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10 Pitfalls To Avoid When Creating A Digital Strategy

This is an excerpt from a white paper widely circulated in the US this week. Click here to download the entire article.

There are all sorts of conflicting statistics about the failure rate of online marketing campaigns. The numbers don’t really matter. There are enough highly publicized train wrecks to safely conclude that a good percentage go wrong. The more interesting question is why?

One reason may be the ground is constantly shifting beneath our feet. Facebook today. Pinterest tomorrow. It can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to building a high impact web and mobile presence. Here are 10 pitfalls to avoid when designing a digital strategy for your client or brand.

PITFALL #1:

Rolling Out A Strategy Before Conducting An Assessment

If you take only one point away from this paper, please let it be this. Before even thinking about whether your business needs a Facebook page, a Twitter account or a new fangled iPhone app, do a rigorous assessment of your existing online and mobile presence and that of your competitors. Find your audience online and understand how they want to be engaged. Research the online advertising climate and see if any firm, anywhere, is establishing online and mobile marketing best practices. What has worked? What has crashed faster than a Kardashian wedding?

An assessment lays the groundwork for the strategy. You can’t figure out where you want to be until you know where you currently are, online.

Takeaway

• Analyze the company’s website for ease of navigation, broken links, see how it ranks in search results.
• Review your firm’s (or your client’s) social media channels, note the frequency of post, the level of active engagement from your target audience.  Apply the same analysis to your competitors.
• Search forums, social media, and blogs to find your target audience.  Understand where they are, how they like to engage, and take careful note of key influencers.

PITFALL #2:
Objectives.  What Objectives?
Imagine jumping in the car and pressing the gas without knowing your destination. How would you decide which route to take?  That’s what it’s like to design a roadmap for a digital strategy that does not have clear objectives. How can you know whether a pay-per-click advertising campaign is better than a frequently updated blog if you don’t know what either tactic is trying to achieve.

Clients often say their online objective is to grow revenue. That’s not sufficiently clear. A more valuable goal would be to increase revenue from online sales by 7% in a specific time period. The more specific the objective(s), the better.

Takeaway

• List your goals for the digital strategy as they apply to your larger business goals.  Review and refine until they are crystal clear.
• Select and customize web and mobile tools, design timelines and structure content to meet those objectives.

Download the rest of this white paper here.

Tags: ALERT, digital strategy, pitfalls

TV & Interactive Creators Beware: Who owns the audience?

Producers, broadcasters and funders are necessarily grappling with the rights and revenues attached to opportunities made possible by digital technology. To date, the discussion has centered primarily around platforms for distribution.

The June 2010 CFTPA (CMPA) research study, “Towards a Framework for Digital Rights” does an excellent job of summarizing challenges and opportunities relative to digital distribution and exploitation. However, the report doesn’t address the capacity of digital technology to transform the role of the audience, or who established a relationship with the audience.  That relationship, once the exclusive domain of the broadcaster is now a rich source of content research and development, advance marketing, and testing, all potentially activities undertaken by producers.   The extent to which the public can be now be engaged through digital tools right from the start of a program concept opens up questions around the purpose and value of those pre-broadcast relationships and who “owns” them, before, during and after the broadcast.

The People Formerly Known As The Audience.

Prior to the advent of digital technology, the viewing audience “belonged” to the broadcaster.  How and when content was made available, and the promotional and sales messaging “pushed” in front of the audience were the levers used by broadcasters to drive revenue.

Mass adoption of the Internet, and particularly web 2.0 platforms, have enabled producers and audiences to engage in two-way conversations separate and apart from any broadcast component.  Almost daily, tools are emerging that enable producers to join discussions already taking place about genres or subject matter. Content creators can learn where target audiences are gathering on line, how they like to be engaged, what they care about and what they don’t. When appropriate, content creators can customize their “products” to suit audience demand.

These relationships can help shape creative and foster deep engagement between a program and its audience long before the broadcast release. This early engagement can subsequently influence and improve the commercial success of that release.

Terms of Engagement

The right of the producer to engage existing online audiences and/or to build new groups in a way that helps to shape the very content of a show or series and its success needs to be protected.

Let’s say a specialty network licenses a personal makeover series. During development and pre-production, the producer uses digital tools to attract contestants and to engage existing online groups in the creative process.  Contests and voting deepen the engagement and online profile.  The producer may want to explore posting video tips and pre-releasing scenes, in order to build a web presence that also increases awareness for the series, and which may also have value as an independent asset.

However, as the program launch nears, the broadcaster will also want to develop or use its existing digital avenues to market and promote the program.  The broadcaster may create a web page for the program as part of its larger branded website, as well as creating a Twitter feed and Facebook page even though the project may already have all of those applications in use.

Who Owns the Relationships?

Beyond some tactical issues that emerge with this scenario, it raises important issues about rights. A “database” of contacts developed by the producer during the development of the project may be tremendously valuable.  Documentaries based on a “hot” topic, comedies that have managed to create viral videos teasing series’ content, may boast sizable and loyal followings.  Who has the right to this “database?”  Does the broadcaster “lease” or “license” access to it just as they do with the finished program? How is the value of that pre-built audience established?  If social media profiles are established in the process of creating the program, who “owns” those profiles? What happens to the two-way engagement once the broadcast is completed?

While the broadcaster still needs to be in a position to promote a program to its audience, the age of two-way conversations has changed the very definition of “marketing” “content” and “audience.”   Building a relationship with an audience is no longer about getting their attention with a good promo. It’s as much about listening to what the audience has to say.  Creating engagement strategies require time and expertise that typically go far beyond the scope of the on-air promotions and marketing departments of the broadcaster.

However, if no new language or terms exist, then by default the activity remains with the marketing department even though the very nature of the activity has changed.

Delineating public engagement as an activity that has a much bigger footprint than that traditionally belonging to the marketing department would be an important first step to the future clarification of rights and responsibilities.

The Take Away

Producers are not yet fully exploiting the tools available to engage the audience early on in the production – and some may opt not to use them – ever.  However, the activity of interacting directly with the audience needs to be recognized because it’s already valuable and will only become more so.

Engagement of the audience should not default to the broadcaster simply because the value is not yet fully understood and therefore not fully recognized.
At this stage in the evolution of public engagement it is not possible to anticipate all the future implications.  However, recognizing at this moment in time that there are digital rights irrespective of distribution, and ensuring that they are non-exclusive to broadcasters will be an important first step for the future.

- Moyra Rodger and Rae Hull

Mind the Gap-10 Tips for Coordinating Service Providers

Last week, the Globe & Mail published an interview with Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm. In the article, Mr. Edelman is quoted as  saying, “That which is advertising, that which is digital, that which is PR is all converging.”

The need for collaboration between disciplines is a favourite topic of mine. It seems obvious that bridges are needed to span the divide between web design, SEO, digital strategy, PR and advertising.  However, we’re not there yet.  Many businesses still rely on multiple suppliers to manage their communications plan and web presence.  That means disparate companies with different skill sets, philosophies and agendas are often paddling the same boat.

Here are 10 few tips to help businesses get their teams rowing in the same direction.

1. Convene A Group Meeting.  Get the key players from each of your external suppliers and internal communications department at the table for a group meeting. If it’s not possible for everyone to be together, use Skype or video conferencing so everyone can see each another.  It’s less likely for suppliers to feel threatened or  to create a “bad other” scenarios when they can see and get to know your other vendors. That may mean your ad agency, PR firm, web design team, SEO, PPC, copy writer and marketing manager being in the room.  Keep the atmosphere upbeat and set a deliberate tone of collaboration. Often these firms work in isolation.  If that’s been the case, use the meeting to launch a new approach.

2. Establish clear, realistic, and measurable goals for the overall online and mobile strategy. Encourage the input of everyone at the table and before the goals are solidified, ensure you have buy in from each supplier.  If there is a vendor that doesn’t get the plan or is interested in starting a turf war, turf them.  Noone’s got time for a team that can’t play nicely with others or lose the “but that’s not the way it used to be done” attitude.

3.  Establish clear, realistic, and measurable goals for each component of the online and mobile strategy. Examine each objective to ensure it supports the overall plan.

4. Clarify the roles and deliverables for each supplier (internal and external). Map them out in a rough org chart like this one.  Examine the overlaps / potential gaps between roles.

5.  Appoint a Quarterback. Identify a project lead (may be internal or external).  The individual must be a “doer,” respected by each of the players, someone with strong project management and superlative communication skills.  It should go without saying the lead must be a person you trust, who will give you the straight goods.

6. Develop Communication Protocols. Create a communications distribution list.  Figure out what info needs to be shared with the group (e.g. weekly/monthly Google Analytics analysis) and what requires limited sharing (e.g. billing is likely to be a private matter between supplier and client).  Copy everyone on the email and phone list.

7. Set up Metrics. Establish how each element will be measured and who will collect, analyze and report on the data.

8. Hold Regular Meetings. Set up regular meetings (weekly or monthly) to review findings and adjust course.  Group calls are fine, but meet in person once a quarter, if possible.

9. Refine the team. Add and subtract suppliers until you have the right mix. The whole should be greater than the sum of the parts.

10. Celebrate the successes! All suppliers like to be told when they are doing a great job.  All the better if the positive outcomes are the result of your suppliers working together.  Reward the collaboration and build on each success.

One day, it is likely there will be fewer specialists at the table.  PR teams may also have proficiency in social media.  Ad firms may be expert in PPC ads, tracking and analyzing metrics.  Web design firms may also offer mobile app design.  However, even then, it will be important to create clear roles, meaningful objectives, and measurable results.

Have fun out there.

Best,

Moyra

Tags: collaboration, goals, metrics, skype, strategy

A Digital Strategy Solution for PR, Marketing and Ad Firms!

INTRODUCING ALERT™ LICENSING … aka “HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MARBLES?”

Well, friends, after more than two years developing and refining our proprietary ALERT™ system, it’s ready for licensing as a web app! Check out the ALERT™ LIcensing-Press Release.

ALERT™ is an acronym that represents the five phases of the process we use to create measurable, online marketing strategies for Magnify’s valued clients.  Assess. Locate. Engage. Respond. Track.

About a year or so ago, we started hearing from PR, Marketing and Ad firms that they wanted the tools to be able to create and deliver strategies themselves.  So, we turned  ALERT™ into an easy-to-use web app that provides the tools, templates and training for firms looking to create high impact online marketing strategies for their clients.

Last night, upon learning of the ALERT™ launch, a colleague asked if perhaps I had “lost my marbles?”  ”Why on earth would you give your tools to your competitors??”   The comment made me laugh out loud.  It was such an old paradigm statement.

In this, the new era of business where authenticity, collaboration and win-win approaches are replacing old protectionist, win-lose, and scarcity thinking, there is more than enough business to go around.  What’s bad about a business model that enables us to do what we love, to share our expertise, and support other businesses in their success?  So far, the chorus seems to be screaming — “nothing wrong with that!”  The interest and positive feedback has been tremendous.

Time will tell.  However, the response to my concerned colleague came quickly and easily. With this model, indeed, I feel as though I have found my marbles!

Don’t hesitate to be in touch to find out more about ALERT™ or to request a demo.

Best,
Moyra

Transmedia Marketing … or “Just Marketing?”

At the recent Merging+Media Conference in Vancouver last week (which was great, btw!), there was a lot of talk about online marketing versus transmedia.  The general message was that it’s “just marketing” when multiple platforms (mobile, social media, etc.) are used to convey a brand’s message and to create opportunities for customers to engage with that brand.  True transmedia projects involve orchestrating multiple platforms to build out the “story-world.”   The narrative is unique to each platform and doesn’t repeat.

I’ve been pondering this all weekend because I’m not convinced the distinction is that simple.  Good online marketing is all about creating a rich narrative for a brand.  Content shouldn’t repeat on different channels. Rather each platform should be selected because it allows customers to navigate a different part of the story, in a different way.  For example, a brand shouldn’t use video if they intend only to create a moving picture version of their  press release.  Video should be a chosen platform because the narrative is served by moving images, music, dramatization, animation, factual presentation, etc.  The content should be suited to the passive  form.

Another key differentitator between marketing and transmedia storytelling is the degree of audience involvement.  It was suggested that the audience has substantive input into the transmedia story world, more so than in the multi-platform marketing of a product.  However, this line is often blurred, too.  Digital marketing campaigns often work best when brands are confident enough to place their narrative in the hands of their customers.

Sure there are going to be instances where a product or service does not have an interesting or engaging story, where the foundation is too flimsy to build out an engaging mythology or story-world.  In those instances, presenting the product/service with authenticity and transparency, connecting with, and listening to, customers can be both the means and the end.

However, there are times when a brand or product can support, and benefit from, a multi-level narrative, the likes of which are typically reserved for original transmedia stories.  Transmedia marketing, in essence.

I Googled the term and sure enough there are no shortage of posts on the topic. Will Renny has an interesting take in his post “Transmedia Storytelling and Multi-Modal Brands:”

“Transmedia brands need to provide a world that audiences can participate in; a world in which consumers can shape brands, twist and stretch them, to fit their needs. Consumers now expect to curate and control more of their consumption experiences.”

Upon reading and researching, it’s easy to say, “Well, of course!” However,  I think it may just change everything to begin every brand strategy questioning whether the brand can support  a transmedia, trans-modal approach … or whether the plan needs to be “just marketing.”

What do you think?

Best,
Moyra