Where Do You Market and How?

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Content Strategy, Marketing Musings

In an earlier post, I wrote about how marketers can (and should) aim to communicate with prospective customers by using a variety of media formats. This post takes a closer look at two predominant digital marketing strategies: broadcasting the same or very similar messages across multiple channels and using emerging technologies, like mobile tags, to deliver differentiated content that helps to tell a multi-dimensional marketing story. To illustrate these two approaches, I think it’s useful to walk through a couple real-world scenarios.

Focus on Distribution over Differentiation
Television networks will likely never see the volume of ratings that they experienced in decades past, which is odd when you consider that the US population grew by nearly 10 percent from 2000—2010. The proliferation of entertainment content (think YouTube as one example) has steadily diluted TV viewership. As a result, many networks are chasing audiences on social media sites in an effort to stay connected.

Watch a TV show tonight and you’ll see hashtags, Facebook logos, and Twitter birds throughout the show and during commercials. The hashtag, for example, is an innovative effort to generate conversation about a show, but it reflects a core strategy focused more on mass distribution and less on true engagement with viewers. While the obvious advantage of this effort is broad consumer reach, its effectiveness can easily be blunted if people perceive the outreach as simply more “noise” to be ignored.

More Content, Fewer Channels
Now consider an alternative approach. Think about a real-estate company that puts a mobile tag on the fliers for a house it is selling. Mobile tags can be used for a variety of purposes, but their main goal is to get content to a mobile phone. The conventional thinking would be to use the tag to link to an online listing description for the house, but the paper flier and the online listing likely contain identical information. This tactic would be akin to TV networks (or any other company for that matter) that use social media sites purely as distribution hubs—locations on the web where content is replicated. Why not use the mobile tag to link to a news article about an innovative program that the local schools are piloting? By focusing on the depth and relevance of the content, instead of reaching as many channels as possible, the real-estate company can build the framework for a more meaningful conversation with a potential buyer.

The two marketing tactics described here have their own advantages and shortcomings. And, of course, selling TV advertising and marketing houses present very different challenges. But it’s important to recognize the potential pitfalls that can result from simply using social media as a way to push the same content to multiple locations on the web. Instead, marketers need to use emerging media technologies to tell different sides of the product story.

Do you think content replication is actually a more effective approach? Tell us why. We’d love to hear from you.

Picture of the Week: The Projectline Book Club

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Community, Company, Marketing Musings, Pic of the Week

Here at Projectline, we’ve recently started a project to capture all the places we work and bring together our team around the world. Every weekday morning at 10:42 am, our team is invited to send in a picture of where they are, what they’re doing, or who they’re with. Each Monday, we’ll choose our favorite picture of the previous week and share its story here.

Anika in Seattle with our Book Club Book Mark

At Projectline, we believe that learning never stops. The Projectline Book Club, which meets once a month, offers a way for our employees, vendors, clients, and other folks in our network, to explore a rich variety of marketing concepts and then apply what they learn to their day-to-day work with clients. In September, Book Club members read and discussed “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni.

What kinds of publications do you read to stay informed? How does your organization promote continuous learning?

Making Fun of Productivity: An Introduction to Gamification

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Careers, Marketing Musings

What if your employer started encouraging you to play video games at work? Actually, this scenario isn’t that far-fetched.

Recently, I heard Projectline’s Jimmy Cooper describing a project that he worked on for a client that involved creating a virtual badge system, similar to something you might encounter while engaged in a multiplayer video game. The goal of the project was to drive traffic to a website, and then encourage social interaction and learning among visitors in the weeks leading up to a technology conference. Participants earned different types of badges in return for completing prescribed actions, such as responding to a question in one of the online forums. My interest piqued, I immediately started researching the subject to see what else I could find out about it.

The more I read, the more engrossed I became in what’s often referred to as “gamification.” This futuristic-sounding term refers to the use of game mechanics—things like merit badges, leader boards, and virtual currency—to incentivize achievement of work-related goals. Jimmy Cooper is going to blog about this in more depth in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, I wanted to highlight a great post on the topic entitled “If All Work Were Gamified,” which appeared earlier this year on the Harvard Business Review blog. This post, written by Saul Kaplan, Founder and “Chief Catalyst” of the Business Innovation Factory, provides a straightforward overview of the concept of gamification and is definitely worth the read. Kaplan zeroes in on some of the reasons why applying game elements to workplace tasks can help boost worker productivity, a metric that all companies care about. He explains that using game design to structure work tasks makes good practical sense for a number of reasons, including:

Chances are, your company is already full of gamers—A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 53 percent of people in the United States who are over the age of 18 play video games on a frequent basis. I’m guessing that number has likely gone up, especially with the release of the massively popular Angry Birds in 2010.

Video games are fun to play—There’s a reason FarmVille has a daily active user (DAU) count of more than 30 million. Video games captivate and stimulate our senses, and deliver immediate and powerful rewards.

Games can be applied to any challenge—Whether it’s knocking over pigs in Angry Birds or hitting a quarterly sales target, video games help put goals in clear view. And, perhaps more importantly, they provide a built-in feedback system that can help condition people to improve performance over time.

So, the next time you’re online trying to beat your high score, you might just be doing it as part of your job.

What do you think? Is the gamification of work a reality? Has your company already started using business applications that incorporate game mechanics? Please post your comments here. I’m fascinated by this topic and would love to learn more.

Picture of the Week: Values

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Company, Marketing Musings, Pic of the Week

Here at Projectline, we’ve recently started a project to capture all the places we work and bring together our team around the world. Every weekday morning at 10:42 am, our team is invited to send in a picture of where they are, what they’re doing, or who they’re with. Each Friday, we’ll choose our favorite picture of the week and share its story here.

Values

We know that values are the building blocks for the actions we take; they shape the way we approach our work and ultimately define the quality of the service we provide to our clients. These simple cards help tell the story of who we are at Projectline and what motivates us to exceed expectations every day. Hear more from Projectliners about what inspires them and why they love what they do.

What values help inform your company’s mission and culture? How do you incorporate these values into your work?

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Blog? Not this girl! Well, not anymore, anyway.

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Marketing Musings, Social Media

Shocking, but true: I am NOT a natural-born writer. Sure, I may be a whiz with well-crafted emails, and I may have the creative juices for a good story, but, they can be darn near impossible to get flowing—especially when it comes to blogging for Projectline.

The following is just a sampling of the excuses and worries that keep me from picking up the proverbial pen (I bet they’ll sound familiar):

“I don’t have a “good” topic.” That is, one that not only interests me, but might actually hold the attention of someone else in this world (and by “someone else,” sorry, Mom, I don’t mean you.). Sometimes, the ideas I have feel forced, too obvious, or worst of all, irrelevant. It makes me a little insecure about putting myself out there. Sigh.

“I have a good topic, but the storyline is a mess.” All that great stuff that Projectline writer Molly Dee Anderson said about the narrative arc? Sometimes, the first draft comes out for me more like a granny knot than an arc. And it can be a total mess to untangle.

Meh, I’m not feeling it right now; I’ll do it tomorrow/next week/when the current season of House is over. Writing a blog not only takes time, it takes inspiration and concentration, of which I have zero after a long day at work.

The excuses and worries are there pretty much every time I endeavor to blog, but clearly, I found ways to work around or defuse them all because here I am, writing my second blog post for Projectline—and it’s quite the enjoyable experience, thank you. The fear factor is gone.

Writing for a professional blog can be so very good for you. It solidifies and sharpens your ideas, incentivizes you to investigate topics you’re curious about, invites people to get to know you better through the personality and voice you bring to your writing, and it can really build your credibility. So, get on it already! If you’re stuck, try some of the things I did that finally got me writing:

I look for inspiration everywhere and ask for help with brainstorming. When I couldn’t come up with a good topic on my own to save my life, I asked a colleague to brainstorm with me over lunch. We didn’t come up with a topic, but our conversation helped soothe my insecurities and gave me all kinds of angles for approaching a blog post. I started paying closer attention to the things going on in every part of my life and seeing how they relate to my job. Soon, enough I had a handful of topics to choose from.

I bet you can identify someone who would be willing and able to help you get started. Heck, for the right price, you can even ping me.

I write and write, right on through the mess, and eventually the storyline comes out. If I’m working on a section and it starts to fall apart, I set it aside and work somewhere else for a while. If the pieces don’t flow together, that’s OK too—I reshuffle at the end. Stream of consciousness works, writing from an outline works, Mind Maps work. It all works if you just start writing!

I create real accountability and give myself a deadline for writing the post. I really wanted to ensure that I would start blogging for Projectline, so my manager and I decided to add the metric of “write two blog posts for Projectline” to the performance measures for my annual review. Talk about putting my feet to the fire! Still, it was a very realistic goal at the time we set it, my manager checked in regularly to track my progress and offer encouragement, and hey, look! I just achieved it with this post, thanks to a little extra nudge from Tim Cashman, who asked me to finish by today. Deadlines are good, and you can make them for yourself. How else might you create accountability?

Now, go forth and blog!

Picture of the Week: Lunchtime/Team Bonding

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Company, Marketing Musings, Pic of the Week

Here at Projectline, we’ve recently started a project to capture all the places we work and bring together our team around the world. Every weekday morning at 10:42 am, our team is invited to send in a picture of where they are, what they’re doing, or who they’re with. Each Friday, we’ll choose our favorite picture of the week and share its story here.

Team Zabel lunch at Marcela's

It’s Friday, and we (Brian, Brady, Erin, Kim, and Karin) took time out today for a team lunch at Marcela’s in Pioneer Square. Not only was the food delicious, but it gave us a chance to chat about all things personal and professional. Getting together for lunch was the perfect way to catch up with colleagues, who also happen to be good friends.

How do teams in your organization stay connected? What kinds of things do you do to welcome new teammates?

Escape from Shareadise: Yam, Jam, Link, and Like—Without Losing Your Mind.

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Marketing Musings, Social Media

Projectliners are swimming in social media at work; it’s an increasingly important part of what we do and how we connect, and it of course began with the all-powerful trifecta of LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. A couple months ago, Brian Johnson introduced us to Yammer, a microblogging service with special features that make it a fantastic tool for private, real-time office chat in a virtual environment.

And then, Brian brought us a beta version of Turntable (invitation only—aren’t we VIP!) and the online party really got cooking; we now have our own private virtual dance club that lets us DJ for each other throughout the day. David—who would have pegged you as a Duran Duran fan? Awesome! And Brian—did you really just play my favorite Springsteen song?

It wasn’t too long before I found myself drowning in all the Yamming, Jamming, Tweeting, Liking, and Linking. At one point, I had no fewer than seven social apps running on my laptop, lurking underneath all the emails, spreadsheets, and SharePoint sites I was using for my—you know—actual work. It goes without saying that I absolutely have to stay productive while at work, and I was beginning to fear the onset of a serious personal Sharepocalypse.

Something had to be done. Here’s how I’m trying to tone it down:

  • Aggregate and automate. Some say Hootsuite, Google, or Tumblr, I say Tweetdeck. I may not be able to cram Yammer and Turntable in there, but it has Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook under control at least—yay for small victories. In Tweetdeck, Yammer, and Turntable, I futzed with my settings and options to prioritize, filter, and minimize the distracting pop-ups and pings.

  • Give it the ol’ Scan-Focus-Act. You just can’t be everything to everybody. I try to pick one to three things to read, share, and comment on, and then I move on. Quickly.

  • Create a routine and (ahem) try to stick to it. Tweetdeck and Yammer in the morning and at lunch, and then Turntable in the afternoon is the goal. It feels like a comfortable cadence and I think I’m getting the hang of it.

  • Take time-outs. Entire days will go by and I won’t touch the stuff, especially when I feel myself starting to get too needy.

  • Use it, or lose it. Turntable is on the chopping block for me already, I must confess. The wow-factor was huge at first, but so was the distraction, so I had to leave it alone for a while. Now, it’s 3 pm on a Wednesday and I’m in the dance club all by myself—no one else is there, so no DJ party today. Sigh—moving over to Spotify….

Of course, I didn’t come up with this all by myself. I know a great guy named Christopher Allen who teaches this stuff, and he generously posts his instructional decks to Slideshare for all to see. Credit where credit is due: thank you for being my guide, Chris.

OK, now it’s your turn—how are you keeping your grip while using social media for work?