Category Archives: marketing

will digital teams continue to exist?

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My recent posts have sparked some real world discussions around two questions:

  • If everyone in the future is ‘just doing digital’ what will digital teams be doing?
  • And, as best posed by Alison Daniels, “the nirvana where everyone is ‘just doing digital’ may come, but what’s the ideal transition digital team?”

I’m going to explore the first question here and dedicate a separate post to the other one (watch this space!).

The easiest way to explore this question is with a definition of what everyone in an organisation ‘just doing digital’ could look like, and identifying some of the questions this creates.

Everyone is ‘just’:

  • creating web content – they’re writing web pages, creating short videos, and posting pictures.
  • using social media – through networks like facebook they’re servicing and attracting customers / supporters, through networks like linkedIn they’re making business connections, and they’re using all types of social media to co-create strategies and products.
  • building websites – they’re using drag and drop online tools to create simple web pages that ‘do stuff’.
  • doing digital marketing – they’re creating (or commissioning) search, affiliate and display advertising campaigns.

So here are the questions:

  • How do you manage the quantity Vs quality balance?
  • How do you prioritise for the greater good rather than individual interests?
  • How do you avoid duplication and cannibalisation where it matters?
  • How do you avoid fragmentation and make integration happen?
  • What if existing off-the-shelf tools don’t do what you need them to do?
  • How do you stop your digital activity looking identikit if you’re ‘just doing’ what everyone is ‘just doing’?
  • How do you keep on top of the next new thing if you’re busy doing the day job?

I see the role of future (and perhaps existing) digital teams is to answer these questions. In fact, stepping back, these questions are not too different from those that marketing teams have worked with for a while. So a logical conclusion might be that digital teams will become the marketing teams of the future.

And so we see the rise of creative marketing technologists – this presentation summarises it nicely.

Rise of the Marketing Technologist

 

So what do you think? Are you a future creative marketing technologist?

when should you use a microsite?

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Microsites aren’t bad intrinsically – they’ve just often been a lazy (sometimes expensive) way to avoid integration considerations when delivering a campaign. Fortunately it seems the needless spawning of microsites has very much slowed as many brands have realised the same aims through social media and better use of their main sites. In fact it feels a bit old school to write about them but a recent experience has made it quite fresh for me.

While at BHF I worked very hard to streamline a vast number of microsites during my three years working there ( I think we went from around 30 sites to 6). I was really quite chuffed to have shifted the culture so much and saved vast amounts of money in doing so. But before I left we broke my no microsite policy for a campaign. So why did we break the rule?

Here’s a summary of the questions that made it happen. They might be useful as a decision discussion tool if you find yourself in a similar situation.

  • How distinct is the audience we’re trying to reach when compared to the main site?
  • Would the audience be distracted by other main site ‘furniture’ so much that the activity effectiveness is at threat?
  • Would the standard brand risk the effectiveness? i.e. put the target audience off? Or not fit with a big reveal tactic?
  • Is it jointly branded and not solely owned by the organisation?
  • Do we want to distance ourselves? And not get our existing audience engaged?
  • Do we foresee selling / passing on the activity to an outside agency / organisation in future?
  • Would the technology or messaging compromise the main site?
  • Would it be more cost-effective to use a different platform but stop being cost-effective when integration is considered?
  • How long will the website need to be available?
  • Are we prepared to accept the following impacts:
    • Burden of build and maintenance
    • Potentially less exposure over longer term
    • Establishing search footprint from scratch
    • Fragmentation and potential for confused user journeys
    • Potential reduced capitalisation of existing ambassadors.

So what happened after the campaign?

Exactly as expected, the microsite traffic plummeted, but we’d planned ahead and had our exit strategy ready. We’d purposely had assets designed with the main site in mind too – so we migrated the useful stuff to the main site, redirected the domain and called it a day.

What charities can learn from Twestival

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It’s been a little while since Twestival in March so I thought it was about time I penned a short blog piece on it.

I’d been aware of Twestival for a while and so when Amanda, Twestival’s founder, called out for volunteers with social media skills I jumped right in and offered my time.

I was one of around 15 people on the worldwide social media team- a few working in each country. We were there to take the pressure off the regional co-ordinators so they could work with each of the local cities in their region. It was a new role/team for Twestival and so it started off a little loose and ready to be shaped by everyone. But it was clear from the start that we were bubbling with ideas.

Harnessing it was harder as we were lacking definition and all looking to each other to make the first move. So it was great when one of the global Twestival team stepped in to give direction – he gave shape to our responsibilities and we agreed who was taking the lead on different things.

So how did it work?

  • Each channel was divided up to be led by a different person- the local city volunteers already run their own profiles while the UK national ones were covered by the social media team.
  • Each city received guidance and support from the rest of the Twestival collective through huddle.
  • We crowd sourced various strategies and documents amongst the social media team on huddle and skype chat. For example:
    • Our first skype chat resulted in the creation of incentives for cities for the first time – this being a tactic to get the most of social media chatter and produce great content eg best team photo and best logo.
    • A quick social media tips guide that covered comms, persuasion and bribery for attention- and social media fundraising tools
  • We continued to have regular skype or gotomeeting calls to keep in touch with what the next focus area should be and any things that need sorting out.

Learnings

What Twestival really demonstrates is the power of a loosely formed network connected together through social media. Success in this can only come from an organisation trusting the network and letting the network shape the activity rather than having a top down approach.

Completely unconnected to Twestival I’ve been reading some of the free MIT course notes and this quote really struck me:

“The rise of networks… means that conflicts may increasingly be waged by ‘networks’ perhaps more than by ‘heirachies’. It also means that whoever masters the network form stands to gain the advantage” – John Arquilla & David Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars (Rand 2001).

This quote was in the context of Al Queda and conflict – but turning it on it’s head and thinking about it in the context of doing good works just as well, and Twestival proves it.

So I absolutely and totally agree with Cian’s blog post which has some great references on networks. This digest of how the Plymouth City Twestival engaged volunteers is also pretty insightful too.

QR codes are rubbish

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QR codes are those funny looking squares of black and white that have started to crop up on printed adverts. They’re a way to send someone straight from a printed advert to a website. Sounds great right? No way someone will forget or mistype your url, and a quick action a consumer can take to continue their journey with you.

Personally I think they’re pants. I’m somewhat contradicting the general view of others (Third Sector 2009, e-consultancy 2011) so here’s why:

  • Most people don’t have a clue what QR codes are.
  • You need to download and install QR software for it to work – already an effort.
  • Using a QR code is almost an act of blind faith – you have no idea where it’s sending you. It takes a huge amount of trust in a brand that many people won’t have.
  • It won’t be long before optical character recognition and image recognition technology is engineered to replace QR codes – Google already have a search which works on image recognition.
  • Did I mention… they’re ugly and are a distraction to the other messages in an advert.

Of course you can always disagree with me – that’s what blog comments are for. And the Know How Non-Profit QR How To Guide might be useful for you too.

digital fundraising – integrating online and offline @thebhf

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I recently spoke at the Third Sector Digital Fundraising Conference and gave a very hurried run through of our Mending Broken Hearts campaign. This is by far the biggest and most integrated campaign the British Heart Foundation have done. It blends an awareness message with a fundraising call to action.

It’s still early days as the appeal is for five years, but we’re already seeing the benefits of integrating across digital and traditional channels. So for anyone who wasn’t there on the day here’s the slide deck.