A Real Time Live Blog from the David Meerman Scott Session

This morning, I had the opportunity to sit in on David Meerman Scott’s keynote presentation during day one of Content Marketing World.  In the session, David stressed the importance of real time in content marketing. And in the spirit of real time content marketing, I am writing this blog on my iPad as David speaks.

Many companies spend months and years planning a long-term marketing strategy.  They take time analyzing data that was collected five years ago.  Then they take that data and apply that to what they plan on doing a year from today!  David challenged the audience to our mindsets.  The time for creating valuable content is now.

To drive his points home, David shared many valuable examples of real time content marketing.  My favorite had to deal with the example of the acquisition of Market2Lead by Oracle.  Oracle posted a small blurb on its site about the announcement…that’s it!  Joe Payne, the CEO of Eloqua, saw the opportunity to write a blog post titled “Oracle joins the party.”  The marketing team at Eloqua also proceeded to email prospects who were Market2Lead customers and shared Joe’s post in addition to explaining that Eloqua would be there to help them through the transition.  Later, Joe was quoted in various news stories and articles!  David noted that Eloqua closed over $1 million in business as a result of its real time content marketing efforts.

So what does this mean for us?  Learn from Eloqua’s work and take advantage of the real time opportunities around us.  David offered the following rules:

1. Real time – Speed and agility offer significant competitive advantage to companies that stay in real time.

2. Be human – Face your fears and take advantage of the opportunity.  Forget about having your legal or PR team reviewing everything and just push out the good content!

3. The power of story – Share something interesting and valuable for your audience.

4. Focus on the right measures – Set goals and understand how you will measure against them.  It may not be a simple ROI.

As the presentation continues, David reminds us to always to think about the second paragraph, which is one of the most coveted spots within any mainstream media article. He references the United Breaks Guitars as an example. Taylor Guitars, who made the guitari that was broken, virtually immediately released a great video offering guitar owners some safe travel tips.  Meanwhile, United offered no comments. Taylor Guitars received much more media coverage as a result of their real-time marketing.

So what can content marketers learn from David?

4 Action Items to Implement Today

1. Ensure someone in your organization is responsible for the NOW

2. Create a set of content guidelines to help that person work effectively.

3. Implement a real time system so that person is equipped to do his or her job.

4. Develop a real time mindset and think like a bond trader.

David closed the presentation with a topic that is close to the hearts of many CEOs – ROI.  How do we calculate the ROI of real time communications?  David painted an example by quickly asking the crowd if they own a smart phone. Nearly everyone in the audience raised their hands.  He then asked if our employers  pay for the monthly phone bill. About 2/3  raised their hands.  Next, he asked if we understood the ROI on that monthly cost.  No one raisedtheir hands.

Companies that engage in real time communication are on average 5% more successful based on David’s analysis of publicly traded companies.  David closed the presentation encouraging the audience to take advantage of the real time opportunities.