What follows is a collection of blog articles I wrote for Fluid Advertising. Other materials I authored are protected under NDA agreements and are therefore not presented here.

 

YEARLY PLANNING MEETINGS: A FRAMEWORK FOR SUCCESS

 

Fall is upon us. We’re turning clocks back, watching leaves fall. If we’re lucky, snowfall means ski season will be strong this year. That also means the new year is coming fast. With the new year comes new year’s goals. Those goals have the greatest chance of success with proper planning. Businesses prosper from the same principle. November is a great time to bring your marketing team together and discuss marketing goals for the upcoming calendar year. Let’s cover the procedure for an effective marketing goal-setting meeting.

 

REVIEW PROGRESS

Cover your team’s progress on the current year’s key indicators. That may mean reviewing GPM, Marketing Channel ROI, Product Reviews, Net Promoter Scores or another indicator valuable to your team and business. Make sure everyone is on the same page with how well the team has done and where progress needs to be made.

 

CONDUCT A SWOT ANALYSIS ON YOUR BUSINESS

Every marketing team should be familiar with their businesses’ Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This annual meeting is a perfect chance to update the analysis of these elements of the business. Make sure the full team is on the same page with this analysis.

 

DETERMINE NEW YEAR GOALS

With your progress on key indicators and SWOT covered, determine what the next year’s goals should be. These goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused and time-bound. Keep the goals present throughout the year by publishing them to the team and bringing them up in follow-up meetings throughout the year.

 

LIST OUT NEW MATERIALS

With new goals come new marketing materials. Determine what new pieces you will need and assemble a comprehensive list. Assign these items deadlines and resources, marking what needs to be made externally and what can be made internally.

 

GET WITH YOUR ADVERTISING AGENCY

Any items that need to be made out of your office should be delivered to your agency, or other outsourced partners as early as possible. This will ensure that your materials are planned, prepared and delivered well in advance of any deadlines. Preparedness will reduce work stress and promote strategic thinking to help accomplish your goals.

 

CONCLUSION

Stop playing catch-up. Plan out your calendar year and make the marketing team the envy of the company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOW TO THINK ABOUT YOUR WEBSITE AS A PART OF YOUR MARKETING MIX

 

What purpose does your website serve in your business’ marketing mix? How do you know when you need to change or rebuild your website?

Concrete and specific answers to these questions are key to getting the most from your website. Paying the money to get one up and running merits thinking strategically about how it will help your business succeed.

 

THE BASICS

The most fundamental marketing activities your website should support are:

1. Present and celebrate your brand

2. Show your product/service offerings

3. Inform visitors about how to contact/find your business

At its most simple, a website is a digital yellow pages ad. The site establishes information and identity and easily allows visitors to access that information to make a purchase decision. If your site struggles with these elements, seriously consider a website redesign before attempting to leverage more advanced tools in online marketing.

Sites like these need to roll out major updates whenever there are changes to the three basic categories.

1. Has the brand changed? The website needs to be updated to reflect those changes.

2. Have products or services been altered? The website needs to be updated.

3. Has contact info changed? The website needs to be updated.

Sites in this style are common but are losing popularity for one major reason; they are a passive marketing effort. The amount of money invested in a website can be a significant portion of any marketer’s annual budget. So, ask yourself, “Do I want to spend a lot of money on a marketing platform that does not actively work to bring in revenue?” If your answer was no, then follow me to Advanced Website Marketing.

 

ADVANCED WEBSITE MARKETING

All of the advice in this section is based around building your website to actively draw in business and meet specific goals. If your current website was not laid down in a way that supports these abilities, do not be surprised if you need to invest in a full site re-build and redesign.

1. Research – You need to know about your target audience and how they interact with your product. You need to know the lifecycle of your product and how your consumers interact with your product and brand. You need to know how influential your website is in the purchase decision of your product. You need to take the time to understand all of these elements to properly plan out the site you want to build. Create user journeys, review case studies, conduct interviews, review competitor trends, collect as much information as possible to create a strategy for your website.

2. Build the site with the user in mind – Don’t build the site you want; build the site your users want. Plan on the functionality that they need to smoothly interact with your brand and information. Give your users the power to inform themselves about what makes your offering unique and then spend their money with you.

3. Make your website findable – Leverage consistent digital marketing campaigns (SEO, Retargeting, PPC, Social Media, emails, the list goes on) to draw members of your target audience to your site.

These three elements build on each other. Spending money on digital marketing will only bring a good ROI when the site is built well enough to generate business. A site can only be built well enough to generate business when the proper research has been constructed to plan its strategy. When all three of these elements are properly integrated, your website becomes a lead-generating machine.

Major international brands follow these steps in creating their websites. If you have ever dreamt of building a site like Apple’s for your own business, then this is the framework to follow. And make no mistake; the grander your plans for a website, the higher the price tag. Amazon.com was not built on a five-figure budget and hope; neither will your e-commerce site with multi-level filters, search bars and AJAX rendering.

The site you need for your business depends on how it plays into your marketing mix. You’ll get the most out of it when it’s an active tool for bringing business to you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

TRADE SHOW MARKETING: ARE YOU MAKING THE MOST OF THE OPPORTUNITY?

 

Trade shows are a unique marketing channel. Unfortunately, many B2B companies aren’t taking full advantage of the trade show format. For many companies, trade shows seem like an obligation and a distraction rather than an opportunity. Let’s have a look at what makes trade shows unique and what opportunities they provide as a part of your marketing mix.

 

THE WHY

Making the most of trade shows comes down to the role they play in your marketing strategy. Know well in advance which shows you want to attend and what your goal in attending will be. The assets you need and the financial investment you make in a trade show should be balanced with the goals you have in attending. Are you looking to gather new leads, make new sales, or just promote brand awareness? Each goal will determine the level of investment you should put into a trade show.

 

THE WHERE AND WHEN

Be selective about which trade shows you attend. Trade shows gather niche audiences from nearly every industry and profession. Based on your strategy, only attend the trade shows that put you in contact with your target audience.

 

THE WHAT

You have a strategy and trade shows on the calendar. Now you need to consider what to present. Refer back to your strategy and plan materials to have at the tradeshow according to your goals.

Common elements include:

• Backdrop

  • Median size is around 8ft square

• Standing Banners (also called pull-up banners)

• Tablecloth

  • Standard lengths are 6ft, 8ft, and 10ft. Consult with your venue to determine what length of the table you need to prepare for.

• Handout

Keep in mind that the design and production of these items will take a considerable amount of time. If you don’t already have this suite of materials, budget a month for their design and production. Also, consider what hardware is needed in their set-up. If your trade show requires you to fly to the show, you will need to coordinate delivery of larger pieces that don’t fit in luggage or cannot be checked on a commercial flight.

Other considerations include:

• Personnel

  • Who will be at your booth at any given time?

• Information collection

  • How will you keep track of contacts made?

 

MAKING IT YOUR OWN

We’ve covered the core of what needs to be done to prepare for a trade show. Now comes the fun part. Consider what can make your presence at the trade show unique and memorable. Will you have a giveaway that people can get if they exchange contact info with you? Will you have a live demo of your product or service? The possibilities are endless but consider this; your unique opportunity is a person-to-person connection. Take advantage of being able to talk to people face-to-face.

 

CONCLUSION

Trade shows are a unique opportunity for marketers to get out their message and further their business objectives. Take the time to strategize and produce a unique and memorable experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOW TABLE-TOP ROLEPLAYING GAMES TEACH BETTER BUSINESS SKILLS

 

What do you picture in your mind when a friend or coworker tells you that they’re going to play some Dungeons and Dragons? Maybe a bunch of people crammed into a basement apartment re-enacting sequences from The Lord of the Rings while snacking on over-priced delivery pizza and soda? Or maybe even a bunch of kids from Hawkins, Indiana wasting time on a school night arguing about how to best deal with a one-inch tall piece of plastic?

That image only scratches the surface of what games like D and D have to offer the business world.

 

BACKGROUND

Dungeons and Dragons belongs to a genre of games called Table-top Roleplaying Games. That mouthful of words describes any kind of game played at a table (with a board, pieces, and dice) where the players take on the roles of given characters and play out their stories. Unlike other board games like Monopoly or Battleship that involve players accomplishing a distinct task and competing with other players, roleplaying games involve a group of players cooperatively telling a story over the course of several sessions.

These games are like choose-your-own-adventure books mixed with chess. One person, called the Game Master, leads the game. Their job is to develop the overall plot of the story to be told and manage the activities of the players. Each player typically manages a single character in the overall story directed by the Game Master and has total control over their characters’ actions. They make decisions in their characters’ development to progress the story and improve on their skills and abilities. All the players’ characters are collectively called the party.

The responsibility of the players is to progress the game in a way that benefits the party, manage and accomplish both party and individual goals, and tell an interesting story. These stories are unique experiences for each group. Some are medieval fantasies of valiant knights protecting their homeland from evil dragons and sorcerers. Others are cyberpunk bleak futures where hard-boiled detectives hunt down human-like androids out on psychotic killing sprees. Yet others tell the quixotic tales of supernatural investigators searching for unspeakable horrors in reality-bending mansions and laboratories.

Playing these games develops a number of skills considered invaluable in the business world: teamwork, strategy, creativity, and verbal communication.

 

TEAMWORK AND COLLABORATION

The most effective parties consist of a diverse team of specialists united by a common and well-understood goal. When everyone at the table during a game session has an important and distinct role and is fully engaged with the task at hand, magic can happen. Puzzles are solved, foes are vanquished, kingdoms are saved and, most importantly, people have unforgettable, fulfilling fun.

Learning to work with a party in gaming teaches these vital teamwork principles that people need to understand in the business world. Those who are prone to micro-management learn to respect boundaries and allow the other players their turn. Those who tend to disengage and only act when called upon, learn to pitch in. People learn to rely on their skills and proactively use their abilities for the whole team’s benefit when problems arise.

 

STRATEGY

Adding to the collaborative environment is the strategic planning aspect. Everyone in the party has a set of skills useful for solving problems. It is up to the ingenuity of the party as a whole to apply those skills and solve the problems set to them by the game master.

Some of those problems are combat scenarios — a party of three need to win a fight against 23 goblins. Others are social conflicts where the party needs to negotiate with a blood-thirsty bandit chieftain to leave the nearby helpless sheep-herding village in peace. Yet others are traps left behind in a ruined castle whose sealed treasure horde contains the party’s next pay-day.

The Fighter might suggest leading the goblins into a bottle-neck up the nearby canyon where the Rogue and Wizard will keep behind her while she makes use of her sword against individual foes. The Rogue might suggest convincing the bandit chieftain to seek employment as a mercenary with the local Lord so that the chieftain need not steal and kill to feed his people. The Wizard might suggest summoning a number of other-worldly faeries into the castle to indicate where triggers to traps lie so that the party can delve a path safely to the sealed treasure.

The scenarios are endless and good players learn to apply their skills and the skills of the other party members to help the party reach its goals.

 

CREATIVE THINKING

Adding a layer to the strategic aspect is a fun layer of creative thinking. Coming up with novel solutions to problems is a key feature of both successful business people and successful tabletop gamers. Let’s reexamine our previous examples:

Perhaps the Wizard might conjure an illusion of a hungry giant to scare off the goblins trying to give chase to the party.

Maybe the Fighter might subdue the bandit chieftain by besting him in a duel and demanding he leave the village in peace or suffer death by her blade.

Or possibly, the Rogue might nimbly disarm the traps as the party gets closer to securing the treasure sealed away in the ruined castle.

The obvious solution is not always the best one, and tabletop gaming teaches people to think outside-the-box as they approach problems to generate the best possible outcome.

 

VERBAL COMMUNICATION

The bulk of the story told around the table is done verbally. Descriptions of the world are given by the game master through spoken word, and players describe to the game master what their intentions and actions are. Conflict, consensus, and celebration are all expressed verbally.

Because of this, everyone at the table learns how to better express themselves vocally with specificity and detail. “I attack the goblin with my sword,” turns into “I slash at the goblin’s heels, keeping his attention down low until I can strike a vital blow to his head.”  This same skill is highly coveted in the workplace. “The website is broken,” turns into “The forms on the Contact Us page aren’t forwarding to Bill’s email like they should.”

 

CONCLUSION

Table-top gaming is more than a simple diversion, but a hobby that teaches skills valuable for anyone working in the professional world. If you’ve ever wanted to find a fun way to improve your collaborative spirit, tune up your strategic or creative mind, or work on using your words better, table-top roleplaying is the place to look.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE IMPACT OF ONLINE COMMUNITY BUILDING

Marketers spend a great deal of time developing means of leveraging the power of the internet to benefit their business and brand. I’d like to look at one aspect of these efforts that deserves special attention: online community building.

 

To start, here are some numbers to consider:

$159,372

$663,535.52

$2,149,523

These numbers represent the charitable donations collected in 2016 that were generated by various online groups. Each of their stories demonstrates different ideas and executions of online community building. We’ll look at each in order and their practices which help develop powerful online communities.

 

Doing Good for Others

Our first example shows the power of a meme. If you’re not familiar, a meme is a joke or comedic reference spread online. Memes are often works of parody and are themselves parodied frequently as they gain popularity. The meme that raised $159,327 is from a music video rendition of “We AreNumber One” from the popular Icelandic children’s show Lazy Town.

This short music video had 26,909,216 views on YouTube when this article was written and has been parodied in thousands of ways since its release on July 25, 2015. In October of 2016, the lead performer of the music video, Stefan Karl, announced to the public that he had been diagnosed with cancer. Shortly after in November, a Go Fund Me page was created for people to donate money to his support. Since the page went live, over 10,000 individuals donated $159,327. This page has largely been advertised through the efforts of the thousands of online content creators who made parodies of the original music video, such as this orchestra cover. These parodies helped to generate engagement for audiences while also driving awareness to Karl’s Go Fund Me campaign. For a full history of the spread of the meme, check out this article.

In this example, we see the raw potential of people online. No formalized community donated this money or organized complex fundraising. But word spread through the internet and those entertained by the meme chose to put forward their money to the benefit of a man in need.

The important principles to grasp from this example are the power of content and the willingness of people to do good for others.

Effective content is engaging and shareable, and, in the case of memes, is easily parodied and added to. As marketers, is your content engaging to your audience online? Or does it simply check the boxes of what you need to ask your target market? Does it add value or entertainment? Or does it only mimic content that does? Like the attention the parody artists gave their creations to the Go Fund Me page, does your content motivate your audience to action? Is that action simple, straightforward and concrete? Master these principles and you’ll be number one soon enough.

 

Deliberate Management

From the core of engaging content and a call to action, let’s move on to communities that have deliberate management. Our next example comes from Rooster Teeth Productions. This company is based in Austin, Texas, and has been creating online content since 2003. They have created, owned and managed several YouTube channels, and also offer their content on their proprietary websites. Their YouTube community on their primary channel alone consists of over nine million people and the videos have been viewed over five billion times. They have a dedicated fan base who are regulated by consistent and varied content. Their dedication to quality content and the effective use of community engagement through online content, forums, managers and events have created a cohesive group much more powerful than the random, undirected online community surrounding the We Are Number One meme.

On a yearly basis since 2013, Rooster Teeth’s performers and staff have run a 24-hour long live stream in which they ask their community to donate money to the charity Extra Life. Rooster Teeth sets donation thresholds throughout the live stream. When the community donates beyond those thresholds, the performers on the live stream respond with a promised piece of extra content. For example, after meeting one threshold, one of the performers was voluntarily shot with a police taser on camera. In their most recent stream, Rooster Teeth’s community generated $663,535.52 in 24 hours. This figure far outstrips the previous one. So, what’s the difference? The online community.

Rooster Teeth’s focused approach at creating an online community gives their brand power. Their community is not an accident; it’s the result of hard work by full-time professionals who keep track of audience feedback in the form of comments, forum posts, and event attendance. There is a clear connection and communication between the creators and the fans. This connection is what takes any effort in online community building from just meaningful content and an engaging call to action to the next level.

But we’re not done yet. There’s still one more example which supersedes the rest as the example of the power of online community building.

 

Connecting to a Core Identity

The principle at work in our final example is identity. Many content creators online like Rooster Teeth are great at curating and interacting with an online community, but few of these communities connect to people’s core identities. This is where the Nerdfighter community shines.

Nerdfighters are the online community tied to the long-running YouTube vlog, Vlogbrothers. This channel features its two co-creators, John Green and Hank Green, as they discuss every imaginable topic from politics to poverty to Harry Potter. Their channel’s numerical statistics pale in comparison to Rooster Teeth’s. But these brothers succeeded in creating an avid and active community by making participation individually meaningful. Fans of the channel aren’t just fans; they’re invited into a community of their own.

This community has its own vocabulary, such as DFTBA (Don’t Forget To Be Awesome), its own events and its own charitable work. However, this identity gave rise to a different model of charitable donation. Instead of just the creators of the channel making content to benefit one charitable organization, all members of the Nerdfighter community are invited to make a short video of their own to present a charitable organization or cause worthy of the whole community’s attention.

The yearly online event held for three days in December is called “The Project for Awesome.” (Learn more about the mechanics of donation here.) In 2016’s Project For Awesome, a smaller but more deeply engaged group raised $2,149,523 spread across multiple charities. This isn’t to say that the smaller community of Nerdfighters is more wealthy or charitable than Rooster Teeth’s fans. They are engaged in doing the best work possible as a part of that community identity, and so are able to garner the attention of larger companies who match donations.

 

Lessons Learned

So, what are the takeaways?

1. Content and Call – If you want to start a community and formalize an audience, you need engaging and meaningful content. This content should be paired with simple, clear calls to action.

2. Communication – Once your content draws a following, set resources to manage interactions with that following and give a place for that following to communicate in between its members. Once your following is communicating with you and itself, you have an online community.

3. Identity and Action – Once you have a community, give that community an identity to aspire to. Communicate to them that membership in the community means something about them as an individual person and that their contribution is meaningful. This sense of identity primes action. Action out-values size. It is less important that you have the largest community, but more important that your community acts when called upon.

Now go forward and build better online communities!