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Curiosity. Empathy. Trust. Grit. These are the essential elements that inspire our work — both with our clients and the journalists who cover them. These elements are also the foundation of our development and implementation of successful media relations programs at Greentarget — and they have been since our firm’s earliest days.

The media landscape is constantly shifting, and news organizations are in the midst of disruption that would have been unthinkable not long ago. As print newspapers and magazines continue to fold or shrink, digital news and social media grow. Faced with tight deadlines and demands to produce content online and through social media, journalists are under constant pressure. To top it off, the public’s trust in traditional media sources has declined.

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Against this backdrop, there are some rumblings that earned media might become obsolete — rumblings with which we wholeheartedly disagree. While Americans are consuming the news in evolving ways — with nine out of 10 adults now getting news online — there isn’t less interest in news. We’re seeing explosive growth in digital journalism, with emerging outlets adding resources and staff. As a result, earned media will continue to be a preferred way for B2B and professional services companies to enhance their reputations and direct smarter conversations to key stakeholders.

Known by clients and colleagues as the “guardians of the lost art of media relations,” we at Greentarget are keeping a close watch on the changes to the media landscape and adapting as need be. However, more often than not, we’ve found that staying true to the principles and approaches that we’ve had since our company’s founding is the best approach for our firm and our clients.

At our core, we believe successful earned media campaigns are about aligning our client’s business objectives with communications goals. This means finding clients the right platform to get the messages in front of the right people. We pride ourselves on offering journalists reputable spokespeople who add value to their stories — which, in turn, forges strong relationships with these journalists who return to us time and time again. It is through this process that clients get the third-party validation they need that can turn a quote into a measurable sales impact.

Get the media relations strategy that works for today’s world.

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Most CMOs, in-house counsel and C-suite officers agree they want research reports that are educational, in-depth and relevant. But actually finding those reports can prove surprisingly challenging, according to the 2019 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey.

For instance, while 68 percent of CMOs, 64 percent of C-suite executives and 51 percent of in-house counsel say they appreciate that research reports are “educational,” only 9 percent of the C-suite and 19 percent of in-house counsel identify the attribute “easy to access” as one that intuitively appeals when it comes to research reports.

What makes these valuable sources of information so difficult to find? The disconnect likely stems from how research reports are typically disseminated — and suggests that, instead of depending on readers to find the reports on a firm website or microsite, marketers should employ a mix of targeted earned and owned content (leaning heavily on interactive charts — which are especially appealing to C-suite members). Trade publication websites, websites from outside professional service providers and vendors, and podcasts represent three potential areas of opportunity.

Approximately three-fourths of both in-house counsel and C-suite officers highly value trade publications — both online and in print — that cover industry news, with a significant majority visiting these publications at least weekly. CMOs nearly unanimously (95 percent) agree that trade publications are a valuable marketing source. Strategic placement of select research findings in these publications — cited and hyperlinked in staff-written, bylined or sponsored articles, for example — provides an impactful, coordinated marketing opportunity.

Both C-suite executives (67 percent) and in-house counsel (63 percent) also consider professional service provider websites a high-value source for news and information — and research reports offer these providers a means of refreshing their website content. The key, however, is to draw targeted audiences to where a particular report lives on the site. One way to achieve this would be to use social media to promote select findings — via infographics or teasers, for example — replete with links to the full report.

Podcasts again made gains in 2019 among both C-suite executives and in-house counsel as a preferred content source. So marketers should seriously consider developing podcasts around select reports. A growing number of other professional service providers are already doing this, to great — and even award-winning — effect. Though some might think podcasts an unlikely medium for in-depth research, our survey found that nearly 70 percent of C-suite officers perceive them as “educational” — suggesting that this segment welcomes receiving research through this medium.

Beyond distribution, research reports face challenges related to timing: Both in-house counsel (60 percent) and C-suite officers (57 percent) place high value on content that is current. Interactive charts likely appeal to C-suite members in part because the reader often feels like this reporting is especially dynamic. Lengthier research reports, while providing the in-depth information that both survey groups may value, could be months or even years in the making. Upon publishing, the information may be — or appear to be — of little use to decision-makers.

As Isaac Rogers of 20/20 Research says, “Research providers might publish a year-end review, but I need something timely. They do good work, but by the time major publications are out, I already know what is covered in the report.”

Shorter, more frequent research reports provide a solution. And strategic distribution of timely, actionable content through diverse channels will help meet the goals and preferences of the C-suite, in-house counsel and CMOs alike.

This article originally appeared in the 2019 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey.

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“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Philosophical thought experiments and professional services marketing don’t appear to have much in common. But in a content ecosystem where every firm is vying for the mantle of thought leader, the comparison is pertinent. Except the question might be, “If a single tree falls in a forest where hundreds of trees are falling around it at the same time, does anyone notice it?”

We’re at a point in the arc of thought leadership where the term itself has lost some of its meaning. That’s because most firms approach content marketing from the thought perspective — attempting to create useful, novel, urgent analysis on the issues of the day – while ignoring the leader angle that implies cultivation of heavy readership within key audiences. The result is a lot of well-written content that isn’t breaking through to those audiences.

For years at Greentarget, we’ve studied this phenomenon and it was a key consideration in our 2019 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey. We found that busy executives increasingly prefer vendor websites and blogs as sources of information. And they still trust traditional media’s credibility above all other sources.

That gives firms and their marketers multiple avenues for engaging C-suite audiences. But to do that effectively, they have to ensure their owned content and published bylines are conveying true authority – by providing the value executives want: relevance, novelty, urgency and, above all, utility.

The beautiful thing is that SEO, when combined with expert editorial judgment and a deep understanding of the relevant issues, can help deliver all of those things. In other words, it’s not just a tool for optimizing your web pages – SEO can actually make content better. In fact, combining these three elements will supercharge the editorial process.

SEO research is a proxy for user interests: because search queries represent informational needs, this type of analysis helps marketers identify the topics that matter and how they can answer audiences’ most burning questions. Instilling SEO techniques into your editorial process will not only lead to more effective website architecture and better search ranking for your content, but a much deeper understanding of your customers and their current needs that translates into stronger and more relevant points of view. All of this is essential for organizations working to pinpoint and focus on the topics and attributes decision-makers value most.

Finally, SEO is critical for lead generation. Traffic from search, known as organic traffic, is almost always going to be more engaged than traffic from other channels because it represents users who are actively seeking content in response to a need, rather than just clicking on an ad they were served or a post they stumbled across. Creating content that anticipates their most pressing needs is the most effective way to keep them coming back for more, thereby establishing a strong pipeline of leads from your content marketing efforts.

Optimizing your site for organic traffic means optimizing for strong user experience, and in an environment where dozens of firms with similar practices are frantically publishing similar content, SEO techniques will help make your thought leadership visible and valuable. Making that content findable, navigable, and actionable will create a lasting competitive edge that will establish your site as a repeat destination for thought leadership.

A version of this article appeared in the 2019 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey, released in July 2019.

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College students angling for a job in PR can basically forget about their resumes – nobody cares about them anymore.

So says Ron Culp, professional director of DePaul University’s Graduate Public Relations and Advertising Program (PRAD). According to Culp, prospective employers are more likely to find his students through LinkedIn. “That’s why it’s crucial to update your profile and make sure you’ve got your 500-plus connections,” he says.

Culp dished this advice during a recent Q&A session about the evolving media landscape at Greentarget’s Chicago office. The veteran PR pro – Culp led media relations at Sara Lee Corporation and Sears, among other places – dropped by as part of our speaker series.

While piling up more than 500 LinkedIn connections might seem daunting, Culp says the significance they have for college students is indicative of the many ways the industry has changed in recent years.

Case in point, PRAD, which Culp joined early this decade, has moved from a traditional textbook-driven program to one that prioritizes real-world experience. About 80 percent of the PRAD faculty previously had full-time jobs in advertising or public relations and guest speakers appear regularly, so the students get first-hand insights into how the public relations world works outside of academia.

“For most of my classes, I take my students to corporations and agencies in person,” Culp says. “We’ll sit down and brainstorm with the agency – maybe they’ve got an idea they’d like to kick around that they’d like some good millennial perspective on.”

“For many of the students, it’s the first time they really see what their career progression might be. Invariably, someone will say, ‘That – I want that job.’”

As they shift away from textbooks, Culp instead asks students to find and share real-world examples that reflect particular lessons (which he provides in advance). He then has his students share those examples online and discuss them.

Culp also shared his observations about how students are consuming news. “They get everything from their mobile – and they’re very selective about what they read,” he says. He added that traditional media still resonates though and that knowing your audience has never been more important.

After content has been created and published, it becomes more important than ever to drive engagement – for news organizations and businesses alike. “If you have a client base that understands what you’re trying to do, you can maximize coverage by building an influencer program,” Culp says. “People used to think they didn’t have the resources, but now they’re realizing how easy it is to do.”

One thing that has remained constant: Culp says students are still primarily interested in working for an agency and less interested in working in-house. “Most students want to work at the big agencies in town,” he says. “But there are 465 agencies in Chicago, so I say, don’t necessarily feel like you have to work at one of the big 10.”

We ended the conversation by asking Culp what we at Greentarget could do, particularly in our internship program, to make sure we’re as welcoming to the next generation of PR practitioners as possible. Culp’s advice, which he directed to the industry as a whole: Prioritize inclusion and diversity.

“Forty percent of my students are diverse students – they are concerned that they’re being set up for failure because they’re not being managed well,” he says. “We need to create programs to make sure that everyone feels comfortable and can see themselves in an agency.”

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Not long after Greentarget and Zeughauser Group closed the 2019 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey, LinkedIn made news when it announced details about changes to its algorithm – changes that validated trends that we’ve been reporting on for years.

Long the preferred social platform for executives and decision makers, LinkedIn made the algorithmic changes to favor more relevant conversations that (as Axios described them) cater to niche professional interests. In other words, LinkedIn realized that viral content wasn’t as important to users as content that they can actually use.

That echoed what we found in our survey (for the second consecutive year) about the importance of useful content – i.e., utility. Both in-house attorneys and C-suite executives want content that’s useful above all things. Because we live in an era when C-suite executives can be as engaged in choosing a law firm as in-house legal officers – and vice-versa for management consultants and other non-legal service firms – this year we compared their content consumption behaviors and preferences.

In-house counsel and C-suite executives define utility quite differently – and understanding those differences is crucial for marketing officers in the age of information overload. Finding ways to make content stand out was also important to LinkedIn, and the results for the social media platform have so far been impressive. Likewise, we believe that professional services marketers can deliver a stronger payoff for their content by taking to heart the findings in this year’s State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey.

In our ninth survey this decade, we provide deep dives and practical guidance – utility, you might say – on topics that are top of mind (or should be) for marketers. We cover content strategy, the keys to content creation, search engine optimization, the importance of research and, of course, how to best leverage LinkedIn.

It’s never been more important – or more challenging – to stand out above the noise when trying to reach decision makers. But that means there’s an incredible opportunity for those who get it right.

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We say “thought leadership” too much in this business. We do it. Our clients do it. The whole industry does it. Last year thought leader even overcame leverage to win the title as the most overused term in PR.

Any term getting tossed around that much is bound to lose its punch and, eventually, its meaning. Thus you’ll find plenty of voices advocating that we stop using the phrase thought leadership altogether. 

I’m usually all about eliminating buzzwords – if I could take leverage out back and shoot it, it’d be dead before close of business – but in this case I think there’s a better way: We don’t need to stop saying “thought leadership,” we need to start producing actual thought leadership.

Because the real problem is not the phrase itself, it’s that there are too many people producing too much content and calling it thought leadership. There are a lot of reasons for that, of course. Publishing is cheap and easy. Marketers have thought leadership fever. There’s too much focus on quantity. Lots of would-be thought leaders don’t know what real thought leadership is or how to produce it.

That last problem is the hardest to solve, and one we encounter a lot. Our clients are incredibly smart, accomplished professionals, many of whom counsel the world’s most sophisticated businesses. They clearly have a lot to say.

But would-be thought leaders too often get hung up on what they want to say, without stopping to consider what their audience wants to hear. Or they get lost in the forest of their expertise and wind up with content that amounts to, as one legal marketer recently described it to us, “nerds talking to nerds about nerdy things.”

Most of the time our key audiences – the people in the C-suite, typically – are not among those nerds. So nerdy content has almost no chance of engaging them or reeling in new business for our clients.

When that happens it’s at least partly our fault. Our job is not just to take notes and churn out content based on whatever comes out of an SME’s mouth, it’s also to educate them about what thought leadership means and on what actual thought leadership looks like.

To help us do that, we created a framework that breaks it down into four attributes. Here it is.

We didn’t just pull these four categories out of thin air. We chose them based on our experience and knowledge of what works and what doesn’t – and on our data. This year’s State of Digital and Content Marketing Report – coming in July – cements our belief that these characteristics make content far more likely to engage executive readers. Let’s look at each of them.

Relevance – Obvious, right? If it’s not relevant, why would anybody read it? Not surprisingly, our survey of in-house counsel and C-suite officers reveals that relevance ranks among the top three attributes those executives look for in articles, newsletters, podcasts and in-person events – in other words, all the content professional services firms produce most.

Novelty – When I was a writer at Forbes, I lived in mortal fear of discovering that a story I was working on had already been written by somebody at the Wall Street Journal or Business Week. If it had, and my editor found out, there would’ve been hell to pay. We all understood that if we weren’t giving our readers something new, something they couldn’t get anywhere else, there would be no reason for them to read the magazine. The same holds true in the thought leadership game: If you’re not saying something new, how can it be thought leadership?

Urgency – How many times do you bookmark something or otherwise set it aside to read later – and then never read it at all. Content that’s not important now is far less likely to win the battle for an executive’s attention. For the second year in a row both the C-suite and the GCs tell us they value content that’s current over all but one other attribute….

Utility – Both C-level and GC audiences say utility is by far the quality that attracts them most to the content they consume. These are busy people in a hyper-competitive world, so it makes sense that when they decide to read, watch, listen to or attend something, they’re not doing it just to tickle their curiosity. They’re looking for insights that will help them do their jobs better.

We also believe that utility is the quality that’s most likely to move a reader closer to a purchasing decision. Content that’s just interesting or informative might make a good impression. But if it tells them what they need to do, they’re far more likely to reach for the phone, to call the author and say “I need you to help me do that.”

And that, at the end of the day, is why we’re producing thought leadership in the first place.

A version of this article appears in Greentarget’s 2019 State of Digital and Content Marketing Survey; that report will be published in July.

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