Two content marketing upstarts worth watching - impressions from NYC
- Summary:
- A recent New York City jaunt brought me face to face with two content marketing startups. They surprised me with fresh approaches that should serve them well as the web advertising crisis deepens.
As content marketing matures, so do the tools. But that's also a problem. With media consumption changing rapidly, the limitations of content management tools are exposed. A few weeks ago while in New York City, I spent an afternoon with two very interesting content marketing upstarts: Ceros, makers of "interactive content marketing software" and TapInfluence, a cloud-based influencer marketing automation solution.
To be honest, I didn't know what to expect from either company. Despite my fascination with the power of content, I find the content tools area to be a bland, forgettable space. But as it turns out, these two firms solve problems in eye-opening ways. Here's my first impressions, along with their market obstacles/opportunities.
TapInfluence - Can you really automate influencer content?
Can influencer content be automated? The influencers I know are anything but automated. Their jobs are safe from robots, let's put it that way - at least this generation of robots. But over coffee in New York City, TapInfluence co-founder Holly Hamann made a persuasive case for automating/managing influencer-generated content.
As it turns out, in consumer markets, influencers (such as popular lifestyle bloggers) are openly paid to create content on behalf of brands. That's kind of refreshing compared to the B2B space, where influencers try to appear above the fray of compensation while too often neglecting disclosures.
Disclosures were my first concern when I heard about TapInfluence. But the rules of disclosure are embedded in the TapInfluence software. Most companies cut corners in this area, putting a damper on reader trust - TapInfluence didn't. When brands manage paid influencer blogs through TapInfluence, the necessary disclosure language is provided, making it easy for influencers to incorporate it.
Hamann's team also has deep experience in attention metrics which should be useful to customers. She was able to give me a precise 17 percent as a tipping point when the effectiveness of sponsored content goes down. In other words, TapInfluence can guide companies towards influencers who have the right mix of sponsored and original content on their blogs.
TapInfluence is a pretty mature product, with around five years of development. During the demo, that maturity showed. Companies can slice and dice campaigns, evaluating influencers by industry and overall reach. Prior campaigns can be assessed by these same metrics. With thousands of influencers already pre-qualified and open to potential paid assignments, the software gives you a leg up from day one. Calendar functions allow for management of multiple storylines.
Market opportunity: Consumers are ruthless about withholding their attention if content is substandard. As brands struggle to create sticky content, and the effectiveness of online advertising dwindles, influencer-created content can play a key role. The problem comes with identifying respected influencers, managing them at consumer brand scale, and doing so in a way that wins readers' trust without making them feel tricked into reading commercials. And: assessing the performance of those content investments after the fact. Upon first review, TapInfluence is a viable way to address those issues.
Market obstacle: My impression is that the quality/depth of the product far exceeds the name recognition, but keep in mind my focus is B2B. With an impressive customer list, the name recognition should come. While there is considerable pushback over some forms of sponsored content, the role of influencers in the purchasing process is likely to increase rather than decrease - as long as reader trust is maintained. As cloud marketing suites gain traction, integration with suites will matter.
I still think there's room for high-caliber best of breed marketing products, as long as the integration is easy. I don't see TapInfluence as easily transferrable to the B2B space, where influencers operate a bit differently, but that's ok. There is huge opportunity in the consumer space.
Ceros - Can you turn content ingredients into a kickass experience?
Ceros deals with the attention problem from a different angle. I paid a visit to their New York City offices, where I had an intro chat at their bar (we didn't drink, sorry to disappoint), with a ping pong game going on in the background (though the game soon ended and those individuals went back to their true missions).
I talked with Ceros CEO Simon Berg and Matthew Wellschlager, VP of Marketing. Ceros believes in the power of content to win (and keep) audiences, but in a consumerized mobile world, they see text-based content as limiting. Also, many companies have multi-media assets, whether it's photos or videos. But how do you pull that content into a storyline? How do you make it interactive? And how do you do it quickly?
During a spirited debate, Berg and Wellschlager argued that companies struggle to get multi-media content produced and published. Because the technical and production barriers are too high, the results of such content are either too expensive, or, even more likely - infrequent. Another problem: multi-media output for mobile requires mind-numbing testing on each device, further delaying content release cycles. They built their solution to minimize the testing loop, serving up device-specific content.
During a demo of their solution, I found myself thinking that they had created a product that felt similar to an Adobe design product, but with the goal of producing multi-media content pieces from various content parts. The guys told me stories of big name customers who were able to produce impactful content in hours once they got up to speed.
One thing Ceros has in common with TapInfluence: embedded analytics allow the user to assess the effectiveness of content. For example, you can assess why a CTA ("Call to Action") isn't performing well, and make changes in real time. Berg and Wellschlager also had strong words for the over-used PDF white paper. It's difficult to pull analytics from PDF consumption. They encourage their clients to move into interactive content where traffic patterns can be studied and optimized. And: interactive content is far more engaging.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, moving pictures are worth a lot more. Example: Ceros' work with the Dallas Cowboys, Driven: the Jason Whitten Story. The most impressive thing is not the exceptional look of the content. During the Cowboys demo, the Ceros guys told me it took them hours - not days- to assemble the content into a finished version. Granted, the Cowboys still need to win a championship to justify some of the poetic tributes in this piece, but that's a sports problem and, alas, I don't get to do deep NFL takes on diginomica.
The Ceros team helped the Cowboys assemble this piece, but over time their clients get more and more independent with their own productions. One caution: without a skilled UX designer, all you're going to do is fail faster. Those who think they are designers but who really aren't can get themselves - and their brands - in trouble.
Market opportunity: Companies that have content development skills but are struggling to assemble the pieces are good candidates. The B2C space is ideal for scaling multi-media to big audiences. There is huge pressure in consumer industries to go beyond mobile-friendly to mobile-beautiful. That requires design savvy, and, usually, extensive development and testing. You can't get out of the design-savvy part, but Ceros will help companies reduce the heavy lifting on the back end.
Market obstacles: The two and half-year-old company has similar challenges to the ones I laid out for TapInfluence. Design skills are the one requirement of Ceros' platform that doesn't easily scale. Some companies have cracked the UX nut, however, and would be able to take advantage of Ceros' tools quickly. Ceros has ways of helping their customers get the design right, so design skills are not a brick wall, just a skills issue that must be accounted for.
Final (quick) thoughts
These companies both address a jugular issue: winning (and keeping) attention. Once you have attention, you can embed calls to action that move towards opt-in relationships. Then analytics come into their own, helping you to assess what's working and personalize relationships. On the other end of the spectrum, the rise of ad blockers has made advertisers nervous enough to apologize for their ridiculously intrusive and clunky habits.
That leaves an opening for content upstarts like these to prove that earning attention is superior to desperately trying to buy it. B2B companies can learn plenty from these approaches, and these days, a B2B is just one acquisition or business model change away from becoming a B2C.
Image credit: Informal NYC photos by Jon Reed. The feature image is of my first Uber driver that afternoon. He told me he was the first Uber driver ever in New York City, and had some pretty convincing documentation to prove it. However, for now let's call it an urban legend.
Disclosure: I have no financial ties to TapInfluence or Ceros. These visits were arranged by Pluck PR, who we also have no financial relationship with. However, Pluck PR did introduce me to Sailthru, a diginomica premier partner.