Home > Companies > Thought Leaders > Q&A with Erik Newton, Vice President of Marketing at Milestone Inc.

Q&A with Erik Newton, Vice President of Marketing at Milestone Inc.

Erik Newton, Vice President of Marketing at Milestone Inc., is a full-stack marketing leader driving acquisition, engagement, and retention from messaging to product to acquisition and through renewal. He is a marketing thought leader with more than 150 blogs and pieces published. Erik has managed marketing teams, covering product marketing, acquisition, retention, media, mobile, advocacy, display, search, affiliates, e-mail, web development, and site content management, e-commerce, multivariate testing, and sales forecasting and budgeting. He is also the proud author of the book, Hack the Corporate Fast Track: Accelerate your corporate maturity.

Marketing has to strike that balance between internal and external focus more than any other department.



MEDIA7: What inspires you the most about the marketing industry?
ERIK NEWTON: There is a lot of variety in what we marketers do with 10-20 programs running all of the time, and that keeps it stimulating and engaging. Marketing has to strike that balance between internal and external focus more than any other department. We always ask ourselves: “What problem are we solving for the customer? What is the right thing to do for the customer?” Marketing requires both creativity and quantitative skills to succeed. I lead Milestone Research and use statistical modelling regularly to develop original findings and value for our community, but I was an English major in my undergraduate studies. Marketing shapes the storytelling the company uses, which is a mix of art, science, and social proof. I am starting to experiment with non-linear flexible presentations that will allow the prospect to influence the direction and content in a dynamic, interactive presentation.


M7: Milestone is the first to have an SEO-first CMS in the industry. What are some of the different benefits marketers can get from using this?
EN: SEO is the largest channel by far, contributing about 60%+ of the traffic (excluding direct). An SEO-first CMS enables customers to build and maintain a high-performance website that has built-in discovery support. That means the site infrastructure helps improve visibility and clickability to bring more customers to the site. More specifically, the Milestone CMS provides: fast page load speed, schema markup, AMP, FAQs with schema, and accessibility that affect both discovery and conversion. All of that adds up to more search impressions, more search traffic, and better conversion. There are more than 3 trillion searches on Google per year. Understand that all search queries are questions, all search results are answers and make sure your content answers the questions that your customers and prospects are asking. That is why FAQs as content are such a huge and ripe opportunity for customers.


Remember that the customer is the hero of any story you tell, and your product is a guide for that hero.



M7: How is marketing different than ten years ago?
EN: So much more of the customer journey is self-curated, so companies need to invest even more in their websites and the assets it provides for that journey. Brands and vendors should be keeping their websites fresh and updated and plan for redesign about every two years. Many of the new start-ups use product-led growth, which often means free trial and an effective value gating and conversion system. Email is most effective when the recipient is fully aware they have given permission to be marketed to. Bulk email campaign impact has been blunted by excess volume, spam controls, and the Focus/Other Outlook Inbox. Paid is still significant and growing but has become more sophisticated in its use of retargeting and AI-driven logic to find and engage the relevant prospects. Marketers need to prepare for paid marketing that does not rely on third-party cookies within the next year or so.

No one wants to admit it, but AI is already creating content and will contribute an increasing share each year.
This will create more volume and content clutter, so marketers need to compete with human originality and leverage their ability to answer questions and solve problems. Database hygiene has always been important and continues to be, especially when used as a driver for account-based marketing (ABM). Garbage data degrades the decision making and campaign performance. Marketers need to identify and focus on customer problems first, value creation, and product promotion after that. Remember that the customer is the hero of any story you tell, and your product is a guide for that hero.


M7: How does Milestone’s Schema Manger provide better SEO and omnichannel results?
EN: Entity search is the basis of modern organic search strategy because entities are topics and connections Google use to understand, index, study and retrieve answers from the Internet. Structured data and schemas are fundamental to that function. The Schema Manager enables customers to deploy and maintain error-free advanced schemas. That means they use about a dozen schema types and dozens of attributes in a nested architecture that makes it easier for the search crawlers to find, index, and rank the site content. The Schema Manager makes it easier to select and deploy the right schema types and attributes and monitor them to make sure they are error-free. Milestone drives customer acquisition by enhancing the digital experience and content visibility through SEO, Local, Website, Paid, and Social. We offer a marketing platform called the Milestone Presence Cloud and can provide managed services as needed to supplement customer team and resources. We work with more than 650 customers across industries, including Fortune 100 banks, restaurants, and technology companies.


Remember to focus on the prospect experience more than the channel and the media.



M7: What are some of your preferred marketing channels, given your target consumers?
EN: We use most of the channels but focus on SEO, Local, Referral, Email, Webinar, Events, Paid, ABM, and Social. We are kicking off some new virtual event formats this quarter: SEO Office Hours, Audience Roundtables, and Knowledge Competitions in small groups of 10 to 20 customers and prospects. We find that people are saturated with Zoom presentations and would enjoy a more interactive format. Remember to focus on the prospect experience more than the channel and the media.


M7: What is your advice to young marketers stepping into the industry today?
EN: Start your career with something specific and difficult that not many other people want to do, like email marketing, analytics, SEO, or ABM. Consider starting in an agency, so you can work on many accounts and learn faster. Learning on the brand side usually goes way slower, especially between campaigns. Learn the popular platforms: Google Analytics, Salesforce, WordPress, Hubspot, and Adobe Suite. Get good at Excel and PowerPoint—no one loves it, but it is not going away. Focus on your own corporate maturity. Optimize your relationship with your boss, listen carefully, and do what you agreed to with high quality and on schedule. Be very transparent and avoid people in the company and in life who create drama, complain, and gossip. Listen, follow directions, and be coachable, especially in your first 5 years, if you want people to help you succeed. Pick a growing company as probably the best way to accelerate your own advancement. Find and solve problems with a positive attitude. No one likes being told, “no, that won’t work.” Learn how to use commas and apostrophes correctly; not many people can do it consistently.

ABOUT MILESTONE

Milestone helps businesses create, organize, and amplify their digital information by enhancing their digital presence to make data more accurate, consistent, and visible. They do this with a digital presence platform and add to it as much or as little service as needed to help our clients be everywhere their customers are. They work with major brands and mid-size businesses across industries to drive traffic, engagement, and revenue through omnichannel marketing fueled by SEO. Learn how to leverage their proven approaches at www.milestoneinternet.com or email them at sales@milestoneinternet.com.

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ServiceNow Unveils Next Wave of Partner Program Transformation with New Specializations

Business Wire | January 24, 2024

ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW), the leading digital workflow company making the world work better for everyone, today unveiled the next wave of partner program transformation with new Specializations. As part of the revamped ServiceNow partner program announced in January 2023, the recently developed Partner Specializations are the next step in the partner program evolution for partners to unlock new revenue opportunities and earn a range of benefits to further grow their practice. Announced today at ServiceNow Partner Kickoff in Las Vegas, partners can obtain three Specializations which include Service Operations, Serve the Customer, and Power the Employee. ServiceNow is on a path to significantly increase the percentage of net new revenue sourced by partners in the coming years by supporting partners who build the ServiceNow platform into the core of their business models. Partners can acquire the new Specializations by showcasing a combination of product and sales expertise through customer wins and a go-to-market strategy. The new Partner Specializations showcase partners’ unique strengths in the market and encourage innovative ways to continue to grow their ServiceNow practice. “Last year at this time, we made a massive commitment to our partner community by completely transforming our partner program to ensure that partners are front and center in everything we do as a company,” said Erica Volini, senior vice president, global partnerships at ServiceNow. “With the launch of Specializations, our customers can easily identify partners with the best experience and expertise they need to help solve some of their biggest digital transformation challenges.” Obtaining a Specialization will help partners in three critical areas: Differentiate among the ecosystem:Partners will receive badging that will appear across their ServiceNow profiles with increased visibility on the ServiceNow Partner Finder. Prospective customers will also be able to search partner experts in Partner Finder based on the current Specializations. Unlock new revenue opportunities:Each Specialization addresses a pressing customer need that presents a large, untapped market opportunity and high year-over-year growth. Earn benefits to grow ServiceNow practices:ServiceNow will offer additional benefits for partners to build and grow their business through invitation to the ServiceNow Partner Advisory Council to ensure their needs and counsel are being addressed across the broader ServiceNow ecosystem. Qualifying partners will also have access to ServiceNow co-marketing programs and the ServiceNow Partner Development Fund announced last January. The program is launching with three Specializations, Service Operations, Serve the Customer and Power the Employee, that present large market opportunities with high year-over-year growth and a large total addressable market (TAM). All Specializations can be obtained at the regional and global level as well as two levels of achievement for further differentiation. Additional Partner Specializations are expected to be launched in 2024. The three Partner Specializations are expected to be available for partners to obtain starting in ServiceNow’s second quarter of 2024. Many partners have already expressed their feedback on the importance of the ServiceNow Partner Specializations including: Jason Rosenfeld, Senior Vice President at Cask: “ServiceNow’s new Partner Specializations offer an opportunity for Cask to showcase our unique consulting expertise and change management solutions to drive digital transformation across enterprises. Program updates like subsequent badging and product line achievements provide greater reach and visibility with organizations looking for the best partner to meet their specific needs. We believe Specializations and the partner finder are a winning combo for connecting customers with the right support and implementations.” Michael Lombardo, Chief Executive Officer at GlideFast Consulting: “We’re thrilled about the new designations to ServiceNow’s Partner Program. With new Partner Specializations, we can continue expanding our technical consulting services and delivering deep ServiceNow expertise to new markets. We look forward to helping customers find value in the Now Platform.” Michael Vadini, Chief Executive Officer at Infocenter:“Today, organizations are looking for a collaborative partner for support with the adoption and scale of new technologies. ServiceNow’s new Partner Specializations will help Infocenter build industry-specific solutions and accelerate technology for customers and their businesses more quickly. We are excited about the enhanced benefits offered by ServiceNow and the continued focus on partners.” Jon Reynolds, Senior VP Global Alliances & Corp Development at Thirdera, a Cognizant Company:“As our company looks to further expand our work across different industries, we’re focused on differentiating our services and ServiceNow platform expertise. ServiceNow's comprehensive Partner Program provides valued guidance and incentives to improve how we advise, implement and optimize technology for businesses worldwide. ServiceNow sets a standard for what it means to be an innovative partner.” ServiceNow is also launching a brand-new partner channel on LinkedIn. Join the new social community for the latest ServiceNow partner news here. For more information on the ServiceNow Partner Specializations visit here. About ServiceNow ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) makes the world work better for everyone. Our cloud-based platform and solutions help digitize and unify organizations so that they can find smarter, faster, better ways to make work flow. So employees and customers can be more connected, more innovative, and more agile. And we can all create the future we imagine. The world works with ServiceNow™. For more information, visit: www.servicenow.com.

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