June 23, 2017

HOW ZENEFITS USES CONTENT TO BUILD STRONG RELATIONSHIPS

This article originally appeared on Column Five.

Laura Winkenbach is VP of Product Marketing & Content for HR software company Zenefits. In an increasingly complicated industry, she’s tasked with educating and engaging customers to make their lives easier. Her tool? Content. We caught up with Laura to chat about how she uses content to make a great first impression, establish a relationship, and continue to provide value to Zenefit’s customers.

C5: Tell us a bit about your role. What do you do?

LW: I lead our product marketing and content efforts at Zenefits. We help educate and engage prospects in learning more about Zenefits and the HR space in general. With HR becoming a much more strategic and critical role at growing companies, it’s tough for HR leaders to stay on top of regulatory changes, business trends, and HCM in general.

C5: What role does content play in your overall branding and marketing efforts?

LW: Content is the tip of the spear in many of our efforts. We try to offer helpful and educational content to engage prospects. By offering valuable and exclusive research, thought leadership, articles, webinars, and more, we offer something to prospects before we ask them to learn about our products and solutions. The goal is to create a positive perception of Zenefits by offering value first.

C5: What does your team look like?

LW: We’re a lean team. We have two product marketers and two content marketers who work closely together on messaging, positioning, go-to-market, and demand generation.

C5: What is your team’s main focus right now?

LW: Right now we are focusing on increasing organic traffic and improving conversions of that traffic from visitors to leads. We’re putting a lot of effort into our blog and focusing on topical, editorial content.

C5: How do you measure results?

LW: We track our organic traffic patterns pretty closely, as well as how those visitors are engaging with content (time spent on page, visitors to form-fills, etc.).

C5: Which types of content yield the best quality leads for your brand?

LW: For us, leads who express interest in our products are clearly deepest in the funnel. For example, if someone downloads a product sheet or watches a demo video, they are more likely going to convert to a personalized demo or a free trial. But not all leads are ready to purchase just yet. That’s why we maintain a useful and thoughtful stream of content and communication to keep the relationship going.

C5: What role does your proprietary data play in your marketing?

LW: We actually just released one of our first research reports, the Benefits Benchmark report. We heard from countless customers that they were looking for benchmarks on what similar companies and businesses in their region were spending on employee benefits. We aggregated the data from our database and analyzed the findings into a number of key trends, all published in our report.

The great thing about this report is that it isn’t survey based, as many reports tend to be. It’s actual data. These types of reports are hugely valuable to current customers but also help drive leads from new prospects as well.

C5: In your opinion, which brands are doing content marketing and brand storytelling right?

LW: Salesforce always does a great job with going big and being consistent with a theme. They maintain the same theme throughout all their content, whether it’s their website, printed collateral, event signage, and more. Having this consistency makes them immediately recognizable even if you don’t see their logo. This type of brand and visual storytelling is tough to do, but they’ve aligned things well.

Personally, I’m kind of obsessed with Chubbies. Their stories and content truly bring to life their entire brand and mission. This resonates in the brand, their product, the messaging, and certainly in their content. They make me ready for the weekend. =)

C5: What’s the most rewarding part of what you do?

LW: Getting positive feedback from prospects and customers that our content was useful is the most rewarding thing. While we certainly want to acquire leads and convert them to customers, it’s my job to give prospects a positive first impression of Zenefits. And if we can do that by offering them useful research or information that helps them do their job better, we feel pretty good about ourselves.

C5: At work, what is the biggest pain in the ass?

LW: Content distribution! If you build it, they don’t always come. It’s tough to make sure content is discoverable, and this doesn’t happen on its own. We’ve augmented our strategy quite a bit to focus more on SEO and keywords that are in demand. But it’s hard to make sure that everyone who has a question can find the content you created to answer it.

C5: If you had an “easy” button, what would you have it do for you?

LW: It would pretty much take over Google’s algorithm. Just kidding.

C5: What would you tell/teach yourself 5 years ago that would have better prepared you for your work today?

LW: I spend a lot of time thinking about leadership and what makes a great leader. I’ve learned a ton over the years and have been lucky enough to work with some amazing leaders. One of the best things I’ve taken from these years is that every moment can be a coaching moment and a sharing moment.

Nothing has meant more to me than when my leader or mentor gave me feedback, a special tip or trick, or spent time offering more explanation. These moments have helped me be successful in all kinds of situations. I try to do the same with my team now, to empower them to make decisions in their own domain, take risks, and share wins and failures equally. So 5 years ago, I’d have to tell myself to “always be sharing.”

C5: What piece of advice would you give someone interested in getting into content marketing and brand storytelling?

LW: I’d say the most important is to be purposeful. There is SO much content created because “someone thought it was a good idea,” because a competitor did it, or because it “feels like we should do something about X.” Without a clear goal, purpose, distribution plan, and success metric defined in advance, you run the risk of creating content that no one will read. And, worse yet, you won’t know if it was successful or not. My strong advice is to be purposeful in everything you build.

C5: Any last parting words or nuggets of wisdom?

LW: Umm, we’re marketers. Have fun! Avoid the jargon and just act as if you’re having a conversation with someone walking down the street. Too much writing has become so technical and formal. Even if you’re writing about technical subject matter, you can still be conversational.

Many thanks to Laura for sharing her thoughts. Follow Laura’s posts on the Zenefits blog and keep up with her on Twitter @llbrooks44. For more wisdom from game-changers in content marketing and content strategy, check out these Q&As:

• Course Hero shows us how to build a brand through user-generated content. 
• CoSchedule shares the content strategy that increased traffic six-fold.
• Jeff Marcoux of Microsoft chats about implementing an Account-Based Marketing strategy.
• Business Insider’s Mike Nudelman tells us what publishers want from your content.
• LinkedIn’s Alex Rynne explains how to use LinkedIn to build your personal and professional brand.

Source: Visual News

June 22, 2017

Announcing the Cities Summit at SXSW 2018

We’re pleased to announce the Cities Summit, a new convergence program for SXSW 2018.

As the world grows increasingly complex, cities have emerged as innovators, testing and developing new solutions to problems ranging from climate change, migration, automation, and more. The term smart cities has become synonymous for cities implementing new technologies, but truly smart cities are more than tech savvy. Cities are reflections of the people who live, work, and play within them. Our cities and public spaces are integral to the arts, creativity, culture, and democracy itself.

The more people we have envisioning the future of our cities brings more promise of building solutions that work for everyone. We invite all urbanists from the SXSW community – the storytellers, the entrepreneurs, the designers, the musicians, the fans, industries, government officials, and more, to create a dialogue about the opportunity and potential cities hold.

“Cities are on the front lines of change in our society,” said City of Austin Mayor Steve Adler. “Cities are where the economic expansion, the new ideas, and the cultural advances happen, where we are making the necessary progress on climate change and where we show that inclusion and diversity are not burdens to tolerate but necessary ingredients for success and survival. Cities are not bubbles where we preserve the past. Cities are incubators of the future. There is nowhere this is more true than Austin, Texas, and that’s why I am so thrilled that SXSW will be hosting a Cities Summit.”

The Cities Summit will be accepting programming proposals through the SXSW PanelPicker, which opens Monday, June 26. We encourage you to be creative and think outside the box when entering your session idea. The Summit will include experimental programming formats and creative interventions that explore the cities of the future.

Learn more, get involved and plan your participation at sxsw.com/cities.

The post Announcing the Cities Summit at SXSW 2018 appeared first on SXSW.

Source: SxSW Film

June 22, 2017

Which Graduate Degree Gets You Out Of Debt The Fastest?

This article originally appeared on Priceonomics.

If you’re one of the 29% who feels their choice of major in college didn’t prepare them to secure the job they wanted after graduation, you may be considering graduate school as a shot at a do-over. Those seeking higher income may indeed find themselves better equipped after earning a graduate degree. But this second chance can come at a steep cost.

But is it worth it? And moreover, does it matter financially if you attend a prestigious graduate school or not?

One way of answering this question is to look at how much income you make after grad school compared to the amount of debt you’ve now accumulated. We decided to analyze data from Priceonomics customer Earnest, a financial services company, to see which advanced degrees produced graduates with the the most (and least) student debt and how that compared to their actual earnings after school. 

We looked at the following graduate degrees: MDs (medicine), DDS (dentistry), Pharm D (pharmacy), MBA (business administration), JDs (law), Masters in Science or Engineering, Masters in Arts, and other masters degrees.

We found that medical professionals take on the most debt – even when their high salaries are accounted for – while MBAs enjoy a low debt burden relative to their income.

We also looked at the question of does the prestige of the school matter.

We found graduate program prestige comes with tangible financial benefits: for all disciplines except medicine, graduates of top-100 programs enjoy lower debt relative to their income upon graduation. This trend continues after graduation, with the exception of engineering graduate students, where students from less prestigious schools have more favorable debt to income ratios six years after graduation than their counterparts from higher ranked schools.

***

We first asked how much debt the typical graduate degree holder carries. This data is supplied by respondents looking to refinance their debt, so while it is self-reported, users must be reasonably accurate if they wish to receive realistic rate estimates. Average student loan debt – which comprises debt accumulated in college and graduate school – is reported for each degree type below.

Data source: Earnest

Future medical professionals – a category that includes doctors, dentists, and pharmacists – can expect to take on the most debt to finance their degrees. Future lawyers, too, take on six-figure debt to finance their degrees. Masters programs of all stripes are the cheapest, though graduates’ debt still ranges from around $60,000 all the way up to nearly $90,000.

This ranking lines up with degree program duration: MD programs typically take 4 years to complete, JDs 3 years, and full-time masters programs 1 or 2 years. 

Even with a hefty price, a degree program may be worth it if it confers earning power to match. If we account for income, do doctors still have the highest debt compared to other graduate degree-holders?

To answer this question, we divided average debt by our respondents’ average self-reported income to calculate a debt-to-income ratio for each group of graduates. Debt-to-income ratios below 1 mean these degree-holders make more than they paid for their degree in one year. Values over 1 mean the degree cost more than what the typical graduate makes in a year.

Data source: Earnest

Even if we take income into account, medical professionals bear the greatest burden when it comes to paying for their degrees. These graduates make a solid income, but it’s not enough to balance out their formidable debt.

Graduates with Masters of Arts degrees take second place in our debt-to-income ranking despite paying the least for their credentials. These graduates can expect relatively low starting salaries that handicap their ability to pay down debt.

At the other end of the spectrum, MBAs enjoy the lowest debt-to-income ratio. These degrees are relatively affordable and confer high earning power. 

The relationship between income and debt changes over time as graduates climb the career ladder and pay down their loans. We wanted to see how debt-to-income ratio changes as graduates establish themselves in their careers, so we broke our sample down by years post-graduation to chart a debt-to-income trajectory for each degree type.

Data source: Earnest

Graduates with all degree types experience a decrease in debt-to-income ratio after graduation, but in some professions, those ratios come down faster than in others.

Medical professionals have the highest debt-to-income ratio immediately after graduation. This is likely because MDs begin their careers in residencies, which are essentially low-paid apprenticeships lasting 3 to 6 years. Once residents become practicing physicians, they can expect comfortable six-figure salaries and subsequently make fast progress on their debt. 

In contrast, MBAs have the flattest trajectories toward debt freedom. Though they have the lowest debt-to-income ratio across the entire post-graduation time period we considered, they make the least progress between years 1 and 11 after graduation.

The chart below zooms in on the last data point in our chart, ranking debt-to-income ratio for midcareer professionals 11 years removed from graduation.

Data source: Earnest

Even in the middle of their careers, graduates with Masters of Arts degrees earn relatively little compared to their debt. Costly law and medical degrees hold debt-to-income ratios near 1 for lawyers and doctors, as well. 

Professionals with degrees in business, science, or engineering fare comparatively better, making comfortably more than the cost of their degree in one midcareer year.

Of course, all degrees aren’t created equal. Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, for example, grants its MBA recipients access to a higher-powered network than does the average public college. This advantage could translate to a real difference in earnings and, in turn, debt-to-income trajectory. 

To see the difference grad school reputation can make, we broke our sample down based on whether a graduate’s degree program landed in the top 100 for their field, then charted debt-to-income trajectory over 11 years post-graduation.

Data source: Earnest

School reputation matters. Across a variety of disciplines, professionals who graduate from higher-ranked schools begin their careers with less debt relative to their income. And for the most part, this trend is still apparent a decade after graduation. 

There’s one exception: medical professionals have more or less the same debt-to-income trajectory regardless of their school’s reputation. With respect to student debt, all medical degrees are created equal.

***

So if you’re seeking an affordable graduate degree that will boost your earning power, what should you do?

The “rich doctor” stereotype makes medicine look appealing, but it doesn’t do justice to the burden of financing an MD. Medical professionals take on an average debt near $200,000 to finance their degrees, and early in their careers, their income does little to offset their debt. Attending a more prestigious school doesn’t mitigate their high debt-to-income ratio; graduates of top schools pay just as much relative to their salary as grads from lower-ranked programs.

In contrast, the average MBA makes six figures after spending one or two years in graduate school. They typically take on around $90,000 in debt, but consistently enjoy a low debt-to-income ratio. This is doubly true for graduates of top-100 business programs, who enjoy the high income that comes with access to a high-powered alumni network.

Source: Visual News

June 20, 2017

Dates Announced for the 2018 SXSW Gaming Conference & Festival: March 15-17

SXSW Gaming 2018 will officially take place in downtown Austin, Texas from Thursday, March 15 – Saturday, March 17.

2017 marked a monumental year for SXSW as we introduced the SXSW Gaming Conference & Festival for the first time ever. With over 46,000 gamers enjoying this year’s Gaming Expo, Gaming Awards, and jam-packed schedule of panels, meet ups, parties, and special events, 2018 will be a huge next step for the fastest-growing gaming festival in central Texas.

Highlights from SXSW Gaming 2017 included the return of Nintendo to Austin, SMUG taking home the Fighters Underground crown with the greatest of ease, Naughty Dog taking home 7 awards (including Video Game of the Year) for masterpiece title Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and epic performances for both the Cosplay Contest and official closing party featuring Alan Walker.

Interested in becoming a part of the SXSW Gaming community? Take a look at some of the ways you can get involved with next year’s event!

How To Get Involved for SXSW Gaming 2018

SXSW PanelPicker | June 26 – July 21

The SXSW PanelPicker serves as an open platform for the public to enter speaking proposals on their creative ideas for each year’s event. Whether you’re an industry professional or die-hard gaming fan, we want to hear your ideas on trends that will lead to the major conversations of tomorrow!

SXSW Gaming Awards | Opens August 1

The SXSW Gaming Awards celebrates the excellence found in gaming each year. If you have a game, or are working on an up-and-coming project, then mark your calendars for the launch of SXSW Gaming Awards applications on August 1, 2017.

The SXSW Gaming Awards are meant for both professionals and indie developers alike. Explore the results of the 2017 SXSW Gaming Awards, and see what you can look forward to experiencing at next year’s event.

SXSW Gaming Competitions | Opens August 1

SXSW Gaming will introduce and host a variety of competitions for both industry professionals and fans in 2018. The first of these will be revealed later this year with applications opening up on August 1, 2017.

Interested in keeping up with SXSW Gaming? Follow us @SXSWGaming on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, as well as register for the official SXSW Gaming newsletter so that you never miss a beat.

Photo by Lauren Lindley

The post Dates Announced for the 2018 SXSW Gaming Conference & Festival: March 15-17 appeared first on SXSW.

Source: SxSW Film

June 20, 2017

Q&A: HOW HUBSPOT KEEPS ITS CONTENT MACHINE RUNNING

This article originally appeared on Column Five.

From ideating and writing to editing and managing, HubSpot Marketing Blog Editor Carly Stec knows a thing or two about the value of content—and what it takes to create it. In our latest Q&A, she shares her thoughts on the keys to great content, the trends she’s most excited about, the challenges of managing a major brand publication, and why sometimes you should just hit publish.

CS: I view great content through two lenses:

1. Content that solves a problem.
2. Content that is memorable.

Content that solves a problem might not come equipped with a super sexy title or a stunning visual element, but if it answers a question that someone has in a really clear and concise way, it’s a win. It’s great because it’s valuable.

Content that is memorable is an entirely different beast. Memorable content is the type of content you can’t wait to run and tell your friend, spouse, colleague, or mom about. It’s the type of content that makes you feel something—whether that be inspired, mad, sad, frustrated, motivated, validated … whatever.

The challenge here? You have to learn when and where each type makes the most sense. Strike that balance right and you’ll be in great shape.

C5: What type of feedback do you find yourself giving marketers/writers most frequently?

CS: “Learn how to anticipate the reader’s next question, and answer it before they can ask it.”

For us, this is the key to comprehensiveness and quality. If we want to write the best piece of content on the Internet about topic XYZ, we have to cover all the bases. I think a lot of the time it’s difficult for people that are writing for a professional audience to get out of their own head. They make assumptions based on what they already know about a topic but don’t stop to consider how the information might translate to someone who’s less informed. This is often referred to as the “curse of knowledge,” and it can be really tricky for people to overcome it.

C5: What are the most rewarding and frustrating parts of your job?

CS: Quite simply, I really enjoy helping people. I love helping our readers get better at their jobs. I love helping our team hit goals we didn’t think we stood a chance against. I love helping writers hone their strengths and shake their bad habits. To me, that’s the most rewarding part.

That said, the most frustrating part has been coming to terms with the idea that blogging isn’t an exact science. I’m very process-driven—I love to have a game plan so I can anticipate a certain set of outcomes. But that’s not the way blogging works. It’s actually really messy. Sometimes the post you pour your heart and soul into comes up short. And more often than not, the posts you don’t expect to take off, well, they do. The key here is to take note of what happens, what works, and what doesn’t work, and learn from i—even when things don’t go according to plan.

C5: Who are some writers that you really look up to and find yourself regularly inspired by?

CS: I really admire Ann Handley’s authenticity. I think her approach to writing is refreshing and a little quirky, but always clear. She was one of the first marketers I felt inspired by—and she remains one of my favorites to this day.

If you haven’t already read “Everybody Writes,” go pick up a copy.

C5: What one piece of advice would you give someone interested in getting into content marketing?

Source: Visual News

June 19, 2017

Which Companies Have The Highest Revenue Per Employee?

This article originally appeared on Priceonomics.

For many companies, the biggest cost is talent. This is especially true of Silicon Valley, where companies sell clicks and digital goods that do not have any material cost. So which companies’ workforces are able to generate the most revenue?

We decided to analyze every company in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to see which ones had the highest and lowest revenues per employee. The  Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500”) includes the 500 largest American companies listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ. In 2016, S&P 500 companies generated $11 trillion in combined revenue and employed more than 25 million people worldwide.

We found that Energy companies have the highest average Revenue per Employee, while Industrials and Consumer Discretionaries perform worst on this metric.

Technology companies performed at the lower end of the range on Revenue per Employee; part of the reason for this however, is other companies in spaces like Energy and Healthcare have large non-employee costs that Technology companies do not have.

***

The table below shows the top 50 companies by Revenue Per Employee in 2016 in S&P 500.

Data source: Craft

AmerisourceBergen, a pharmaceutical distributor, tops the list, generating more than $7.9M per employee in 2016. With a reported team of 19,000, which is less than half the workforce of Cardinal Health (37,300) and McKesson (68,000), the company compares favorably to its peers on revenue per employee. Cardinal Health and McKesson‘s RPE were $3.3M and $2.8M, respectively. Overall, Healthcare companies score well on revenue per employee, though they have other huge costs (the costs of administering drugs and health services).

Energy companies Valero Energy Corporation and Phillips 66 take positions 2 and 3, with $7.6M and $5.7M in Revenue per Employee. With the exception of tobacco manufacturers (Altria Group and Reynolds American) and insurance providers (Aflac and XL Group), the top ranks are dominated by Energy and Healthcare sectors. 23 of the top 50 are Energy companies and one-fifth are Healthcare organizations. Like Healthcare companies, Energy companies also have large non-employee costs, however (the costs of the natural resources, for example) 

Grouping the companies into sectors in the chart below, we see the relative labour-intensity of different industries.

Data source: Craft

Average revenue per employee in the Energy sector is double that of Healthcare companies and almost four times as high as that of Information Technology companies.

The table below shows the lowest 10 companies in the index ranked by RPE.

Data source: Craft

It is perhaps unsurprising that Restaurant and Hotel chains make up the majority of the list. What is more striking is that IT providers Cognizant and Accenture have among the lowest revenue per employee in the Index. Amphenol Corporation, a manufacturer of interconnect products, recorded $101K Revenue per Employee, less productive than its competitor TE Connectivity, which generated $163K per Employee.

***

Next, we calculated the change in Revenue per Employee from 2014-16 to see if any trends emerged. The graph below shows S&P 500 companies with the highest and lowest growth rate in RPE.

Data source: Craft

Most of the RPE growth leaders made headcount reductions last year and thus saw their sales per headcount increase. The healthcare companies in this list with an exception for Vertex Pharmaceuticals experienced both revenue growth and headcount reduction, leading to sharp growth in RPE.

8 out of 10 companies with the lowest RPE growth experienced a drop in revenues in the period, while remaining Ball Corporation and Global Payments shrank in RPE mainly due to extensive recruiting.

 ***

We then looked specifically at Technology companies. Only Netflix (which is classed as Consumer Discretionary in the S&P500, not Technology), Apple and Facebook appeared among the top 50 companies by RPE, which required RPE of at least $1.3M.

The following table shows the top 20 Technology companies by revenue, ranked by RPE.

Data source: Craft

Apple has the highest revenue per employee in this selection of technology companies. However, they have substantial non-employee costs since selling hardware involves buying materials and making something tangible. Facebook and Alphabet (Google), on the other hand, make most of their revenue from selling a virtual good (advertising) and still have a tremendously high revenue per employee. VeriSign, which provides domain names and internet security, was a strong performer, generating $1.1Bn in revenue from only 990 employees, ranking fourth in the Technology sector, with $1.2M per employee.

*** 

Overall, Energy companies led the pack in Revenue per Employee, followed by Healthcare and Utilities. Technology companies showed themselves to be labour-intensive with RPE at the lower end of the range, and close to Consumer Discretionaries like restaurants and hotels. To see the full list of companies comprising S&P 500 Index, please click here. 

Source: Visual News