I had the pleasure of presenting at a recent PR Newswire sales meeting where they discussed their new ARC Engagement Platform [disclaimer: PR Newswire is a Content Marketing Institute benefactor]. One of the samples came from Rodale Custom Content & Marketing and Curves International (see below as well as this direct link).
On behalf of Curves, Rodale CCM has published Diane magazine for the past six years. To date, the magazine has touched the lives of millions of Curves members by providing inspirational and informational content that is in alignment with the brand’s guiding mission: to make women stronger.
To illustrate its capabilities as a custom content marketing provider, Rodale CCM created a video that captured the emotional connection between Curves, members and franchisees, and Diane magazine. The video focuses on three women, and depicts the role Curves and Diane play in their lives.
To widely distribute this video content, along with a white paper series and other multimedia content assets, Rodale CCM utilized PR Newswire’s ARC Engagement Platform. ARC is an interesting tool that integrates the traditional benefits of mass, targeted distribution with video and social sharing functions that have become commonplace in blogs and social networking sites.
According to Marcie Avram at Rodale, Rodale was able to push the content to hundreds of targeted websites, blogs, video sharing sites, social networks and email lists – generating thousands of page and video views, as well as white paper downloads.
What I like about it:
Integrating customized content into a more traditional distribution channel (a press release).
Video integration: According to Cisco, Internet video will account for 79% global Internet traffic by 2020, up 63% in 2015. Video is more important than ever and the ARC platform puts it front and center.
A one-stop shop option: The embedded video player works like a mini-website where you can house content assets that are relevant to the specific needs of the user around a specific topic.
Measurement: The ability to measure engagement, sharing and embedded video.
Journalist/blogger resource: If the information is newsworthy, all assets are in one place, making it easier for other people to “tell the story”.
Sales tool: In a business-to-business sales cycle, I can see this kind of tool helping move the buyer from point A to point B.
This type of content distribution doesn’t solve all your content needs, but it can take your existing PR program to the next level by integrating valuable and relevant content the way that Rodale has done with the Curves example. It also helps you think less about pushing out a release and more about developing a story that is worthy of engagement. I’m interested to see how more brands leverage this type of tool into their content marketing and PR program.
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