Creative Agency Secrets

I met Simon Gill from LBi earlier in the week.  Great conversation.

He has a new theory about digital marketing.  THere are two parallel universes happening online:

1. The "marketing" web
2. The "real" web

the former is just stuff done for the purpose of marketing.  A brand site, a cunning support microsite for a campaign.  Nice but no reason to return or bookmark.

THe latter is where the future of one to one and "conversational" marketing is going.  It is warm, compelling and creates a reason for the customer to return and to possibly ‘get involved’.

And it seems Dave Birss is onto the same track.

Speaking to Andy Owen on Skype….we have worked together a couple of times - when I was a Pembridge and at the back end of last year.

Here are his most recent views.

Most of the platforms of contemporary communication are being ignored.  It doesn’t matter how you deliver your message it has to get there.  The quality of work is appalling… Andy has them all on slides he uses for his seminars.

In the 70s and 80s work was much better.

He got a mailing from Nokia. it was horrific and the outside of the envelope was handwritten.  And Konika Minolta sent something atrocious.  Andy wrote to them about the agency who did the mailshot to tell them that they need some help.  But the manager assured him that "this was a one off… we normally know what we are are doing".

Digital has seduced everyone to death.  I don’t know anyone getting a decent return on email marketing for prospecting.  Prospects are "opening their in-box with dread".  But this attitude doesn’t put you in the right mind to buy. 
The words that work in Direct Mail - offer, free, trial offer, will continue to work in most print mediums but in the subject line of an email it won’t work….

In Andy’s view, the senders name and subject line are key to getting an email opened.

I love the Konica point - believe what you will.  If your agency does lousy work once…. is that the norm or a one-off? And if the latter, why did you OK the mailshot and why are you still working with them?

Maybe nobody knows what good direct mail looks like any more….discuss.

I am finding email marketing does work for prospecting for B2B at present - but the email has to be customised and well-written!  See the earlier post.

There are some clear changes happening in B2B as convergence with CRM becomes ubiquitous.  These have  been neatly summarised by Brian Carroll in a recent post

I believe the complex sale presents a set of unique sales and marketing problems that benefits by a shift away from the traditional lead generation mind-set to a new way of thinking centered the following tenets:

* More ROI is reaped from the patient tending of potential customers (relationships) over time. Customers for life.
* Lead generation is a conversation, not a series of disjointed campaigns. [as I wrote here]
* Build relationships with the right people and companies regardless of their timing to buy.
* Engage people early (preferably before) in their buying process as possible so you can create and influence their vision.
* The first impression matters.  So does the second.  So does every single touch after that.  Consistency and relevancy is key.
* Sales and marketing must work together as one team.  Seeing each other as internal customers.
* A multi-modal and multi-touch lead generation portfolio will always outperform marketing tactics that stand alone.
* Sales and marketing should have a unified understanding and consensus in their language on things like ideal customers and universal lead definition.
* If used properly, the phone is the single best way to reach decision makers and to begin a dialog when you have a complex sale. [contact Sue Crampton for a fabulous service]
* Buy-in from sales and marketing as well as executive leadership is critical to the success of any lead generation program.
* Be willing and prepared to close the loop with every opportunity that is identified.
* The purpose of marketing is to help the sales team sell.
* Trusted advisers win more sales than slick brands.
* Companies don’t buy - people do. Don’t ever forget the human touch

And so for creative agencies: my interpretation of Brian’s work comes out like this:

1 - have a short-ish list of your ideal clients and have a long term plan for nurturing them so that you know what has been done and what needs doing next

2 -  Enable a centralised record of all emails / meeting notes / phone conversation records from everyone in the agency with these key prospects so that at any point in time anyone can see what has been said, when, by who, to whom.  Then they can ‘take up’ the conversation from where it last left off

3 -  if the ‘conversation’ is ongoing, you stand the best possible chance of being in on the early discussions about a repitch.  Hell, if you are trusted you might even get to write the scoping document!

4 - the whole agency must work as a single team.  This means that creative, suits and biz dev all need to be part of the process of wooing a new client.  The client sees the agency as a unit working together in the best possible way.  Many layers of conversation drive a web of relationships proving a stronger proposition that can eventually turn into a strong client:agency working relationship.

5 - an ongoing telephone contact campaign needs to be part of the overall strategy.  Human voice and learning are more urgent, persuasive and insightful than email or letter can ever be.

6 - closed loop marketing means that all the internal processes need to be well-known and integrated.  Whether automatic or manual, electronic or paper-based they are the foundation of your successful long term biz dev.

Ever since working for Peppers and Rogers Group in the mid 90s, I have been waiting for the day when brands can have individual relationships with their customers.  And the technology to enable it.

MySpace’s Jay Stevens spoke at the Forrester Conference in Barcelona [thanks Jeremiah] here is his slide

Social networking creates influence which is strongest amongst friends.  Therefore social media must be in your media mix using ‘friending’ [ghastly phrase] to promote and recommend thus enabling the brand to start an ongoing relationship with the customer.

Bingo!

BL Ochman has a lot to say about oneline marketing, but picking up on my earlier threads on the Deathe of PR she ably demonstrates where sheer bloody-mindedness is hampering some in the trade from moving with the times.

My favorite comment of the night, from a woman who works for Biz Bash and who refused to give me her name (What are you going to do? Write about me?"):

"people who read blogs aren’t very educated."

The bottom line on the meeting - there is still
discussion going on at high levels about whether and how PR and
marketing can work together. And whether or not bloggers are
journalists, or idiots. And about whether corporations should blah blah
blog.

Dear New Media consultants: any time you start to think that new
media is making inroads into corporate settings, think about these
fossils …. er, folks.

Now maybe that’s a strong position to take.  And she is in US.  But it resonates closely with what Richard Stacey and I were discussing in the lobby after the London Social Media Cafe prototyping meeting…. Some PR company clients will continue to buy old world PR.  There is a role for it.  Many will move onto other forms of online and offline communication - some DIY and others using broad marketing communications specialists [who may be PR agencies or other more integrated agencies].  But we both agree that everyone needs to research and consider the new social media world before making a decision on whether or not to participate.

Working with Caroline Lashley on how she can better promote her business, Sister Business, using social media tools.
A quick list… while we are working….

1 - Set up blog, add photos and links from Flickr
2 - Add photos on Flickr
3 - Set up Facebook group for her specialist area, invite friends to join and ask them to recruit others
4 - Add photos to Facebook - personal profile and the group - tag people
4a - Add Notes blog stream to Facebook home page
5 - Set up google alert for key names, phrases
6. Check Technorati for mentions of key names, phrases (join up if you haven’t yet) and add to watchlist

We have been working together for three months, and I was so delighted to see Caroline’s joy at understanding how to "join-up-the-dots" and make her own connections between these elements in order to better promote herself and her e-zine online.

attagirl!

Anyone wanting freelance journalism and PR services - give Caroline a call.  Better, sign up to the Sister Business blog - a service for black and ethnic minority women in business.

Always welcome…

Graham Rittener - In House Network
Philip O’Malley - In House Network
Mick Rigby - Monkey Communications
Kristel McGuire - Leapfrog Research

Tony Chant - Eurocom Healthcare

Brave Lloyd and his motley crew met this morning to ‘prototype’ the London Social Media Cafe idea that’s been discussed a bit.  The idea is Space to Meet : Socialise : Work.  that’s it.

we met in the unlikely attic of a Baptist Church in Bloomsbury - fantastic group…
and we discussed the key things needed to make the project fly:

• governance and organisational structure
• location and space
• money
• constituency
• Projects to do there

I joined the governance / money group….

we need….

1. legal / accountancy advice about how to structure the entity [any offers?]
2. We think we know some funders / sponsors who want to get (PR, Branding in the space, sponsor an event, meet the members, opportunity to understand social media, be within the buzz)
3. space - short let offices, lease-endings and possibly approved squatting rights
4. Business plan for our vision and values, statement of aims.   

that’s it for now… a Google Group has been set up.  Join if you want to contribute.

Eliza Flynn, Wunderman
Alex Goldberg, Ogilvy Healthworld
Josephine Seccombe, Emmaus House
James Gurling, Hanover
Rebecca Crook, CCHM:Ping
Jon Howard, Quietstorm
Alnoor Ladha, JWT
Mark Hancock, Proximity
Nicky Place, Build
Alex Frith, Threepipe

Clive Howard and Jeremy Baines, Howard Baines

A prosaic start to the new site. But timesheets have been bugging me for a while now.

This is a subject that many creative firms try to avoid because, frankly, timesheets are boring.

But, timesheets are not unproductive.

The main purpose they fulfil is a record of working hours for different activities.

This record is a discipline that few people enjoy.

Here are some hints and tips to make it easiser for yu and your staff to complete timesheets:

• Do it daily - make it the last thing you do before going home and leaving the office
• Make it easy to record minutes by decimalising them so each 6 minutes = 0.1 of an hour. And so 0.4 hours is 4 x 6 minutes = 24 minutes.
• Set up the timesheet so the layout is easy to read and uses tick boxes where possible. Use a spreadsheet so it automatically adds up columns and points out shortfalls in red.

If you are still aving difficulties getting everyone to fill in timesheets

• Don’t pay expenses claims / salaries until timesheets are submitted
• Appoint a “Time Sheet Bulldog”. A person who is tasked with collecting them weekly
• Lead by example. Senior team have to do it first
• Be very clear with new hires that this is expected as normal behaviour

So having talked about how to get timesheets, what can you learn from timesheets?

1. Job Profitability
2. Individual Profitability
3. Time spent on non fee earning work

These are the main things timesheets are used for. If you don’t do these analyses as a matter of course, I recommend taking some jobs that you have done recently and running the numbers. Use one job for your largest client and one for a smaller one. What time did you speand? What did the client pay - less expenses? What was your profit? In £ and as % of the fee? Are those profit figures normal or abnormal? If they are low, what will or can yo do….. if they are high what can you do?

Advanced Timesheets - other things to do

• Set up spreadsheet so once completed and submitted they cannot be altered except by an administrator.