Chad_Mitchell

How Walmart Today Was Launched to Celebrate the Customer

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This week’s podcast features Chad Mitchell, Senior Director of Digital Communications at Walmart. Chad spent his early career in politics in the Washington D.C. area. He transferred his communication and strategic thinking skills to serve the largest company in the world. With over 11,000 stores located in 28 countries across the globe there are plenty of stories to tell on their blog, which is newly titled Walmart Today. In this episode you’ll discover the process Chad and his team went through to launch the new blog and the role it plays in Walmart’s digital communication strategy.

Walmart_Today_Blog

In an effort to express Walmart’s mission, saving people money, so that they can live better, Chad created a “digital newsroom” to tell the Walmart story online. You’ll hear about the challenges Chad and his team encounter with the communication strategy at the largest retailer in the world. And, you can consider how you might apply elements of their approach to your brand’s digital communication strategy.

Walmart_Mission_Logo

On This Episode You’ll Discover:

  • What’s entailed in Chad’s job as Director of Digital Communications at the largest company in the world.
  • What’s involved in maintaining Walmart’s corporate website.
  • How Chad’s team spent months conducting research on their audience before re-launching their new blog Walmart Today.
  • The three guiding principles in Walmart Today’s approach to story telling.
  • The A/B testing Chad’s team did to identify the best types of content to share.
  • How the categories on Walmart Today were developed from their collected data.
  • The types of content shared on Walmart Today.
  • How the content factory at Walmart Today originally consisted of only three people, but has grown to 10 people.

Walmart_Digital_Newsroom

  • That Walmart has agency talent onsite in the digital newsroom to stay close to the team for rapid execution of stories.
  • How storytelling through Walmart Today aligns with Walmart’s mission.
  • How Chad uses Coca-Cola as a benchmark for Walmart’s digital communication strategy.

Take a look at who you admire and who operates
in a space well to identify benchmarks.
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  • How much of the content that is shared is reactive to what is going on in the public.
  • Why Chad is understandably proud of the Walmart Today blog.
  • The unique branding of the Walmart Today blog.
  • How Walmart developed their niche social media accounts.
  • The various audiences that make up the 20 million website visitors to Walmart.com each year.
  • The reasoning behind Walmart’s production of the LA video that inform the public of the facts related to a Walmart moving into a new area.
  • The adaptability required in business, and the need to experiment and move on when something doesn’t work.
  • Why Chad asks that you put your shopping cart away. 😉
  • Why Chad’s “one thing” is about more transparency in business.

Featured On This Episode:

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You can click the Listen Now button at the top of this page… Or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through iTunes or Stitcher.

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P.S. Large or small companies can gain valuable insight from Chad Mitchell’s digital strategy at Walmart. Please share this episode with your friends who you think will benefit from tuning in!

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