Dan Mooney of Wiley on Speaking at Share15

The Evolution of Digital Marketing at the Enterprise Level

Large, traditional organizations can lack the agility to quickly adapt to the changes that digital marketers face. Wiley is a good example of a 208-year old organization that is working hard to keep, if not set, the pace. In fact, Wiley recently won the 2015 gold medal for “Best Learning Program Supporting a Change Transformation Business Strategy” by Brandon Hall—a preeminent research and analyst organization that specializes in corporate organizational performance.

This fits in perfectly with our Session at Share this year: The Hybrid Digital Marketer – Talent Management. Dan Mooney, Director of Digital Analytics at Wiley, will be presenting in that session. We recently caught up with Dan and discussed how Wiley is keeping current with the skills and tools required to compete. This is a follow-up interview we had with Clay Stobaugh from Wiley about their transition from being a traditional publisher to digital content excellence.  

BE: Congratulations on the Brandon Hall Aawrd! It sounds like Wiley puts a lot of effort into keeping current with a wide range of marketing skills. What can you tell us about how Wiley accomplished this?

DM: Thank you. We were obviously very excited to win this award. Wiley is a global provider of knowledge and knowledge-enabled services that improve outcomes in the areas of research, professional training and practice, and education. So training and education is something we think about every day. We have needs of our own, so we put together a series of on-demand certifications for marketing disciplines. I don’t want to give away too much, but I’ll be covering this in depth in my presentation on September 23.

BE: Tell us about your role at Wiley. How does digital analytics fit in with the bigger digital marketing group at Wiley?

DM: Well, my title is Director of Digital Analytics. My team works on analytics, SEO, paid search and A/B testing; we also work closely with colleagues on user research and segmentation, social marketing, among other areas. That’s a big part of why I like digital marketing so much. There’s always something new to learn and work on. Wiley is a global provider of knowledge services and my day-to-day is really making sure colleagues have the right tool sets and strategies to be successful. It’s a lot of fun. I’m lucky to work with a lot of very smart people. We’ve also been fortunate to have leading, enterprise tools to do our jobs.

BE: That’s a pretty broad range of tools and skills to roll out. How does Wiley manage that?

DM: We’ve combined a top-down and bottom-up approach. We think of all colleagues as marketers, and we’ve provided the tool sets, and training necessary for success. A big piece of this are our certifications for SEO, Digital Analytics, Social Marketing, Customer Experience and other marketing disciplines. Our executive leadership is also actively involved. We provide them with executive-level dashboards that show how each of our businesses is doing, and relate them directly to marketing so we can prove ROI. As a result, our colleagues have access to leading enterprise-level toolsets, like BrightEdge. Our leaders understand how important marketing disciplines like SEO are. When we launch new products or sites, we think “How are we going to do this according to best practices? What are our KPIs, and how will we measure them?” and most importantly “Do we have the funding and resources necessary for success?”

The Digital Marketing Landscape Requires Best Practices

BE: What has been one of the biggest changes in digital marketing for Wiley over the last year?

DM: We’ve been very focused on our customer engagement framework. That’s a process that ensures marketing best practices are followed at every step. Seems simple enough, but when you go through and ask “are we doing that and how are we measuring results?” you’ll quickly find some gaps to fill in. We started this a couple of years ago. This past year, we formed centers of excellence (COE) for customer experience, search marketing, social marketing and communities, content marketing, and analytics and optimization. We already had COEs for marketing automation and CRM.

BE: What has had the biggest impact for you and your company?

DM: Forming the Centers of Excellence easily had the biggest impact. Prior, we had many different teams, using multiple platforms with varying ways to engage with customers and measure results. That’s hard enough, but we also have hundreds of colleagues around the world in various roles, (e.g. marketing, editorial, technology, management, etc.) so coordination was tricky. This is much easier now that we have COEs with common mindset, skill sets and tool sets. Whether you’re building a site, writing an article, executing a social campaign or meeting with the Board to discuss goals and budgets, we’re all marketers.

The Content Performance Marketing Shift

BE: How critical is measurement of content in your organization?

DM: Measurement is a big factor, of course. We can’t be successful if we don’t first define what success is, and then go ahead and measure ourselves to see if we’ve achieved success. So, sure, post-launch measurement is important. But I really think that measurement before we build content is even more important. Any organization that is serious about content marketing needs to understand who their customers are and what they care about. This is where BrightEdge has really played a role. The content research and backlink gap analysis available through BrightEdge are priceless. Once we’ve launched, the Share of Voice report is a great starting point to find out how to further our success.

BE: Tell me more about your view on the convergence of content and digital marketing.

DM: I believe it all has to start with research. “Does anyone care about what we’re selling or how we’re selling it?” The good news is that with the technology available, we can assess demand before we begin. The convergence of content and digital marketing is all about being able to optimize everything. You can optimize your content as well as optimize the time you spent working on projects. This means that your content will meet a real demand that can be measured all within a set timeframe.

About Your Session at Share15 – Building Buy-In for Best Practices

BE: Tell me more about your session? - Overview of the topic and 'teasers' with regard to content you aim to present (but don't give the game away).

DM: My presentation is about getting buy-in from everyone; from executives, to the front-line marketers and everyone in between. Everyone needs to be ‘on board’. You also won’t get too far without the right tool sets. You’ll also face challenges if your colleagues don’t use those tools to their fullest ability. Nothing surprising there; but doing this at a large, global organization can be very challenging. We’ve done a few things at Wiley that will show others how to speed up the process. That’s what I’m going to show in my presentation. Again, this is where BrightEdge is critical. Start out using it as a platform for research to inform your strategy. Then measure your performance once you launch and look for ways to improve.

Your Partnership with BrightEdge

BE: What do you love about BrightEdge?

DM: The technology and data are the best in the industry. I’m constantly discovering new ways to use Data Cube for research and measurement. Again, the technology is great, but the culture is what really sets BrightEdge apart. I’ve worked with a lot of partners who say they put the customer first, but none come close to BrightEdge’s commitment to my success. My Client Services Manager is always checking in to see if there’s anything he can help with and constantly educating me on the platform. I’ve also worked with the Professional Services team on a few projects and they’re an incredibly smart, inquisitive group who really wants to understand my business and challenges. Throughout, I never feel like I’m being sold to. It really is a partnership.

About Share – Hands-On Labs, Networking and Takeaways

BE: Why Share – why do you attend?

DM: This will be my second year at Share. Last year I really got a lot out of the networking and hearing what other people are doing. I’m always interested in spending time with like-minded people who are all solving the same problems I face.

BE: What are you most looking forward to?

DM: I’m very interested in the hands-on labs and the Level Two BrightEdge Certification. I’ve spent a lot of the last year at more of a strategic level. I know there have been a lot of great features added to the platform. And there will probably be a few more to announce at Share. I really want to make sure I know how to use them all. Once I get a better handle on the new features, I need to bring this all back to Wiley and make sure everyone gets the most out of the platform.