connect: November/December 2016

ENGAGING MARKETING MINDS

INSIDE

WHY YOUR EMPLOYEES ARE YOUR BEST BRANDING ASSET

DECEMBER 2016

MARKETING THOUGHT LEADER MELISSA LOPEZ ON 2017

SEE WHY TECHNICAL MARKETING SKILLS ARE ON THE RISE

2017

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Up Front Richard’s Letter

THE REVOLUTION n August, analysts at Morgan Stanley using data from an Oxford University study predicted that nearly half of U.S. jobs will be replaced by robots over the next two decades. It's said we will have cars that drive themselves, waiters we won’t need to pay and personalized butlers. Looks like we're moving rapidly toward a future without actual jobs.

According to a 2013 Stanford University study, some manufacturing robots now cost the equivalent of about $4 an hour – and they keep getting cheaper and better. We even have robots that think. Editors at the Associated Press claim robots write thousands of articles a year for them. It would seem as if the dream of living a WALL-E-type existence, where we float around in auto-piloted chairs, sip on a liquid turkey dinner and stay glued to the attached monitors may become a reality.

Not so fast. While it certainly seems like we're headed toward a scary and confusing robot revolution, it is best to remember that technology always creates more jobs than it destroys. Progress creates angst, but it's still progress. And this time will be no different. Consider that computers destroyed a great deal of manufacturing jobs, but enabled hundreds of millions of new jobs. The reality is that technology augments humans, rather than replaces them.

We don’t need to fear the robots, but we need to understand that the jobs robots can replace aren't good jobs in the first place. As humans, we climb up the ladder of success using our brains. So we must tap into the greatest computer inside of us, embrace a strategic mindset and start anticipating the kinds of jobs that will emerge over the next 20 years.

Leadership is not about getting people to work harder. In fact, it's about discovering new paths and new ideas, and incubating the skills needed to sustain us in the future. Leadership is about identifying markets that are important and providing that community a competitive advantage. The future is bright, and while we can all concern ourselves with the changing job climate, take solace in the fact that history proves progress is good.

In our cover story, "The Great Escape," we discuss some of the strategies and marketing ideas that will gain momentum next year, and over the next several years. Our second feature, "Strength in Numbers," demonstrates why your employees are your best branding asset.

Both are compelling articles that remind us of where our focus should remain.

Enjoy.

RICHARD MILLER Owner & President

In This Issue

PUBLISHER

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ART DIRECTION

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THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT, AND WHILE WE CAN ALL CONCERN OURSELVES WITH THE CHANGING JOB CLIMATE, TAKE SOLACE IN THE FACT THAT HISTORY PROVES PROGRESS IS GOOD.

03 Richard’s Letter The revolution 04 The Inbox

06 The great escape Marketing ideas to set you free 10 Strength in numbers Why your employees are your best branding asset 14 Trending with...

Executive coach Melissa Lopez 15 Their aim is true Survey shows content marketing key in 2017 plans

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2016 CONNECT

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News | Updates | Statistics

INSIGHTS

The Inbox Technical skills related to data analysis on the rise

In a marketing landscape where the search for Big Data rules supreme, technical skills related to data analysis are the most in-demand jobs by employers looking to fill marketing jobs. But according to Venngage's "Marketing Skills 2016" study, there are few candidates available with these abilities The report, based on an in-depth analysis of marketing job postings on The Muse board and analysis of 436,000 LinkedIn profiles, shows that the most in-demand skills by

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marketing directors and hiring managers are data analysis, SEO, SQL, Google Analytics and HTML. Some 50 percent of entry-level and mid-level job postings included at least one of these as a desired skill, while 33 percent of high-level postings included at least one as a desired skill.

Other job skills sought by marketers include content marketing and content marketing acumen. In this case, less than 2 percent of marketers listed having these skill sets.

Customers want to know you get them.

They want to know that it's not just another email from another nameless, faceless brand out there.

It's from someone who gets me. – Brendan Witcher, principal analyst for Forrester Research, on why today's marketers must stop segmenting and start individualizing

EARLY RETURNS Study shows Millennials vote for direct mail

Millennials are all digital. Unless they aren't. According to the “Political Mail and Millennials” report by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC), Millennial voters love direct mail. The survey shows that at least 42 percent of Millennials prefer direct mail political ads over online ads, with 38 percent favoring both equally (20 percent prefer online ads). In addition, 66 percent are more likely to research a candidate after receiving a direct mail piece, with 54 percent prompted to visit the candidate’s website.

The USPS and Summit Research conducted the online survey nationally among 1,156 U.S. adults.

The percent of B2B marketers who say alignment across content, channels and teams is vital for a great customer experience, according to Kapost's "B2B Customer Experience Benchmark Report 2016." In addition, 81 percent say they will be investing more in content, the survey found. The report surveyed 316 B2B and B2C marketers across the country.

Book Rec

The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future

By Steve Case

Steve Case helped make the internet part of our everyday lives. As one of America’s most accomplished entrepreneurs, the cofounder of America Online (AOL) continues to create roadmaps for how to succeed in a world of rapidly changing technology.

His latest endeavor is the New York Times bestseller, The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future, which pays homage to the work of futurist Alvin Toffler, from whom Case has borrowed the title, and whose work inspired him as a young man. Case goes behind the scenes of some of the most consequential and riveting business decisions of our time, while offering intriguing insights from decades of working as an entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist.

The Third Wave argues that we are entering the Third Wave: a period in which entrepreneurs will vastly transform major “real world” sectors like health, education, transportation, energy and food, and in the process change the way we live our daily lives.

Part memoir, part manifesto and part playbook for the future, the book shows how today's newly emerging technology companies will have to rethink their relationships with customers, competitors and governments.

It's the kind of book that will show you how to make winning business decisions and strategies in the changing digital age.

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RINO ALLE P .

J AEL MICH

n his book, "Pre-Suasion," social psychologist Robert Cialdini shines a curious light on the art of effective persuasion, revealing that the secret doesn’t lie in the message, but in the key moment before that message is delivered.

Cialdini, the bestselling author of the iconic book, "Legendary," explains how to capitalize on that essential window of time before you deliver an important message – the "privileged moment for change” that prepares people to be receptive to a message before they experience it. As Cialdini says, optimal persuasion is achieved only through optimal pre-suasion.

In other words, to change “minds” a pre-suader also must change "The imperative in 2017 for marketers will continue to be “states of mind.” customer experience," says Wilson Raj, global director of customer Greg Chambers believes this way of thinking will be one of the intelligence for analytics leader SAS. "Winning at customer most important marketing ideas to gain traction in 2017. Chambers, experience requires a combination of individualized insights, founder of the sales-and-marketing consultancy Chambers Pivot contextualized interactions, and fluid processes to engage the Industries, says the beauty of this creative version of storytelling – customer in their channels of choice." successfully mastered by the likes of Raj says there will be two prevailing Michael Lewis, Malcolm Gladwell and themes dominating this quest next year. First, Laura Hillenbrand – rests in its ability machine learning will be more mainstream to unravel a mystery. in marketing technology. "Marketers will be "It starts by positing a question, smarter; predictive systems will improve over then taking the reader on a journey time; they will learn from previous events/infor the answer," Chambers says, teractions; adapt to changing conditions and "discussing all of the possible new data; and optimize to improve marketing explanations until it finally reveals goals," he says. the answer. Marketers will do this Second, data privacy will be elevated to a more with their brand stories, case customer experience priority rather than a – Wilson Raj, Global Director, studies and narratives." governance issue. As consumers browse the Customer Intelligence, SAS It has been quite a year – across all web, post to social media sites, share data marketing fronts. Heading into 2017, from wearables and mobile devices or shop marketers want to keep the momentum online, they are intentionally – and sometimes unknowingly – giving accelerated in areas like content marketing, marketing away digital bits of information about their identities. automation, customer engagement and social analytics, just to "As digital opportunities and threats become critical to name a few. Ask for the goals and strategies they will focus on business strategy," Raj says, "boards and C-level executives next year, and marketers say the game plans involve engaging and must have the digital expertise to balance between protecting growing their communities, along with closely analyzing customer the business and enabling profitable digital growth through patterns throughout their journeys. personalized brand experiences."

"The marketers who can best paint such pictures and create such personal narratives are well on the way to establishing long-term brand loyalty."

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Other trends to watch include:

In the race to know anything and everything about today's ever-sophisticated consumer, Mike Sciortino believes that focusing on creating the client experience will be a major asset for any marketer.

The founder of Gratitude Marketing and bestselling author of "Gratitude Marketing: How You Can Create Clients for Life," Sciortino says companies that become memorable work hard to master the art of consistent, creative, fun engagement and deliberate, emotional connection with their customers.

Sciortino says that knowing and creating the experience begins with asking the following questions: •

Do I have a systematic approach to consistently communicate with my top customers and top prospects?

• What are the most effective ways I am using to reach my customers today?

• Do I have a carefully crafted and specific plan in motion to position myself to be the thought leader in my industry, marketplace and community resulting in me staying relevant and "top of mind" with my customers and prospects for when their need for my services arises?

• Which marketing strategies have I tried to improve my business worked and which ones didn't work?

"To create the ultimate customer experience, be prepared to

"To create the ultimate customer experience, be prepared to listen, and listen to be prepared."

– Mike Sciortino, Founder, Gratitude Marketing listen, and listen to be prepared," Sciortino says. "Train your staff to listen intently to what customers are saying in the day-to-day operation of your business. Customers who feel like they are being listened to feel accepted and appreciated."

With the rising costs of customer acquisition, marketers such as Sciortino believe brands will place greater emphasis on nurturing what he calls the 3 Rs: • • •

Increased customer retention Increased customer referrals (one of the most cost-effective ways of marketing) Increased customer revenues (per customer)

"Customers want to be regularly reminded that they are important to you," he says. "It's not up to your customers to remember you. It's your job to constantly and consistently remind them of who you are and reinforce why they have a relationship with you."

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Aggregate and refine your brand’s digital presence Make sure to continuously optimize web pages and A/B test everything. By testing various hypotheses, you can gather real data about customer behavior, and then quickly make the changes to improve performance across digital touch points.

Use mobile to connect the dots Mobile has strengthened brands’ ability to connect and reach customers at any time of the day. Consider all the ways customers are reaching your brand from mobile and optimize those interactions.

Create rich content Optimize your content for context and strategic intent with a goal of enhancing the value of every customer interaction. Support a wide range of tactics to address branding, customer experience and performance objectives. This will help eliminate the noise and focus on relevant, pertinent content that truly aids in their buying journey.

Build your strategies with the buyer in mind Know your customers and their tendencies, and then craft your game plan. To do this you must adopt and embrace change at every level of the organization.

Sales is not your customer The buyer is your customer, so look to engage them and work with sales as a partner to reach them.

Sources: Mike Sciortino, founder, Gratitude Marketing; Carlos Hidalgo, CEO & Founder, ANNUITAS; Wilson Raj, global director of customer intelligence, SAS

Forgive Carlos Hidalgo if he sounds like a broken record, but the founder and CEO of ANNUITAS believes that collecting buyer intelligence in terms of buying committee involvement, purchase path, pain points, content consumption patterns and preferred channels will be critical again in 2017.

"Marketers need to look at how they align to them," says Hidalgo, whose company develops and builds buyer-centric Demand Generation programs. "If this occurs across marketing organizations, we will see marketing become a growth driver for their companies."

Hidalgo believes the trend in buyer sophistication and complexity and growing buying committees will bring organizations to the place where they must adopt buyer-centric strategies in terms of people, process, content, data and technology. "I see so many organizations building strategies around technology or tactics, but to get it right, the strategy has to have the buyer at the center," he says.

SAS' Raj says data will continue to be the foundation of marketing and brand strategy. Data-driven or algorithmic marketing will continue to expand as more marketers adopt algorithmic attribution over traditional rules-based attribution models such as first or last-click. "This approach will remove much of the subjectivity that currently plagues rules-based marketing attribution models," he says. "In content marketing and digital asset management, we’ll also see more algorithms used to assemble, analyze and create meaningful content."

engagement. SAS' Raj believes that IoT presents an entirely new paradigm for building relationships with customers.

"In the past, the only connection between brand and consumer was typically a loyalty card or discount coupon," he says.

"With IoT, brands can be connected via an expanding mesh of digital endpoints, devices, applications, etc. Brands must evolve and adapt their strategies to take advantage of the multi-way communications IoT affords."

In the end, marketing thought leaders say that when seeking to budget and maximize your marketing spend, realize that traditional marketing speaks at people. Today, it's about engaging and connecting with people.

"This will grow your business in a deliberate and measurable manner and allow you to better target and select the clients you want to work with for the long term," Sciortino says. "It will position you to attract clients, not pursue them."

The need for brands to inject storytelling into their marketing to tap into people’s emotions, aspirations and needs hasn’t changed. But SAS' Raj believes the way brands can tell their stories has changed.

Today, a brand’s narrative can be told through tweets, posts, crowd-sourced content, rich media, etc. "The best stories tap into people’s emotions because they genuinely connect to what a brand stands for," he says.

For example, find stories that stand out from a crowd, give a sense of belonging or confidence, and show how to succeed in life or how to feel secure. It’s about connecting the brand’s narrative to one’s personal narrative. "The marketers who can best paint such pictures and create such personal narratives are well on the way to establishing longterm brand loyalty," Raj says.

In today's ever-changing marketplace, brands can’t ignore the Internet of Things (IoT) as a channel for customer experience and

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BY CHARLES D. LUNAN

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Their success lends credence to what's come to be called "internal branding," or the systematic process by which organizations consciously cultivate employees to be brand ambassadors.

Internal branding is based on the simple, and often overlooked premise that every time an employee comes in contact with a prospect, customer, vendor, investor or other stakeholder, they are leaving an impression that will overpower and outlast every dollar their organization spends on brand marketing.

The term has gained currency over the past 20 years as enterprises large and small have sought to compete in a global marketplace awash in low-cost manufacturing capacity and high-quality products.

To avoid commoditization, many forward-thinking consumer products companies are reevaluating their priorities. Today, they are focused on recruiting, developing and retaining the best talent in the belief that engaged employees are more likely to consistently deliver excellent customer service and fulfill an organization’s brand promise.

Employee surveys by Gallop, Aon and other consulting firms, along with more than 10,000 academic studies, show internal branding to be a fertile area. Most have found that just 30% of American workers are engaged and inspired by their work.

A meta-analysis Gallup conducted this year of 339 research studies across 230 organizations in 73 countries found companies ranked in the top quartile in terms of employee engagement and satisfaction scores outperformed those in the bottom quartile by a significant margin in 10 performance areas.

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Specifically, the median differences between top-quartile and bottom-quartile companies were 10 percent in customer ratings, 21 percent in profitability, 20 percent in sales production, 17 percent in production records, 24 percent in turnover (high-turnover organizations), 59 percent in turnover (low-turnover organizations), 70 percent in safety incidents, 28 percent in shrinkage, 41 percent in absenteeism, 58 percent in patient safety incidents and 40 percent in quality (defects).

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson credits his company’s success in such disparate industries as entertainment, travel and telecommunications in large part to employee engagement.

Branson is a big believer in giving employees autonomy, celebrating their achievements, cultivating them as brand ambassadors and monitoring their feedback.

“Our customers and investors relate to us more as an idea or philosophy than as a company,” Branson told Entrepreneur magazine. “We offer the Virgin experience, and make sure it is consistent across all sectors. It's all about the brand.”

Companies and brands have to be particularly attentive during periods of rapid growth, when management is stretched thin.

Some of the biggest fiascos occur when founders push a business into high growth mode.

As they rush to open offices, online stores or otherwise "reach scale," they often overlook the need to institutionalize the passion that drove their early success by implementing formal internal branding programs, says Cliff Oxford, CEO of the Oxford Center for Entrepreneurs in Atlanta. The center specializes in helping entrepreneurs navigate through periods of rapid growth and position their businesses for a sale.

“You can be successful because of a leader’s personality and company personality, and now you have to convert that to a brand and organization you can sell,” Oxford says.

By the time entrepreneurs join the Oxford Center for Entrepreneurs, they've already progressed through an initial period of rapid, self-funded growth. "When you are in hyper growth, revenue covers up a lot of sins that can get you in trouble once you have to start investing to expand," Oxford says.

To avoid this, Oxford preaches “alignment and acceleration,” which calls for aligning strategy, shared values, skills, staff, structure and style before a company accelerates.

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The faster a company grows and the larger it gets, the greater the risk that senior management will go astray. "There is a reason Mr. Walton drove a pick-up truck," Oxford says in reference to Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. "You've got to live it, eat it and be it. If your internal branding is 'we are a cost-conscious company' and the CEO is driving a Ferrari, it's all just talk.

It's not about what you have chiseled in the wall of your lobby, but how you work every day."

That resonates with Darryl Meattey, co-founder and CEO of Surell Accessories, a Troy, N.H.-based company that designs, manufactures and sources fur-lined gloves, hats and apparel.

Meattey got his start in the fur business by unloading trucks and setting up product displays for a company that made children's and bridal accessories. Along the way, the New Hampshire native learned to cut and stretch rabbit furs and run a sewing machine. After five years on the job, and with no college education, he was named president of the company.

When the firm went out of business, Meattey partnered with former co-worker Sue Adams in 1979 to open Surell Accessories.

With help from a salesman who had called on New York City's department stores for decades, Meattey landed many of his former customers' private label business.

In 2002, his two college-educated sons, Daniel and Dominic, joined the business as partners. Today, the company's more than

1,400 products can be found at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdales, Brooks Brothers, Nordstrom and Macy's. The company also sells its own Surell Accessories line to retailers and directly to consumers through a factory outlet at its New Hampshire factory and online store.

At 64, Meattey remains engaged in day-to-day operations, but he's also starting to think about what happens when he retires.

With the help of a management consultant he meets with twice a week, he's begun distilling his core philosophies into words in a key first step toward internal branding.

"After 40 years and making many mistakes, I figured out you've got to lead by example," Meattey says. "If I'm never here, how can I expect my team to be here? You've got to have a philosophy and you've got to kind of live by it."

So far, Meattey has come up with "ACT," an acronym for three core values that have helped him succeed: Attitude, Commitment and Team.

Last year, Meattey asked his staff to focus on improving communication. Of late, he has gotten in the habit of asking staff to repeat to him key points they gleaned from their conversations.

"We are under 10 people at any one time, but I find I have to be constantly talking to people," he says. "Every year, we have an area we want to work on and we put it on a chalk board in our conference room. Communication is always the No. 1 thing and we sucked at it last year."

Meattey now is investigating how to expand their wholesale business and must get buy in from everyone involved. "Historically, I have relationships where my buyers come in and hug me.

However, I don't scale." To make real progress, Meaty must try and nurture the same characteristics within his team. "We've had some customers for 35 years," he says, "so I'm not just handing them over to anybody until I know they are truly a brand advocate."

Having a great brand starts at the top.

That means, as a leader, you must display top-notch communication skills and bold transparency. When your employees see this, they’ll naturally rise to match this example.

People recognize rewards. If you only incentivize your sales team, you're missing a major opportunity to create well-rounded brand salespeople.

Recognizing everybody on your team will create an attitude of pride, ownership and responsibility.

Creating a social media strategy that ensures everybody on your team understands the company's goals and mission is critical.

Remember, if your customers and potential customers are plugged into social media, your team should be, too.

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Interview with Melissa Lopez

Trending with...

Marketing strategist

Melissa Lopez

Design. Development. Execution. Ask Melissa Lopez, and these are what she calls the tenets of success for every brand and marketing campaign. After nearly two decades of honing her craft, Lopez currently serves as director of marketing and sales services at MarketSource, which uses a proprietary process to bring technology and training together for business-changing results.

As the marketing leader for MarketSource, she is responsible for developing and delivering consistent brand and marketing strategies through all internal and external messaging and brand touchpoints, with a focus on expanding brand awareness. Here, she provides a glimpse into what marketers can expect in 2017:

What tools should every marketer have in her toolkit?

the information needed to build the deep analysis. This is an investment that all marketing and sales teams should make in order to produce relevant and compelling content that buyers want to receive and engage with at the time they need and, most importantly, want it most. And, if you focus too much on preserving relationships, you avoid tough conversations, don’t get results and end up hurting business relationships anyway.

As a B2B marketer, I think you have to have a strong integrated marketing team that covers the disciplines of digital marketing for B2B – marketing and brand strategy, demand generation, content generation, website, social, sales support, research and analytics. And you have to have tools for CRM, content management, marketing automation, predictive analytics, web analytics and social listening.

Define the importance of customer engagement in today's marketing strategy.

Having a deep understanding of your buyer personas and the decisions they make during their purchasing journey is essential to timely and proper customer engagement.

If you engage too early, you will cause a prospect to exit the conversation. If you engage too late, well, the result is lost sales.

Why are some strategies missing this opportunity?

Because of the investment in time it takes to develop a deep understanding of their buyers and sometimes the costs associated with building the personas. The interviews can take a long time, and the customers don’t always feel comfortable revealing all

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WE MUST CONTINUE TO PRODUCE CONTENT THAT DELIVERS RELEVANT AND TIMELY INFORMATION WHEN THE BUYER WANTS TO GET IT AND IN THE FORM THEY WILL WANT TO VIEW IT. What advice can you give for marketing without major resources?

Alignment and communication is key.

Being very clear on roles and keeping priorities aligned to corporate objectives is essential to driving success even without major resources. Creativity plays a major role in learning how to navigate. Writing a great business case that aligns to corporate strategy and drives business also helps fund projects that are not within scope or budget.

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What are the most essential characteristics driving today's marketing strategies?

Have successful alignment between sales and marketing with shared priorities: agree to communication frequency, pipeline measurement, lead quality over quantity and data enrichment to drive successful prospecting. A clean database is a must.

You must also adopt common measurements and definitions, and learn from the data. Use win/loss analysis to drive changes in positioning statements as buyer’s/persona’s needs shift. Conduct periodic reviews of processes like lead scoring and routing.

What three marketing activities do you expect to have the biggest impact in 2017?

Content marketing is still a big deal.

Buyers will continue to get savvier and demand that marketers meet them on their terms. We must continue to produce relevant and timely content. The second is predictive analytics. Learning to use this will make us better, so we can move from broad-based predictive modeling to serving up a personalized experience to drive better customer engagement.

No. 3 is demand generation. According to Sirius Decisions/Inc., with sales and marketing alignment, shared accountability and discipline to processes, you can achieve 24 percent faster revenue growth and 27 percent faster profit over a threeyear period.

THEIR AIM IS TRUE

Before You Go

SURVEY SHOWS CONTENT MARKETING KEY IN 2017 PLANS

ust how successful is content marketing in today's marketing landscape? Turns out the numbers are very good indeed. According to the newly released "B2B Content Marketing: 2017 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends—North America" study, 62 percent of B2B marketers in North America say their organization's overall approach to content marketing has been much more or somewhat more successful than a year ago. The report surveyed 2,562 marketers from varying industries around the world.

Here's what their 2017 content marketing plans hold:

34% 73%

Say their strategy is extremely or very effective at helping achieve content marketing goals

Say their strategy includes a plan to operate content marketing as an ongoing business, not simply a campaign

37% Have a documented content marketing strategy

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