MAC: Digital Marketing KPIs 2020

In 2020, LFN is focusing on a digital marketing strategy. These are the proposed KPIs to measure that effort. 

LFN Webinar Series (2020)

The LFN Webinar Program has been extremely successful in generating community awareness and engagement around key LFN initiatives as well as garnering 1,297 new contacts/leads to supplement the LFN Salesforce Database for community engagement tracking and member prospecting. A 49% attendance rate is above the industry average which speaks to the timeliness and importance of the content. In September, we shifted to uploading webinar videos to the LF YouTube channel right after the event, making this content easier to find and generating another 4,147 views. We're now building out the webinar calendar for Q1 2021, with project launches and updates, whitepaper overviews, etc. 

LFN Events (2020)

Analysis: Participation in LFN Technical Events remains strong, particularly from ONAP and CNTT/OPNFV. The event in Prague was the largest technical (physical) event to date at the time (with 210 registrations). Switching to a a virtual format in the spring brought with it some challenges on engagement, but allowed participation from a greater number of community members (nearly 2x the attendees). For the June and September Technical Events, we secured additional participation from the OpenDaylight and Tungsten Fabric communities. ONES was successfully converted to a virtual event with higher registration numbers and event satisfaction as previous years. The current plan for 2021 is to have 1 ONES event the fall (physical, virtual, of hybrid). OSN User Group Meetups and OSN Days have been on hold in 2020 due to the global pandemic but we are exploring a physical event in Taiwan in December. In 2021, we'll reopen the program under with the new Bevy Platform.

Web (2020)

*Included 2H2019 for a benchmark. 

Analysis: In 2H2019, we began to evolve the LFN website from a simple high-level umbrella towards being a content-rich industry portal. We did this by reintroducing the newsroom (announcements, blog)  and enriching the content library (under the "publications" tab) for the LFN umbrella as well as the 8 LFN projects (as well as cross-posting on the project websites). The digital marketing focus in 2020 has doubled down on this strategy and significantly revved up the content engine as well adding 15 whitepapers, case studies, solutions briefs, reports, etc. In 1H2020 we see this strategy paying off as the % of traffic coming from organic search has grown from 15% in 2019 to 23% in 2020. An increased focus on the LFN social media has grown the proportion of traffic almost 3X from 2% to nearly 6%. The increased marketing/comms activities overall (SEO, content, social, campaigns, etc.) has significantly increased web traffic (2X+ Users, New Users, and Pageviews) and 4X+ increase in content downloads. In Q3, we saw web traffic and downloads for our 3 campaign pages take off, especially the paper on 5G with 200 Guide Downloads. Features in the LFN Quarterly Newsletter drove a substantial amount of views/downloads. 

Downloadable Content(2020)*

*Note: This only includes downloadable content pieces from the LFN website. Does not include messaging docs, webpages, blogs, press releases, infographics, videos, etc. Also, does not include download numbers for content published in 2018 and 2019.

Analysis: Quality content is the engine that drives our digital marketing efforts and dedicated campaigns. Users that just saw the asset webpage were able to see a summary of the piece and its significance. Those downloading the asset were able to take deeper dive (our preferred result). The 2019 Year In Review Report has proven to be our most visible and downloaded asset and something proven to be well worth doing. The LFN community generated pieces (TAC, EUAG, CNTT whitepapers) were also popular (especially the TAC Whitepaper). These pieces are cumbersome and take long cycles to produce so this is good validation that it's worth the effort. The January tech event report was also popular so we are exploring now ways to evolve the format to cover online, virtual events. 

Email (2020)

**Special LFN Mailer on US Political Situation in the USA

Analysis: The LFN Newsletter Has grown to over 25K mailable prospects and continues to be a valuable vehicle for communicating general news quarterly, achieving ~1,300 clicks on our key content. To fill in the gaps between newsletters, and to raise the communications frequency with members, we started sending out member mailer update emails bi-weekly starting in mid-March. These achieve an average open rate of ~30% and serve to keep members appraised of our current activities. In April, we also initiated an email nurturing campaign for those downloading industry guides in our 3 campaigns (Edge, Cloud Native, 5G). Filling in the form initiates a 4 email series over several weeks pointing to community onboarding materials and a path to LFN membership.

Social Media (2020)

Analysis: The start of 2020 brought an increased consolidation of Social Media focus on the LFN Channels (vs. the various project channels) and the need to ramp-up our social media program in support of our digital marketing focus and efforts. To help solve resourcing issues, we brought in an independent contractor to ramp up focus, engagement, and activity on the LFN channels (Twitter & LinkedIn). A new LinkedIn group was launched in May to reach our key audiences and is growing steadily. Altogether, social media has driven over 4K engagements. It's our recommendation to retain the contractor through 2020 and continue into 2021.

PR / AR / Comms (2020)

Analysis: As LFN projects mature, the narrative is moving from the "shiny new object effect" common at the start many open source projects to proving market impact. That said, a general decline in press clips is expected; however, the quality of mentions is moving towards messages of thought leadership (note: implications of covid has slowed thought-leading momentum).  However, a continued, steady cadence of news has upheld our general drumbeat momentum with more deployments, new releases, and evolution of innovative initiatives such a CNTT and OVP. We expect momentum to continue through H2 with an uptick in thought leadership.