Perceptint Musings

With the continuing growth of digital marketing technologies, many companies are faced with the challenge of dipping their toes into new channels they may not be fully prepared for. Given the complexities of new channels like mobile advertising and social media, to move from a pilot marketing program into an official marketing protocol is a tall order.

That’s why I firmly believe that most companies need a digital risk center. This would be a marketing group that’s sole charter is to experiment with new channels and help guide the company through the potentially rocky roads without exposing the entire corporation to a greater risk. They are like the digital Sherpa’s, setting the ropes and ladders for the greater hordes following behind.

Here’s a quick list for how it could work:

1. Digital Risk Center is formed. Their charter is to identify new channels that might satisfy current marketing goals.
2. The group would have a separate budget from overall marketing. They would be responsible for vendor management.
3. From the first pilot of a new campaign, the group would be responsible for documentation and case studies of each new channel.
4. From the case studies, best practices for the organization should be developed. Once best practices are in place, the group would be responsible for partnering with the appropriate internal sponsors to turn the best practices into official marketing protocol.
5. As channels are approved and move through this process, the group would be responsible for assisting in the hand off of the channel to the larger marketing organization.
6. Repeat and rinse.

In this model, experimentation and learning are actively encouraged. One of the goals is to ensure that someone’s job isn’t hanging in the balance due to a lapse in judgment by their use of a new channel and subsequent failure. This model accepts that failure will occur, but understands that failure with learning’s can help the overall organizational health. It is also an acknowledgement by the company that they need to mitigate risk and create a method for keeping up with the ever-changing digital marketing picture.

What are your thoughts on this digital risk center concept? Does your company actively take chances or does your corporate culture wince from the thought? As always, your thoughts and opinions are welcome.

Until next time, may risk and the proper handling of it bring you and your organization the rewards they deserve.

This past year, it seems everything around me is going green. From the rise in organic foods at grocery stores to the explosion of green cleaning products and more energy efficient lighting, it seems consumer preference has shifted completely into the green camp. And marketers are certainly capitalizing on the idea like never before.

But what is harder to tell is if the dollars are chasing the hype? I know in my household, we are trying more and more to buy “green” products if they are available. We’re not exactly sure they’re going to help, but it makes us feel better trying to make a difference.

A recent episode of Oprah featured “freegans” - people who get all of their food and household goods from discarded items in dumpsters. It was amazing to see the sheer amount of waste of perfectly good products and food. Even though it produces an emotional first reaction of “that’s gross”, to see the people in action was actually quite inspiring.

What’s your experience or feedback on the movement to go green? Are you making a conscious decision to buy green products or are you sticking to your 20th century ways?

Yesterday was one of those rare days where I felt completely overwhelmed by technology. I had been sick for most of last week and online very little. When I found myself at my computer yesterday morning, I had this numbing feeling that I couldn’t keep up.

For 13+ years I have read at least one hour a day about technology and digital marketing. In that time, the pace of change has never slowed down. If anything it has gotten faster. I’ve seen clients go from the most rudimentary websites all the way to running some of the most sophisticated marketing campaigns they’ve ever embarked upon.

I’ve seen standards and new buzz-worthy applications come and go on a regular basis. I’ve seen great ideas go the way of the dinosaur because they had great technology, but no business sense. Does anyone still long for Kozmo the way I do?

I’m feeling much better about it all today, but it made me think - how are we all keeping up with the rapid pace of change? If something I recommended six months ago is no longer applicable because the technology has changed or is no longer around, I have to keep my clients prepared for change.

Here’s my basic outline for keeping things straight:

1. Focus on the tasks at hand. This means making sure you are still good at everything you are already doing like email, paid search, etc.
2. Keep a laundry list of things you’ve heard about and need to explore
3. Read about digital marketing and your industry every day. Spend a few minutes investigating the buzz
4. Look for case studies if the buzz on a technology picks up to anything louder. Having practical applications to understand how marketers are using a new platform or technology help put it into a project perspective that most of us and our clients can understand
5. Don’t let buzz pressure force you into something early. Moving into new channels and opportunities takes careful planning and expectation setting. Don’t move too quickly and get bit when you could get rewarded
6. Have something ready to say to the higher-ups. It’s inevitable today that someone in the marketing department will get that dreaded call from the CEO or another executive asking why we aren’t already doing “insert buzz application here”? You need to have a standardized response along the lines of, “We’re actively looking at that as a new channel and here’s what we know” to “We’ll add that to our channel investigation list and get back to you ASAP.”

How is your businesses keeping up with the changes and do you feel these same pressures in your position? I’m very interested to start a conversation about keeping it all in order. How do you or people in your organization deal with it? Any and all comments are welcome.

Just a question to anyone reading this. How do you feel about the continued growth of social networking/media outlets? 

Social networking sites are still growing like crazy. MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Bebo, Ning, and a number of other well known social sites continue to grow and spread their influence.

My issue is this. It feels awkward moving from platform to platform and “reacquainting myself” with my connections. Here’s how my experience has gone so far. I’m interested to hear back from others to see how it’s gone for you.

I knew starting my own business that I’d have to get serious about using the sites I already knew about and had either joined and lagged on or never joined but knew I needed to. LinkedIn, followed by Facebook felt very safe and easy to dabble in.

LinkedIn put be back in touch with a number of colleagues that I’d always liked to have stayed in touch with. Facebook presented me the option to reconnect with friends and find new colleagues in the digital marketing world. I knew where people were working, what their kids looked like, and had a good idea of how deep their knowledge ran on 12 question movie quizzes.

So then I get an invite to Plaxo from a good friend and I want to respond. Then I need to setup my connections in Plaxo to see who’s there. Then I have to give it access to my Hotmail, Gmail, LinkedIn, COBRA insurance forms, etc. And there are so many people on each of the various sites that you pretty much always choose the generic “hi I’m here now too - please recognize our previous connections and reaffirm here again today that nothing has changed in the last six weeks” email.

Anyways, that’s my quick take on the last six months. I’m finding real value in using Facebook to make professional connections and LinkedIn to find business people. I don’t know that I can commit to managing too many more social profiles. I’m interested by Twitter, but don’t have the patience for IM news. I like fast, but not so fast I can barely digest it fast.

As a marketing advocate, I have to know about all of the various social outlest, but as a user, I find myself gravitating towards just a few.

What’s your take? Do you feel any of these feelings or can you not get enough? I’d love to discuss.

A few days ago, I touched on an idea for a new role in the economy - a digital marketing advocate. I called it an Internet marketing specialist in the last post. I vacillate back and forth on the phrasing, but I believe as of today I’m settled into only using digital marketing advocate.

Because in this new role, I might recommend marketing channels or partners outside of the Internet depending on my clients goals and capabilities. The portfolio of options and agencies I discuss with my clients will always be fully engaged as I am their advocate.

After working twelve years in various agencies I realized I was only as good as the capabilities emblazoned on my trade show attire. The agencies reputation and some misinformed clients mistaken belief that we could do everything for a client because we were an agency led to a moment of enlightenment.

I was tired of being in a position that if we were asked about services or features we knew we couldn’t deliver, someone was tasked with bluffing our clients into believing we could deliver it. Screenshots, promises of future road-mapping, fueled by a foundation of MS Excel and MS Word based reports with the most rudimentary analysis because the people tasked with building it all were AM’s, PM’s, engineers, production roles and and anything else not an analyst.

Building and managing web sites, ad systems, software, marketing programs, and content for clients, but having to do it through the single production unit of the agency you’re in, began to tie this marketing advocate and my ideas down like rock rope shorts in a tarry river.

Many agencies have the instinct to do everything they can, even if they’re not good at it. Growing the account, expanding services into a client, constantly pushing to figure out how do we grow business from the marketers who already pay us well for what we do? Like a lap dog that found its perfect master, it waits and begs for table scraps because that is all it knows.

The advocates instinct is to carefully plot a perfect path, researching every millimeter from send off to welcome delivery. The goal is to help guide the great corporate Titanic’s gently past the iceberg, helping avoid the need for lifeboats and gut wrenching decisions because you knew well about the dangers ahead. And your client was right there with you, navigating with the best of them.

In today’s more nimble environment, I was increasingly under fire, having my good reputation staked on junior staff delivering services outside of my groups domain. Their mistakes and inexperience damaging a strategic client relationship I had built for years.

I also realized that no one agency can solve every need for a client today. They don’t need to and they shouldn’t. Digital marketing agencies need areas of expertise that they build thought leadership in, and niche value to maintain customer loyalty.

They could not and should not attempt to market across all digital channels, but increasingly they try. At some point, the sheer size and points of communication that must be maintained for a single client to run smoothly begin to overwhelm the agency model.

Why put good customers and relationships in jeopardy when all it could take was a little honesty and hubris? We don’t do everything you need us to, but the thing you do need from us, we do better than anybody. I’d buy that.

What I and most corporate marketers don’t want to buy is a company that is really good in X, buys companies that do Y and Z, and suddenly we’re supposed to translate that belief in service of X over into Y&Z. This wobbling, stacking blocks of value doesn’t deliver what a client really needs. The only person to benefit from these corporate mash-ups is a misinformed shareholder.

Unless your agency has built every single platform and channel management tool for every service they are selling you, I can almost guarantee that behind the scenes, you are getting the most Frankenstein, stitched together by the seat of your pants digital marketing mirage you’d never believe you saw unless you lived it. And I lived it, so trust me when I say I’ve seen it all.

Agencies that try to grow business by expanding their services deeper into their clients ultimately lose focus on their area of excellence or the ones they are dragging their clients into. Why do you think most clients of agencies receive reports in Word and Excel from many of their digital agencies, and not through an online reporting function?

Most agencies are struggling to consume and process the amount of data they are taking in and tasked with reporting back to clients. As they add new channels, they are adding thousands of data points per client into their systems. Growing their business means ultimately moving expertise into the data management business. And if they are expanding their service offering, it means keeping expertise and leadership across all of those channels., plus managing all that data.

In my estimation, the workforce is about five to ten years away from having enough people with the right experience in each channel to make that a possibility for the largest, global agencies. And that gap is where I smelled opportunity for a new class of strategist - the independent digital marketing advocate.

Someone with a depth of experience delivering digital marketing services, the ability to write like an analyst, the candor and honesty of a good friend, and a communicator who could tie it all together to help clients make better informed decisions, and manage the growing list of needed digital marketing relationships. The advocate can’t build and deliver it all, but they can plan, architect, map, and help steer corporations in ways that someone within an agency doesn’t have the freedom to do.

The advocate can investigate and test new channels on their clients behalf. They can serve as a springboard for new ideas and procedures. They sit in a neutral, analyst stance - giving researched and vetted opinions about various topics, as needed by clients and their own gut reactions to new technologies and trends. They can also help digital marketing agencies and their clients find more value in their relationship.

I chose also to limit myself to a single client per vertical industry. This really leaves plenty of room in my mind for many more digital marketing advocates to begin finding and delivering value until the rest of the workforce catches up.

At this point, valuable time says I should pause and tell you something. This post has turned into a five day epic editing session, so I know I have a lot more to say about this. Rather than keep editing and rewriting, I’ll lay today’s rant to rest.

I ended up just describing the digital marketing advocate this time. Next time, I’ll get into specific deliverables and the types of value I expect this role to create for large organizations. I’m very interested in any and all feedback and ideas that might pop up upon reading this.

May advocacy for a topic fall upon you like a wet, heavy winter rain. Reminding you of its strength with an icy grasp on your imagination. Until next time.

© 2008 Keith Boswell