Time For IntegratedContent Solutions

A White Paper

A SpeciAl content MArketing inStitute technology reporthttp://contentmarket inginst i tute.com

Integrated and scalable marketing programs across Paid, Owned and Earned campaigns have become essential for agencies and marketers that are striving to succeed in today’s increasingly complex, confusing and competitive landscape. Important considerations to consider when

evaluating potential solutions include: How can marketers more efficiently and cost-effectively create, manage and measure their messaging across multiple digital communication mediums and channels simultaneously? How can marketers develop deeper and more visually compelling content that tells stories that truly inform, engage and guide target audiences to desired actions? How can they incorporate best approaches that encourage interaction, sharing, and earned media placements? How can marketers better realize the full potential of digital media by quantifying the effectiveness of messaging across the variety of different channels? Integrated Content Marketing Solutions are beginning to emerge that take advantage of a variety of new technologies and best practices. These provide effective ways of producing, packaging and delivering different forms of integrated content messaging. Ideally, an integrated content marketing solution would have the ability to be centrally managed, monitored and optimized through a fast, flexible, secure and easy to deploy solution. One clear emerging trend is more elaborate story telling on websites, partner sites, blogs and in paid campaigns. Sometimes this involves creating new content and/or aggregating existing content. There is a strong emphasis on video due to its strong persuasive and selling attributes. There is also a desire to present content in an interactive manner that drives optimal and increasingly deeper engagement. However, the challenge is to integrate and manage this experience, while maintaining messaging frequency and controlling costs. Another trend is integrated analytics. If you can’t measure the effectiveness of a campaign across its many permutations (email marketing, banner ads, landing pages, shared and earned syndication) you have likely lost control and the ability to measure, refine and optimize. If, for example, multiple forms of content are being used to tell stories, then marketers should be able to measure interactions with each piece of content to determine what’s working and what needs to be improved. Beyond this is the ideal situation where content in syndication across multiple platforms can be simultaneously updated on the fly in direct response to audience interactions. CMI, in a recent study of content marketing providers in this area highlighted one company – NextWorks – that provides solutions to some of the challenges facing marketers seeking to tell stories with multiple content formats across multiple channels. The following is a more detailed snapshot of the company and its offerings.

What It IsNextWorks takes multiple forms of interactive content and packages them into sharable units. This format, which NextWorks calls a “Content Capsule™,” enables its clients to tell stories and move prospective customers to take a desired action. Content Capsules are self-contained units that make use of new or existing content and can be updated at any time.

What Problems Does It Solve?NextWorks’ Content Capsule addresses the limitations of many traditional microsites by providing an interactive unit that can contain multiple content elements; it can be shared, embedded, or used as paid media, and is designed to be easy-to-update and to work across all computing platforms.Content Capsules are visually oriented. These self-contained units

incorporate videos (which can be played within the capsule), images, presentations, documents, links to transactions, and other content. Individual elements of a Content Capsule can be shared via social media channels. In addition, clients can deploy one element of a capsule as paid media that, when a visitor hovers over it, expands to display the entire capsule as an overlay on the host web page. No matter where a Content Capsule is deployed, NextWorks can measure interactions with every piece of content it contains.

NextWorksCompany Ownership: privately held Headquarters: nextWorks199 Water Street, 14th Floornew york, ny 10038Website: www.nextworks.com Contact: David henrydhenry@nextworks.com

InTereSTIng FeaTure oF noTeNextWorks’ modularity makes it possible for you to deploy the entire capsule on your website, partner sites, and blogs, but then also break it apart into smaller pieces that can be used as paid media on other websites. You can display a video from a capsule that, when clicked, causes the entire capsule to pop-up over the top of its host web page. This gives NextWorks’ content curation and sharing platform a “build once, deploy anywhere” capability that helps clients manage their deployment costs. This “Flu+You” Content Capsule was embedded on many

websites. Here it is shown on the National Council of Aging’s site.

As an option, NextWorks offers a “campaign in a box” solution, which it says can be configured and launched in days. In addition, it cites an average development cost of $25,000, compared to $150,000 to $200,000 for a comparable microsite.

Target Market and PricingNextWorks serves a variety of clients, including large consumer, healthcare and technology product companies, B2B firms, and nonprofits. A fully designed and loaded Content Capsule, ready to deploy, costs about $25,000 to produce and includes built-in distribution. This cost includes: • A Custom Capsule design that is based on client’s art and branding guidelines • 90 days of analytics • Deployment of capsule across owned and earned media • News wire distribution to thousands of media sites

Add on services include: • Complete video production and other creative content development • Paid media programming designed to accelerate engagement

Their ApproachNextWorks builds Content Capsules for clients, using each client’s content, branding, and style guidelines. Capsules may incorporate images, videos, documents, Flash animations, and any other type of web content. All content is viewed within the capsule until the visitor clicks on its call to action.

Example of a Content Capsule embedded directly into Facebook as an app—one of many places a Content Capsule can be shared.

“No matter where a Content Capsule is deployed, NextWorks can measure interactions with every piece of content it contains.”

NextWorks’ clients typically have made a major investment in visual content (videos, images, and other non-text assets). The NextWorks team takes these existing materials and packages them in a way that approximates the “customer journey”—the educational process a typical prospect goes through on the way to a sale. A capsule for a B2B client, for instance, might contain the following elements:• Videos that explain the offering, include quotes from industry analysts, and showcase a few customer success stories• An infographic that visualizes the problem the prospect is facing and how the client’s solution will help them• Still images• Links to a number of documents, including press releases and research studies• Links to the client’s Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages, as well as an email link for sharing the capsule• A link that provides code for embedding the capsule in any web page, so the client’s channel partners and resellers can deploy it on their websites • Links to a call to action or transaction Featuring built-in HTML 5, Content Capsules can be deployed to any computing platform, including smartphones and tablets, without the need to rewrite code. Therefore, companies with dealers, distributors, or resellers can deploy the capsules to their partners, who can then integrate them into their websites with a few lines of code. When NextWorks updates the contents of a capsule, all instances of it are also updated, no matter where they reside. NextWorks tracks engagement metrics for the overall Content Capsule as well as each individual component.

Future DirectionFor the future, NextWorks is working with clients to produce highly informative videos specifically for Content Capsules. The videos are designed to guide viewers through the decision making process; from initial assessment, through deeper levels of engagement to taking desired actions. NextWorks is also creating Content Capsule production and distribution solutions for product launches, public relations campaigns and highly specialized areas like clinical trial recruitment. These packaged solutions provide turnkey content production, syndication and analytics across owned, earned, shared and paid media.

Company HISTory/overvIewVideo marketing entrepreneur tim Bahr founded nextWorks in April 2012. Bahr’s vision for the company was to merge highly efficient video production techniques with new interactive delivery platforms to help clients achieve new levels of engagement with their audiences. prior to launching nextWorks, he co-founded the orbis Broadcast group, a global leader in healthcare video production and distribution when it was sold in 2000. he later founded MultiVu, which is now a market leader in online video production and distribution services.

“The modularity makes it possible for you to deploy the entire capsule on your website, but then break it apart into smaller pieces that can be used as paid media on other websites.”