<b><i>Marketing Tech</i></b>: Driving the Engagement Marketing Process With Technology

It is a commonly held belief that marketing is a combination of art and science, although the two have never been equal. The art side held the driver's seat until a few years ago, when technology sparked a revolution that changed everything ' and now science is gobbling up most of the equation to shine. This shift provides marketers the ability to do more with less ' and better yet, prove that they are driving revenue. This article outlines the engagement marketing process, including my favorite: how technology is driving each step.

Engagement marketing (aka: content marketing) is exactly as it sounds ' a form of marketing where the objective is to engage your target by becoming a resource for them. It paves the way for business development by creating opportunities to reach out to clients or prospects with relevant information. And, since most lawyers aren't comfortable with a “salesy” approach, engagement marketing positions you as a trusted adviser rather than a salesperson constantly “checking in.”

Step 1: Putting the 'Content' in Content Marketing

Not surprisingly, the key to effective engagement marketing is sharing the right content. You can create your own, or you can curate and share content others created. The good news is that there are practically endless amounts of information at your fingertips. The bad news is that sheer volume of content available is overwhelming. So, where do you begin?

This is where marketing technology can really save the day, starting with listening and/or curation software. Searching for content is quickly becoming a thing of the past. With the sheer volume of Big Data today, and its exponential growth trajectory, busy professionals need to rely on software that ensures the need-to-know information will find them. Curation software will also alert you to what is trending around your areas of expertise and topics of interest. If you create content, this gives you an idea of where to start. Remember that content comes in many forms, and it is not all created equal.

Step 2: Distribution Via E-mail

Once you have created or curated appropriate content, the next step is to distribute or share it. Distribution channels are plentiful, so let's focus on two channels: e-mail and social media. E-mail automation has evolved into robust marketing intelligence platforms that allow you to budget, plan and measure the success of your campaigns. My favorite demand generation technology in this category is Marketo. This is a very robust system that allows you to schedule and track your e-mail communication, as well as the actions prospects are taking and how they engage with your content ' or, as I like to call it, “Lead Bait.” Marketo allows you to lay out a path for your prospects based on their action, or lack thereof, in advance. For example, if you send out an invitation for a webinar, you can set the paths with custom messaging for the following scenarios:

• Registered, attended.
• Registered, did not attend.
• Opened invitation, did not register.
• No engagement.

If you are running several campaigns, this preparation up front will ensure that potential prospects do not slip through any cracks. Plus, their analytics are worthy of serious geek-out sessions.

Distribution via Social Media

Before jumping in to the technology that helps you maximize your social media presence, let's first establish why you need a social media presence in 2015. Bottom line, it's all about your credibility. But, with the combination of content marketing and the ability to share in circles where prospects are actively looking for information and/or answers, the old days of “advertising” your services are long behind you. It's never been easier to position as a resource, share the scope of your work, and ultimately become a trusted adviser.

Erin K MacDonald, a partner in the Trusts and Estates Department of Karnopp Petersen LLP, has done an excellent job of building her business and becoming a thought leader ' largely through Twitter. She delivered a fantastic and actionable presentation titled “The Art of Keeping Current: Social Media for the Busy Estate Planner to the Washington State Bar,” that I highly recommend regardless of your practice area. (Also see her profile on Twitter.)

Now that we're on the same page with the understanding that social media is a good thing (right?), let's talk about the technology that will make it sing. While there is a plethora of social media management software out there, I prefer Hootsuite. In their words, Hootsuite allows you manage social networks, schedule messages, engage audiences, and measure ROI right from the dashboard. A best practice followed by my team is to create an annual Content Calendar, so we can set up the following in advance for every campaign and/or piece of content we share:

• Who we want to engage;
• What the message is, including a clear Call to Action;
• When the content will drop;
• Where will it be shared, distributed and available;
• Why each piece is relevant; and
• How it will move the prospect further down the funnel.

For example, we broadcast a webinar each month. The project management and preparation includes planning the social media strategy ' from promoting registration, to hashtags and posts that deploy during the webinar, to generate trending topics and ending with the follow up and link, to the on-demand recording that drastically extends the shelf life. The content basically acts as bait and gives you a hook to engage your target audience.

Step 3: Find the Right People

If effective marketing is achieved by sending the right message to the right people at the right time, how do you find the right people? LinkedIn is an obvious place to start, but that social media channel only works if you have strong enough connections with people who themselves are well connected. For highly targeted messages, consider BoardEx. Full disclosure: My firm, Manzama, partnered with BoardEx earlier this year to give our mutual clients a competitive advantage by arming them with the right content in a timely, as-it-happens context and the connection to the right person.

Other tactics to find the “right” people include using technology like Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, RSS feeds and more to find the Key People of Influence (KPOIs) in your target market. Once identified, start engaging with them by commenting, sharing, retweeting, etc. They will essentially serve as another ' very credible ' distribution source for you.

Step 4: Measure Your Results

The last step in the engagement marketing process is by far the most important: measuring your results. With technology, we can not only measure our marketing efforts, but accurately track ROI. This is the ultimate job security and proof that marketing is not a cost center but a revenue driver. I use a combination of technologies to track our marketing efforts, including Marketo, Salesforce, Hootsuite and Google Analytics. While I have dashboards that show a plethora of metrics, I report weekly on the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

By watching and understanding the KPIs, I can easily see if there is a disturbance in the force ' then I can dig as deep as needed to determine if it's a new trend emerging, or just an anomaly.

Here is a list of KPIs excerpted from a great blog post by Marketo; “Prove your worth: 10 KPIs for marketers.” The post delves in to greater detail and I'd highly recommend giving it a read.

• Sales revenue.
• Cost associated per lead acquisition.
• Customer lifetime value.
• Online marketing ROI.
• Site traffic to lead ratio.
• Form conversion rates.
• Organic search.
• Social media engagement.

Once you have a presence and are regularly sharing content, a competitive analysis will show how you stack up against your competitors. Thought leadership becomes tangible, and can be correlated to revenue in a particular area. Manzama has a Competitive Intelligence view that gives a visual representation of your share of voice in the market on a particular topic or area of interest. It will also show you where there are opportunities to enter markets without competition.

Conclusion

While technology has been the catalyst that has changed the marketing landscape so drastically in the past five years, my prediction is that the best is yet to come. Marketing technology continues to iterate, continually making it easier to handle our challenges ' giving those who embrace these powerful tools and embed them into the fabric of their marketing strategy a significant competitive advantage.

For more information on Engagement Marketing, visit our Resource Center at www.manzama.com.

Lisa Flynn, VP of Marketing for Manzama, is an expert in content marketing. She offers insights on marketing strategy and temperament-based marketing tactics.

It is a commonly held belief that marketing is a combination of art and science, although the two have never been equal. The art side held the driver's seat until a few years ago, when technology sparked a revolution that changed everything ' and now science is gobbling up most of the equation to shine. This shift provides marketers the ability to do more with less ' and better yet, prove that they are driving revenue. This article outlines the engagement marketing process, including my favorite: how technology is driving each step.

Engagement marketing (aka: content marketing) is exactly as it sounds ' a form of marketing where the objective is to engage your target by becoming a resource for them. It paves the way for business development by creating opportunities to reach out to clients or prospects with relevant information. And, since most lawyers aren't comfortable with a “salesy” approach, engagement marketing positions you as a trusted adviser rather than a salesperson constantly “checking in.”

Step 1: Putting the 'Content' in Content Marketing

Not surprisingly, the key to effective engagement marketing is sharing the right content. You can create your own, or you can curate and share content others created. The good news is that there are practically endless amounts of information at your fingertips. The bad news is that sheer volume of content available is overwhelming. So, where do you begin?

This is where marketing technology can really save the day, starting with listening and/or curation software. Searching for content is quickly becoming a thing of the past. With the sheer volume of Big Data today, and its exponential growth trajectory, busy professionals need to rely on software that ensures the need-to-know information will find them. Curation software will also alert you to what is trending around your areas of expertise and topics of interest. If you create content, this gives you an idea of where to start. Remember that content comes in many forms, and it is not all created equal.

Step 2: Distribution Via E-mail

Once you have created or curated appropriate content, the next step is to distribute or share it. Distribution channels are plentiful, so let's focus on two channels: e-mail and social media. E-mail automation has evolved into robust marketing intelligence platforms that allow you to budget, plan and measure the success of your campaigns. My favorite demand generation technology in this category is Marketo. This is a very robust system that allows you to schedule and track your e-mail communication, as well as the actions prospects are taking and how they engage with your content ' or, as I like to call it, “Lead Bait.” Marketo allows you to lay out a path for your prospects based on their action, or lack thereof, in advance. For example, if you send out an invitation for a webinar, you can set the paths with custom messaging for the following scenarios:

• Registered, attended.
• Registered, did not attend.
• Opened invitation, did not register.
• No engagement.

If you are running several campaigns, this preparation up front will ensure that potential prospects do not slip through any cracks. Plus, their analytics are worthy of serious geek-out sessions.

Distribution via Social Media

Before jumping in to the technology that helps you maximize your social media presence, let's first establish why you need a social media presence in 2015. Bottom line, it's all about your credibility. But, with the combination of content marketing and the ability to share in circles where prospects are actively looking for information and/or answers, the old days of “advertising” your services are long behind you. It's never been easier to position as a resource, share the scope of your work, and ultimately become a trusted adviser.

Erin K MacDonald, a partner in the Trusts and Estates Department of Karnopp Petersen LLP, has done an excellent job of building her business and becoming a thought leader ' largely through Twitter. She delivered a fantastic and actionable presentation titled “The Art of Keeping Current: Social Media for the Busy Estate Planner to the Washington State Bar,” that I highly recommend regardless of your practice area. (Also see her profile on Twitter.)

Now that we're on the same page with the understanding that social media is a good thing (right?), let's talk about the technology that will make it sing. While there is a plethora of social media management software out there, I prefer Hootsuite. In their words, Hootsuite allows you manage social networks, schedule messages, engage audiences, and measure ROI right from the dashboard. A best practice followed by my team is to create an annual Content Calendar, so we can set up the following in advance for every campaign and/or piece of content we share:

• Who we want to engage;
• What the message is, including a clear Call to Action;
• When the content will drop;
• Where will it be shared, distributed and available;
• Why each piece is relevant; and
• How it will move the prospect further down the funnel.

For example, we broadcast a webinar each month. The project management and preparation includes planning the social media strategy ' from promoting registration, to hashtags and posts that deploy during the webinar, to generate trending topics and ending with the follow up and link, to the on-demand recording that drastically extends the shelf life. The content basically acts as bait and gives you a hook to engage your target audience.

Step 3: Find the Right People

If effective marketing is achieved by sending the right message to the right people at the right time, how do you find the right people? LinkedIn is an obvious place to start, but that social media channel only works if you have strong enough connections with people who themselves are well connected. For highly targeted messages, consider BoardEx. Full disclosure: My firm, Manzama, partnered with BoardEx earlier this year to give our mutual clients a competitive advantage by arming them with the right content in a timely, as-it-happens context and the connection to the right person.

Other tactics to find the “right” people include using technology like Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, RSS feeds and more to find the Key People of Influence (KPOIs) in your target market. Once identified, start engaging with them by commenting, sharing, retweeting, etc. They will essentially serve as another ' very credible ' distribution source for you.

Step 4: Measure Your Results

The last step in the engagement marketing process is by far the most important: measuring your results. With technology, we can not only measure our marketing efforts, but accurately track ROI. This is the ultimate job security and proof that marketing is not a cost center but a revenue driver. I use a combination of technologies to track our marketing efforts, including Marketo, Salesforce, Hootsuite and Google Analytics. While I have dashboards that show a plethora of metrics, I report weekly on the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

By watching and understanding the KPIs, I can easily see if there is a disturbance in the force ' then I can dig as deep as needed to determine if it's a new trend emerging, or just an anomaly.

Here is a list of KPIs excerpted from a great blog post by Marketo; “Prove your worth: 10 KPIs for marketers.” The post delves in to greater detail and I'd highly recommend giving it a read.

• Sales revenue.
• Cost associated per lead acquisition.
• Customer lifetime value.
• Online marketing ROI.
• Site traffic to lead ratio.
• Form conversion rates.
• Organic search.
• Social media engagement.

Once you have a presence and are regularly sharing content, a competitive analysis will show how you stack up against your competitors. Thought leadership becomes tangible, and can be correlated to revenue in a particular area. Manzama has a Competitive Intelligence view that gives a visual representation of your share of voice in the market on a particular topic or area of interest. It will also show you where there are opportunities to enter markets without competition.

Conclusion

While technology has been the catalyst that has changed the marketing landscape so drastically in the past five years, my prediction is that the best is yet to come. Marketing technology continues to iterate, continually making it easier to handle our challenges ' giving those who embrace these powerful tools and embed them into the fabric of their marketing strategy a significant competitive advantage.

For more information on Engagement Marketing, visit our Resource Center at www.manzama.com.

Lisa Flynn, VP of Marketing for Manzama, is an expert in content marketing. She offers insights on marketing strategy and temperament-based marketing tactics.