Creative Agency Secrets

THe good just got really great.

sending unsolicited and inappropriate marketing messages has always been close to what we now call spam.  

In the blogosphere, this direct approach without first establishing an online relationship and credentials / rights is considered more invasive and inappropriate than in the offline or email-only world.

Bloggers are very good at negative publicity.  And at campaigning / lobbying.

This wiki suggests that people blog these PR companies' URLs.  I.e. get no email at all from them (and probably report them to spamcop and get the domain blocked at server level). And heres a list of individual email addresses blocked by the author of "The Long Tail" and editor of Wired Magazine.

How damaging will that be to your business?  Imagine, no emails getting through certain servers and to some key journalist/blogger individuals - and all because a colleague made a mistake… 

ACTION - check your PR company is not on that list and your individual PR representative isn't either.  Your brand is doomed online.  Move your business elsewhere. 

Companies that I know who are on the list include [note I am not linking this text] Edelman, Bigmouth, Bite, FourtyThree, Global Results, Lewis, Ogilvy, Porter Novelli, 

Wise up. 

I have written before about ways and means of doing this for yourself.

the simplest method is a Google Alert for your brand name (and any obvious mis-spellings).

But have a look at these alternatives

Bloppy
Co.mments

Bloppy juust tracks web posts and comments

Tired of losing track of the comments you wrote on blogs you like? Missing comments from other users? So was I! But fear no more. Now you can receive notifications on your email of new comments on your favorite blog posts! 

Co.mments also tracks posts but calls them 'conversations'

co.mments helps you stay on top of the conversation by keeping you updated of new comments. Just bookmark, track and follow.  

I am hosting my third breakfast event.  "Should Brands be Broadcasters?" on Wednesday 18th June, 2008 at One Alfred Place 

I run these breakfasts in order to showcase new ideas and innovative marketing thinking.  Past speakers include Adriana Lukas on Social Media and Mark McGuinnes s on the Enneagram. 

Three speakers will give their unique points of view on this issue:

Charlie Robertson, Red Spider speaking on extending brand strategy to the online world

Sign up here to come along!

PS if anyone is willing to blog the gig for me, please get in touch! 

Working today with a new client we discussed some basic stuff to do with knowing how you are represented online (particularly in places where you do not control the content).

1. Set up a Google Alert to search weekly on a 'comprehensive' basis for your name.  Set this up in quotes so that it searches for your names concatenated.
2. Google your own name. 
3. Google obvious mis-spellings of your name [Rebekah Carrow]
4. Check out Zoom Info for your name and click the button to say 'this is me' and edit the information to reflect your current contact details.

That's for starters.  Go for it!

Some ideas from a US group I belong to…. discussion thread What I learned from the Direct Marketing Revolution

[requires Facebook membership to read, sorry!) 

Good points:

• keep your own new business pipeline full now - it'll take ages to fill up after the recession passes
• cut marketing activities that can't be measured
• look for new undiscovered channels for traffic/signups/leads
• double up on things that are working
• test more with less exposure per test 

Dick Stroud of consultancy 20Plus30

5 things all digital agencies should know about aging
1 - when working for a client consider whether their product is age- neutral or not.  Sites tend to get optimised for a younger age group.
2 - Age is not a good proxy for behaviour.  The default is we are all age-neutral until proven otherwise.
3 - Physiological aging really does matter.  Useability is only the beginning.  Consider navigation, complexity, handling this si more deifficult with age.  The heat maps for older people are very different.
4 - Lifestyle is important - education and background are very importa determinants of web usage
5 - Social Networking issues - if the only unifying feature of the website is age this is a problem.  Interest-driven is more mportant.  

Steve Morgan MD of SQuiz
They have written a publishing plaform which hosts the 50Connect site.
- if a majority of traffic comes from search, nobody searches on "over 50 travel / finance / insurance".  Brand loyalty and a core user base is the only way to build traffic
- Dividing the market by age groups is pointless.  Event-driven is much better e.g. kids leaving home, illness
- Useability research show s related offers and products mucst be very clear and direct.  The audience i easy to lead. - networking creates teh sense of ownership / community strength.  If you change anhythying there is a backlash- Cap[tcha is too small - gridded background, colours and no contrast lost 70-80% by having it- Text based advertising works better than image-based. Don't use banners and skyscrapers.  Nostalgic images don't work.
- calls to action must be strong, bold and well-placed.  Consistent standards in article structure metter e.g. all same colour / place.  Raises CTR.

David Noble MD Wanobe
- the size of the market is a trap
- most older people never think of themselves of being the age they are
- show me by dreams not my mirror image.  Dreams are not age, health and wealth.  Treat them according to their potential for dreaming

Sarah Robinson, Research and planning director Millennium
There are 30-40 years of life left after 50.  Experiences of technology and itnernet vary.  Some are users equivalenbt to a 30 year old
Comfort with technology is important.  They are used to long copy and written letters.  Brought up in a non-visula age.
People think of themselves as being 10 years younger than they are
Search is not a problem but buying is.  Many want to check you are really there and to be sure your call centre is not in INdia.  Phone number = reassurance.

"The problem is with the under30s"  Desire instant gratifiction; judge based on popularity not reputation, longer attenation span when you are older'; value longer relationships; lsess peripheral vision affect page layouts

Alex Champan - Campbell Hooper - most B2B decision makers are over 50.  consider corproate sties with heavy language and simple naviation - gives indication that the mind state is corporate not consumer.

Sites
50notOut - this appears to be a cricket site…?

50connect

Wanobe

mychumsclub

How to use your marketing budget effectively? users over 50 make 50% more errors on the site and take 50% longer to navigate.
Consider the USA car sites for Lexus and VW.  One is boringly efficient and the ohter designed for accolades but hard to take a decision based on the content.

This is not a niche market it is 1/3 of the population. 

I have decided to make it easier to buy my services for those on a budget.

Normally, my clients pay me a 'day rate' in order to work with me and I visit their offices and we work together on projects.  Following the beginning of a project with a new client, Afia , I have decided to offer a new way of working using remote technologies.

If you have a biz dev project that can be briefed remotely, discussed using email and Skype, then this service may be of interest to you.

Ben Afia runs a "tone of voice" consultancy and has started working with me on this remote basis.  

• He briefed me with a document detailing the particular circumstances of his business and his vision for building it into something larger.
• I read the brief and we had a Skype conversation to discuss the issues and questions raised and to decide on a plan of action.
• Ben is now activating most of the work himself - but has benefitted from introductions I make to other organisations who may help him achieve his biz dev goals
• And he will come back for more advice when he has run out of things to do or encounters an issue or problem.

For this type of work, I require you to buy one half day (4 hours) of my time in advance.  And the 'day rate' is substantially reduced to reflect remote access and the fact that you will be doing most of the activation work.

Ben has agreed to act as a reference for Rebecca Caroe remote services.

Do you have a service that can be offered remotely?  Could this method work for you in order to widen the range of possible customers for your business?  I am hoping that this will both bring my service into the price range of more organisations and also enable work with people not in my time zone.

Let me know what you think! 

Great page from NMK the New Media Knowledge team who do so much to promote new digital stuff in London.

They are re-designing the site and have added a logo “Beta” to each page.  If you click on it the link takes you to this page   where they list all the good and bad things with the site at present.  In this way you know what they’re already aware of and working on and what is still unresolved.

Straightforward, and accurate.  And also the possibility of the ‘permanent’ beta looms….! 

I have been given sight of the Forrester report "The Connected Agency " Feb 8th 2008.  And it spells gloom and death for the current traditional agency business model.

Definition of a CA is

An agency with a deep understanding of consumer communities, helping brands create and nurture connections, deliver targeted, on-demand messages, and network for talent and insights. 

Key points and the impact on your biz dev methods are:-

• Data - if you aren't deeply into collecting it (audiences as well as prospective clients) start now.  Great databases, good data insight professionals and the means to interrogate with tools like DataCentre.
• Communities - get into the groups online who are talking about your brands, products, clients, marketplaces.  Lurk and read.  Then participate.  Prepare to lead the conversation.  Conversational (closed loop) marketing is the future.  Dialogue, listening, endless conversations not 'campaigns' will be your metrics.
• Analytics - The authors particularly berate the lack of 'left-brain' mathematical and statistical skills in the industry.  These are key to analytics, segmentation and customer insight.  Buy in and develop these skills for your team.
• Stop-Start Campaigns die and continuous customer conversations rule driven by account managers at the heart of the conversational community.  Be prepared to go to your prospective brand clients and demonstrate your connections into their target audiences, what matters to the audience will drive creative not what the agency thinks up.
• So start by knowing the target markets you work in, browse the blogs, forums, message boards and listen carefully.  [If you don't work in a niche, get one.  Fast]
• Use this online audience for research, find your early connectors, mavens, critics, UGC creatives and make friends with them.  Test campaign ideas on them.
• Have your own "private" marketing funnel that can generate early WOM adoption or buzz.  Not got one?  Give me a call.
• Start planning initiatives (not campaigns) to that audience group from a range of brands - who all want the same audience.  Force collaboration among brands but driven by customer needs.
• Beware auctions.  They will grow and the lowest price point will probably win.  If you are not yet offering a low cost solution to your clients, find a way to deliver it.  (ideas: use young staff as training, outsource to lower cost locations [USA? China, India, Australia, NZ] and find ways to use technology to streamline process and use fewer people)

[and they used the word 'nonfungible' that according to my Dictionary doesn't exist!  Now that's leading edge progress.]

 Media planning works on prices driven by the nonfungible metrics of audience, circulation, and page iews, complicating the decision about where marketers should allocate media budgets.

Thanks to Steve Moore I was invited to chair the Channel4 and Sport England seminar held at Horseferry Road [backstory here and here ].  I loved it.  A perfect opportunity for me to exercise my passion (rowing) and my profession (business development).

The brief was that Sport England wants to educate its members (sporting organisations) on how to join Sport to the communities that participate in it.  Social Media is the answer.

Panelists include Mark McGuinness ; Gi Fernando ; Ed Mitchell and Antony Mayfield .  Detail below about each of their pitches.

My job was to summarise and (self-appointed) make suggestions to the attendees about areas they might investigate further afterwards. These include:

• Collaboration - learning in groups and with co-operation rather than traditional teacher/pupil.
• Long tail - who are the long tail groups in your community and how to differentiate them
• Monologue versus dialogue - assess your current communications (paper, email, web) and see how many are one way and how many facilitate / enable two-way conversations
• Where are your audiences - which platforms, digital spaces, real spaces/places do they hang out in?  Can you 'be there' too?
• We are all guests in the new digital world - takeout from Mark McGuiness talk - act with social gestures that would be appropriate in a party setting.
• There are no strings attached to content and membership online - is registration really necessary?  Why should audiences pay to take part? Don't have member only parts of your website - these exclude rather than include browsers and lurkers
• Social media is now mainstream.  Use it to amplify the conversation you are having with your audiences.
• Conversations and campaigns have to be pushed - takeout from Gi Fernando's talk.  Push appropriately; allow others into YOUR space and let them make connections and manage that themselves without your intervention
• Create ande sustain long term local heroes.  Make them aspirational role models - and make lots of them.
• Data = database - takeout from Ed Mitchell's talk .  Collect email addresses, build profiles of your users, segment them, communicate and learn and customise the online experience to suit their needs.
• There is no online copyright worth having - takeout from Antony Mayfield's talk.  Anythingyou post online is public, its impact is measurable and it can drive revenues to your organisation.  Think about offering a matching service for coaches and athletes (this could be low level revenue generation).  If you can measure anything, you can prove its value and so fulfill funding requirements from your funders / Government.
• Consider the "user journey" for your audience.  What happens before an
  event, during and after and what about the absents - those who can't be
  there, can they also participate in the event experience?

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