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How Land O’Lakes Found a Mission Greater Than Sales

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How Land O’Lakes Found a Mission Greater Than Sales

It was a powerful moment. A CNN+ interviewer asks Beth Ford, “What is the purpose of your life?”

She replies: “I hope I will know success by the number of lives I’ve touched. I hope by changing somebody’s story, by helping them succeed – if that’s what my life is and ends up being, that is going to be the best joy of my life.”

Beth is CEO of Land O’Lakes, a farmer-member-owned company with businesses focused on agricultural production and consumer foods, including the famous butter.

She shares with CNN+ what she sees beyond business in that rural landscape: “I cannot tell you how painful it is to watch a family have to struggle or to hear that they’re doing their hardest and to worry how they’re going to feed their own kids.

“Seventy-eight percent of the counties in America that index as food-insecure are in rural America … And it’s just not right. I don’t see why we say it’s someone else’s problem. This is an American issue. It leaves us less secure.”

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How did Beth and Land O’Lakes become such fierce advocates for the American farmer? And how did that lead to the CNN+ interview? That story was told by Kim Olson, Land O’Lakes chief communications officer, at Content Marketing World.

Let’s rewind and start from the beginning.

Brand role, brand purpose

While the work in earned media and communications started as soon as Beth was named CEO, it more recently has been amplified and framed in enterprise purpose work led by Chief Marketing Officer Heather Malenshek.

Kim explains: “Less than 1% of the population is involved in agriculture, but 100% of us have to eat. We used to talk about farmers around the dinner table. Someone had an uncle or cousin that was out on the farm. Not anymore.”

Land O’Lakes determined the following:

  • Brand belief: Farmers are the entrepreneurs who truly change the world for the better.
  • Brand role: Magnify and champion farming’s true potential through relentless cooperation.
  • Brand purpose: Put farmers and retailers at the heart of creating a better world.
  • Brand impact: Sustainable futures, vibrant rural communities, and safe and plentiful food supply.

1669059903 655 How Land OLakes Found a Mission Greater Than Sales

Create a persona of the brand

To personalize the brand purpose and make it more tangible, the company created a persona – Maverick Advocate.

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Maverick Advocate portrays bravery and resiliency, using its brand voice for good. The character does not destroy a system but makes it better. Kim says Maverick Advocate leads with the kindness and compassion that resilient, kind, and family-oriented farmers appreciate.

Beth, who became the president and CEO in July 2018, in many ways embodies the Maverick Advocate character. A few months after she started, she dined with farmer members who talked about their day-to-day lives. Beth asked how they made use of opportunities for additional economic, educational, and health-care digital resources. To her surprise, the farmers said they often didn’t have opportunities because they don’t have access to internet connectivity.

@LandOLakesInc CEO heard farmers didn’t have access to the internet, prompting the brand’s American Connection Project according to @BethFordLOL via @kim_l_olson @dshiao @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Further research revealed over 42 million Americans lack access to broadband internet, Kim tells the Content Marketing World crowd.

Land O’Lakes had found its communications platform, closing the digital divide by expanding broadband access.

Develop a multi-year strategy

Kim helped conceive a three-year plan around this digital divide initiative. Beth served as the effort’s primary voice:

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1669059903 149 How Land OLakes Found a Mission Greater Than Sales

The first year focused on building awareness of Beth as the new CEO and the Land O’Lakes brand. The second year centered on driving advocacy for closing the digital divide. Building on the success of years one and two, the third year focused on performance – expanding the strong CEO halo to enterprise and executive influence.

Let’s explore each phase further.

Year 1: Awareness

The awareness phase focused on high-profile speaking events, media opportunities, and op-ed articles, Kim explains. In one of Beth’s first appearances, she spoke at the Economic Club of Chicago. Beth discovered people were receptive to her message and largely didn’t know about the issue.

On the communications side, Kim focused on forming a strong, unified, and consistent message across media placements in local, regional, and national outlets. She says when working with the media, momentum is key. A few initial placements lead to more, usually more high-profile placements.

@LandOLakesInc @kim_l_olson says momentum is key in media placements. That’s what eventually brought CBS’ @60Minutes @LesleyRStahl to them, says @dshiao via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

CBS News correspondent Leslie Stahl heard Beth speak. Her staff contacted Land O’Lakes to invite Beth to appear on 60 Minutes.

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Kim worked with Beth to convince the broader leadership team about the opportunity. (After all, a story on 60 Minutes isn’t always that flattering for a company.)

1669059903 102 How Land OLakes Found a Mission Greater Than Sales

They invited 60 Minutes to a member’s farm in Pennsylvania to see the dairy operation. They involved Land O’Lakes chief technology officer Teddy Bekele to discuss broadband and the digital divide. The team helped 60 Minutes tell the story of what’s happening to farmers in rural America.

The program aired in October 2019 and it was a big success. It generated a lot of awareness and opened the door to more opportunities.

Year two: Advocacy

In year two, Land O’Lakes launched the American Connection Project (ACP) initiative to generate awareness and advocacy to address the digital divide. An ACP policy coalition included 177 companies from multiple industries that all agreed to the importance of broadband access for rural communities.

Member organizations include Cleveland Clinic, Microsoft, and Purdue University. In this phase, Land O’Lakes generated notable earned media placements. Sample headlines:

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  • Land O’Lakes Played Key Role in Securing $65B for Federal Broadband Funding
  • Land O’Lakes, Inc. Teams up with Center on Rural Innovation To Launch American Connection Communities
  • Wolf Leads Bipartisan Effort in Calling on President, Congressional Leaders To Invest in Broadband Internet Access

These efforts culminated in November 2021, when Beth joined others on the White House lawn when the president signed the historic infrastructure bill:

Year 3: Action

During the pandemic, broadband access became more essential, heightening the seriousness of the digital divide. The Land O’Lakes team and their members, partners, and the coalition took action. Tina May, Beth’s chief of staff and vice president, rural services, led efforts to expand the American Connection Project.

Many provided free Wi-Fi access to their networks in their parking lots. The American Connection Project members and other Land O’Lakes partners rallied to provide free Wi-Fi access. In all, people could access free Wi-Fi at 3,000 locations.

The action didn’t stop there. The American Connection Project added more initiatives. American Connection Corps brings in young fellows who go back into rural communities to talk about digital connectivity and help workers improve their skills. The fellows also provide planning and consulting to these workers. The first initiative took place in Aberdeen, South Dakota.

Follow-on phase: enterprise-wide expansion

In a follow-on phase, Beth and members of the executive team elevated the collective voice and influence of Land O’Lakes to the broader world of business. Their earned media coverage featured numerous members of the C-suite, with placements in MarketWatch, VentureBeat, National Rural Business Summit, and.

1669059903 18 How Land OLakes Found a Mission Greater Than Sales

Beth now sits on The Business Roundtable, a nonprofit association eWeek based in Washington, D.C., whose members are chief executive officers of major U.S. companies. Beth has earned coverage in broader business publications, such as Fast Company and TED.

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Be the next Land O’Lakes

At first blush, you might think, “This is a great story, but Land O’Lakes is a Fortune 500 company and this doesn’t apply to me.”

But it does. You can apply several things from this story to communications in any-sized company.

Land O’Lakes strategy was about the audience, not sales. How can you help your target audience’s lives?

Land O’Lakes didn’t execute its mission alone. It partnered with over 175 companies to join the cause. What businesses, organizations, and people could help you achieve your audience-focused mission?

The other key to being like Land O’Lakes? Remember, they took over three years to execute it. Create a detailed plan but make sure it’s long-term.

Want more content marketing tips, insights, and examples? Subscribe to workday or weekly emails from CMI.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute



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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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