Can YOU handle it?
Posted: November 4, 2011 Filed under: Basics, Content Marketing Leave a comment »If you are a client: don’t read this!
If you are an aspiring Account Handler: Read on and be scared!
As an agency, we find that clients only tend to remember the things that have gone wrong (thankfully, in 9 years this has only happened a handful of times!). They do not remember the times you have helped them, dug them of tight holes and worked 25 hours a day for 8 days of the week. It’s expected you deliver on time and on budget, with award-winning design, using technology that pushes the boundaries every single time. This is often taken for granted.
Unfortunately, this is an occupational hazard and one that, as an agency account handler, you come to accept – no matter how hard it is to bear.
The problem is; being an agency account handler ‘the buck stops with you!’ The pressure to get it right every second of every day is immense.
If you do not deliver, the client may query the invoice and your agency’s reputation may end up in tatters. When your business is built on a project-by-project model (which many are, including ours) it is imperative you get it right to guarantee future work and more shockingl; your survival. Add the fact that there are hundreds of other agencies knocking on your client’s door everyday, only increases the pressure. One ‘bad project’ and a new agency can be in place within days!
The agency account handler has to be a full-time plate spinner, juggler, intermediary, diplomat, interpreter, arbitrator, coordinator, teacher, PA and planner and a part-time, host, councilor, entertainer, psychiatrist, scapegoat, sounding-board and shoulder to cry-on.
It is not a job for the feint-hearted. It requires a certain type of person who can cope with the stress, manage multiple tasks (read 1000′s) and deliver projects on time and on budget. In my 20+ plus years in the business I have only worked with a handful of people whom I’d consider a ‘true account handler’ . I have genuinely seen 100’s of wanna-be’s pass through my agencies books – in one company, in one year I witnessed 50 leavers and 3 ‘real’ nervous breakdowns in the Client Services team. You have to be slightly mad, suffer from mild OCD, be incredibly thorough, immensely detailed, calm, patient, reassuring, diplomatic, strong-minded and knowledgeable.
Let us look at the ‘interaction and action’ math for one account manager in a typical agency scenario: (I stress I have not been sensationalist here, in fact I have been cautious with the estimates!)
- 5 accounts – each in a different vertical with wildly different products, offers and solutions and each requiring a certain level of knowledge and understanding of the vertical /product /solution in question.
- 4 departments/product groups/divisions per account – this can be as many as 15 in large companies.
- 20 individual contacts in total – each with their own management style, personalities, experience, expectations and methodologies.
- 5 projects per contact – ranging from small one-off projects, to wide-area, large-scale campaigns.
- 10 ‘deliverables’ per project – on most campaigns this is usual and all need to be coordinated to be delivered at the same time. Each deliverable requiring a different marketing discipline or tool/tactic.
- 4+ language variants on each deliverable
- 15 ‘actions’ (minimum) at anyone time - to effectively ensure each deliverable is produced on time and on budget.
- 4 internal departments to brief – which could be 6+ agency personnel
- 2 or 3 separate external suppliers – printers, programmers, etc.
As you can there are 1000′s of interactions/actions at any one time – actually, it is mind-boggling!
Add to this, the ‘interruptions, the curve ball requests, the endless calls and emails with changes/questions and the urgent ‘demands with everything wanted yesterday. On top of this you need to manage a clients’ lack of knowledge on how and what is entailed to make these changes. Every client is a frustrated designer – they also believe that by owning an Apple mac, allows you to make changes instantly – you know: mac magic! Throw into the mix the poor briefing, missing information, deadline shifts, slow approvals, global time zones and language barriers – and you see the minefield we have to juggle on a daily basis. You are either hero or zero – it’s that fickle!
Now don’t get me wrong… I am not moaning . This is me stating the facts so that everyone understands what it takes to be a successful agency and agency account handler. I’ve been doing it successfully for 20+ years and still do not tire of it (although it has taken its toll physically!!!) The buzz of delivering a complex and successful project is still what keeps me motivated.
I am also trying to illustrate the length we, as an agency, go to, to deliver a project successfully and make you the hero within your organization. We are not perfect, but our results prove we have a 95% success rate and I genuinely believe we are one of the BEST in the business!
We pride ourselves on always delivering. We never let a client down and we always go that ‘extra-mile’. You see; it’s a reflection of who we are as individuals. We take it personally. We worry, stress and fret for you – but you will only experience the calm, unflustered account management, that Penknife have come to pride themselves on. We work tirelessly behind the scenes late at night, early mornings, weekends and holidays. You name it; our work goes with us pretty much everywhere (I’m writing this whilst on holiday!) and sometimes to the distain of our partners and families!
That’s Penknife. It is what we do. ALWAYS.
We are here to make you a success in your organization. We have developed systems, processes and communication methodologies to ensure you meet your objectives. We can help you create accurate briefs and deliver detailed project plans, critical paths, SLA’s, briefing forms, checklists and status reports. We are here to help.
However, the most important ‘tool’ an account manager has in their arsenal is the following mantra:
‘PARANOIA RULES. If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. Be paranoid always and plan for the what-ifs!’
No wonder we are all slightly mad 
Note:
There are various documents on our website that help clients and account handlers alike, to manage projects more effectively:
- Campaign Briefing Template: http://www.penknifeintegratedmarketing.com/insights.html
- Microsite Checklist: http://www.penknifeintegratedmarketing.com/insights.html
Read before you Like
Posted: June 21, 2011 Filed under: Ideas Leave a comment »
While reading the (highly recommended) book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini, which , by the way, serves as the Holy Bible and the ultimate source for most of the advice you’ll find in more contemporary works on this topic such as Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment, I came upon this sentence:
The purpose behind the testimonial contests is the same as the purpose behind the political essay contests of the Chinese Communists. In both instances, the aim is to get as many people as possible to go on record as liking the product.
The emphasis is mine. Now, let’s put things in context. The sentence is part of a fascinating chapter that contains details about the subtle methods used by the Chinese Communists to brainwash American captives during the Korea war. In short, the Chinese had the POWs (Prisoners of War) handwrite seemingly innocent statements, such as “The United States is not perfect,” and later used an influence mechanism called Consistency to coerce bolder pro-Communist statements from these POWs, which were then used in “discussion groups” and even radio transmissions to other POW camps.
Allow me to break off for a second, in order to ask you to show that you found this content interesting by Liking our Facebook page. Thanks in advance.
One of the points Cialdini makes is that by having a person write down a statement, a very powerful behavioral mechanism is introduced that makes it possible to manipulate this person’s subsequent actions and statements. Cialdini later shows how the same mechanism is used in business settings to promote enhanced sales performance by having sales people write down and sign their sales goals. The effect can be augmented by making the statement public:
Whenever one takes a stand that is visible to others, there arises a drive to maintain that stand in order to look like a consistent person.
The consistency of Liking
Now let’s time-jump from the 1950’s to 2011. By now, the Facebook Like button is everywhere on the web, in Facebook and outside it. Social media consultants tell whoever’s ready to listen that Facebook Pages and Likes are great mechanisms for communicating with customers and prospects, of promoting conversations, and that having this presence is mandatory in our day and age. All true, but there could be something a little more subtle and subversive about using this mechanism that should make you consider using it. Because in its essence, it taps the type of commitment and consistency behaviors that Cialdini describes so well in his book. When I click on the Like button for a website or a Facebook page, I have in effect expressed a positive attitude towards that piece of web content, an attitude that later on I may want to appear consistent with, if engaged about it.
Sure, the Like click action is weaker than having someone write an explicit ‘I like it’ statement, and invariably weaker than having a person write a paragraph or an essay about the reasons they feel that way towards your brand, offering or content. But the consistency behavioral mechanism is still activated by it! And weak as it is, if nurtured and followed upon, say with more quality content and the odd relevant offer, it could increase the possibility of having ‘Likers’ act in a way that is consistent with their previous expressions of positive attitude.
Which, naturally, is why I asked you previously to like our Facebook page 
Don’t Abuse the Like
A final word of warning: the above should serve as another reason why not to engage in those obnoxious yet still popular Like contests, where incentives are presented to encourage the Like action. People who Like your page for the wrong reasons, say the chance to win an iPad, will not feel compelled to act consistently later on.
Expert Fear!
Posted: May 30, 2011 Filed under: Ideas 1 Comment »The gulf between the information we publicly proclaim and the information we know to be true is often vast (or put in a more familiar way, we are saying one thing and doing another). This can be seen in personal relationships, commercial transactions and of course marketing.
The big question that relates to our industry and one we must ask is: Does the agency really know what’s best or are they profiting from a marketing fad that they proclaim to be experts in using their information advantage to their gain?
FACT: Marketing agencies know their field better than the layman, on whose behalf they are acting – they are better informed. That’s what they do. And as a client, you depend on them for this information. Which is why you hired an expert.
Well, as marketing has grown more specialized and fragmented over the past few years, countless such experts have made themselves indispensible i.e.: SEO, social media, content, etc etc. They all enjoy a gigantic informational advantages and they us that advantage to help you, the person who hired them.
However, do the ‘Experts’ also use their informational advantage to service their own agenda? Armed with information, experts exert a gigantic if unspoken leverage: FEAR! Fear that if you don’t use certain marketing tactics your campaign will fail!
So whom is this actually helping?
- The marketer: for delivering unproven cutting edge new tools and tactics and pushing the boundaries of marketing
- The expert for ‘riding the zeitgeist’ of a marketing fad and ‘making hay whilst the sun shines’
- The audience – Oh! We forgot about the audience!
NB: The double jeopardy for the client is that it could be easy to place barriers in the way for NOT running the cutting edge stuff – take the path of least resistance i.e.: taking the tried and tested formulaic approach or ‘sleep marketing’ as we like to call it. Dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t!
Now here’s the thing! The important element in any campaign is THE RESULT! A win, a call, a sale, a piece of captured data, a download, a listen, a read, a view or a click. This is what really matters.
Specialist media WILL work, but NOT in isolation. The Communication strategy has to be integrated and unbiased because your audience are individuals – they are DIFFERENT.
Ok so we can categorize, segment and profile the buying characteristics, demographics, psychographics, channel usage etc and we can market to the largest group or the lowest common denominator, but this isn’t effective as it biased to one group – not the entire universe.
What is effective in marketing to the universe however is a holistic approach. Where all channels link together – where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s not about a new marketing fad; it’s about everything working together. It’s about online and offline, traditional and innovative, social and commercial, hard and soft, push and pull, knowledge and power, personal and individual.
FACT: Integrated marketing uses multiple tools and tactics to garner the greater results. Integrated marketing DOESN’T sell you what it specializes in – it is unbiased, focusing only on RESULTS.
So the next time you brief a new project think about whether you need and expert in one marketing discipline that will leverage their informational advantage or an agency that understands ALL the available channels and will provide unbiased recommendations that focus on results. An agency that will employ experts for ALL the respective marketing channels and manage them as the utopian marketing experience.
THINK INTEGRATED!
Oh, and one last point: it seems to me that the age of Google and of Information Everywhere and To Everyone should be the age of the expert’s decline, not the other way around. Don’t you think?
Best. eBook. Ever?
Posted: May 18, 2011 Filed under: Noteworthy Leave a comment »First, a confession: I love eBooks. In our hyper-textual, content-soaked, over-saturated world of digital communications, eBooks done right are the equivalent of a breath of fresh air blowing through the dusty aisles of an antique bookshop. People define eBooks in different ways. I find it useful to think of them as a tool for delivering enhanced reading experiences. Which is also why we love doing eBooks for our customers. We even use one to tell our own story.
The best eBooks are those that strike a perfect balance between the content (the story they tell) and the visuals (the graphic representation of the story or its elements). I’ve read dozens of crappy eBooks, a fair amount of decent ones, and a few brilliant ones.
I also have two kids.
What kind of Marketeer are you?
Posted: May 10, 2011 Filed under: Basics 1 Comment »“We MUST do it, we must use new marketing channels, it is where it’s at! I’ve read the new Gardner Report in Marketing Weak (yes – pun intended) and apparently it’s the new big thing”.
Take for example a typical agency briefing: “…We’ve chosen Smythe Hamilton & Tompkins (SH&T) because you profess to being at the cutting edge of marketing. We’re impressed with your credentials. We don’t know any other agencies with your specialism. You can offer us something our incumbent doesn’t. We want something different, something wow, we MUST be seen to be different and we need NEW channels, come-up with something new… ”
The agency goes away and returns with some edgy and unproven new channel, like advertising on eggs (they actually have a high OTS and we consume on average 18 million of them every week in the UK alone – so maybe not so stupid to the right demographic!). I digress…
The client is presented with the costs and the hypothetical ROI – there are now 2 outcomes:
- The client relies on SH&T’s unproven expertise and biased information and is blinded by their knowledge of the latest cool marketing trend and the brilliant presentation they’ve prepared.
- The client pulls the creativity plugs and reverts to what they know.
Both are, well… ‘sub optimal’ options. And therein lies my issue. You see, quite often decisions are made to use certain marketing channels not because of the better results they will garner, but because of seemingly irrelevant factors like exterior motives, background situations, corporate politics, peer pressure etc.
What I’m getting to is this:
What type of client are you?
1. The ‘Listen to Corporate’ Marketeer
- They feel pressured by the new corporate initiatives to follow the marketing trends.
2. The ‘Too Busy to Think’ Marketeer
- They stick to the tried and tested formula that they’ve always executed because they just don’t have time to think about new ideas.
3. The ‘Trail Blazer’ Marketeer
- They’re always up for cool. They like pushing boundaries regardless of effectiveness.
4. The ‘Lazy’ Marketeer
- They’d rather choose the path of least resistance because it’s easier.
5. The ‘Non-Believer’ Marketeer
- They’re sceptical that it’s just a marketing fad and it’s totally unproven.
6. The ‘Follower’ Marketeer
- They believe in experts and they are wowed by ‘experts’ incredible knowledge.
7. The ‘Look at Me’ Marketeer
- They want promotion and public acclaim – They want to impress with being the first to try different tools and tactics regardless of the outcome.
8. The ‘I’m Trying to Please my Boss’ Marketeer
- Their boss thinks xxxx is a great idea but they are not so sure, but they feel they have to do it just to keep him/her happy.
9. The ‘Scared’ Marketeer 1
- They don’t understand this new fandangled tech and have no idea how to implement this type of campaign…HELP…!
10. The ‘Scared’ Marketeer 2
- They know they have to be doing something new because it is one of their personal objectives… but what…HELP…!
My guess is most clients are a mixture or all 10 marketing types at one point – that’s just corporate life. I understand. Situations, environments and pressures dictate this.
But it’s frustrating as an agency owner that the ONLY motive should be: The RIGHT way for each respective brief and one that delivers the BEST possible results.
I have a name for this:
11. The ‘Effective’ Marketeer
- They are purely results focused. Deploying the right strategy, to the right audience, through relevant targeted channels. They are not swayed by outside pressures.
Now this means there is a 3rd outcome for the new brief:
- The client understands the merits of the SH&T offer but feel combining it with other marketing channels would be most effective.
Conclusion:
Be more effective. Go integrated.
OBTW feel free to add to my list of Marketing types – I’ll compile them for a later blog.
Are we going too fast?
Posted: May 1, 2011 Filed under: Basics 1 Comment »Born in 1972, I consider myself a digital emigrant. Not a native like the millenials, but been there since early enough to qualify. I live by my Blackberry smartphone. I’ve been tweeting since 2008, started blogging in 2005. Since getting my Kindle, I read almost exclusively on it. And although I don’t own an iPad, I can appreciate how, even more than the Kindle, it’s thoroughly changing the way people consume content, at home, in the office and on the road.
All of this made me quite unprepared to an exchange I recently had with a customer, when visiting their offices. While there, I noticed a stack of shiny brochures (really it was a whitepaper) on his table. Recognizing the design as something our studio recently produced for them, I said, half-jokingly: ‘I see you’ve decided to waste some of your budget on print.’
He looked up and replied, dead serious: ‘ what are you talking about? not one person who came into my office this week has left without taking one of these with them.’ The surprise on my face was probably evident, and he went on to tell me why he think that was the case. ‘look, everybody is experiencing digital overload these days. People are sick of emails, PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, Word docs. This is what they do all the time. Just give them something to read that’s not delivered on a screen, and they jump all over it.’
It got me thinking.
There’s no doubt we’re in the thick of a species-wide process of digitization. But have we hurried it, perhaps, a bit too much? Have we already become so enamored with new display technologies and their incredibly fast pace of advance that we – and by that I mean marketers, the people whose job is to capture other people’s attention – are neglecting the most basic, time-proven means of doing so? Is it possible that, on a collective scale, we’ve mentally given up on paper? my offhand comment to our customer proves that on some conscious level, I certainly have started down that slope path. Surprising, because despite what I wrote above, I can still very much appreciate the tactile feel of a book in my hand, and will print a long piece for reading over viewing it on my laptop. And I relish print magazines.
Yet I was obviously under appreciating the degree to which others prefer to do the same. I was downplaying the tendency of everybody else in and around my age bracket – which means the vast majority of people in the business world - to prefer the tangible over the digital; to appreciate the solid, smooth feel of a chrome paper over its online rendering in a Google Chrome browser. You have no idea how many people want to read stuff that’s not on screen, said my customer. And it got me thinking.
What do you think? does paper still have a few good years to give us (Tal Givoly thinks the number is 18)? is the future necessarily, strictly paper-less? and what does it mean for us marketers?
Headline Overkill Syndrome, and Why You Should Avoit It
Posted: April 7, 2011 Filed under: Content Marketing | Tags: advice, content, marketing, tips Leave a comment »Earlier today I came across this item, from the Conversation Marketing blog, and I couldn’t help but nodding in agreement. And not just because I agreed with the post’s opening, or found the headline samples there less than ridiculous, but because I have recently been feeling that Headline Overkill is truly becoming an issue. It’s understanding this basic fact that caused me to write this post, in the hopes of helping even one content marketer out there to avoid contracting the dreaded Headline Overkill Syndrome.
“bad headlines = bad press” : header of a new Hebrew Tumblr blog
that highlights very bad news headlines in the Israeli web
Last year, the HuffPo also picked up an issue with this phenomenon, which has likely been around for as long as newspapers appeared on humanity’s scene. The item includes some striking examples of bad and funny news headlines, including this little gem on the right.
Here’s the thing: if you own a big media website, a newspaper, or an online magazine – you probably know that once in a while something like that will slip past your editors. Worst thing that can happen? you appear in an item like this. Everybody gets a laugh, and move on. You might even get a complaint, if someone’s feelings got hurt, in which case you publish an apology, or, rarely, involve your lawyers. Most times things don’t go this far.
But if you are a business organization, a corporate blogger or a content editor for an enterprise, the stakes are somewhat different. On the one hand you have a good reason for being creative with your headlines: the effectiveness of a good subject line is well documented. On the other hand, there are risks associated with taking creativity too far down the sophisticated path. Here are four reasons you want to avoid headline overkill:
- Most people don’t appreciate smart asses. If you write smart ass headlines, there’s a good chance you’re probably one.
- Readers might get the impression that you don’t believe in your content enough to let it speak for itself, so you felt compelled to be provocative with its subject line.
- You might offend someone’s feelings, and not just outside your organization but also within.
- You could appear to be trying too hard and lose credibility.
I’m hardly arguing in favor of avoiding creativity altogether. Never. But as with most things, too much of anything is just that: too much. And with your readers having undoubtedly plenty of choice for other things to read other than your corporate blog or website, there’s no reason to risk pushing them away just for the sake of a misplaced feeling of publisher’s freedom.
How to gain over 300,000 ebook views in a week
Posted: March 28, 2011 Filed under: Content Marketing Leave a comment »
It’s easy: just be Google.
No really, that’s how many times their new online magazine, Think Quarterly, was viewed since it was launched last week. This inaugural issue was about data, and if you can figure out the user experience mechanics of the underlying Issuu publishing system, and you hold a firm belief in the potential of the topic to hold your reading interest, then you’re in for a treat. This fellow is very neatly designed. It is supported by a nicely done articles view which I liked best in terms of navigation aids, and to be perfectly honest, the article titles and teasers were all so craftily made as to make me wanna read each of them. Well, almost.
BTW one of my favorites was The Knowledge, which lists ten online sources for “sexy” data viewing. Apparently, there’s such a thing as sexy data. And yes, I was tempted to show a picture here of Brent Spinner. But I won’t.
Seriously though, apart from the crazy viewership numbers who can’t be imitated unless you’re a Facebook or an Apple, there are a few more takeaways that any firm planning an ebook as part of its content marketing mix can observe.
- Wrapping is nice; Content is everything. Really, take a serious look at this magazine. It really has good content.
- Clean is win. I love how clean and elegant the design is. It doesn’t force itself on you, and it’s clear (at least to me) how it was driven by the content and not vice versa.
- User diversity can’t be ignored. Some of your readers will want to browse your ebook offline, others in PDF. Some will like the online spreads, while others will want a mobile option. You don’t have to cater to everyone’s wishes, but you do need to know your audience and give it at least the top 2 or 3 options for viewing formats.
Leaves on a Tree
Posted: December 16, 2010 Filed under: Ideas 1 Comment »
Eloqua has put forth an interesting, playful infographic on its blog this week. beyond the fact that it stirred scores of marketers into scouring the tree branches and trees to find their own name mentioned and to post about it, thus becoming an intriguing exercise in meta-industry hype, I find it interesting for another reason.
The tree metaphor is exceptionally ripe. It can be developed in so many ways: fertility. reach. naturality. freshness. longevity. perseverence. the change in the constant. just try it yourselves.
Yet, contrary to the Eloqua post title, which proclaims lists are dead, I don’t find the infographic useful in any way. yes, it’s inspirational. yes, it’s thought provoking. a marketer’s mind immediately begins to churn with the possibilities it opens with regards to their own clients and projects. but it’s not very useful.
It *could* have been made more useful, if Eloqua had simply published, on the same post, an OPML file that aggregates all the feeds from the tree. someone like me would then import that file into its RSS reader, et voila. Now it’s suddenly useful.
The lesson here is simple: don’t let creativity blind you from utility. being creative is at the core of what we do, day in and day out. but we must remember that if we combine utility into our creations, our audience will benefit even more.
