Tag: mobile learning

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Online Student Again, Part 6: Personalized Digital Experiences–Oh boy. Almost creepy.

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom
LISTEN--I told you that you were a pudding brain to begin with, and this just proves it. And don't give me a hug.
LISTEN–I told you that you were a pudding brain to begin with, and this just proves it.
And don’t give me a hug.

When I started the next unit on personalized digital experiences, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  In short, my initial guess that it had to do with the tech comm mantra of “know your audience” was right, but that’s an over-generalization of the whole thing. While this was most likely an overview and simplification of the actual process as it relates to marketing, I could just feel my head explode and all that was left was my original pudding brain state.

Tim Peter of Tim Peter & Associates was the instructor of this particular module. His company concentrates on providing that personal experience to all users. I think the primary focus of the module was about finding all the different ways that a marketing could make digital experiences personalized with caveats on how to make sure that it didn’t get “creepy” (which was the “technical” term used throughout the module over marketers overstepping their bounds 😉 ).

There were a few points that I picked up in the course that I felt were important to note. First, Tim pointed out that digital experiences are not “personalized” as much as “persona-lized”. In other words, because there are way too many individual differences for each person to be targeted, groups are identified instead of individuals, which makes sense. So, personalization is really about coming up with different persona groups to target. I could relate to this because it sounds like “know your audience” and many of the basic premises of content strategy. The practice of creating personas was familiar to me, too, because I remember working on that as an exercise in my content management and information architecture classes at NJIT.

Ultimately, the goal of the marketer is to answer the customer’s questions of, “Am I going to be satisfied with your product or service?” and “Why should I buy from you?”. It makes sense.

Tim made the next statement, which really made a big impact on me, which was namely that content is king, context is queen, but the crown jewels are DATA.  The rest of the course pushed forward on that notion, namely, how to gather anonymous data without crossing the creepy factor that overpersonalizes the collection of data.

He explained there are two main ways to do it through content targeting. The first way is through explicit data, which is getting data directly from the customer by asking,  such as asking for a name, e-mail address, how did you find us, and other questions in which the customer will answer outright by filling in a form or some sort. The second way is through implicit data, which is what you can infer about the customer based on their actions and/or behaviors. This is where those anonymous “cookies” that you have in your browser come into play.  As a result of gather data through these means, you can then customize different messages of different sizes to different audiences at different times.

To make this work the most effectively, there were five calls to action to follow in order to help prioritize marketing objectives and make it clear, namely:

  1. Size  matters – Follow Fitt’s law, which says that bigger ads get more responses.
  2. Placement
  3. Use verbiage that are calls to action like “Act now!”
  4. Style – pay attention to how you use links, links in text, and/or buttons
  5. Color – use color wisely. For example, you wouldn’t use red on a medical site.

In the end, it’s all about identifying your ideal customer based on all the data gathered, and making sure that the content and messages that are being presented meet the needs of your customers to ensure customer satisfaction.

I think the course was definitely one of the harder ones, especially after the “reprieve” of having a few weeks with topics like social media, mobile, and content marketing that I had more familiarity with. I got through the quiz for this one okay,  but I can say that I did learn something extra about the complexities of creating a personalized digital experience. All I can say is that is sure seems rather complicated, that’s for sure! My head is still spinning, and as I said earlier, I’m sure we barely scratched the surface. I’m sure marketers would’ve had an easier time understanding some of these data gathering points better than this content strategist. I never had to dig that deep!

I’m now just past the halfway point in the course now, so hopefully the rest will be smooth sailing.  The next module will be about User Experience (UX) and marketing. Having studied user experience and done some of that professionally, I’m hoping that this next module won’t be too complicated, but I’m sure I’ll be shown plenty of things that I don’t know in relation to marketing.

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Online Student Again Part 5: Content Marketing: Wait, didn’t I hear about this a year ago? 

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom
"We have a sound content marketing strategy! PR, marketing, IT, the social media team, and the content strategy team all pitched in! It's gonna work!" says Don Draper.
“We have a sound content marketing strategy! PR, marketing, IT, the social media team, and the content strategy team all pitched in! It’s gonna work!” says Don Draper.

Almost exactly a year ago, I returned from a conference that changed a lot about the way I think about content. It was the 2014 Intelligent Content Conference (ICC2014). My brain soaked in a lot of information, and new friends and networking connections were made during that trip. (Good times!)

One major point–which is also a big focus of this year’s 2015 Intelligent Content Conference–was that content marketing was the next big focus item. Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) gave a keynote that compelled content strategists at the ICC2014 for us to consider embracing marketers and work together toward tearing down the silos so that we could share skillsets to create better content to promote goods and services. In other words, we should all be shifting towards being content marketers. It made sense, but it was overwhelming for me.

Fast forward to a year later, and here I am now, taking my digital marketing coursework, and this week’s module was about content marketing. Ooh boy. Here we go. The very reason that I’m taking this coursework in the first place–to have a deeper understanding of digital marketing, what content marketing is, and how I can try to fit into it my skill set going forward.

The instructor for this module was Greg Jarboe, a well-known YouTube guru and president of SEO-PR, a content marketing agency which has worked with several well-known brands. While I hadn’t seen Mr. Jarboe present before, his name rings a bell, and I don’t know why. Hmm.

Anyway, Mr. Jarboe’s lecture was enlightening, enjoyable, and took some of my anxieties away.  While content marketing is still a little overwhelming because of the scale of all of it, I came away with six main points that I’d heard before in content strategy, but hit home for me for content marketing.

1) Content needs to be relevant and have value for the end user. This seems obvious, but it’s generally overlooked.

2) Storytelling works. People are drawn in by stories, not jingles or catch-phrases. This is how blogging for a company actually can have some big benefits. (Yay!)

3) Tear down the silos by working with other departments, such as marketing, IT, public relations, etc. Gee, I’ve definitely heard that multiple times in last two years on the content strategy side!

4) A structured, documented content strategy is necessary to build for success. Like we content strategists didn’t already know this one!

5) Measurable metrics for ROI based on outcomes, like website traffic is up, sales, sales leads, customer retention, higher conversion rates, etc.  The first thing that came to my mind was good ol’ Mark Lewis with XML Metrics as a start. Mr. Jarboe took this a step further from a marketing perspective.  An easy way to do this is to track what you do! Measure URL hits against results using special URLs from the Google URL generator. For example, create a special URL for a promotion, and measure number of clicks to that special URL against sales results during that time period. (Makes sense!)

6) Brand recognition is not the goal anymore; generating leads and sales is. This makes sense too. I’ve learned from marketing this blog that once you knew my “brand” of TechCommGeekMom, then it’s been up to me to keep you coming back. While my “product” at this point it sharing information that I think is relevant in the tech comm world at large,  I want you to keep coming back and sharing your experiences and interests with me as well.

So there you have it. I think from a content strategist’s point of view, these are easy to understand and remember. The trick is, going back to point #3, is that it’s good to have more than one perspective working on content marketing. By combining the different “superpowers” from various groups, a great content marketing strategy can result. I think if I can keep these basics in mind, I might just have a chance at finding a content marketing position if the opportunity arises.

Do you think I’m leaving any basics out? Let me know in the comments.

Next module up is called, “Personalized Digital Experiences”. Again, this is another topic that I know I’ve heard before several times in content strategy, so it’ll be interesting to hear how digital marketing approaches the same topic.

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Online Student Again, Part 4: Mobile Marketing, AKA Dang, I haven’t kept up!

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

kids-and-cell-phonesAfter the confidence I had emerging from the Social Media Marketing module of my digital marketing course, I felt I could ride that wave of confidence into the next module about Mobile Marketing.  From what I could tell, I wasn’t wrong to be confident. After all, I’ve been writing about m-learning and mobile topics on this blog since the beginning, so I figured that I would have a good handle on this topic.  I did, but I was quickly reminded at how fast mobile technology has been growing even in three short years, and how I still need to do much more to keep up, if not catch up.

The module was taught by Christina “CK” Kerley, who is a very animated speaker on mobile marketing topics. She provided some great real life examples that I could easily related to. What struck me the most was how subtle mobile marketing can be and how it can be used in ways that we already take for granted, and the technology out there through mobile devices that are probably under-utilized by some, not only in marketing, but also in other mobile applications. One thing that I agreed with her about in regards to mobile is that at one point, everyone thought they needed an app for their service or product, and that’s not necessarily the case.  I agree that websites need to be optimized for mobile–something that I need to do with my own e-portfolio when I get some free time in the next year. But an app has to have a purpose, and it doesn’t mean that it’s solely a glorified version of your website in tiny form.

The technologies that fascinated me the most had to do with geofencing, NFC, and RFID technologies. An example of this would be something like this: you had the Starbucks app on your phone, and as you passed by a Starbucks, your phone would send you a notification for a coupon off a drink–but only if you were in the vicinity of the Starbucks. My brain started to spin with the possibilities of how to use this, at least in m-learning. She also talked about how the proliferation of QR codes and augmented reality were coming about, and how wearables were going to be playing more of a part in mobile marketing. I knew all about these from Marta Rauch and her talks about Google Glass, and such, but I think there were some additional features that I hadn’t really thought about before this way.

All in all, it got me excited about mobile technology. Not that my interest in mobile had ever gone away–just sidetracked.  We really do take our mobile tech for granted–I know I take mine for granted! I think that whatever my next stage is, I surely need to figure out how to get mobile technology into the mix, whether it’s writing or designing for mobile, or whatever. My passion for mobile has simmered over the years. I think the dark side of content strategy lured me over for the past year or two (not that it’s a bad thing), and I lost sight of where I wanted to go. If I end up starting my own business, then I need to think about incorporating those mobile skills again. Seriously, three years ago I talked about mobile in terms of m-learning mostly, but I knew it was the next big thing because mobile use was growing. My thinking was correct back then, and deep down, I know it’s only going to grow and get more complex in time.  I feel like I’ve already fallen behind! So, I need to try to get up to speed on this technology again, and try to push forward, whether it’s in content marketing or something else. I appreciate CK lighting the fire under me again!

Moving on from there, the next module will be about content marketing. OK, folks, here’s the crux of it all, and I’m fearful of it. This is the topic that drove me to take this course because it’s all that I hear about in the content strategy world. We’ll see if I come out unscathed from this topic next week.

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New Listing in TechCommGeekMom’s Education Resources Page!

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

Award Certificate There is a new program now listed in the Instructional Design Education Resources found on the ID/TC Education Resources page (see the tab above).

Many thanks to Stephen Roda for bringing to my attention the online Master’s of Education in Instructional Design and Technology program at Anna Maria College, located in Massachusetts. After looking at the course requirements, this looks like another great program to add to the list!

Go to the ID/TC Education Resources page, and download the Instructional Design Education Resources PDF that lists the link to this program and other great instructional design programs as well.

Do you know of another tech comm or instructional design program that isn’t listed in my information? Email me, and let me know!

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Online Student Again – Part 3: Social Media Marketing–Now You’re Talking My Language!

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

social-networksThe next module of my online digital mini-MBA in Digital Marketing was about social media marketing. Simply from the name of it, I suspected that I had a better chance with this topic than I had with search marketing. I took a look at the slides and completed the pre-reading assignments, and sure enough, I understood ALL of it.  Why? Because I’ve entrenched myself into social media from the beginning of my tech comm career, and it’s why you are reading this article. It’s all about how to use social media for promotion and starting the conversation with your readers through the use of meaningful content.

I was lucky that I had a great course on the theory and practices of social media at NJIT, which I still refer to in presentations and still greatly affects me to this day. That course was what started this blog, after all! I learned many of these marketing concepts through trial and error over the last three years.

There were so many concepts that easily clicked for me, which included what I’ve been struggling to get people to understand not only from a social media perspective, but from a content strategy perspective as a whole! It seems that most of the issues from a corporate level stem from a cultural standpoint, and that corporate culture is not willing to evolve and change with the times! There are other complications, but that’s the primary one. I know from working with several companies, I’ve seen this often. There’s some progress, but it’s not the progress that I would recommend. (But I’m a consultant at the bottom of the food chain, so I know I don’t have a chance to be heard anytime soon.)

The biggest part of this module that I agreed with entirely was that social media is not another type of media along the lines of singularly directional TV, radio, or print. Social media is SOCIAL, people, so it’s about that two-way communication that I wrote about in my last blog post. The instructor for this module of the course, Mark Schaefer, is the author of several books on the subject and has been in marketing for 30+ years, and discussed much of what I’ve come to understand on my own! He went into deeper detail of it all, but he talked about the idea of creating strategies that create relevant content that connects. He said that we are already experiencing content overload, and the key is figuring out how to filter the relevant content that connects people to each other. It’s no longer B2B (Business to Business), but rather P2P (Person to Person).  Mr. Schaefer is also the author of Tao of Twitter where he provides insights on how Twitter can be used effectively–and ineffectively–for content marketing.  As students of this course, we all received a digital copy of the book. Based on how this module went, I definitely plan to read this! (Perhaps I’ll do a TechCommGeekMom Book Review about it as soon as I finish it.)

This time, I got 100% on my quiz on the first try.  So many of the concepts in this module were easy for me, I think simply because there was such a strong connection between content strategy and social media concepts that I already knew or learned on my own in the last few years, either from experience or from various presentations I’ve seen at conferences (Intelligent Content Conference is a great example–did you see that discount there on the right side bar? If it’s still there, take advantage of it! It’s a very good conference on this very topic!)  After last week’s struggles with Search Marketing, I was relieved that this module, while truly packed with a lot of information, was much more my speed and less confusing.

I know Rutgers offers another mini-MBA program that is solely on social media marketing, and I’m sure that I’d like that very much, but I think I’ll wait and see how this mini-MBA goes first. I’m not sure that I necessarily need the social media marketing mini-MBA, but Mr. Schaefer said he teaches in that one, and if this module was a broad summary of the larger course, then I think I’d be okay!

The next module is something that I think I’ll have a pretty decent understanding of as well…mobile marketing! Y’all know that I love my mobile tech comm and m-learning, so I have a feeling that many of the concepts that will be brought up in this module will be familiar to me or easy to understand as well. Until the next module…