Articles Written by the Edge Marketing Team


by Tanya Amyote

Allyship 101

“The Guide to Allyship”, created by Amélie Lamont, is a starter guide to becoming a more thoughtful and effective ally. In it, they share:

“Anyone has the potential to be an ally. Allies recognize that though they’re not a member of the underinvested and oppressed communities they support, they make a concerted effort to better understand the struggle, every single day.

Because an ally might have more privilege and recognizes said privilege, they are powerful voices alongside oppressed ones.”

Now, before you object to being accused of having privilege, let’s clarify exactly what that means.

Privilege, in this context, does not mean financial wealth. Privilege, in this context, does not mean that your life has been without conflict, difficulty, or trauma. Privilege, in this context, means that the conflicts, difficulties, and/or traumas in your life have not been caused or exacerbated by your race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or ability differences.

As a white, cisgender female, my inherent privilege is undeniable; as an ally, it is my responsibility to leverage that privilege, and serve as a voice of support, ensuring that members of underrepresented communities are heard, included, validated, and engaged.

The Edge team recently committed to an inspiring and enlightening Diversity & Inclusion training program and partnership with Poh Lin Khoo of Khoo Consulting, a woman-owned, small business based in Minnesota. Poh Lin and her team, through their tailored curriculum, help companies to grow crucial expertise in creating an inclusive work culture, enabling all employees to bring their authentic selves to the workplace. This insight and education can then be carried forward to clients, through the development of relevant marketing messages, reflecting and resonating with diverse and global audiences.

Our team was deeply moved by Poh Lin’s personal history as a survivor of the racial riots in Malaysia on May 13th, 1969, and her drive to “shape (her) own destiny”.

From our first session with Poh Lin, two other key takeaways have continued to stick with me:

  • The danger of a single story; and
  • Equality versus equity versus justice.


The Danger of a Single Story

In her renowned TED Talk, Nigerian-born author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks about her experience of moving to the United States to go to university. Adichie came from a middle-class family; her father was a professor, her mother was an administrator, they had live-in domestic help, and English is the official language of Nigeria.

Upon Adichie’s arrival at university, her American roommate was shocked that she spoke English so well; that she knew how to use a stove; that she listened to Mariah Carey as opposed to “tribal music”.

Before they had even met, the roommate’s biases, conscious or not, had led her to make assumptions about Adichie, based on a single, incomplete story: Her country of origin. Well-meaning though the roommate surely was, this myopic framing of Adichie as the poor, African girl, precluded any possibility of the roommates connecting as equals.

By mistakenly imagining Adichie through one singular lens, as opposed to seeing her as a woman with a multi-faceted identity formed by a lifetime of experiences, the roommate sees an incomplete portrait in which the single story is the only story.

Although they came from vastly different corners of the world, a simple change in perspective could have veered the roommate toward the realization of their intersecting identities: They were both women, students new to adulthood, both Mariah Carey fans, both daughters of teachers, and on and on.

In the words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.”


Equality versus equity versus justice

In this November 2020 piece by George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, equity and justice are outlined as, “Equity is a solution for addressing imbalanced social systems. Justice can take equity one step further by fixing the systems in a way that leads to long-term, sustainable, equitable access for generations to come.”

In the Equality image on the left, the available resources (the crates) are allocated equally amongst the three people watching the soccer game. Equality does not account for varying levels of need; the same resources are divided evenly, regardless of any other factors.

In the Equity image, the resources are allocated such that each person receives the support they need in order to level the proverbial playing field.

Lastly, in the case of justice, the root cause of the inequity is addressed: The inherent issue (the systemic barrier) is the fence. By changing the fence, no supports or accommodations are required to enable all three people of varying positions to be included.

To revisit Lamont’s “The Guide to Allyship”, the author shares important Dos and Don’ts of true allyship. This piece is invaluable to those of us who are learning to have an awareness of our implicit biases, and are using privilege to amplify suppressed voices.

As allies, it is our responsibility to take it upon ourselves to use the tools around us to listen, learn, lift, and support.

About the Author

Tanya Amyote joined the Edge team in 2016, as marketing assistant, Excel guru, and token Canadian.

When not solving the world’s pivot table problems, Tanya is an avid reader, fountain pen user, and outspoken advocate for awareness of Osteogenesis Imperfecta (brittle bone disease). On May 6th, Wishbone Day, we’ll be wearing yellow to raise awareness of the varied, full, and meaningful lives of people with O.I., including Tanya and her 9-year-old son, James.

/by

by Megan Miller

Go to the Next Level with a Fractional CMO

Chief marketing officer – for many the term conjures up an image of a P&G-trained marketing executive found only in a Fortune 100 boardroom. But today’s technology-driven, fast-innovating startups and small to medium-size businesses have the same – or even greater – needs for strategic marketing talent.

Startups, SMBs and more mature midsize businesses seeking growth can all benefit from the insights of a fractional – part-time or temporary – strategic CMO. When budgets or resources are limited, a fractional CMO can help set your organization on a path to success by actively working with the executive team to clarify strategy, market targets and messaging and building a marketing organization that can execute on the strategic plan.

For many companies, marketing is one of seven hats worn by a founder or CEO who has little time or marketing knowledge. Marketing messaging and strategy inevitably take a back seat to development and financial management tasks. Or it may be relegated to a junior marketing manager instructed to develop leads by managing email or social media campaigns. If you are lucky enough to be in a rapidly growing segment or have a unique solution to an acknowledged business challenge, that approach can carry you for a while, but a junior marketing manager often will not have the industry or technology depth needed to build market leadership.

If you are a founder or CEO of a product or services company in the professional services space, you know you are in an environment undergoing rapid change. Treading water is not enough. The growth potential is there, but how can you best tap it, and quickly?

It’s not enough to have strong technology, patents or even a few keystone customer wins. Can you clearly articulate your company’s unique value proposition? Do you have a plan to make it go viral in the industry? How can you turn those early wins into a consistent stream of profitable business? Who are the influencers that can carry your message to the market?

A CMO can help you answer all these critical questions, particularly at important turning points in company growth such as:

  • A launch of the business or of a major product offering
  • Rebranding the company to position for future growth
  • Disrupting a traditional market with a nontraditional solution
  • A change in focus to a new segment or vertical market
  • A key merger or acquisition
  • A geographic expansion or sales team expansion to capture market share
  • Last but not least, struggling to find your voice and value proposition in a crowded market

A fractional CMO is an executive role – helping you define strategy and communicate it consistently.

Every business can benefit from the strategic insights of a CMO. A fractional CMO can be a bridge from the current reality to a more productive future. The fractional CMO works closely with founders, CEOs and the executive staff to elevate the marketing effort. In a fractional CMO engagement, Edge marketing executives will typically:

  • Put your current business strategy in a holistic context, based on depth of experience in the legal or accounting segments, players and trends.
  • Quickly build knowledge of your business, road map, channel strategy and partnerships and make suggestions for improvements or new opportunities.
  • Inform the executive team on market trends, analyst viewpoints and the competitive landscape.
  • Size the market and build a marketing plan to address the opportunity.
  • Prioritize marketing efforts, whether for new website content, events and sponsorships, social media or digital advertising.
  • Assess the strength of existing marketing resources in your organization and recommend actions to build out the marketing organization, with the addition of talent or a technology stack.

The greatest challenge most companies face is not a dearth of new ideas, but rather the desire to do everything at once. A strategic CMO can help your organization identify the most advantageous and profitable opportunities at hand and assist you in telling a clear and compelling story about the value you bring to customers and clients. The CMO then sets a tactical plan to keep the focus on your value proposition and bring your story to the marketplace. The fractional CMO will develop a well-oiled marketing and communications machine that can stand the test of time.

/by

Ahhh, pie. Who doesn’t love a slice of pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving dinner? If it is good pie, just a slice will make you feel like you had a taste of the whole pie, without the burden of all those calories.

For so many small- and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), hiring a full-time head of marketing or chief marketing officer (CMO) is like eating the whole pie, not just a slice. It is unappealing and simply out of reach.

The average salary of a CMO in the United States in 2020 was $244,930 per year according to salary.com. Figure in additional compensation in the form of health care benefits, PTO, 401K contributions, bonuses, equity and the rest, and total compensation averaged $397,473 last year.

After taking the option of a CMO off the table, many SMBs experiment with hiring a junior-level marketing staffer, only to be disappointed with their limited expertise, industry contacts, and pool of resources. These staffers rarely have the experience or vision to provide strategy and results. Hiring a junior marketing coordinator or manager usually means the CEO or owner will spend more time on marketing than in the past – hours that could be spent making major corporate decisions, managing overall operations and resources, and ensuring the company is implementing its vision, mission, and achieving goals.

Enter the fractional CMO. A fractional CMO is like getting a slice of pie. A fractional CMO comes from an outside company that provides resources such as public relations, graphic design, web development, copywriting, marketing automation, and so much more. The fractional CMO has many years of experience and can build strategies to help your company attain its sales goals.

Fractional CMOs can be available to you on-demand when a specific project requires marketing advice and help, or on a longer-term basis if ongoing market awareness and lead development are needed. With a fractional CMO, you will gain the knowledge and know-how of a full-time employee, but without the associated salary and compensation. Fractional CMOs can work within your scope and budget.

I have provided Edge Marketing clients with services similar to those of a fractional CMO for years. One company brought us on at first to generate marketing awareness and sales leads. We did so through public relations, industry events, and email marketing. A few years later, it shifted goals to position the company for sale. With increased market share generated from our years of work leading up to this point, Edge Marketing refocused to help rapidly increase sales. The company proved to be a desirable acquisition. For another client, Edge Marketing was brought on in the months leading up to the company’s launch and stayed on for several months after while the company’s sales grew, and staff were added. Eventually, the company was large enough to justify hiring a full-time CMO.

The bottom line is that fractional marketing services make sense for SMBs. Go ahead and grab a slice of the marketing pie!

About the Author

Cindy Kremer Moen has helped Edge Marketing clients with strategies and tactics consistent with fractional CMO services since 2006. She and her husband have two college-age children and are anticipating the return of DII football and travel without quarantines.

/by Cindy Kremer Moen

Even while some organizations thrived by helping others pivot to remote work, or found new opportunities that proved quite lucrative amid the ongoing pandemic, collectively most of us are saying “good riddance” to 2020.

As we anxiously put this year in the past, there certainly are some lessons and a few new perspectives to take with us as we continue forward. Many of us have found gratitude for the simple things in life, more patience and tolerance and, for parents of school-aged children, there is a renewed appreciation for teachers.

Marketers and business leaders are also taking this opportunity to reassess their operations, including a review of how to reach their various target audiences and with what messages. For most, the best place to start is by revisiting their overriding business goals and how their marketing or PR objectives aim to support those. Reaffirming what it is we are trying to achieve is a critical first step in determining the best strategies and activities to pursue and the only way to effectively calculate ROI.

Now more than ever, we are all required to take a fresh look at what really brings value to our organizations and to redefine success. In-person events, for example, whether for one-to-one sales activities or broader marketing initiatives, have been replaced by virtual meetings and conferences. So how do we measure the value or the success of those events? As with in-person events and all marketing strategies and activities, success depends on what you were trying to achieve in the first place.

Industry associations and other event organizers are working hard to reimagine conferences and sponsorships; however, the vendors on whom they rely to absorb much of the cost of hosting those events may not be as quick to jump on board as they would hope. Many providers are rethinking their strategies to see past what they have always done and to hone in on what they should be doing today to achieve their current objectives – which may include expanding media coverage, basic brand-building, generating leads, promoting thought leadership, other objectives or any combination of these. As such, measuring success is different for every vendor, depending on what they are trying to accomplish.

With respect to 2020 virtual events, yes, many left much to be desired; but, if we’re being honest, the lack of vendor-attendee engagement at most of them is not exactly new. Even at in-person events, many attendees only visit exhibit halls to collect their tchotchkes, play with puppies, fill out their vendor bingo card, register to win bigger prizes or maybe because that’s where they have to go for lunch or snacks. If you are in the camp who thinks it all feels very forced, you’re not alone.

Sure, there are vendors doing some clever promotions around a new product launch, for example, to drive booth traffic. Those few are the ones that understand they’ll get out of it what they put into it and are already finding creative new ways to connect with their targets in the absence of in-person events – but they are usually the minority. Many vendors seem to think if they write a big check to be a sponsor that results just magically happen, and they will always be at least somewhat disappointed with the results – and at a competitive disadvantage.

Is there room for improvement with virtual events? Probably. But is there a one-size-fits-all solution? Probably not. And that isn’t a bad thing. The current circumstances are prompting more companies to reset their expectations and revisit what they’ve always done, shifting focus to what they should be doing based on their current goals and objectives.

About the Author

As a senior consultant and account manager, Jennifer Marsnik helps Edge clients develop and implement strategic PR and marketing plans that support their overall business goals. An avid sports fan, she lives in the Twin Cities area where in pre-pandemic times she enjoyed regularly attending Twins baseball and UofM Gopher football games with her family throughout the summer and fall seasons. This year she’s been playing more golf and will continue cheering on her teams from the comfort of her sofa. Skol, Vikings!

/by Jennifer Marsnik

Oftentimes when people think of branding, they think of a company logo. But branding is so much more than that. Yes, a company logo is part of the overall branding, and in fact, it’s a very important part, but it’s not all that you need to think about. The brand of your company becomes the identity of the company. Your brand identity needs to be unique, show who you are, speaking to your audience while making you stand out from your competitors.

Creating Your Brand Identity

When looking to create your brand identity there are so many things to take into consideration:

  • What is the mission of your company?
  • What are your goals?
  • Who are you trying to reach?
  • What do you want your target audience to feel and see when they come across your brand?

All of these things are important to identify before you create your brand identity.

Making sure you are creating the right image and identity to convey what the company is all about can seem daunting, but it’s the most important part to creating a brand identity. Create your mission and make it part of everything that you do.

The Importance of a Logo

As mentioned above, the company logo is just one part of your larger brand strategy, but it is a very important part. Your logo becomes the face of your company. It should show what your company stands for and how you want to be represented in the market. The company logo is what is going to represent the organization on everything you do – website, presentations, marketing materials, tradeshow booths, company gear, business cards, the list goes on. Does your logo represent you in the right way? Does it tell the audience you are trying to reach what you stand for? What you do? Is your brand something your target audience can relate to? When designing a company logo you need to take into consideration these things and so much more! You need to consider where you will use it, the color scheme you want to use, the guidelines around using your logo on different materials, whether or not there are parts of your logo that can be used alone or does it all need to be together. All companies should also have brand identity guidelines that can be shared with anyone using your logo so they know the parameters for where and when it can be used. Protecting the face of the company is incredibly important.

Pay Attention to the Competition

Obviously, it’s important to know your audience. But it’s just as important to know your competition. Make your brand is something your customers can trust. Make sure it stands out from your competition and that it is not similar in look and feel to your competition. You want to stand out for what you do, not get your key audience confused between you and a similar company.

Present the Brand Consistently

Most importantly – be consistent in your branding with everything that you do. Make sure you have the brand identity document created and available for anyone who may be using your logo. Remember, colors, themes, overall feel, images, etc. all matter. When someone sees your company logo, you want them to feel like they know you. That they can trust and relate to you.

So when creating your brand identity, make sure to take your time and think through what is important to your company and to the audience you are supporting. Be consistent. Display trust. It will make a difference.

 

About the Author

Nicolle Martin is a senior account manager for Edge Marketing. She has more than 20 years of experience doing public relations and marketing in the legal and accounting industries.

/by Nicolle Martin

Raising awareness around your company and its offerings should mean more than throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing if it sticks. A strategic PR and marketing plan will get you closer to your goal, whether that’s recognition in thought leadership, an appealing product for potential investors, more clients, or all of the above.

Getting information about your company in front of the right people is integral to your success. A winning PR and marketing strategy will include both media relations and analyst relations, but what’s the difference between the two?

 

The point person  

Who do you send up to bat from within your company, when you secure a meeting with the media? It depends on the reason for the meeting: Is your company announcing a new product or offering, a new hire, or investor news? The answer to that question will determine which representative should take the media interview. You want your spokesperson to be prepared with key messages and able to articulate that story in a simple, direct manner. Media opportunities can result in lead generation, as well as influencing and changing behaviors and perceptions.

When meeting with an analyst, your message should be tailored to that analyst’s area of expertise. Not only should the point person be able to clearly and concisely communicate your messaging, key features, benefits, and offerings; they will also need to possess a high level of tech savviness. An analyst will typically have a more sophisticated level of understanding of your corner of the industry, your product, and market trends than the average member of the media. Your analyst/spokesperson pairing is important to consider, and a developer or member of the product team is generally the best bet.

 

Depth and breadth of the conversation

You may have heard the phrase, “A mile wide and an inch deep,” which is a fitting way to sum up the media’s area of interest. They’re often looking at a broad landscape and, generally, they just can’t devote the time required to dig into any one area too deeply. When meeting with members of the press, it is important to know the journalist’s “beat” or area of coverage, and be able to fit your story into that narrative.

An analyst’s focus tends to be the opposite: They most likely have a very targeted level of expertise in one or two specific areas of the tech industry, but their knowledge runs deep. Analysts are consistently learning everything there is to know about your industry’s unique challenges and the tools available today. They analyze the current market, and they identify the trends emerging on the horizon.

Scheduling a briefing to keep analysts up to date on your company and products is essential. After all, they are often informing your clients’ and prospects’ purchasing decisions. Provide the analyst with your slide deck, presentation materials and agenda in advance of the briefing. Analysts want to see the product in action, but be sure to maintain control of demonstrations and scope. A briefing is not a speech; it’s a conversation: Good analysts are very well-connected and informed and can offer valuable insights. Through listening, you can determine the potential value that might result from a more extensive analyst relationship.

 

Timelines

You should always work to maintain ongoing relationships with media but, when engaging with a journalist, it’s typically because you have an announcement; be it a new product or feature, an upcoming event, or investor news. You want to get that news out to as many eyes as possible, and often as quickly as possible, especially if the news is time-sensitive. The timeline from pitching to the media to the news hitting the wires is often only days or even hours.

Analysts, on the other hand, conduct their research, analyze the data, and then publish their findings, resulting in a much longer turnover time of a month or more.

Output aside, an analyst can also be a long-term, trusted advisor and ally to a technology vendor, helping you shape and define your product, your strategy, and your messaging, which brings me to my final point.

 

Investment

By leveraging your media relationships, you can secure coverage that will expand your brand awareness and create the market perception you seek. This can be done through multiple channels: Earned, owned, shared and, of course, paid media. It may be tempting to only try one media channel at a time if you have limited resources. The reality is that, in order to generate leads and build brand awareness, paid, owned, shared, and earned media need to work together (For more on this, check out Vicki LaBrosse’s article, here.).

In contrast, an analyst is trusted to be informed, insightful and, most importantly to businesses looking for purchasing recommendations, unbiased, and a paid relationship with a vendor will not affect that. Analysts know what your customers want, what is happening elsewhere in your market, and what is coming down the pike.

Through paid analyst relations, you can gain feedback and guidance on your business strategy. On top of that, you are more likely to be mentioned in their published research findings. Being recognized by an analyst firm as a vendor to watch can be an invaluable tool when leveraged by your sales team. That third-party validation is worth its weight in gold!

Media relations and analyst relations are very different creatures, each requiring unique messaging and allocation of your company’s resources; however, as part of a comprehensive and strategic marketing and PR plan, they both lend themselves to increased recognition and credibility in your industry, which will improve the bottom line.

 

About the Author:

Tanya Amyote joined the Edge team in December 2016, as marketing assistant, Excel guru, and token Canadian.

When not solving the world’s pivot table problems, Tanya is an avid reader, fountain pen user, and dog lover: She and her husband, Brian, have one young son, James, and three rescue dogs: Luna, Gary, and Gus.

/by Tanya Amyote

Public relations, marketing, and advertising are well-established disciplines focused on communicating specific messaging to specific external audiences at specific times. Today, more executives are realizing the importance of intentional, purposeful messaging shared within their organizations.

Despite that recognition, internal communication remains an often-overlooked function. This is especially true for small- and medium-sized companies in which employees wear multiple hats and leaders often assume everyone has the information they need, when they need it. Today, when people in remote work environments may feel particularly disconnected, internal communications that promote engagement are more important than ever.

Just as with external communications like PR or marketing, a good internal communications strategy prioritizes the dissemination of the right information to the right people at the right time. It also entails collaboration among company leadership, and members of the human resources and marketing departments, to ensure messaging is tailored appropriately for each audience.

Getting started requires outlining the different categories of information typically shared internally, and understanding the organization’s various audience segments, what types of content they most easily digest or find valuable, and the best channels to reach them.

A few common types of internal messaging include:

  • Executive announcements/top-down memos
  • Peer communications
  • General business updates
  • HR information communications
  • Change communications
  • Crisis communications

There are countless others, and many will overlap. Recognizing the most common situations that occur within your organization will help to anticipate what types of communications should be part of your plans. Understanding how to align various components will ensure the right type is used to reach the right internal audience for each message.

In addition to planning for all relevant types of communications, it’s helpful to identify the channels your organization uses – or should consider adding – to its mix for distributing internal communications. As with external communications, outreach to internal audiences should include the formats and outlets they most use to absorb important information.

Some useful channels for sharing internal communications may include:

  • In-person meetings/presentations
  • Emails
  • Intranets
  • Collaboration or project management platforms
  • Podcasts/webinars
  • Videos and infographics
  • Social media
  • Newsletters
  • Printed materials

Employees are the lifeblood of most organizations. Beyond their core roles in supporting the business, they also are ambassadors of your brand, which is why keeping them engaged and positive is critical to overall success. Internal communications play an important role in employee engagement, which can also improve productivity and reduce costly turnover.

Much internal communication occurs even without a dedicated plan; however, formalizing the activity with a thoughtful, purposeful approach will help to reinforce company values, vision and mission; promote transparency; and build trust among management and employees alike to increase employee engagement and satisfaction. Developing a strategy around internal communication shouldn’t wait for a pandemic or any other crisis to arise when you wish one were already in place.

About the Author

As a senior consultant and account manager, Jennifer Marsnik helps Edge clients develop and implement strategic PR and marketing plans that support their overall business goals. An avid sports fan, she lives in the Twin Cities area where in pre-pandemic times she enjoyed regularly attending Twins baseball and UofM Gopher football games with her family throughout the summer and fall seasons. This year she’s been playing more golf and will continue cheering on her teams from the comfort of her sofa. Skol, Vikings!

/by Jennifer Marsnik

The planning, coordination and expense your company has put into live events have come to a halt. What do you do when your event, trade show or conference has made the shift from in-person to virtual hosting? How do you plan for new product or corporate announcements, in-person networking and lead generation in a virtual environment? Most events are going virtual through 2021 and beyond. It is necessary that your company adapts and develops its PR strategy to boost brand visibility and enhance media participation. Virtual events can still give companies a chance to connect with their audiences, including journalists planning to attend the show. Consider these tips to maximize press engagement for virtual events.

Engage Early
The relationships you have with media and influencers should be established long before the start of an event. The event is the opportunity to connect socially, but it should not be the first nor the last communication until the next event. Reach out to journalists well in advance of the event and supply them with information about your company and upcoming announcements. Ask if they would be open to engaging virtually by inviting them to a press conference or offering one-on-one meetings with company executives. Theoretically, taking an event online could increase media participation. Reporters no longer need to travel and commit to 2-4 days for event attendance, resulting in a flexible opportunity to learn about your company. If your news can be announced in advance of the event, ask to schedule meeting time with press prior to the event to ensure your best chance of media coverage.

Amplify Breaking News
If you have news to announce and the conference is the appropriate time to publicize it, go for it, but do realize others can overshadow your news. Prevent this from happening by tying your news into a larger story or trend that is being discussed in your industry. This makes you more compelling for media and influencers to talk to. Consider hosting an interactive press conference using a livestream or webcast. This is a great format for exciting product launches or major announcements. There’s also the opportunity to offer private one-on-one meetings with executives and members of the media that can be held on a videoconferencing platform where you could demo your product and still get some of that face-to-face interaction you would have at a live event. Be sure to have preproduced multimedia content available for download afterward. Consider creating a custom media kit stocked with important content such as product fact sheets and launch announcements.

Get Social
Take advantage of social media, before, during and after an event. Find out if there is a hashtag associated with the event and use it. Attend the keynotes at the event and live tweet using the hashtag. Encourage visitors to your booth or speaking events to engage with your own brand’s Twitter handle. Ensure your company employees know about the hashtags and encourage them to share content. Also, blog early and often. Create blog posts on subjects pertinent to the event and share them over your social channels. Do this several times during the weeks leading up to the event to create excitement about your company and among your customers, influencers and media. Continue to blog throughout and after the event as well.

Follow Up
Be sure to follow up with members of the media who attended your event or met with you one-on-one. Virtual events allow for promotion long after the conference has ended by directing media to your website to access video, press releases and in-depth content.

With innovative planning, you can still make PR work with virtual events. While product launches may look a little different, there is an opportunity for brands to stand out and drive media visibility and press coverage during virtual events.

About the Author

Vicki LaBrosse, director of global public relations, Edge Marketing, has more than 17 years of marketing and communications experience in both the legal and accounting industries. She works with clients to develop and execute comprehensive PR and marketing strategies that will help grow their business.

/by Vicki LaBrosse

How many applications are open on your device right now? And your second device – likely a mobile phone – how many alerts have you received this morning? Which message or alert has captured your attention?

In the digital age, where posts are limited to 140 characters and conversations may contain more emojis than text, the average human attention span has shortened. According to a study by Microsoft, the average human being now has an attention span of eight seconds. This is a sharp decrease from the average of 12 seconds in the year 2000. This means it’s more important than ever to quickly capture and keep the attention of prospects and leads.

As storytellers, authors and educators, marketing professionals can overcome the attention deficit with interactive content that engages the reader.

Static black on white text is boring. Visually interesting, interactive multimedia content is captivating and will inform and engage readers on any device. Whether in a news article, white paper or e-book, readers love a challenge, enjoy quizzes, factoids and drilling down for detail on the information that matters to them. When they are engaged and actively participating, readers offer more information about themselves, helping marketers build out the lead or customer profile and better understand them.

To increase reader engagement, meet the reader with content that is compelling, engaging, easy to access and easy to experience. Here are four ways to render content in a more engaging, interactive way:

  1. Provide value with a calculator.

Calculators do a lot more than solve math problems – they also provide self-qualified leads. Prospects appreciate a calculator they can use on their own to determine the cost of a product or service or to compare their needs against your solution. Calculators in the legal and accounting services industries may offer, for example:

  • Billable utilization calculations
  • SaaS vs. on-premises software cost comparison
  • Managed services pricing calculator
  • ROI calculator to determine return on investment for practice management software

With a self-service calculator, an interested prospect can determine if your product is a fit for them and whether it is affordable within their budget before they speak to a salesperson. Calculators can shrink the sales funnel and deliver better qualified leads, so make an effort to capture user contact information when they try the calculator. Effective calculators can deliver conversion rates of 40-50%, according to one platform provider.

  1. Include video or interactive email images.

Have you ever found a video thumbnail so compelling that you just had to click on it? Video is extremely attractive. According to Wistia, emails that contain a video thumbnail see 40% more engagement. But creating videos can be expensive and time-consuming, and crafting good-quality content requires talent and experience.

B2B brands have been somewhat slow to adopt TikTok – the new darling in short-form mobile video. It achieved over 1.5 billion downloads from the App Store and Google Play in 2019. It is already more popular than LinkedIn, Twitter and Snapchat and showing no signs of slowing down.

If your brand isn’t quite ready for TikTok, an image rollover can be a great alternative. Rollover or mouse-over images are ubiquitous on the web. E-commerce websites often feature images of products where an alternative view is displayed when the visitor hovers a cursor over an image. A rollover image is a great way to highlight key features on a technical product image.

  1. Build revenue with surveys and quizzes.

People love quizzes and surveys. It’s part of human nature that we love to share our thoughts, and we like that quizzes help us compare ourselves to others. Create a quiz or survey to attract new and high-converting leads, to understand and qualify different audiences and to gain insights into their preferences.

Surveys tapping readers’ perspectives on the economy, industry trends, firm management practices or technology adoption can be a source of valuable information that can be communicated across a variety of channels and content formats:

  • Pre- and post-survey emails and social media posts
  • A downloadable survey report with thought leader perspectives on the results
  • A live webinar presentation on survey highlights, offered jointly with an industry luminary or high-profile client
  • Infographic highlighting key takeaways from the survey
  • A video interview with an in-house thought leader or an industry partner
  1. Develop dynamic white papers.

White papers are a great way to establish your business as an authority on a particular industry topic or issue. The challenge is that the often complex nature of white papers can make them dry and unengaging. Consider improving the reader experience with interactive content.

Incorporating a quiz, assessment, timeline or infographic into a white paper can add interest to the paper and keep readers engaged. The interactive content can be hosted online rather than sent as a static PDF, so analytics can also be gathered to see what parts people interact with most.

Interactive content is one of the fastest-growing areas in content marketing. To succeed with interactive, think from a mobile and software mindset, rather than a printed content mindset. As a result you will build a more interesting, engaging experience for leads, educating, challenging and delighting them as they move through the customer journey.

 About the Author

Megan Miller is a senior consultant with Edge Marketing, assisting clients in development and execution of strategic marketing plans and implementation of marketing technologies. A global technology hound, Miller has built brands, trained teams and introduced successful products for global companies and startups. A certified e-discovery expert, Miller has written on trends and topics in electronic discovery, consumer electronics and the internet of things – before the IoT was even a thing. Her work has appeared in Attorney at Law, US Tech, TechnoLawyer, ACEDS and other industry publications.

/by Megan Miller

These are unusual, highly stressful times. Across every industry, jobs have been reduced or eliminated. Movements have been limited to those deemed essential. Parents are working from home while their children are getting educated from home. News headlines are grim with reports of financial losses, illness, and death.

The only places to find stress relief seem to be in a long walk outside, a glass (or two!) of wine, or the bottom of a Doritos bag.

But does it have to be that way? What if you could spend 10 minutes every day not just reducing stress and anxiety, but also improving creativity so you can solve your most pressing business challenges?

Move over, Cool Ranch. Meditation is here.

Numerous academic studies have shown that meditation increases cognitive flexibility, which leads to greater creativity. Subjects of these studies have displayed an increase in the key components of creativity: problem-solving skills, originality, insight, sustained attention, and mental flexibility.

These are potent skills for business owners and their employees to develop right now, especially during a time when organizations are looking for new ways to do business, increase or preserve sales, support staff, and maintain client satisfaction. Staying relevant these days requires creativity.

Research on creativity suggests that it is unlearned as we age. Children are born with more creativity and tend to unlearn it as they progress through traditional education systems. Other research indicates that we produce our greatest insights and biggest breakthroughs when we are in a more meditative and relaxed state of mind. This is likely because meditation develops the key components of creativity. Adults can use meditation to relearn creativity.

In a recent unscientific study of one, I leaned across the desk I currently share with my husband and asked if he felt meditation increases his creativity. Several years ago, he started meditating to manage symptoms of stress and depression. “Meditation leaves space in my head for more and better things,” he replied. Creativity is not the only benefit of meditation. It can also improve attention, reduce stress, decrease anxiety, and bolster moods.

How much should you meditate? Research varies, but somewhere between ten and twenty minutes per day on most days seems to provide sufficient benefit.

How do you get started? Don’t bother googling how to meditate, or you will get overwhelmed by the “rules”. In my experience, getting started really isn’t difficult. Here is what has worked for me:

  1. Find a place where you will not be disturbed.
  2. Sit in a comfortable position. It can be on the floor, on a pillow, on the couch – wherever you are comfortable and can sit up, with your spine straight and your chest open.
  3. Set a timer. This way, you won’t have to think about how long you’ve been going, which you’re going to do anyway.
  4. Close your eyes.
  5. Breathe – whatever way you can. It doesn’t have to be in through the nose and out through the mouth. I suffer from allergies so, this time of year, I can only breathe through my mouth.
  6. Pay attention to your breathing. Notice how air moves into your body and back out.
  7. Bring your focus back to your breathing. Inevitably, your mind is going to start wandering. When you notice that happening, you’re not doing anything “wrong”; just refocus back to breathing.
  8. Repeat steps 5 to 7 until your timer goes off.

This practice might not work for you, and that’s okay. If it doesn’t, there are really great apps that can guide you through any number of different ways to meditate, and thousands upon thousands of articles on the internet that can offer up other ideas.

In addition to the benefits of increased creativity, reduced stress, and improved mood, meditation has also shown to increase feelings of compassion and unconditional love toward all living things. In these stressful and uncertain times, we all could use a little more of that.

About the Author

Cindy Kremer Moen is working on practicing unconditional love for her two adult/teenage sons and husband, who are all observing stay-at-home orders and working/schooling from home … all the time. In addition to working with several Edge clients, she currently is also cleaning the kitchen – constantly – and reigniting her love for Doritos.

/by Cindy Moen