Once upon a time I used to sit next to and work with a bunch of ‘proper’ software developers. I was aware of the waterfall method as applied to software development. A sequential process and one characterised by a fixed specification and longer development cycles. More recently I became interested in the Agile Manifesto and how we could apply that to our marketing planning and the implementation and ongoing optimisation of the campaigns we run. Over the last couple of years and almost without realising it we have been changing the way we approach things and that change represents the application of a more agile marketing method.
Why change and change from what?
I remember a time – not that long ago – when we used to develop a plan for the year, stick to it, measure it and improve it. But things changed.
Even in the corporate world increasing levels of uncertainty meant we were starting to deal with today much more than we ever had in the past. We are still dealing with that uncertainty and stability feels unobtainable – especially in the current economic climate. Survival mode seems to have become modus operandi.
At the same time we started working for smaller businesses – those turning over between £5 and £10 million. We became acutely aware that whilst they needed to understand how they achieved their longer term objectives they also needed to understand (right away) what they needed to do today, tomorrow and next week.
The rise of digital brought with it new opportunities and new ways of doing things. Measurement and ongoing optimisation can start the minute a campaign goes live. Test and learn is everything. “Give it a go and see what happens” became a viable approach to planning.
Which agile principles can be applied to marketing?
I agree with Scott Brinker and what he outlines in his post Ideas for an agile marketing manifesto. A couple of the ideals of the original Agile Manifesto are directly applicable;
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Responding to change over following a plan
He suggests some additional ideals that might apply to an agile marketing manifesto;
Intimate customer tribes over impersonal mass markets
Testing and data over opinions and conventions
Numerous small experiments over a few large bets
Engagement and transparency over official posturing
How does the agile marketer behave?
If you read our blog you’ll pick up on my “it’s all about the people” approach. In my mind Frank Days’ post Sex and the Agile Marketer is absolutely bang on. He compares a new breed of marketer to what he calls the ‘Waterfall Marketer’. It’s well worth a read. I bet you can spot the Waterfall Marketers in your organisation … but hopefully you can spot a few agile ones too!
Making the move towards a more agile approach
You probably already are. The pace of change is such that no one knows the answers anymore. As individuals we are all learning by doing. The trick is applying this approach more broadly and creating an environment which supports individual needs while at the same time ensures teams are constantly appraising what they are doing and adjusting things accordingly.
Practical advice that we certainly sign up to includes that provided in Marketbright’s post on the Agile Marketing Method. Specifically if you are managing marketing programmes and teams that includes;
Move from longer plans to six week “sprints”.
Have daily 15 minute “sprint meetings”. Bit like a Hill Street Blues morning roll call. Ask each person what they are working on, how things are going, and what if anything is preventing them from getting their job done.
Track your team’s commitments and understand the capacity you have and the “velocity” you can achieve i.e. how much stuff you can get done over what timescales. Make team production more predictable, reliable and repeatable.
Embrace change based on testing and actual campaign metrics.
Let people add new items to the list. Leave the room in your project planning meetings to help accommodate last minute adjustments.
The end result should be that your organisation is learning by doing. Not only are you getting things done right now but the planning process you are running alongside that means that you are driving ongoing improvements more quickly and making incremental steps towards a better future in an increasingly uncertain and changing environment.
Recently published in it’s third edition and available here we wrote the chapter ‘The digital challenge’. The book asks whether tourism places get the reputations they deserve and discusses brand concepts, challenges and topical cases. It tackles how place perceptions are formed, how cities, regions and countries can enhance their reputations as creative, competitive destinations and the link between competitive identity and strategic tourism development. It goes on to discuss how successful destination management organisations increasingly engage in conversations rather than campaigns and handle controversial questions of authenticity, brand narratives, leadership and authorship, story-telling, aesthetics, ethics and evaluation.
Authored by place brand consultants, destination marketers and academics including Simon Anholt, Philip Kotler, Wally Olins and other leading authorities our chapter ‘The digital challenge’ discusses how digital channels have grown up and how it represents a fundamental and revolutionary change. Customers are getting increasingly turned off by one way dialogue. Customers are now truly empowered and they are taking control of their relationship with brands – they are shaping those brands. We discuss tools, technologies and channels – what’s available and how are they currently being used in the area of travel and tourism. We outline the four key challenges facing destination branding within the context of digital – content, socialisation, integration and measurement. Finally we discuss what this means for destination, travel and tourism brands.
Why not go buy the book … it’s already picking up some good reviews …
As a follow up to Jon’s post ‘Content is King. More than ever’ I thought I’d outline the foundations that underpin a content strategy.
A content audit
Start by formulating some real clarity around existing content within the organisation. There’s no escaping it, an audit on some scale will need to take place to establish what content is a genuine asset, what content is performing well and what existing content can potentially be re-purposed for a new channel.
Understanding the current patterns of content production
Start with some key questions. How is content currently planned and produced? What resources are being spent on production? Where are the content creation specialisms within the organisation?
Defining business and user goals
Users want useful and engaging content, they also want it to be easy to find and share. The business wants to raise awareness and engagement across key products and services – and ultimately sell more stuff. It also wants to wrap it’s products and services in a brand position, point of view and tone of voice.
The challenge
The challenge of defining a workable content strategy is to mesh these foundations together and make them the foundation of the strategy. Beyond that there’s getting organizational buy-in, creating an editorial board, implementing work flow process and creating content production guidelines. Easy pips!
The reward
Developing a content strategy is potentially a really rewarding digital journey, one that if planned and executed well could put the organisation in a great place. Working more collaboratively with a renewed sense of purpose.
We’re going to be working on some pretty hefty web redevelopment projects over the next six months so I thought I’d swot up on current thinking and future gazing on where the web is going next in terms of design and usability. Here are some of the trends that are coming our way. Thanks to the smart team at Net magazine for a great article in issue 198 called Tips and Trends for 2010. Here are my jotted out revision notes. I’ve chosen a neat top ten, there were lots more, but I like neat.
1) Improving what you’ve got. The return to analytics.
Throwing money at gimmicky one-off micorsites and games will be replaced with a serious assessment of core site usability to increase customer conversions and retention. Analytics will shift from active pages to examining user activity. Google AB testing.
2) Multi-channel design briefs.
Companies will move to using the web as a primary source for spreading the message. This won’t lead to mega agencies, but to more creative collaborations with small teams. Designers will take a more holistic approach. Be content aware, user and usability focused.
3) Less choice and more single minded content.
Sites will become more purposeful and single minded, minimising self hosted content to the strictly relevant and using third party services where necessary.
4) It’s still about speed. Find , do , share things – Quickly!
The trend of enabling people to rapidly access information is here to stay. We’ll see a continued rise in the grid system, influenced strongly by print with plenty of white space to enhance visuals.
5) Apps will lead the way in design.
Apps provide quick, usable solutions for people on the go. Many sites will take their design and user experience from their mobile apps rather than the other way round. Designers will simplify and streamline websites for mobile platforms, resulting in sites with better usability and apps that give users greater control over their personal experience.
6) It will move for a reason.
2010 will see a move away from meaningless moving content and towards beautiful interactive style that looks great and adds something to the ease and pleasure of using a site. Flash is not dead, Flash CS5 looks promising.
7) It’s all about web fonts.
2010 will be the year of web fonts. Web designers can now use a wider pool of fonts without resorting to images or flash. Web fonts it will change the look of the web forever.
Designing for social engagement and the three universal challenges*
Designers will be optimising sites for things that can be commented on and shared. Designers must optimise for engagement and encourage participation. The three key design and usability challenges for social engagement look like this. 1) Help people understand how the site works. Quickly! 2) Get people to sign up. 3) Turn them into active returning users.
*I honestly have no idea why my number eight is a smiley face. I’ve looked at the HTML but I’m none the wiser. See point 10. Will email Pete on Monday.
9) Mobile and location awareness.
Location awarness will become integral on desktops. Without relying on user input it will be possible to set a geographical context, enhancing the user experience with services such as localised search.
10) We’ll all need to broaden our skill set.
With the iphone it’s all about software so if you’re a designer who doesn’t know code you should learn. If you’re web page creator who doesn’t know basic HTML you should learn.
All this sounds pretty exciting to me. If you know of any more me drop me a line. Thanks again to Net magazine.
Mobile has got to be one of the biggest digital marketing trends of 2010 and anyone and everyone is talking about it. Smartphones are proving to be a game changer for most and in one of the offices we work in there’s an almost unhealthy level of phone geekery and banter.
While researching my ‘top trends’ for a keynote we are giving at the International conference of Information Technology in Travel and Tourism ENTER 2011 I came across this slideshare presentation on mobile trends 2020. These people are not anyone and everyone. They are 46 very smart folk that really know their onions around mobile. Pulled together by Rudy De Waele and well worth having a flick through over a cuppa sometime.
This is the first in my series of ‘why digital can take so much bloody time’ blogs. Let’s start with email. How hard can it be? Most of us send and receive e-mail every day. But with our very precious customer base at the end of that send button the devil is most certainly in the detail and like any other digital marketing project (and that’s what it is – a project) it can be complex, resource intensive and time hungry.
To illustrate this point here are some things to consider and key questions to ask yourself. I’ve left out the initial heavy weight task of deciding on which e-mail platform to use and developing an appropriate communications programme … jumping straight into the design and build.
What’s it going to look like & how are you going to build it?
Early on, factor in time to agree and specify the e-mail design, content requirement and the functionality … not vaguely but in detail. Draw a sketch, think about word counts and image orientation.
Yes content is king, but not only that, it’s an unpopular, time consuming, resource draining white elephant. Content research, asset collation and copywriting all take a disproportional amount of time and effort. Anyone who’s ever built a website, written a blog or sent an e-mail can vouch for that.
Allow time to ensure the entire subscription process is in place. Will the user get a ‘Thank You’ page, a confirmation e-mail, a welcome e-mail, the ability to unsubscribe easily, a unsubscribe confirmation page or even a final goodbye e-mail. Is the ‘sign up’ form capturing the right data? Does the opt-in mechanism comply with data protection best practice?
There are many more questions. Is the email a newsletter, a specific communication or an incentive based e-voucher? Should it include additional functionality such as ‘Send to friend’? Can you cope with an ‘off the shelf’ template or do you need a custom template designed? Where will those receiving the email see the email as being sent from?
Testing and sending the final version
Check, check and double check the content of the email, the links and think hard about the subject line. Is the subject line relevant & intriguing – will it support open rates? Will it get blocked by spam filters? Avoid long subject lines and spammy words like free, cheap and offer.
Send a test e-mail, then send another test e-mail and another and another. Send the e-mail to yourself, your colleagues and your test accounts. Do this more than you think necessary.
There’s lots than can go wrong and having a checklist to go through each time will help minimise the chances of things going astray. Some of the problems you encounter can take a significant amount of time to unravel and fix. Make sure you build in enough time to allow for troubleshooting.
There are many things to go on the checklist. Has the copy been spell checked? Are all heading and sub-headings a consistent colour and size? Are all the links working and behaving consistently throughout the email? Are all your images and logos working links? Is the unsubscribe function working? Is it working across the full range of email platforms that your customers are using? If you are personalising the email is that working properly?
How did it perform and what can you learn to make the next one better?
You have hit the send button and almost immediately it is time to start looking at the results. First thing you are likely to be interested in is deliverability – how many emails actually reached their desired destination and if not why not. Beyond that you are going to be interested in things like how many emails were opened, how many unsubscribes you had, what links were clicked on and what they did when they actually arrived at your site. The results will develop over the few days following you sending the email and should ultimately help improve what you do next time.
So, back to the beginning … there is a lot to do and a lot of things that can go wrong if things are not planned and executed properly. In my experience, like most things digital, it is good planning, project management and, especially for email, appropriate use of checklists that are going to help deliver good quality email marketing and the right results.
Digital projects, be it building a website from scratch or sending an e-mail can crudely be divided into three production phases, and as a rule of thumb we work in thirds. A third specification, a third build and a third testing. Mentally, for web developers and digital marketers the last phase can sometimes feel like the most grueling.
A bit like my bike ride home after a long and busy day. For the final third of journey I always need to dig a bit deeper. I suppose I’m relaxing because the end of the day is in sight. But as soon as this happens my gears feel lower and my legs heavier. This last half a mile feels more like three and it seems to take forever. It’s also the time when I’m less alert and more prone to making mistakes. One day a grey squirrel will meet a sudden, dizzy end between my spokes.
In my experience digital projects often roll out like this.
There’s the lovely dreamy specification phase with all the excitement and expectation of bringing something new into the world. Then there’s the satisfying and rewarding build phase when our brilliant ideas take shape and we’re feeling smug and proud.
Then comes the ‘brutal critique’ – The user acceptance testing. Other people stand around our beautiful new born and point out everything that’s wrong with it. We find ourselves back in the specification and build phase but this time with a looming deadline and depleted self confidence and enthusiasm.
Over the next few weeks we’ll post our thoughts on why making digital stuff a reality sometimes takes longer than you might initially expect and how it’s our job to manage those expectations … and we’ll consider the project management techniques that help us all enjoy the process and keep our sanity intact.
Here’s a short summary to accompany the slides. The session focussed specifically on place branding although a lot of this applies to any brand in the online space …
Digital channels have grown up. Push has become pull. Consumers are becoming increasingly empowered and turned off by one way communication.
What consumers are saying is shaping your brand. Branding online has become more about reputation management. It has become more social.
Brands face four key challenges – content, socialisation, integration and measurement.
Content. Your community of content producers and consumers can help fuel your content hungry web presence – on and off your own website. Smart brands offer something for them to line up against and support.
Socialisation. Brands need to learn how to live within a new conversation culture – the norms, values and attitudes that it brings. You can’t buy success in the earned media space – you still have to earn it.
Integration. Online and offline support each other. From awareness to advocacy many of the same rules apply but the journey just got messier. An integrated strategy and a multichannel approach still rules.
Measurement. Different ways of doing things require different measurement. The quality of your content network is all important. The sentiment of the conversations across it is one of the more difficult but important things you have to measure.
Brands must listen. Before you do anything keep your ear to the ground. Take account of context, history and the specific challenges you face as a brand.
We used to pay particular attention to things like tone of voice, style and design. In our new world we need to pay attention to things like our point of view and the way we behave as brands.
In the absence of a ‘set piece’ solution great story telling supported by creative and technical convergence goes a long way to help successfully manage your brand’s reputation.
For place brands and travel destinations the challenge is further complicated by the sheer number and variety of individuals and organisations involved in shaping the brand. Online stakeholder communities and brand platforms might go some way to helping pull it all together but their success still depends on the same things that help build any community – online or offline. To name just a few;
Make it easy to join, share and be open.
Provide leadership but share responsibility.
Make sure the incentives work for all involved.
Like most things digital it is all about people rather than just technology!
We work across a wide range of sectors – from Dingo Hire Melbourne to Water Resistant Jeans in terms of what people might be searching for on Google. Our smallest client is an activity holiday business is Portugal. Well, actually not so small – the sister business supplies vegetables to the likes of Marks and Spencer and turf to Real Madrid. I am not saying that the other business is any less interesting but travel and tourism is a great platform for user generated content. Have a look at this and if you like it forward it to those you follow and look up to. Produced and directed by a bunch of Canadians while on holiday with Alentejo Adventures. Brilliant.
Good timing too. At the same time we were discussing the Alentejo Brand and what the essence of that might be. We reckon the video encapsulates it perfectly – let the good times roll! Alentejo Adventures might not be our most profitable account and it might not be as big as some of the other things we work on but sometimes it’s more than enough to work with nice people doing nice stuff. What’s more the holidays are great too and I would recommend them to anybody.
ENTER is the International eTourism Conference, promoted by the International Federation of IT in Travel and Tourism. This year it is being held in Lugano, Switzerland in February with keynote speakers from, amongst others, Google, Expedia and Switzerland Tourism.
We have been invited to speak as part of a session looking at Online Branding for Destinations chaired by Robert Govers, author of Place Branding. The session also includes speakers from tripadvisor, Tourism Montreal and Tourism Queensland.
Our section will cover building stakeholder communities online and will discuss some of the things covered in our recently written book chapter ‘The Digital Challenge’ to be published later this year in the 3rd edition of Destination Branding – creating the unique destination proposition. Including;
Digital channels have grown up – it represents a fundamental and revolutionary change.
Customers are getting increasingly turned off by one way dialogue. Customers are truly empowered and taking control of their relationship with brands – they are shaping brands.
Tools, technologies and channels – what’s available and how they are currently being used in the area of travel and tourism.
The four key challenges facing destination branding within the context of digital – Content, Socialisation, Integration and Measurement.
What does this mean for destination, travel and tourism brands?
What does this mean for the Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO) website?
Designing for social engagement and the three universal challenges*
