t a first for other divisions, such as Parks/Resorts or Disney Channel, but it was a first for my division at the time. We were able to identify very specific personas like our Princess, Winnie the Pooh, any many other core franchises. This enabled us to send very targeted e-blasts to a list and drive conversion for people that have already raised there hand and said, "Yes, Disney I would like to hear from you.". This is where external partnership really made things exciting -- such as with Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon, etc. -- as we leveraged their email lists to accelerate sales of product. Email is a frequently overlooked opportunity. In my opinion, it's pound-for-pound, the best digital ROI (not to be mistaken as the biggest opportunity or 800lb gorilla - enter Google).

  1. Owned Media - This is a channel that gives the most control and focuses on website properties. Also, keep in mind, that SEO and branded content drive earned media (sharing) and traffic.

For owned media, I thought I would share my experience at Los Angeles Times. My role had ownership over the entire e-Commerce portfolio. One might  think that Los Angeles Times only made revenues through print and digital subscriptions, but we also had a robust portfolio of revenues that had nothing to do with content/copy. Many of the revenue streams I oversaw consisted of the sale of consumer products. Yes, LA Times sold physical goods. Some examples would consist of company branded merchandise, sports team branded merchandise (e.g. NFL, MLB, etc.), events/ticketing sales, affiliate-based partnership with local businesses and even a daily deals platform. The beauty of this portfolio is that it drove revenues with little upfront investment. One platform that I’m most proud of launching is District West. We created this brand from scratch and spearheaded the development of the ecommerce engine, content management system, creative, branding, etc. The platform focused on a ecommerce experience for the LA-enthusiasts looking for purchases from local artisans and brands. As you can probably already tell, this roles’ success was almost entirely based on developing key partnerships with businesses in the area and globally that could enhance the web experience for LA Times visitors.

  1. Earned Media - This is a channel that is all about sharing, mentions, shares, reports, reviews, and partially SEO and branded earned media (sharing) and traffic.

In my current position with Avery Dennison, we have seen substantial growth in both our brand awareness and recognition as a thought-leader in our industries. Over the last year, we've been able to successfully deploy a social media strategy that focuses largely on activating all 25,000+ of our employees globally. The overall program, which we've branded as "Get Social", attempts to educate, train and mobilize our workforce on the power of Content and Social Media. Our story? In short, it focuses on five key pillars to success: innovation, sustainability, culture/heritage, community investment and careers at Avery Dennison. Watch the short video here. Social media is changing the way we connect and communicate, and that’s why it’s critical for every employee to understand the pitfalls and opportunities that exist within social media. But that’s just the beginning of our journey to "Get Social".

To help employees see how social media can benefit our brand, we created a library of resources, that continue to expand to this day, and include videos, how-to documents, and a variety of other resources. We've covered all the bases: employees can find the platform that fits their needs, understand how each platform works, get a snapshot of where we are active as an organization, and learn "social speak". We want to ensure our employees are knowledgeable and safe in the use of social media, whether you use it personally or professionally, as an individual or a representative of the company. We even launched an external-facing blog that focuses on storytelling through eyes of our employees - averydennison.com/blog.

Still not convinced? Earlier in 2014, we were recognized by Smart Insights as one of the most inspiration B2B brands in Social Media: http://www.smartinsights.com/b2b-digital-marketing/b2b-social-media-marketing/creating-social-media-strategy-b2b-audiences-products-services/

           Our social media movement  at Avery Dennison was awarded "Best Use of Digital Technology to Enhance the Customer Experience" by Innovation Enterprise' Digital Innovation Summit 2014. http://theinnovationenterprise.com/summits/digital-strategy-innovation-summit-san-francisco/awards

More recently, I was invited to give the keynote at the Digital Leaders Summit to expand on our social media strategy and justify why we were given the award in the first place. It was such a pleasure to be recognized and given the opportunity to present the strategy in more detail.

Looking forward, I'll be speaking as a panelist at Content Marketing World on the very topic of social media and employee mobilization - http://www.contentmarketingworld.com/speakers/james-moat/

In conclusion, to drive success for any brand is to propel sharing and engagement with paid promotion, drive SEO and branded content to drive earned media (sharing) and traffic, gain more exposure to web properties with SEO and PPC and leverage owned, earned, and paid media for a comprehensive marketing strategy.

Do you have a question? Leave a comment below and let's keep the conversation going.


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