Adventures In Digital Marketing

image by Jeremy Brooks on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremybrooks/

When I worked in an integrated environment I thought all the digital marketing on a campaign should come to my department.  That’s not because I was greedy (although I was of course – we all have targets!) or that I was naive.  I just believed that we were best placed to handle the digital side of an integrated campaign that we were leading.  It hardly ever happened and often it was given to a pure play digital agency who were on the roster for digital, much to my chagrin.

So, now I work in a pure play digital agency.  And guess what?  Now I think all the digital on a client should come to us and that the integrated agency isn’t best placed to do the digital because they don’t understand the medium fully.  And, once again, this isn’t happening and integrated agencies are stepping in and taking bits and bobs here and there, more on some clients, less on others.

OK, so the grass is always greener and I am really hungry when it comes to clients and potential work – but we always knew that!

But, off the back of this something else is happening.  And it’s in relation to Social Media Marketing as opposed to web design+build or campaign based digital activity in traditional digital channels.

And what’s interesting about Social Media Marketing is that not only do we as a pure play have to contend with an integrated agency but more often than not we have to work with/alongside/around a PR agency who are now more and more frequently getting involved.

Now I don’t think this is the same thing as with the pure/integrated angle – not entirely anyway.

It’s more of the fact that I think clients seem to interpret Social Media as more inline with PR than it is with marketing.  There’s a lot of content creation, which PR agencies are very good at.  I think this is what the issue is. PR agencies seem to just be viewed by clients as being better at content creation and dealing with a high-risk situation that needs quick responses and turn arounds than an agency of either a pure or digital nature can do.

But does this mean PR agencies are the best ones to actually deal with this space? Well, that depends.  I personally think that some PR agencies are a bit too old-fashioned to deal with the true intricacies of the social space and tend to just be too formal, too old-world PR in an environment that really doesn’t suit it.

But new PR agencies, and I think this will happen more and more as their nature changes in the ways that ad agencies have had to adapt in the past decade or so, makes PR agencies, or rather forces them, to adapt or die.  I actually think it’s probably a very exciting time to be working in PR – and believe me that’s something I didn’t think I’d ever say!

There are some amazing agencies out there that seem to bridge the gap between PR and social and ad and marketing and pure and integrated.  The one name that immediately springs to mind is We Are Social who call themselves a “conversation agency”.  I’ve got a lot of respect for this agency, especially after seeing them speak at events in the past where they just seem to “get it”.  Maybe this is what PR agencies need to become?

Well, I don’t know and I am sure I’m not best placed to answer either.

I do know I get a little bit “annoyed” when I hear that i’ve lost out to another agency on any piece of work, and more and more recently i’ve been hearing “we’ve given this to the PR agency”.  Especially as someone who loves his social networks and media.  But, you can’t win it all and maybe we aren’t best placed?  Who knows – and I’m not convinced yet.

But I do know it’s intersting and, for me, social is the new battle ground where the old versus new agencies are fighting it out.

Intergrated versus pure play? Who cared – that’s so last year!

Howard

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I don’t normally post items about this kind of thing but with this one I feel I have to because it illustrates clearly how not to engage a blogger audience and get them to talk about your campaign, IMHO at least.

We at AdventuresDM receive these kind of emails all the time – requesting that we blog about, or check out, or generally get involved with campaigns to spread the word – and more of the time we’re happy to do so – we’ve even road-tested new pieces of hardware for people like Nokia in order to take part – so we get it and we like it when it’s done correctly.

And we of course understand, as agency-types ourselves, why you’d want to do this and involve them as brand advocates etc. – it’s stuff we suggest often to our own clients.

But I just got this email from an agency asking me to get involved, and it so clearly shows how not to do things that I really wanted to highlight it.  To give the agency, brand and person (real person??) a bit of privacy, i’ve starred out their name and details, but you’ll get the drift I am sure…

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Have you seen the latest cool ******** ads?? Of course no, it’s super new!!

This week sees the culmination of ****** ******** campaign. The ad features the song ‘********’, written and performed by ********* and set up using only ******** free texts and internet *********.

In fact, **************** were involved in the recording of the song and each one is featured on the track.  What’s more, the song was released as a single by Universal Records on Monday.

The ad was air on Friday, 15^th January during Channel 4’s Celebrity Big Brother, running for the entire ad break.  And while this marks the end of the ‘******* campaign, it also marks the one year anniversary of **************, which aired in the same week and during the same show in 2009.

Check it out http://***.*******.com/***************

And tell me what you think!

If you like it why don’t you embed it on your site and let your readers know about it?

G******

G****** F******

B** Q******

0207xxxxxxxx

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Now, I am sure some would argue there is nothing wrong with the following, but for me it’s so impersonal, so badly written (i wonder if the spelling mistakes are intentional to give it realism?) and so obviously a “one size fits all” blanket bomb of an email sent to a load of bloggers that it isn’t worth the time of day following the campaign itself.

To put it bluntly, it’s a bit insulting to the audience for whom it is intended.

But this email, this impersonal way it opens (the phrase “super new!!), in fact the whole way it’s structured to do nothing just push the content out, regardless of who they’re writing to, and get them to embed the video shows a complete lack of understand for the blogger audience, disregard for them as people with value to add and treats us, bloggers who are passionate about what we write as nothing more than a cheap win for them – they’re playing a numbers game on this one.  Send it to X number of bloggers and hope that 10% of them post the link and video – bingo!

It’s like the worst kind of old-style marketing, Direct mail state of mind, that we’ve been trying to change for so long now – that we’re not numbers and hit-and-hope anymore – but engagement and interaction and dialogue and conversation.

This is trying to do things right but it’s doing it so wrong it makes me truly sad.  What makes me even more sad is that in some way this probably will achieve what they want an a certain number of desperate bloggers will go right out there and post the link and embed the video just to get themselves in as part of a campaign and a few links into their own blog.  But this isn’t how to do things.

This is how NOT to engage a blogger audience!

We are not numbers out there to get your in-bound links up and extend your reach.  We’re advocates and enthusiasts who add true value to your products, services or campaigns.

As both a blogger and an agency employee I cannot emphasise this strongly enough.

Treat us with respect people! it’s one of the golden rules of social-media engagment.

Howard