Matthews on Marketing

Matthews on Marketing

CMO Tip: Use Magazines to Define and Maintain Your Style

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Approachable. Friendly. Trustworthy. Fun without being snarky. Ever see direction like this in a style guide? I have. I’ve even written some of those words. The problem is that they are open to interpretation, and therefore not consistently effective. So, how can you communicate what you want to a wide and changing group of employees and vendors? Here’s an idea. Use one or two magazines to help build your style guide. Magazines are widely available, and more importantly, they are tangible. … [Read more...]

Marketingspeak: What is a ‘Lower Third’?

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Originally from the television industry, but now applicable to all kinds of video, a "lower third" is the graphic overlay that is typically used to identify the speaker. It can be used to convey any kind of information to the viewer. The graphic appears at the bottom, to be the least obtrusive, and in what is known as the safe area - an area viewable by all television screens. There is no hard and fast rule that it must be one third of the screen, and it can be either a horizontal bar with … [Read more...]

When to Go Outbound, aka ‘The Inbound Trap’

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When I ran marketing for the high-growth SaaS business Incapsula, I relied heavily on inbound marketing techniques to fuel our demand generation engine. Things went swimmingly in the beginning, but then I noticed the velocity of marketing-generated leads began to slow and dip below the growth expectations for the business. What happened? I had fallen into what I call “the inbound trap.” Let me explain. Inbound marketing uses techniques that bring buyers to you. At its core is creating content … [Read more...]

Two Formulas to Measure Content Marketing

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For all of the words written about the power of content marketing, too few discuss how it should be measured. Last year I wrote a two-part piece about what I called the  economics of content marketing, in which I shared two formulas to measure its impact. The two formulas measure content consumption and profitability. Consumption Compelling people to consume – read, watch, listen to – your content is the name of the game. Here is a really simple for measuring consumption: Consumption = … [Read more...]