The digital marketing happening of the year

Internet World 2007 is just around the corner – the UK’s most influential and inspirational event for digital business.

• The biggest names and the brightest brains in the digital age through keynote sessions from IAB, Google, Channel 4, BBC, John Lewis, Bebo, IKEA, Sainsbury’s, Yahoo!, Cheapflights.com, Six Apart and many more in 150 hours of FREE seminars delivering insight on everything you’ll need to know on the who, what, why, when and how of business and marketing
• New products, services and ideas from over 250 companies to provide you with solutions to strengthen your online strategy and improve your return on investment
• Dedicated zones covering areas including Search Marketing, Email Marketing, Ecommerce, Hosting & Managed Services, Content Management, Analytics, Web 2.0, Usability, Mobile Marketing, Affiliate Marketing & Online Advertising

All designed to help you stay ahead of the game and develop your understanding of this rapidly evolving market.

Register now and your FREE visitor badge will be sent to you in advance, allowing you to walk straight into the show and avoid the queues.Your colleagues can also visit the Internet World website and register now for FREE entry.

Walled garden to gated community

Stuart Hogue has written a great piece for Brandchannel.com.

From the walled garden to the gated community—why social networks would benefit from keeping the riffraff out

When social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook first emerged on the scene, their emphasis was on quantity, rather than quality, of connections. Friends were collected, groups joined, walls posted upon. But increasingly, users have begun to demand that the same rules of distinction and exclusivity that govern our real-life interactions be represented in the online space.

Smaller, more specialized groups are the online networking tools of tomorrow.

The article explores the origins, benefits, and business potential of exclusive social networks.

Is it time to swap your agency?

Andrea points us to the WSJ.com which is running a very interesting story about Nike and its choice of marketing agency.

It is fascinating to speculate whether this is simply Nike exercising its right to change its agency roster – or whether something more significant – a trend – is begining to emerge.

“Industry executives say the move was a wake-up call……..The message is clear: No matter how talented an agency’s creative team or how well the client’s management likes the firm’s executives, the agency is of limited value unless it embraces digital media.”

This isn’t going to a one-off, and in B2B IT marketing many brands have to swap out their traditional incumbent agencies.

two steps to heaven

Strategic Alternative Marketing is the phrase we give to the plethora of constantly evolving marketing techniques that make a (significant) difference to technology based brands and how they are perceived and consumed.

We essentially focus on trying to make technology brands more remarkable, approachable, relevant, attentive and capable of cultivating strong and meaningful relationships with their key audience; but in reality, what we are really advocating is nothing more than a common sense approach to marketing.

But common sense ideals are not easy to stick to. There is so much hype and gravitational pull toward new marketing techniques at any one point in time, that some people lose sight of the original challenges they have. In fact at times it feels like everyone and everything is geared toward taking you away from a common sense approach.

Seth Godin highlights in his post Purple Cow Redux that there are really only two steps that represent what most marketers should be focused on. Interestingly he notes that this common sense approach is difficult to stick to, but not impossible.

First he advocates;

1) Building an audience that wants to hear from you.

Secondly,

2) Creating something they want to talk about and making it easier for them to do so.

Keeping marketing this simple often gets forgotten as a practice. Particularly in B2b technology marketing

Emerging Media in B2B: “The times, they are a-changin.”

Jeff Ramminger is executive vice president of KnowledgeStorm, an Atlanta-based company that helps B2B technology vendors reach technology buyers through online lead-generation and brand-awareness programs, including online content distribution of white papers and product and service information, targeted e-newsletters, webcasts, and online advertising.

His perspectives are always worth reading – and in this piece for Brandchanne.com his writes under the title ‘Welcome to the Evolution’.

Usability 2.0 and Psychological types

There is a nice article here by David Hawdale which discusses the positive evolution of usability.

The Dip by Seth Godin

The Dip by Seth Godin. More here.

Steganography anyone?

A technique stemming from a 2,500-year-old practice called steganography (which saw the Greeks sending warnings of attacks on wooden tablets and then covering them in wax, or tattooing messages on shaved heads to be subsequently covered by the regrowth of hair) has found new commercial applications.

Fujitsu’s technique works by taking advantage of the sensitivities of the human eye, which struggles to see the colour yellow. The technique can be used to “hide” information in plain sight on printed images.

Wethinks viral marketers will love to get a deeper understanding of this technique in due course. We are not sure if ‘covert’ messaging is right – but those brands that pioneer this technique will certainly get a bit of attention in the short term, simply because it’s ‘new’ (2500 years old!) and different.

Sack the webmaster?

A great post by Josiah.

19 things NOT to do when building a website. 

Thanks to Tomorrows Playground for pointing us in the right direction.

Apple v Microsoft 2007

Apple v Microsoft 2007. Snore.

But I simply can’t believe the poor quality of their home pages today.

Microsoft is trying to look like Apple 2005. Badly.

Apple has tried to go all minimalistic. Hell that menu looks very nasty in this context.

I can’t help but assume that both these companies are too fixated with the marketing war with each other, to really care right now.

Red Nose Day today

‘Comic Relief’ is a super UK based charity that needs support.

To find out more go here.  To give go here

The bells and whistles business

Take away the bells and whistles, drums, guitar, mics, speakers, audio mastering etc and this group remain ‘remarkable’.

If you were to take away the ‘bells and whistles’ of your marketing operation – what are you left with? If you were to take away promotion, offers, advertising, direct mail, email, SEO, “spin”, booklets, tradeshows, leaflets, call centres, seminars, PR campaigns, etc etc – would you be remotely remarkable or memorable?

If you are not left with much – I’d advocate you forget about the bells and whistles for a while and concentrate on improving whats really under the covers of your business.

Focusing on the essence of your company is the only way to truly be remarkable.

Mission statement-itis

Despite widespread mission statement dissing from the likes of Guy Kawazaki in the last year – little has changed in the UK IT/S sector when it comes to defining the value a technology oriented company provides.

Most mission statements I see are complex, unwieldy, technical and loooooooooong.

From the technology vendor’s perspective this is usually much to do with an innate fear from the boardroom, CMO or Marketing Director of making a mistake during its definition.  No-one wants to miss a step in traditional value definition processes.

And alas it also is much to do with marketing agencies and their slick sales techniques and processes, that take clients through a well structured and well defined (revenue generating) process that has ‘all the steps’ and more that anyone could wish for.

BUT Just because they have a process doesn’t make it right.

Sure, some technology oriented start-ups aren’t wasting their money in this way.  But they are exceptions that prove the rule.  As Kawazaki said back in Jan 2006, “The ultimate test for a mantra (or mission statement) is if your telephone operators can tell you what it is. If they can, then you’re onto something meaningful and memorable. If they can’t, then, well, it sucks.”

I can’t think of many software or IT services firms in the UK who pass the ultimate test. Or even come close for that matter.  That has to change to be remarkable and memorable.

Moreover, vague or verbose mission statements create many problems if they are left alone.  Creating a 3 or 4 word mantra  solves many issues that expose themselves down the line in virtually every area of a technology oriented business.

Shoot the puppy

If you have trouble understanding modern slang, you may find Tony Thorne’s, ‘Shoot the puppy – A Survival Guide to the Curious Jargon of Modern Life‘ the book for you.

Shoot the puppy’ – which is business slang for doing something unthinkable – has been put together by Tony Thorne using the archive of slang and new words held at University College London.

Also, keep an eye on, or become involved with the Plain English campaign. Since 1979, they have been campaigning against gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public information. They have helped many government departments and other official organisations with their documents, reports and publications.

If you want clear and concise information, I am sure they can help.

Green leverage

First it was charitable Christmas cards.  Then it was donating the aquivilent spend on Christmas cards directly to charity.  And then it was participating in hands-on activities with a chosen charity during the course of the year. Marketers, it seems love their companies to be seen doing the right thing.

But lets face it.  Most companies have adopted these tactics in exchange for less administration or better tax breaks.  And today this spin has reached a historical low.  Right now it is all about being seen to be as green as the jolly green giants backside – or becoming carbon nuetral.

This time the quid pro quo is ammunition.  Marketing ammunition.  The mentality is “If we say we are green – people will think abc co is a good company – and we’ll sell more stuff.“

Wrong.

Firstly if your company cares too much about ‘green leverage’ – it is likely your company doesn’t care enough about actually being green.  That means you will ultimately get found out.  And when that happens your toast.  Think trust.

Secondly, corporates can’t afford to ‘mess about’ with the green issue for point scoring sake.  Being, or going green is high on the corporate agenda for a reason.  And it has little to do with marketing.  Unless of course you are still in the habit of sending volumes of hard copy DM.  Think authenticity.