Nikki Little (00:02)
integrated communications, means building a system where paid, earned, shared, and owned media don't operate in silos. Instead, they reinforce each other to drive measurable outcomes.
Ben Ard (00:38)
welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Nikki. Nikki, welcome to the show.
Nikki Little (00:43)
Thank you, glad to be here.
Ben Ard (00:45)
Nikki, I'm excited. This is going to be fun. You have a lot of great experience in the space, but before we dive into today's episode, let's get to know you. If you don't mind sharing for the audience, your background and your work history, all that fun stuff, that'd be great.
Nikki Little (00:59)
Yes, yes. So we were talking a little bit before you hit recording and I was letting you know about my background. So I actually did major in public relations. Shout out to Central Michigan University and the Integrative Public Relations program here. So that actually preceded my days of integrated comms because the integrative program at CMU
blends PR with advertising, broadcast, journalism. So I really did get an integrated experience through my college education. So I became really interested in agency work, did an internship there, actually started my career at Franco right out of college and spent about three and a half years there, more on the traditional side, really started to immerse myself in the social and digital space. So then I went to another agency where I was fully in that social media world for almost eight years.
Then I had done agency for my whole career and said I need to do something different. So I went in-house to a not quite a startup but still acted like a startup where I was their first director of communications and really got to bring that integrated skill set that I had to them and did that for close to two years and then the stars aligned and I had the opportunity to come back to Franco. So I've been there been back there since September of 2019.
Ben Ard (02:12)
So that's one of the coolest stories where you get to go back to where you started having all this new experience. I'm sure that's so much fun to say, okay, cool. I know the roots. Now let's bring in some new value, things of that nature. I think that's so cool.
Nikki Little (02:16)
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
And the agency was so different since I had been there. So it felt comfortable coming back, but I also had the unique opportunity to, the agency was really on the cusp of, we've been in business for 61 years now. So we're Michigan's longest standing agency and really had the opportunity to help the agency kind of turn the brand to more integrated comms, still really digging into and leveraging our PR routes. But we'd become an integrated communications agency, but we weren't talking that way. We didn't have a kind of unified approach.
to that so I had the really fun opportunity to help everybody get integrated internally so that we could start to market ourselves as that integrated comms agency.
Ben Ard (03:04)
I love that. That's so cool. So Nikki, we're going to talk about that and dive into that experience. So the importance and power of integrated communications. You've got the experience. You've helped the company transition internally. You also offer these services. You know what you're talking about. This is going to be a ton of fun. So first question, when you talk about integrated communications, what does that look like in practice? Like, what does that actually mean?
Nikki Little (03:13)
Yes.
Yes. So in practice,
integrated communications, means building a system where paid, earned, shared, and owned media don't operate in silos. Instead, they reinforce each other to drive measurable outcomes.
We follow the PaySoul model at Franco. I wish I could take credit for it. It's brilliant, but I always, always give credit where credit is due. And that is to Ginny Dietrich and her team at Spinsucks for creating that model. And it really is the foundation of integrated communications. So
you know, what's that look like in action? For us, everything starts with strategy. Integrated comms is not a tactic. Like I said, it's an operating system. So you have to start by aligning peso elements to business objectives, not just communications or marketing goals. Each media type has its purpose, but they work together. So you're going to hear me say that several times throughout this, because I really want to make sure that sinks in with people that the different elements that are part of integrated communications, they
have to be aligned, they have to be working in harmony, they cannot be siloed. So I can give you an example if you want to kind of paint the picture of it. Okay so let's say you're a company you're launching a new product. Here's what an integrated program would look like.
Ben Ard (04:34)
yeah, absolutely.
Nikki Little (04:41)
We always recommend you start with owned media. So owned media, it's your website, your blog, your email. It's a piece of content, it's a platform that you owned. So you publish a thought leadership piece on the problem that your product solves. So that's starting with owned. Then from there, you can adapt that piece to a media pitch or a byline article for earned.
Hopefully get that secured, get some earned media coverage. Shared, you can then take that owned piece and or the earned pieces that you secure and amplify that content on your brand social media channels. And then paid, you can create awareness ads on search and social and you drive people to the product landing page. So that's just an example of everything's working together toward a shared objective. You visibility, trust, which then hopefully turns into conversion. ⁓
And I think an important thing to remember too is that with integrated comms, it's not a straight line from idea to action. It's a constant feedback loop. again, going back to that example that I used with the product launch, it's owned is fueling shared conversations. Shared insights then can help inform the paid team and paid targeting.
earned trust amplifies everything. This is also very good from a generative AI perspective, totally different topic. We won't have time to get into that today. Maybe I can come back and talk about it another time. But I did want to point out that integrated comms is really, really essential and important for generative AI right now too. And then measurement shows what's working and where you need to adjust.
Ben Ard (06:11)
Okay, that's amazing. I love it. Great example. Everyone should be on the same page. We know what integrated communications looks like. Now, when someone's looking at it, they're like, that's sweet. That's amazing. I need this. What challenges tend to come up when teams aren't integrated?
Nikki Little (06:18)
Right.
Yes.
I would say the first thing is that there's a lot of duplication of effort. So if you have different teams working on different things, nobody's aligned, nobody's communicating, they could be creating similar content for different channels or totally different content, but nobody's talking. So nobody knows what's going on. The messaging and the timing, they likely aren't aligned. And then building on the messaging point, there's likely inconsistent messaging and voice. So when marketing and comms elements don't share a strategy or an editorial
calendar, audiences they'll hear different taglines across channels. There'll be varying product descriptions. There's conflicting calls to action. So integration aligns all media types around a unified story and tone.
I also think then there's missed amplification opportunities. So a great earned piece could go unnoticed because the social team doesn't know about it. So it never gets shared on the brand channels. The pay team didn't boost it. It didn't get included in the email newsletter. We always like to say at Franco for ourselves and for our clients, we never want a piece of content to live and die on one channel. So the beauty of integrated is that you can kind of cut it up and use it for different channels and the appropriate
that would reach those audiences on those channels. So with integrated teams, there's workflows that maximize every asset across channels. ⁓
And then finally, there are data and measurement gaps when teams aren't aligned. So if teams aren't sharing tools or KPIs, then you can't trace how earned media drove traffic to your website. You don't know if shared posts are driving traffic to the website, which is also more challenging now with algorithm changes, but still possible, or how shared is generating conversations about your brand. And then leadership sees fragmented metrics that don't show real impact.
Integrated measurement focuses on the shared outcomes, not isolated outputs.
Ben Ard (08:22)
that. And I love the emphasis on the analytics because I've seen that time and time again. If you can't communicate the value, it's really hard to get people to get excited and give you resources to continue on those projects that you know are valuable. You just need to be able to articulate and show that data.
Nikki Little (08:31)
Right.
Absolutely. And again, it's confusing to leadership. So think about you're getting one set of report, you're getting a different set of reports and data and metrics from different teams. How much more powerful is it if you could come together and show one integrated report and show how everything is building off one another, supporting each other. And it doesn't always work perfectly, right? But you can show where things are going well. And then you can show, okay, here are the things that we need to adjust tweak moving forward so we can start to see more improvement in this area.
Ben Ard (09:09)
Exactly. So what that leads me to think about is how do you approach building a plan that ties together different departments or functions? How do you actually merge that and get that to work together?
Nikki Little (09:20)
Yes. So going back to what I said at the beginning, you really have to think of the peso model as an operating system and not just a marketing framework. At Franco, we created our own integrated matrix for client programs to help align all marketing and communications efforts. So regardless of whether we're helping a client with two services or it's a full blown integrated program, that matrix truly keeps everything aligned. So say we're just doing the earned and the digital and they have internal team members that are handling
the social and the owned content, we work really closely with those team members to ensure that we can get everything put together in that matrix so that we know exactly what's happening with the teams that we might not be touching ourselves. And then we obviously know what we're doing with our work, but everything's aligned and everything's integrated. So, you you have to start with shared goals, not siloed department goals. And that is really important when it comes to just getting key department leads involved early, co-creating the strategy,
on the approach. So get teams talking. That's the most important thing. And then once you're talking, you can ask, are we doing across the integrated elements? Are we missing anything? What's working? What's redundant? What's again, what's missed? What tools, data or workflow aren't being shared or maybe no longer make sense to use anymore? And then you can build your matrix or there's a lot of tools that you can use if you don't want to create your own matrix. But then that outlines all integrated
And then again, you can see how owned becomes earned content, earned gets shared on social, paid directs to owned traffic, you know, everything that I kind of talked about already. So then from there, you can determine KPIs, how you'll report out on those integrated efforts and then assess what's working and what's not. So, but I really recommend that if you know, starting somewhere, either it's either with the matrix or tool that's guiding you like a North Star and then any adjustments can be tracked and aligned to all
marketing efforts.
Ben Ard (11:17)
I love that. That makes perfect sense. Great. So can you share any examples where integration really made a difference or when the lack of it caused like a lot of issues?
Nikki Little (11:25)
Yes, I'll start with the second part of where the lack of it caused issues. So several years ago, we learned that a client's team was having separate internal meetings with the media relations and earned team and the social team. They didn't meet together and they didn't talk together. And that was obviously a huge missed opportunity because even though the work was integrated and our program was integrated, there were a lot of missed opportunities because they weren't communicating well with each other. And then once we made that adjustment to have
teams meeting together, it really did unlock new opportunities. The team was actually operating like a team. Everybody felt informed and then we could create a bigger impact together. Then on the flip side, a client we work with in the auto retail tech space, it's a client we've grown with over the past several years and they're really a great example of putting integrated best practices into action. Our team marketing calls have grown to include
representatives, sometimes more than one person from central marketing, product marketing, OEM marketing, data analytics, digital and social. So we are truly an extension of their team. And because we're all working well together, everybody's informed on what the various teams are doing. We're working toward a common goal. We've seen a lot of payoffs in terms of brand recognition and awareness, really great media partnerships.
increased website traffic, more leads, et cetera. And because our program is integrated, no one's operating in silo.
Ben Ard (12:55)
I love that. That's so cool. And like that last little phrase is so key. No one's operating in a silo. The winds actually are acknowledged and people get excited about it. That's so cool. I love that. We like to get tactical on this podcast where people can actually start and do something today. So what's one step marketers can take right now to move toward a better integration and everyone that's listening. They're like, okay,
Nikki Little (13:01)
Right.
Yes, yes.
Yes.
Ben Ard (13:22)
I need to get on board. need to do more here, regardless of where their system's at. What's something they can do to take that first step?
Nikki Little (13:29)
If you take nothing away from the conversation today, I hope everybody listening, watching this, the one thing they remember if you do nothing else, get leaders of various departments talking and meeting with each other frequently. You really have to be each other's allies, sales, marketing, comms, digital, social, and I recognize not everybody works at a company that's large enough that they have team leads for each of those departments. whatever your situation looks like, there's definitely somebody who leads sales, and there's definitely some
who leads marketing and comms and that might be you. So at least at the very minimum make sure you are talking to whoever leads sales and the two of you or those two teams are very integrated and very aligned. So you know again everything needs to align with leadership goals for the company.
figure out what type of integrated tracking you're going to use. Okay, I know I said I was going only say one thing, so I'm saying two things now. But you know, get people right, get people talking and then figure out how you're going to track everything because integration really is not possible without collaboration.
Ben Ard (14:22)
I love it. Great. Two steps are better than one.
I love that. Yeah. And when you're tracking everything, I love the term definitions because it really does no good if you're saying, okay, we're going to get X amount of this and nobody knows what this means. And I love it. And I also love that you talked about, the people that run the specific departments and functions from my experience as well. They may not have the title you expect. Like you need to know your business well enough to know who actually runs.
Nikki Little (14:42)
Right. What that means, right. Right.
Yes.
Ben Ard (15:01)
that department because it may not be the person who has the title for it either.
Nikki Little (15:04)
Right,
right. And the worst thing, and we've experienced this too, before we had, I can think of another client example, before we were really integrated with their sales team, we were creating marketing materials, we were creating sales materials, one-pagers, case studies, eBooks, and then come to find out they weren't getting pushed to the sales team. The sales team didn't know they existed or they did, but they didn't know how to use them effectively. So we're sitting here going, well, what are we spending all this time creating all this material for? They're not aware of it.
they're not being instructed on how to use it. So once we were able to collaborate more together, then they got it and they understood it. But that's worst case scenario, right? Where you're sitting here producing what you think is really great work, but then it's just nobody's using it because nobody's talking and they don't understand how to use it.
Ben Ard (15:53)
100%. And in that specific use case, I've seen that time and time again as well. There is probably an influencer somewhere in that cycle that you need to make sure is a part of these meetings as well so that they get on board. They feel like they're heard. And as soon as they have a seat at the table, they're going to push and be an advocate for all of these programs to actually integrate everyone in the process. I love this. This is so cool. Nikki, I have learned a ton. Our audience, I'm sure, has absolutely loved this.
Nikki Little (16:04)
Guess.
Yes.
Ben Ard (16:21)
For anyone who's listened today and wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Nikki Little (16:27)
You can find me on LinkedIn and Franco's website is Franco.com.
Ben Ard (16:31)
Perfect. For everyone listening, scroll down to the show notes on whatever platform you're on. All of the links will be included right there in the description so you can click and connect with Nikki. Nikki, thank you so much for the time and insights today. It has been absolutely amazing.
Nikki Little (16:45)
You're very welcome. This was fun.
