“Brand as Publisher” is a great concept, especially if you are a B2B marketer. B2B firms are often driven by the company’s thought leadership and the sophisticated services they produce, as such they have great ingredients for publishable content - content that adds value to each customer touch, reinforces the brand's value proposition, and drives qualified leads for the Sales team. But the problem is B2B companies and their marketing teams are not built around a publishing model, so instead of “Brand as Publisher” being an opportunity, it’s a paralyzing challenge.
Enter Digitas’ “Silicon V/Aalley” as part of the 2013 NewFront. The event featured seven partners who introduced new ways to help B2B marketers explode the value of their content and thought leadership without the need to take on the additional burden of becoming “a publisher.” Highlights included:
-The Economist demonstrated how they leverage their researchers and journalists to write both rich and snackable content that is commissioned, shaped and owned by a brand.
- Skyword demonstrated how they can commission a stable of independent writers who have a credible and influential online following that can be commissioned to write content on topics relevant to brand’s audience.
- Newcred demonstrated how they can help brands license the worlds most influential content from both large and small publishers, which in turn be contextualized for the brand audience and used on a brand’s own property.
- Thinglink demonstrated their ability to take a single image and embed multi-media content (slide shows, video, photos, text), and functionality (social posts) – thus expanding the value and function the content offers to audiences.
- Demand Base demonstrated their ability to use personal and firmographic data to target and retarget business audiences with the most relevant brand content, thus enabling brands to follow though on initial engagement s and bring the prospect further through the funnel
- LinkedIn and Google: Introduced new features to their already explosive platforms enabling brands to publish more compelling content that reaches relevant business audiences.
B2B marketers left the room with a burden lifted and innovative, new ways to look at their challenges, and practical ideas to go back their teams with.
Written by Dennis Reilly, SVP, B2B Practice Leader, Digitas
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 09:24AM