White papers: writing isn’t even the half of it.

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Content Development, Marketing Musings

We love getting commissioned for white papers. Smart ideas, strategy, value to customers—what’s not to love? But occasionally we see these beautiful beasts go horribly wrong, and it’s always in the same place: when people focus on the desire to have the paper “written” without considering anything beyond hiring a writer.

Here’s my plea: white papers are expensive to commission and hard work to create; don’t let them be just another check mark on your Bill of Materials (BOM). Ask yourself and your team a couple of questions before you get started. It’s an hour or two of conversation that won’t be wasted, I promise.

Here’s how to get started:

  • Who are your readers? Where are your readers in understanding the topic and where do you want them to end up when they finish reading the paper? Better informed, yes, but what will be their next step? What’s in it for them if they take the time to read your white paper? Is it realistic to think they will read a white paper? Are you sure a white paper is the right medium?
  • What’s your process? Don’t forget to account for the time it will take to plan, interview, write, edit, review, template, and approve the white paper. (These can’t be done overnight.) Ask yourself how many subject matter experts should contribute to the white paper and find out if they’re available for interviews. On the other end, how many people will need to review it? Are there legal concerns? If the paper includes more than one organization (product group, company, partner, etc.), who takes the lead and when does everyone else get to weigh in? Most importantly—how will you distribute the white paper? Don’t just post it to your website—make the most of your investment and push it out across multiple channels (see diagram below).
  • What’s the value of the paper? If you don’t know, you won’t know how much you should budget for development and distribution and you can’t plan for return on investment (ROI). Some important considerations include how long it should be, how technical it should be, whether there should be graphics or diagrams, and whether you need to create a template. Also consider the shelf-life of the paper—will this topic be quickly outdated? If so, maybe something that’s easier to update is a better fit for your information.

For a smooth arrival, lengthen the runway: Most white papers take longer to produce than originally estimated. A word to the wise: plan accordingly. You know the drill: plan for the worst, but hope for the best. It’s worth it to spend the time on planning and distributing your white papers right so you can make sure you’re getting the best possible ROI.

(Psst: If you don’t have time, we’re always happy to help.)

Getting your video’s audio right, part 2

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Customer Evidence, Marketing Musings

Last week, we covered the first step in making sure your video evidence is backed up by great audio: capturing high quality audio to work with. This week we’ll focus on the crucial second step: the editing process that brings it all together. Have you ever watched a video where you can’t understand what’s being said when the person talks softly? Maybe you want some music in the background, but the music can’t be too loud or you’ll miss what’s being said. Good post- production is how you get this right so your customer’s story can shine.

Audio post-production is a valuable function. Frankly, I recommend you find an audio professional for this part. It takes certain skills, hardware, and software to get it done right, but the results are well worth it.

Audio compression is one very important part of the process, particularly with speaking (like in an interview). It reduces what’s called the “dynamic range” of the audio content. This process makes the soft parts louder and the loud parts softer so every word can be heard clearly without the viewer having to adjust the volume while watching. When done properly, this step alone can have a huge positive impact in a business-oriented video.

Background music is nice, so that would get added in this step. But the music should “duck” under the dialogue, meaning that when the music plays, it gets softer when someone speaks, then turns back up again during conversational lulls. This ducking makes for a smooth, natural soundtrack.

Sometimes it can be useful (and fun) to add a few sound effects to your video for extra impact. Post-production is the time for these extras, too.

All these elements—dialogue, music, sound effects—need to be combined in a way that makes sure only one thing stands out: your message. This process is called mixing.

Almost done. As we know, the files will need to be compressed to conserve space and ensure reasonable download times and streaming speeds. Unfortunately, file compression can wreak havoc on audio. A mastering step is needed to put final tweaks in place so your audio will sound as good as possible once it’s compressed and uploaded.

Your audio professional then melds this sweetened, mixed, mastered audio with your video, and you’re ready to upload a quality video that drives your message home while making a statement about how your company always focuses on producing quality results.

Good luck!

Wind, water, and plenty of desks: Projectline Bellevue gets new digs

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Company, Marketing Musings

On April 1st, our Bellevue office will start getting settled in their new larger space in the Symetra Building. Kevin Ng, from Projectline Bellevue’s Marketing Operations team, found time to answer a few questions about the move:

Why the new space?

The Bellevue office is home to the Marketing Operations team, which has grown a lot since I first joined Projectline a year ago, so this is a much needed expansion. In our old office, when all the conference rooms were taken we’d have to meet in odd places for privacy. Once I had a meeting with my boss that turned into a makeshift wall-ball match in our printer room. Now we’ll have 5800 square feet of office space, more conference areas, added focus rooms, desk space for drop-in workers, and room to grow over the next several years.

I hear this office has a past. What’s the story?

It was the home of Nintendo’s Pokemon International subsidiary. The space is reportedly designed around the ancient principals of Feng Shui—which could explain Pokemon’s meteoric rise as a modern entertainment powerhouse. As the Bellevue team’s resident Feng Shui expert, I’m privy to the space’s secrets. Feng Shui translates as wind and water, and we’ll certainly get to see plenty of both from 20 floors above Lake Washington. The walls are mostly green, which symbolizes peace and prosperity. And our new address is 2020—maybe symbolizing the clarity of our future business decisions…

What are you most excited for in the new office?

The increased meeting space is something I’m looking forward to. Plus, the view of Lake Washington and downtown Seattle is reason enough to move into our new digs. It’s spectacular. The lobby of the Symetra building also has an open air indoor fire pit (I kid you not) which I’m sure will come in handy next winter.

Will you miss anything about the old office?

Although we were outgrowing our old space, we made the most of it! For one thing, we put Larry’s (our IT guy) desk in the server closet. I think the close quarters forced us to be a tighter knit group and I hope we don’t lose that in the new space. Since we are only moving over one building from our old office, the location change isn’t monumental. We’ll be about the same distance from downtown Bellevue, but I will miss having a Starbucks right downstairs to feed my caffeine addiction.

Getting your video’s audio right, part 1

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Customer Evidence, Design Services, Marketing Musings

For effective customer evidence, it’s hard to beat video: it lets the customer’s story shine through, pairing visual context with the familiarity of listening instead of reading. We certainly believe in video—we use it to share our own happy customers’ stories as well as producing video testimonials on our customers’ behalf.

Many companies are self-producing video shorts these days. The lower cost of high quality cameras, even in HD, makes this more practical than ever. Companies post videos on their own website as well as using YouTube channels so clients and employees can stay plugged in.

Self-producing video is all well and good, but it’s easy to end up frustrated with the resulting audio quality. After all, even the most visually-appealing video isn’t going to do the job if people can’t hear your message. Poor audio also leaves a negative impression about the quality of results your company strives to achieve. Getting good quality audio involves two steps: capture and post-processing. Let’s consider audio capture first and we’ll follow up with post-processing tips next week.

First: Capturing good workable audio.

Very little can be done with audio that’s captured badly, so we need to make sure we get good stuff up-front.

Really, it’s all about the microphone! The type and placement of the mic are the critical factors in capturing decent audio. Consider the standard camera-mounted mic. The on-camera mic is as far away from the subject as can be. Even though it’s “directional,” meaning it tries to be more sensitive to sound coming from where the camera is pointing, there’s still too much sound coming from other sources, bouncing off walls and ceilings, and even coming from the camera operator, to capture decent audio. We need a better mic–and we need it closer to the subject.

Many cameras have a “mic in” or “line in” jack. If yours does, life just got a lot easier. If not, better audio isn’t impossible, it’s just more complicated. Let’s cover the “mic in” case first.

The “mic in” jack allows you to connect an external mic to the camera that will override the mic attached to the camera, i.e. a cable attached to a mic that your subject holds by hand like a news reporter. You’ve now moved the mic much closer to your subject—a good thing.

One step further is a lavalier, or “lav” mic. These are the small clip-on mics you see used on talk shows. Lav mics can be wired (i.e. plugged directly into your camera) or wireless. The wireless versions are particularly useful. Your subject wears the mic connected to a transmitter pack. A receiver pack attaches to your camera and plugs into your “mic in” jack, and voila! You get great audio, and your subject is free from wires and mic holding. You have a good quality mic literally attached to your subject.

The best audio requires another person. On film sets you’ll often see a person with headphones holding a long pole with a mic at the end called a “boom mic.” The mics used in this fashion can be very high quality (also high priced!), and having a person dedicated to capturing audio ensures the best result. But this technique isn’t practical for most self-produced projects. A good handheld or lav mic wired into your camera will do the trick.

Now to get back to those of you with a camera that has no “mic in” jack.
In this case, you’re stuck recording decent audio separately from the camera. This can get tricky, as you’ll need to make sure you can later join the video and audio together, and that can sometimes be difficult. In these cases, audio is usually captured into a computer-based audio system with “frame-accurate” capabilities that make matching the audio and video in post-production much easier. You’ll need the help of an audio professional to make sure you have the right equipment and software to record this way.

Okay, we’ve captured good audio. Excellent! Next week, we’ll cover how to manage audio during the editing process for a clear, quality final video.

Any tricks that work well for you? Any recommendations about what to try and what to avoid for really great audio results?

Growing again: Projectline Bellevue is on the move

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Company, News

Projectline is excited to announce that it is relocating its Eastside branch to the modern Symetra Building, which is closer to the heart of Bellevue’s downtown business district than the current Key Center space. Located on the twentieth floor, the office boasts great views of Seattle and Lake Washington. The new space will house the 20 members of Projectline’s Eastside team, with plenty of desks to accommodate new employees as the team expands. The spacious office also provides additional conference areas and extra seating for other Projectliners who feel like dropping in for the day.

“We’ve really made our current office our own, and we’ve loved working here,” says Bellevue Office Lead Eric Foster. “But, we’ve outgrown our space, and we’re looking forward to having a little more room to stretch out.”

The new Bellevue office is scheduled to open the first week of April. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and check out the new digs!

Meet Ray Street: An interview with our new UK employee

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Company, Marketing Musings

This week, we were lucky enough to have our first official UK employee, Ray Street, in the Seattle office for orientation and training. I managed to snag him between lunch and coffee meetings to ask about his background and what he’s looking forward to at Projectline:

What’s your background?

My immediate background is with Lenovo and doing some independent consulting. I had the opportunity to follow IBM’s PC division to Lenovo when I managed their marketing function for Europe through the transition. That really broadened my understanding of how the rest of the organization worked, as well as showing me the differences between a really large corporation and a somewhat smaller organization.

Before that, I worked for IBM’s PC division on the whole spectrum of marketing collateral as well as on IBM’s printing division for UK & Ireland. And even before that, I worked on the technical side of IT as a programming manager—I’ve really gotten to experience the full spectrum of a career in the technology industry.

Tell me more about your marketing degree – what does a postgraduate diploma in marketing involve?

Well, it’s somewhere between an American BA and MA. It’s more hands-on than a Bachelor’s. You focus on four subjects within marketing, with three-hour examinations for each of the four subjects and a case study to bring it all together. After that, I developed the foundation to become a chartered Marketer, which means continuing professional development and submitting evidence of that to maintain accreditation. It’s a great way to stay current on industry developments and new technology.

What are you most excited to bring to Projectline?

I have a lot of knowledge of the European technology marketing landscape. I managed relationship marketing at Lenovo, so I have a good understanding of the UK and European marketplace and how Projectline can approach it.

And I’m excited to join Projectline because we’re growing and lively—I can see a future here.

What do you do when you’re not marketing?

My wife and I live in a house that’s an ongoing renovation project, so there’s always work to do there! This year, we also signed up to go on a charity bike ride in Northern France. I’ve been borrowing my son’s old bike for years, but I just bought a new road bike for proper training. It’s going to be a 300 mile ride over 5 days, so I need to be ready. My wife did it last year, but the whole family will be doing it together this year.

Also, while at IBM, I was one of the founding members of the IBM volleyball tournament, which I still participate in every year. I play cricket and support the local cricket club. Between running their website and the local village website, there’s plenty to do!

Thanks, Ray—and welcome!

Another step into social media for Omniture

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Business Intelligence, Marketing Musings, Social Media

Talking about social media and business often feels like trying to hit a moving target. At first MySpace was just for social connections and Facebook was a way to connect with college communities. LinkedIn became the de facto social networking tool for business and then Twitter for broadcasting brief thoughts. Now we find (etc.) on corporate websites, movie posters, and email signatures. These buttons have become ubiquitous for marketing campaigns and, more recently, customer service and customer feedback.

The influx of social networking into marketing practice has changed how we think about web analytics and business intelligence. For a long time, analytics were concerned primarily with visitors, pageviews, and stickiness (how long a visitor remained on a site). More recently, the focus is on click-throughs and conversion rates—and now behavior-based analytics track influencers and analyze how we interact with people in our social networks. Clearly, web communities allow each of us to influence other people through what we say, what we buy, and what we recommend. Companies are struggling to balance the importance of mining customer and social network data with the risk of jeopardizing the apparently organic experience that spawns the growth of social communities.

Just last week, web analytics giant Omniture (now owned by Adobe) announced an expanded partnership with Facebook that will help companies monitor their marketing return on investment while targeting communities within Facebook (especially notable as we see Google and Salesforce.com edging into social media spaces). It will be interesting to see how this impacts the online marketing space longer term. Does a marketing dollar spent to advertise in social networking have the same impact as a marketing dollar spent on search? I believe both search and social networking will stay important to marketers in the long run.

For my work, this announcement raises a couple of questions: Will it force other networks or platforms to align themselves with analytics tools? I would not be surprised to see an announcement between Twitter and perhaps Webtrends. How will this increased emphasis on advertising and marketing impact the users of Facebook? It will be exciting to see how the new deal plays out, both for web analytics and for Facebook as a network.

What do you think? What does this partnership mean for businesses marketing through social media? What does it mean to you the consumer of social media networks? Are you excited or apprehensive?