Making sense of your PR distribution options (no registration or batteries required)

Traditional wire releases. Search-optimized releases. Social media releases. The simple task of sending out a press release is not so simple anymore.

If it ever really was so simple. Marketing and PR is hard work. We've said it many times before.

You can't just put dog poop in a box, strap fireworks to it and light the whole friggin' thing on fire and expect to generate long-term publicity, traffic and leads.

And now that there are many different press release distribution choices available online, making sense of your options is becoming increasingly difficult - new ones are emerging monthly and existing ones are adding features regularly.

Our latest article titled Making Sense of Your Press Release Distribution Options is now available for direct download. No registration or batteries required.

The article -- authored by Mark Willaman, our fearless founder of Fisher Vista LLC (creators of HRmarketer.com and SeniorCareMarketer.com) -- walks you through best practices in news distribution and goes into details on the following tips:

1. Email your release directly to your short-list of targeted journalists, including local media (media relations).
2. Email your release to your short-list of targeted bloggers (and, if applicable, industry analysts).
3. Send your release via an Internet wire service - like PRWeb or Business Wire.
4. Post the release to your own website's news page.
5. Spread the word about your news to your social media networks.
6. If you are publicly traded subject to fair disclosure regulations or believe your release has widespread and national news relevance (and you have the budget), send your release through a major traditional wire service.

Remember, you want to distribute your news releases to relevant bloggers, publishers, journalists and your buyers in order to build awareness of your news. You also want to get your release online so it can be indexed, found and shared.

To accomplish all this stuff, you need a well-organized and executed news marketing campaign consisting of a number of different tactics.

So get crackin' - roll up those sleeves and download the article.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now join HRmarketer on Twitter!)

Naughty or Nice? The right HR Tech helps make HR more relevant

So I'm reading Steve Boese's An HR Technology Wish List on this fine Black Friday morn (queue the cool Steely Dan song), nodding after each point including the ones about robots, going mobile and puppies, and I keep coming back to something Shafiq Lokhandwala, CEO of NuView Systems, Inc., said to me in one of my latest HR Market Share podcast interviews (will be live in a couple of weeks).

The right HR technology helps make HR more relevant.

It was something like that. At first I thought, well, there's going to be some grievances filed on that one, but the more I thought about it and its context, the more I agreed.

It's not that HR is no longer relevant - the HR Happy Hour and Fistful of Talent gang and Chief Global Member Engagement Office at SHRM China Gorman all agree this conversation is dead.

It's the fact that many small to mid-size organizations have yet to automate most if any HR processes and systems.

And with the right HR tech comes:

• The ability to more efficiently and effectively track people metrics (recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, retaining, etc.) and provide sound data on talent strategies and company growth
• The ability to save invaluable time and administrative staffing to focus on talent strategies and company growth
• The ability to integrate with other business units/departments to better share employee information and develop talent that contributes to company growth
• And so much more!

Hence helping make HR more relevant.

Naughty or nice? I'm going with very nice.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now join HRmarketer on Twitter!)

How is [insert marketing tactic] going to help generate sales?

We recently had an exchange with one of our clients that I found interesting and worthy of a blog post.

First, a little background. This client is a young yet well established business, they have very good management and excellent products. Their future is bright. We've been working with them for about a year with very good success. They hired the HRmarketer Services Group to help expand awareness of their brand and generate sales leads. Prior to this they had never really invested in marketing or PR.

The HRmarketer account executive recently reached out to the client (in this case, the CEO) wanting to schedule a particular marketing tactic. It is important to note that for this particular account we are paid a fixed retainer and it is up to the HRmarketer team to determine how the retainer is to be allocated - e.g., what tactics are to be delivered month-to-month. We are ultimately measured on how effective we are in generating sales leads so it is in our best interest to spend the money wisely.

The email reply from the CEO was brief and consisted of two questions:

How is this [insert marketing tactic] going to be used?

How is [insert marketing tactic] going to help generate sales?

My first thought was frustration -- we've been through this many times when proposing new tactics. But as I thought about his reply I quickly respected and understood his response. And I found it very interesting.

We responded outlining all the benefits and we will likely move forward with the tactic. But I continued to ponder the question "How is this proposed tactic going to help generate sales"?

Would this tactic likely have a direct and immediate impact on his company's sales?

No.

But what CEO would find this answer acceptable?

And herein lies the challenge that anyone in marketing and PR is intimately familiar with.

Like many disciplines that involve an element of creativity, marketing is both an art and a science. Good marketer's have a thorough understanding of numbers - from financial statements to campaign metrics - and know how to apply and interpret the information derived from this data. But good marketer's do not let the numbers alone drive decisions. This is the art.

Ever play the game Jenga? What's the value of one block? Not much but take away too many blocks and the structure collapses. Take two football teams with equal talent and a similar playbook and you often see one team that scores a lot of points and one that doesn't. Why? Many times it is because one team makes better use of their plays - their "marketing" mix.

Most HR vendors have access to the same marketing tactics - how they use these tactics is often what separates good marketer's from the pack.

So back to our client's question……

Would this tactic likely have a direct and immediate impact on sales?

Marketing does not work like this - it's more of a cumulative effect. That's why we recommend companies engage in a variety of marketing and PR tactics. This is what best-in-class companies do - from investing in SEO to producing regular "content", direct marketing, advertising, exhibiting, webcasts, media relations and 'social" marketing such as podcasts and blogging (and ideally, Twitter but we'll take it one step at a time).

It works.

It builds the brand, increases a company's visibility, web site traffic and sales leads - assuming they have a quality product and a competent sales organization.

But it takes time and it is not easy.

There are no "get leads quick" schemes that stand the test of time.

You must commit to a disciplined and well diversified "mix" of marketing and PR and be relentless in delivery - yes, even in slow economic times. As Gordon Moore once said, you can't save your way out of a downturn. Or, another favorite of mine: Who has the money to invest in a downturn? Those who invested in the last one.

These concepts can be difficult to accept for companies that do not have a "marketing" culture. It's outside their comfort level and they fall into a trap of questioning and trying to measure and assign an ROI to each individual tactic and cutting or not doing those tactics that don't have an immediate and/or easily recognizable benefit.

That is what a client told me years ago. He is a very bright CEO from a highly successful HR benefits firm. Prior to founding his HR business, he was a highly respected psychologist in Manhattan and admittedly did not know (or appreciate) marketing from Adam but was getting his lunch handed to him by a competitor who did. He changed his ways and his business flourishes today. Not a single decision is made without involvement of marketing - from operations to product development. And they are relentless in their marketing. He told me we helped bring a "marketing culture" to his business.

But after several decades in marketing and having worked with some of the best minds in marketing I still have difficulty responding to a CEO's question "will this tactic have a direct and immediate impact on sales"?

After all, I am a marketer, not a sales person :-)


Related blog post: Get a little messy AND measure stuff. Contradictions are the new marketing chic.

Human Capital Analyst Reports - how to get them read by more HR decision makers

I got really excited last week when one of our marketing/PR services team members (Adriana Saldaña) forwarded me the executive summary for the new Bersin & Associates talent acquisition study titled Talent Acquisition Systems 2010: Facts, Practical Analysis, Trends, and Provider Profiles.

I highly recommend you check it out just like I highly recommend you check out the HR tech reports from the human capital analysts at Gartner, IDC, Forrester, Bersin & Associates and Aberdeen.

When you can afford it, that is, other than being a paying member of the analyst firm.

The Bersin TA report is $995 for non-members. Not a shocker and pretty much in line with most analysts charge for their industry reports.

But I'm not buying it. Granted we're not an analyst firm by the traditional definition, although we've got a pretty good finger on the HR marketplace pulse and our marketing/PR services team has done a great job in analyst relations this past year on behalf of our HR supplier clients, we also do our own supplier/buyer research every year that's pretty solid.

So we've got that covered. Would I like to read the human capital analyst reports? Absolutely.

I'm sure the HR decision makers and influencers out there would like to as well, but most never do. Bill Kutik confirmed that earlier this year (and I agreed with everything he said in the article).

Smaller to mid-size firms don't have IT directors or CIO's (chief information officers) who historically have been the folks to buy these reports or be members of these analyst firms and get the reports as part of their service.

Member costs are huge annually depending on the level of service - $20K, $30K, $50K, etc. Keep in mind that I'm not saying the value of analyst membership isn't worth it for buying firms or the suppliers themselves. It's just a lot of frickin' money in an already flattening world of accessible information online.

The reports themselves can be invaluable to large organizations shopping for talent management, performance management or learning management software systems.

But why not expand on the Aberdeen model and allow supplier sponsors to subsidize the cost of the report and give it away to their prospects?

Really, why not? I don't have any stats on what kind of revenue these reports generate, but based on what I do know, membership is where the bank is. As it should be. There are a lot of very smart people who work for the analyst firms, especially the analysts, and their services have been invaluable for many enterprise-level customers in the HR marketplace.

That's why so many investment-funded HR software suppliers clamor to get in the reports and/or buy services from analysts.

We already get there's some conflict of interest in analyst firms when it comes to reviewing who the paying suppliers are and who the paying buyer firms are. It's inherent in the model. As Bill Kutik wrote in his analyst article, "I feel comfortable about their objectivity, and you should, too."

I do, because they're really smart people who know HR tech and software systems, but the value of the reports could reach so many more buyers and influencers in the HR marketplace if the reports were used in content marketing to generate publicity, traffic and leads:

• And either subsidized by sponsoring suppliers and given away - for an indefinite amount of time or until the next report.
• Or just given away by the analysts to reach a broader HR buying/influencing audience.

Wouldn't that in turn increase their annual services revenue and market share on both sides of the buyer and supplier food chain?

Nearly 6 million companies say so.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now join HRmarketer on Twitter!)

Human Resources weaves the safety net for victims of intimate partner violence in the workplace

There really weren't any resources for my mother in 1972. She volunteered and then worked as a secretary for the local school district where I grew up, and every time my birth father beat her, there was full clothing to cover the bruises, avoiding others stares and conversation, absenteeism when it was really bad, and more.

There were no domestic violence or workplace violence programs, no employee assistance programs offering counseling or shelter referrals, no assessment and action plans from human resources.

Don't ask, don't tell. The fear and shame that comes with abuse and intimate partner violence is overwhelming enough (intimate partner violence another name for domestic violence) - you don't want your employer to know for fear of losing your job. Employers don't want to know for fear of potential violence in the workplace.

For my mother and countless others it was faith and prayer and finally the personal strength to get out of the violence.

It still is, although today there are thankfully so many more resources available and more and more companies have workplace violence and/or intimate partner violence programs and/or EAPs.

HR can and should take the lead in providing these programs.

But consider these:

• A recent survey of CEOs found that most believe domestic violence to be a serious issue, yet 71% did not believe it is a problem in their company. (The reality is that approximately 21% of fulltime working adults report being a victim of domestic violence.)
• Over 70% of United States workplaces have no formal program or policy that addresses workplace violence.
• Of the approximately 30% that have formal workplace violence policies in place (usually binders on shelves gathering dust), only 13% have domestic violence in the workplace policies and only 4% provide training on domestic violence in the workplace (Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2006).

Only 4%. Seems like one helluva short trip from 1972.

And consider these EAP obstacles:

• The most common reason women didn't contact their EAP for intimate partner violence is that they didn't think about it or didn't think appropriate.
• Employee utilization of intimate partner violence EAP services is very low.
• The number one concern of battered women before contacting an EAP is confidentiality -- they’re afraid employee will find out.
• Most EAPs don't have standardized evaluations or codes for intimate partner violence.

But even considering there's much work to be done, human resources, security professionals, EAPs and workplace violence non-profits have all made huge strides in working together to address intimate partner violence and workplace violence.

One organization in particular - the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence - is the only national organization of its kind founded by business leaders and focused on the workplace. Check out some the companies that are members. I came in contact with this organization earlier this year and was fortunate enough to participate in a few of their S2 - Safer, Smarter Workplace webinars. I was also fortunate enough to interview its Executive Director, Kim Wells (that'll be the next HR Market Share podcast after Thanksgiving).

Amazing employer resources come from the CAEPV. Download Six Steps to Creating a Successful Workplace Program here. Also, great list of dos and don'ts here.

EAPs play a critical role as well. One of our clients - Corporate Counseling Associates - recently released a white paper titled Healthy Organizations Mitigate the Risk of Violence that includes several ways to reduce the threat of violence in the workplace:

• Communicate a zero tolerance policy & develop ongoing employee communications to reinforce the message.
• Set up company procedures for reporting incidents of violence.
• Create a Threat of Violence (TOV) Team, involving members of the following departments: Health Services, Human Resources, Security, EAP, Legal, Facilities Management, Corporate Affairs, and Public Relations.
• Establish organizational mechanisms to prevent violence.
• Constantly monitor and identify “weak spots” in management practices and/or development programs.
• Educate senior management on the warning signs and symptoms of violence-prone individuals, and the environmental pressures that can trigger incidents.
• Train the TOV team to ensure a disciplined execution of strategy.
• Learn how to de-escalate aggression and improve conflict management skills. Run crisis scenario simulations.

In fact, the latest S2 webinar was all about Addressing Domestic Violence in the Workplace: An EAP/Employer Partnership. (CCA wasn't a part of this webinar, however.)

We have come a long way from 1972. With all the organizations like CAEPV, CCA and many other EAPs, HR weaves the safety net for victims of intimate partner violence in the workplace.

More on this to come. We're organizing a roundtable virtual discussion on workplace violence for early in the new year.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now joinHRmarketer on Twitter!)

Book Review: Getting More From Your Training Programs

We are in the process of identifying and selecting some training programs for various departments at HRmarketer.com.

Research over several decades indicates that only between 10 to 20 percent of employees apply what they learn in training programs to achieve business results.

Ouch.

So when I saw this recent e-book announcement from HRmarketer.com member RealTime Performance on “Getting More From Your Investment in Training: The 5A’s Framework” I was interested.

I downloaded the first two chapters (this was their content offer - very nice).

The e-book, authored by Dr. Stephen J. Gill and RealTime Performance CEO Sean P. Murray, addresses the internal organizational roadblocks to effective learning and guides managers through a framework to help them get more business impact from their every dollar invested in training.

The "framework" outlined in the book, called the 5A's Framework, offers a description of the factors that lead to a learning culture and outlines steps to ensure that training investments will produce desired business results. The areas (5 "A"'s) include alignment, anticipation, application, alliance and accountability.

It's a pretty good read. Check it out.

Our Newest Blog - HRVendorNews.com. And Other Helpful Resources.

HRmarketer has launched a new blog called HR Vendor News. This replaces an older - and award winning - blog titled Breaking HR News.

The quick facts..........

Blog Name: HR Vendor News
Blog URL: www.HRvendorNews.com
Feed: http://www.hrvendornews.com/?feed=rss2
Description: Selected press releases from human resource vendors - updated daily.

Some other "news" sites, content sites and blogs from HRmarketer that HR vendors may be interested in include (all are free):

• HR Industry News: This weekly newsletter includes about 30-40 news stories relating mostly to HR vendor news. A great way to keep up with what is going on in the space. View archives here or subscribe to the newsletter here.
  

• News for HR: This newsletter gets distributed to over 80,000 opt-in HR decision makers. To submit your content for consideration please send to newsforhr [at] hrmarketer.com. Advertising is also available. The archives are online here.

• HR Buyers Guide: Our HR Buyers Guide, located in our HR Directory, includes detailed profiles for over 700 human resource vendors - and growing daily. If you do not have your profile, create one (its free). We'll be adding some very cool features to this buyers guide soon including the ability for HR decision makers to initiate RFPs and communicate with vendors online. Thousands of human resource professionals visit our Directory each month giving your company increased exposure to this important audience.

• White Papers +: Also located in our HR Directory is our White Papers + database where over 3,000 HR white papers, articles, case studies, podcasts, research, webcasts and more can be found. Once you have a Profile in our Buyers Guide, you can add content to your "Content Syndication" section on your profile so your company will be listed more often in our White Papers + database. You don't need to upload the content, just the URL of where it is on your web site which will improve your SEO. An example of how this can be used can be found at the Profiles for Buck Consultants and Accurate Background.

• HR Marketing and PR Downloads: As many of you know, HRmarketer produces lots of great white papers, articles, podcasts and other resources to help educate HR vendors on best practices in marketing to HR. All are free and all are located here.

Enjoy.

Get a little messy AND measure stuff. Contradictions are the new marketing chic.

So yesterday I'm driving to headquarters and on the way I stop to run a quick errand. I put my cheap sunglasses in my jacket pocket, and when I come back out, I put them back on.

And something's really odd. I feel like I'm going cross-eyed. I take the sunglasses off and on and yet still can't figure out why one side is darker than the other.

When I get to our office and take the sunglasses off one final time I see it - one of the lenses has popped out.

What a dork.

That's the way it is with measuring social media marketing though - organic transparency embattling a filtered lens.

It's a contradiction of sorts (and the segue a bit of a stretch, but work with me), and contradiction is the new marketing chic. I'm in marketing and understand you have to be able to measure the results of your tactics and your return, but:

Stop the methodical marketing madness and start a conversation. Get a little messy. It’s real and it works.

That's what I mean by adding social media marketing to your mix. I’m a big fan of the softer outcomes such as familiarity and trust and sharing our valuable content and that of other influencers, customers and prospects. The more familiarity and trust I build with my customers, prospects and influencers, the more valuable my company becomes to them.

Relationship building helps us grow our company. We hear it anecdotally again and again of late from our customers and agency clients.

However, I get the fact that in order to know if your social media efforts are helping your grow your company, you don’t want touchy-feely bunnies, unicorns and rainbows. (Remember, at some point you have to shut-up and sell.)

You want ROI measurement. With all your marketing activities.

Here's some good stuff from our social media marketing eBook. You want definitive returns from these and measurement should always be tied back to what your marketing objectives are in the first place. So while most marketers would agree that measuring return on social media marketing staffing and time investments can be difficult, these are the ultimate metrics we tout you should track throughout all your integrated marketing efforts, even in social media. They are:

• Publicity
• Traffic
• Leads
• Improved SEO

Publicity

Just as you measure how often your direct marketing and PR efforts are paying off for you online – how many times your emails are opened and clicked through via an email service provider, and how many search-optimized releases are being touched and read by whom and where as tracked by our Direct2Net distribution service (PR Web) – you can do the same for your social media marketing efforts.

There are specialized online services – Radian6, Viralheat and the latest HRmarketer membership tool -- the My Company News e-Clipping service -- that tracks your “company” and “brand” across the Web and social media (think of Google Alerts on steroids), providing analytics as to how many mentions you’re getting, what the mentions are, and where and who they’re coming from. I know there are many others now as well.

At the very least you can set up and monitor Google Alerts to see where you’re appearing online, and use a Twitter software tool like TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop to monitor how many mentions and retweets your “tweets” get over time. There’s also the Twitter search tool where you can search for your company mentions (don’t forget to use the hashtags!). You can also monitor how much conversation you spur in Facebook, LinkedIn, and the other professional networks you’re a part of.

Yes, no matter what tools you use, your time investment will increase, but it’s the only way to truly know what your visibility looks like in social media.

Traffic

All content marketing links should link back to one place – your Web site landing page where the eBook can be easily downloaded.

The majority of Web traffic is driven by the major search engines – Google, Yahoo! and MSN/Bing. If search engines cannot find your Web site, your prospects cannot find you – and this means lost business. In fact, HRmarketer.com research shows that HR decision makers turn to the Internet first when researching new HR products or services they wish to purchase. As a result, SEO and driving traffic should be a top priority for all companies – strategically and tactically. Simply stated, search engine traffic can make (or break) your organization’s success.

The more content marketing you do, the more inbound links you create online that will drive traffic to your Web site, your blog or wherever you want them to go. Whether you use Google Analytics, Webtrends or Site Meter, by using a Web analytics tool you’ll be able to track your traffic, including where it’s coming from. You can also set up specific landing page referral URLs in order to better track exactly where the “hits” are coming from per each campaign you send out – i.e., posted to Twitter specifically.

This is important because you’ll be able to track which content campaigns are driving more social media traffic to your site and where that traffic is coming from. You can then adjust your content strategy accordingly to continue to increase traffic to your Web site.

Leads

When it comes to all B2B marketing in the HR marketplace, it's important to differentiate two things:

• Content marketing to cold prospects (prospecting)
• Content and product/service marketing for warming leads (lead nurturing)

We’ve managed hundreds of marketing campaigns for clients big and small, and if there's one thing that never changes, it's this question:

How many leads can we expect?

Let's get one thing clear – just because someone downloads your white paper, research report, signs up for your Webcast, etc., that doesn't mean she's a lead. For that matter, developing a relationship with someone in LinkedIn doesn’t mean he’s a lead either.

Content marketing warms prospects up to you and your products/services more than a demo or other pure-play marketing campaigns.

Marketing and PR is hard work. You must continually include your "prospects" in your content marketing campaigns – but at some point your sales teams will need to introduce your products and services and ask them for the sales dance.

This scenario plays out again and again with companies, and even I get excited about new prospects from our own HRmarketer downloads, whether we require registration or not. But they still aren’t warm leads.

Social media marketing with quality content builds confidence and trust with your prospects and grows your credibility, but the point at which they become a true lead is when they're willing to have a product/service conversation with you based on their organization's needs.

Improved SEO

The more publicity, traffic, and relevant inbound links you generate with all your marketing efforts, the more you’re going to improve your search engine rankings over time.

Besides generating regular content for your Web site and blog, links to your Web site from other Web sites are probably the single most important component to effective long-term SEO (it’s a good indication of your Web site’s popularity).

Ideally, these links should use variations of the primary keyword phrases from your Web site – specifically, from the page the link points to. This is the only component to SEO that you have less than 100% control over and you can waste a lot of time attempting link exchanges that achieve marginal results – or are short-lived.

Per our SEO Center tips (our SEO Center is a tool that tracks your search engine rankings across the major search engines for HRmarketer members), the following must be a part of your ongoing marketing and PR:

• Creating quality, unique content that will be of interest to your visitors and that will add value to your site (e.g., white papers, articles, research, etc.). Search engines love Web sites that get updated frequently with content that supports your keywords. The more content-rich your site, the more valuable it will appear to the search engines (and human visitors, such as other webmasters who will be more inclined to link to your website). Creating good content can be very time-consuming, but it will be well worth the effort in the long run.
• Sending one or two “search optimized” press releases per month. These are releases that contain relevant keyword links back to your web site. You can use HRmarketer.com’s Direct2Net feature to send these.
• Participating in social media marketing, which is what this whole eBook is about.

And then there's this - 100 Ways to Measure Social Media.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now joinHRmarketer on Twitter!)

Shut-up and sell me stuff. (Do you ROC'M?)

At some point it's like that isn't it?

In the past six months alone I've come across some very smart folks whose voices ring out in social media and the HR marketplace - entrepreneurs and rock stars who have a lot of valuable things to say.

And there are those stalwarts, the embattled thought-leader legends who have been through the boom-bust cycle more than once and also have a lot to say.

Content is the new currency of all best-practice marketing, trust is that of social media. Most of us won't argue these. We don't control destiny outright, but we do control our transparency and trust generation and the content's initial distribution, with social media being the newest method of many. (Don't forget there is a fundamental difference between lead generation and lead nurturing.)

There's been this New Age buzz and face-to-face burn with social media and content marketing that has enveloped many in a unicorn-driven touchy-feely bed of rose petals and loving forest animals where we all square dance and have ice cream socials.

{raise hand} Guilty as charged.

Nick Fishman, the CMO/EVP from EmployeeScreenIQ, asked the right question a few months ago - "I get content marketing and social media, but at what point do you start selling?"

Shut-up and sell me stuff. You may not have ever had a prospect tell you that literally, but at some point you have to just sell.

Or you die. HR suppliers and consultants are in business to do business and that means you have to generate revenue at some point. You can't be fearful on cranking up the heavy metal marketing and actually selling your products and services.

And if your prospects read your business blog, follow your company on Twitter and Facebook, read your white papers and articles, attend your webcasts and listen to your podcasts - some will knock on the door for a demo and maybe buy, but most will just keep consuming your content until you ask them to buy.

Shut-up and sell them stuff. Because your competitors are.

You can even use your blog to occasionally drop the pure-play:

HRmarketer helps companies grow their business by offering a variety of marketing products, services and support that generate more visibility, traffic, leads and improved SEO.

Do you ROC'M?

So what about your return on marketing? Do you ROC'M - measure your Return On Content Marketing? Can you measure all this social media content marketing schtick to understand if your efforts are paying off into sales?

The big kids on the block - Chris Brogan, Mashable and Copyblogger - all have great tips and resources on measuring your social media marketing efforts.

But remember, social media marketing should be part of an overall integrated marketing strategy that includes:

Step One: Strategy, Messaging and the Search-Optimized “Marketing” Web site

Before engaging in any marketing, you need to have a strategy – a long-term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal and the messaging to drive that strategy. Then you need a Web site with a strong online presence that is search-optimized to improve the volume and quality of traffic to a Web site from search engines via natural (“organic”) search results.

Step Two: Content. Content. Content.

How many times do we have to say it - a primary goal of your Web site is to convert visitors into prospects (then nurture them into true leads). But without site traffic, you have no prospects. And without great content, in addition to SEO, you have no site traffic, only goose eggs.

Step Three: Promotion.

Okay, now you have a winning strategy, powerful messaging, and a great Web site that is search-optimized. And you have lots of great content and processes in place to generate fresh content on a regular basis. Now you’re ready to promote and distribute that content to generate visibility, traffic and leads.

Promotional tactics being everything from:

• Direct email and print marketing
• Search-optimized press releases
• Media relations and pitching
• Analyst briefings
• Partnerships
• Download campaigns (articles, white papers and research reports)
• Blogging
• Podcasts
• Webcasts
• Trade shows
• Speaking

And now we've got social media marketing - the sharing of relevant content and the building of trust and relationships with very specific prospect and influencer groups.

I’m a big fan of the softer outcomes of social media and content marketing such as familiarity and trust and sharing our valuable content and that of other influencers, customers and prospects. The more familiarity and trust I build with my customers, prospects and influencers, the more valuable my company becomes to them.

But just like we need to sell stuff we also want ROC'M measurement.

We want definitive returns from their activities and measurement should always be tied back to what our marketing objectives are in the first place. So while most marketers would agree that measuring return on social media marketing staffing and time investments can be difficult, these are the ultimate metrics we tout you should track throughout all your marketing efforts, even in social media. They are:

• Publicity
• Traffic
• Leads
• Improved SEO

Yikes, this post has gotten long enough, and since I see your eyes glazing over, I'll follow up with more details on measurement in another post.

Or if you haven't done so, download our eBook Social Media Marketing in the HR Marketplace. Look for our Webinar about all this stuff coming soon as well.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now joinHRmarketer on Twitter!)

The Latest HR Market Share Podcast: Interview with Beth N. Carvin, CEO of Nobscot Corporation

The HR Market Share podcast is back and ready for your listening pleasure below.

Subscribe to the series in iTunes and look for regular posts to our blog and on the HRmarketer.com site. You can also subscribe to all our past interviews and episodes via Hipcast.

Our latest podcast features an interview with Beth N. Carvin, CEO of Nobscot Corporation, a global technology firm that focuses on key areas of employee retention and development. WebExit, Nobscot's Exit Interview Management System, provides an efficient method to identify the specific issues and irritations that are causing employee turnover in your organization.

During the interview, Carvin dispels the idea that exit interviews cannot

accurately measure the factors of employee turnover.

“Some critics will say that people aren’t honest in exit interviews,” said Carvin. “However, who has more to lose? A current employee who will continue to work for an organization, or someone who is more than half-way out the door?”

In recent surveys by Nobscot, Carvin found that 53 percent of respondents indicated they would be very likely to be honest in an exit interview. In comparison, only 22 percent of respondents indicated they would be very likely to be honest in an employee survey.

There's more where than came from. Good stuff from Beth Carvin!

Thank you and enjoy!

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Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now join HRmarketer on Twitter!)

Over 200K jobs cut in October. We're making it job net 1 for November.

We're screening applicants for a new position at our firm and I'll tell you first hand, there are a lot of bright folks out there out of work - and we're only hiring one of them. In Santa Cruz County alone the unemployment rate is over 10%, the state of California is over 12% and the nation is over 10%.

And now our county is unsure how the $100 million in federal stimulus money has helped in job creation. 64 jobs maybe?

Jobless recovery, schmobless recovery. It's frickin' crappy out here, there and everywhere. Over 200K jobs were cut in October. Venture capital stinks. There's failure everywhere.

Regardless of where you fall on the political and economic spectrum, no one is going to dance on the ceiling this holiday season and beyond until people get back to work.

Anecdotally, 1 in 3 people I spoke with at the past three events we've been to - HR Tech,HR Southwest, Onrec Expo - were "in transition" - i.e., out of work.

This included many HR, recruitment and marketing/sales people. This doesn't bode well for the HR marketplace and most of those positions probably aren't coming back.

It's like we need a Marshall Plan for the global economy. Really.

While the global mind-meld attempts on willing things back into shape, I just want to give a nod to those of you in the HR space giving back and helping in any way you can.

JobAngels helping folks one job at a time. HireVetsFirst helping the men and women who serve our country find work. The No Worker Left Behind program in Michigan. Knowledge Infusion with their KI Volunteers Toys for Tots fundraiser. The HRmarketer clan and all the volunteering they do in their local communities including our own Santa Cruz County.

I'm sure there are more of you out there and I'd love to hear from you and what your "joy stimulus" package is this holiday season and the new year.

We're making it job net 1 for November.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now join HRmarketer on Twitter!)

The lead generation tower is best built with content and conversation in context

There were mixed reviews about some of the sessions last week at Onrec/Kennedy. Too much supplier demo selling and not enough best practices content for the audience.

I didn't sit in on all of the sessions, so I can only comment on the ones I did see. Most were on the money with valuable content and minimal selling. Only one started off strong and then went straight to the heart of demo selling, and the uncomfortable chair shifting and sighs were audible.

Not too bad, though. The recruiter audience is more hip to marketing and selling compared to their HR counterparts. Savvy recruiters get the pitch, the schmooze, the woo, the close.

But too many marketers and recruiters don't get content marketing - the building blocks of relationship marketing and sales. Instead, they go straight to the sell schlock and scare the prospect away.

Even on the Onrec expo floor suppliers like Tweetajob, Bond Talent, Simply Hired, Arbita and CollegeRecruiter.com used content to spark conversation (I know there were others as well - please don't throw rocks). The heart of our HRVendors.com business is the HR vendor phonebook - i.e., consumable and reusable content.

Peter Weddle's "Interruption Marketing" session last week was a fascinating content marketing parable. At first glance, it was counter-intuitive to hear this kind of outreach "interruption" because we've all been taking so much about starting conversations via social media and quality content.

But there is an interruption element, particularly in recruiting and direct marketing. No doubt about it. You've got to get their attention before you can have a conversation.

Peter talked about how "traditional recruitment marketing isn't working anymore" - same can be said for product/service marketing. You have to have a strategy to be "politely impolite" to capture the attention of your buyers.

We know that we only have very small windows to capture a lead's attention. To illustrate this point, Peter referenced Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink and the fact that some of our best decisions are made in 20 seconds (rapid cognition).

20 seconds. Damn.

Here are three things to consider with direct "interruption" content marketing:

Content. Of course we start with this. We can all agree that content marketing includes white papers, webcasts, podcasts, articles, tip sheets, videos, etc. You want whole-brain content marketing messages that quickly engage and entice and motivate intellectually as well as emotionally - i.e., I want to know more.

Placement. What's the context of your marketing content? Are you targeting the right audience with the right content? Remember, your long-term marketing efforts are not one size fits all. Cold marketing may start out that way, but how you use other activities like social media to spark conversation with content definitely needs to be tailored to the audience.

Structure. Are you optimizing for your buyers' experience? Is it easy to download your content? Can they easily submit feedback? Can they easily have a conversation with you if they want to know more? Ensure that your landing pages include clear call-to-actions for what you want them to do and why the content is valuable to their organizations.

Regardless of what size you are or what stage of the business you're in, the lead generation tower is best built with content and conversation in context.

And a little interruption to get their attention (wink).

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now joinHRmarketer on Twitter!)

Brilliant? Brazen? Unbelievable? How far is too far when trying to sell?

Kevin Grossman and I just attended a very intimate Onrec Expo this week in Chicago from November 2-4, and though the numbers were small, the conversations seemed to be valuable. (Isn’t that we have been saying about the last number of industry conferences that we have attended lately – SHRM and HR Tech?)

I always find it very interesting to watch how the booth staff get the attention of the delegates – or essentially get their attention to sell. Gimmicks, giveaways, entertainment in the booth, well dressed or seriously bizarrely dressed staff – so many ways, but then it is the sale.

When is it too far? I mean, it is expected that when you are walking an expo floor of any conference that you are going to get “sold” to.

BUT what about during the educational sessions? Aren’t they supposed to be informative and learning experiences?

When the CEO, Business Development person or VP of Sales is speaking, with no client to support the session, there is always a chance that it is going to be a HUGE sales job. A chance – is what I said. I am not accusing all session speakers in that position to be SALES PITCHES, but some blatantly are – and you know who you are!!! Or do you???

What about when the attendees are in their second day of walking the expo, networking with colleagues, going in and out of sessions and then are sitting in a lounge area, comfy couches, feet up, just chatting about anything BUT the conference to bring some sanity to their exhausted brains.

Is that the time to be approached by yet another vendor trying to sell their wares? Is that overstepping the boundary of respect?

That’s what I saw. It was not a long conversation, but a vendor (who was not exhibiting but just “walking the floor”) was obviously catching these delegates anywhere and doing their “thang”.

Quick conversation, “I think I can really help you” and handing out their card. Gone.

Brilliant? Resourceful? Brazen? Unscrupulous? Unbelievable? Workin’ it good?

I can accept having a conversation – ‘how about the weather’ ‘what do you think of (insert you favorite sports team here) ‘ - and if it is appropriate, then exchanging the “so what do you do”.

Build relationships and woo.

But hunting these vulnerable delegates out and BAM POW with a bunch of sugar smack selling!!! I don't think so.

What do you think? Seriously, what do you think?

Well, I did approach these three lovely ladies that had just had their space entered, and NO I DID NOT SELL THEM ANYTHING – I asked them how they felt about what just happened. Interesting answer.

Maybe we should issue those sales people with little black masks and capes so that they can fly in – BAM POW SUGAR SMACK – do their thang – and be gone.

We can see them coming and duck.

Post by Rita Jackson (join HRmarketer on Twitter!)

7th Annual What’s Next Boomer Business Summit Announced

HRmarketer.com and it's sister product for the Boomer/senior caregiving marketplace SeniorCareMarketer.com will be attending, sponsoring, exhibiting and speaking at the 7th Annual What’s Next Boomer Business Summit.

Learn more about this event and register here.

Why am I posting this on a human resources blog?

Because you cannot discuss the aging population without discussing it's impact on the workplace. And because some HR vendors (and HR professionals) who read this blog will want to attend this event.

I discussed this relationship in a previous blog post titled Baby Boomers, The Aging Population and Human Resources.

In that post I wrote that I'm already seeing some senior care vendors enter the HR space by repackaging and introducing their B2C products/services to employers as elder care type benefits. One of these companies is Heartmath. There is also a new product category -- Brain Fitness and Cognitive software firms like Happy Neuron showing up in human resources shopping lists (training product for aging workers). And I am seeing forward thinking HR vendors enter the B2C space by repackaging their services for aging boomers and/or caregivers. Or putting a new twist on their corporate offerings to capitalize on this demographic change - including some talent management and T&D firms.

In another post Seniors Fuel Increase in Career-Site Visitors. The Bigger Picture we discussed the aging population's impact on employers. In particular, how every company will have to rethink recruitment and retention.

So check out the What’s Next Boomer Business Summit. Some of the speakers include:

• Kevin Donnellan, Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, AARP
• Mark Graham, Senior Vice President, iVillage.com
• Dr. Stan Humphries, Chief Economist, Zillow.com
• Andy Cohen, Founder and CEO, Caring.com
• Jody Holtzman, Senior Vice President, Research and Strategic Analysis, AARP
• Gary Moulton, Aging Coordinator/Product Manager, Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group
• Bud Myers, Senior Director of Merchandising, firstSTREET

Social media fuels the face-to-face fire. Feel the burn.

If you could have 5 leads or 500, which would you choose?

Duh, right?

Now, what if you could have 5 qualified prospects versus 500 cold unqualified leads, which would you choose?

Or for that matter, 5 qualified influencers in your court versus 500 cold leads?

Rita Jackson and I spent that last two days at the Onrec/Kennedy Expo, and if I've gotten anything through my thick skull this year, relationship building is the sum total of all marketing and sales growth. Not sourcing applicants from a job board or sending an email campaign to thousands of people. Part of the equation but not the sum total.

Social media fuels the face-to-face fire. Feel the burn.

That burn is growth. The relationships we take the time to build online via social media (marketing) foster real-time gatherings in coffee shops, on golf courses, at HR Happy Hours, at Fail Spectacularly's, at dinners, at conferences and expos, in airports, in trains stations, at bus stops - you name the physical and we're there.

Think about what that does to drive business across the local and global economies. Interesting related related research that @danschawbel tweeted about this about how social media encourages community interaction, not social isolation.

Get out and build. Onrec was the perfect intimate setting to do that. We exhibited as HRVendors.com and had many quality conversations with recruiters and suppliers.

I'll highlight my highlights in below, but first:

Social media fuels the face-to-face fire. Feel the burn.

So many parallels between recruiting, marketing and sales. Get out and build and woo.

Yes, I said woo.

During Don Ramer's fabulous presentation based on Arbita's The Recruitment Genome Project, he said that the word recruit comes from the French word for "to woo".

And besides saying woo, I also tweeted that Don was rad, something I haven't said for two decades.

Get out and build and woo. Eric Winegardner (@ewmonster) from Monster sought out specific influencers at the show to talk about the cool new things Monster is doing (more on that in a future post).

The bees knees of the Expo was the launch of Tweetajob. Carmen Hudson's (@peopleshark) leverage of social media and networking really shined a light on this cool new company (more on that in a future post as well).

The world of marketing and recruiting has changed dramatically, but most of us haven't changed with it. The kids who grew up "connected" online are turning the tables on everything under the sun and so many marketers and recruiters still don't get it.

Afraid to connect. Afraid to get out and build and woo.

Social media fuels the face-to-face fire. Feel the burn.

Here are some other highlights and comments as I tweeted them during the sessions I sat in on:

• Steve Lowisz from Qualigence says stop the recruiting insanity. Challenges remain the same, even though tools have changed.
• Recruiting is about people. Recruitment mediums are only enablers.
• HR/recruiting suppliers make your email marketing campaigns mobile friendly with readable text versions.
• In 2008 over 90K employment discrimination complaints, 290 lawsuits and $102 mil paid out from employers. Average pay out- $250K (from InterviewStudio's Colleen Alyward).
• Sitting in the applicant video session. Social media to source, but don't be a hater discriminater when hiring.
• Positive "interruption marketing" strategies in recruitng parallel content marketing in product/service sales (via Peter Weddle's presentation)
• Recruitment entering the era of the strategist and the specialist.
• "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Proverbs 29:18 (via rad Don Ramer)
• Arbita's Genome Project - the recruitment industry transition is upon us. "None of us is more important than all of us."
• We rely on next best "silver bullet" instead of leveraging it in HR, recruiting, marketing. Add a werewolf to your gun rack.

Get out, build and woo your prospects and influencers. Get to them and let them get to know you.

These are the relationships that create community, grow business and retain it. (Just like recruiting.)

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now joinHRmarketer on Twitter!)

Is seniority dead to us? All I know is that I'm an average Joe. (Onrec/Kennedy 2009 and Fail Spectacularly)

So I'm sitting in a chair in the sky on Wi-Fi (can't get enough of that line) thinking about the conversation I overheard just two hours earlier on the long-term parking shuttle bus.

The bus driver was conversing with another airport transportation employee about being employed. She said something that struck me.

"My daughter works at Safeway and my son-in-law works for the fire department, and I keep telling them they need to stick to one job, work there a long time and build up that seniority. That's where the pay-off comes."

Seniority. Such an old-school term of entitlement and the old rules of employment. Granted, her context could've been more inclusive of building knowledge and experience, encompassing literal seniority as a well-rounded workforce to be reckoned with.

And you do hear that term in public safety (I had an entire family in law enforcement), retail, manufacturing, hospitality - goodness I heard it at our own marketing firm earlier this year.

So with all the focus these days on knowledge workers, competencies, performance management, employee and leadership development, flat management structures, mentoring programs, cross-functional training -- is "seniority" dead to us?

Even with the full moon early this morning, I don't think so.

I'm on my way to this year's Onrec/Kennedy Expo and look forward to meeting more of the "senior" HR/recruiting rock stars and talking with the attendees about all things recruitment, hiring, retention and seniority. (I'm just an average junior Joe who likes wearing jeans.)

Check out the fabulous line-up of topics the show has in store.

We're exhibiting as HRVendors.com (booth #101), the most comprehensive print buyers guide in the HR marketplace. We're also in HR.com's Virtual Onrec Expo.

We're also sponsoring the fantabulous Fail Spectacularly on Wednesday, November 4!

We'll see you all real soon.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now joinHRmarketer on Twitter!)