Not Sure What Film to Buy? Scan the QR Code.

Made Essential Reading on 3 September 2010 by Felix Hemsley | View Comments

I’m sure you’ve wandered the aisles of HMV or the late Virgin Megastores or any other DVD retailer in search of something to watch, but have all too often by passed the lesser known titles. Surely the reason for this is (for want of a better term) lack of knowledge. It’s all well and good reading the brief overview on the back or simply judging the quality of the film based on the image on the cover, but surely there’s a better way?

Well I believe so, and it’s not all that complex. One of the best ways to research films is on the web, invariably turning to YouTube or another video site for trailers, giving a much more in-depth impression of what to expect. That’s great if you’re in front of a PC or have time to tediously browse the web on your mobile device, but hardly the epitome of convenience for the everyday shopper.

So the aim; to put easily accessible rich content in the hands of the buyer.

If all film makers were to simply create packaging with a dedicated area for a QR code, then the solution is so unbelievably simple. Every DVD in-store is accompanied by a printed QR code which when scanned, takes you directly to a trailer…simple!

I’ve created an example below so give it a go and let me know what you think…of the concept, not the film! Click the image to enlarge it and it should then be much easier to scan…

Data Management – The Building Block of a Good Campaign

Made Essential Reading on 16 August 2010 by Felix Hemsley | View Comments

In an effort to share knowledge from across the Essential family, I will be posting content from as many members of the team here as possible. In the first of these posts, Jon Warren illustrates how important the quality of your data is to the success of a campaign.

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It is of the utmost importance that you know where your data is at all times, however there is one area that you need to consider before anything else. Is your data any good in the first place?

One of the key areas that can make or break a campaign is, and always will be, the quality of the initial data. Without good data management at the start, many campaigns can fall at the first hurdle. Incorrect data in the business world can prove to be costly in more ways than one. If for instance addresses are inconsistent, your company will suffer the cost of resending mail or even losing customers.

High quality data needs to pass a set of quality criteria before it can be let loose on the big bad world. The 8 golden rules are:

• Accuracy: Consists of integrity, consistency and density
• Integrity: Completeness and validity are key here
• Completeness: Correct any data containing anomalies
• Validity: Is all your data valid? You need to consider natural turnover within a company. People do move on to bigger and better things
• Consistency: Avoid contradictions and syntactical anomalies
• Density: A reduction in missing values equals a better return rate
• Uniformity: Avoid irregularities by keeping to the same format
• Uniqueness: Sending duplicates are not only costly but also an annoyance to your potential customers

Follow these steps and you should be well on the way to having an accurate and useful database that will be a good starting point to run any successful campaign. Just don’t end up going and losing it as you may want to use it again.

Oh, and don’t forget my own personal exasperation, correct spellings of names. There is nothing more annoying than adding extra letters into a person’s first name…

Jon (no H!)

Educate…Inform…then Execute!

Made Essential Reading on 11 August 2010 by Felix Hemsley | View Comments

A recent discussion gained pace over at www.social-collective.com which looked at how we work with clients on social media projects, and my comment on the topic got both myself and author @JonnyStark thinking.

The world is becoming increasingly aware of social media and what social media is. I get far fewer blank faces when I try to explain what I do in my working day and find that more and more of my peers offline are making the transition to the online social environment across the wealth of platforms available to us all.

However, it made me realise that certain precautions should be taken as the wider world becomes more aware of social media and its place in our every day lives. The most important of these to me was that whilst more people have a notion of what social media is, that is no precursor to say that they understand it. This should be a serious consideration when dealing with clients, especially new clients. More and more I’m experiencing clients coming forward saying “we need a social media campaign”. Sure that’s great, clients being forthcoming with work I should be biting their hand off, right? Wrong. Remember, social media is not always the answer, or the appropriate approach!

We are often told that we should ‘listen’ when we begin every social media project, but in my opinion the first step in any social media project is in fact to educate. A client that better understands social media and is not clouded by any preconceptions or advice from their peers, is far more likely to be onboard and understand the intricacies of the projects and accept certain issues which may arise.  This in turn makes the execution easier, as clients have the knowledge too question and interrogate, rather than simply naively accepting what we say in some empty trust they have for us. I live and breathe Social Media day in, day out and I have to consciously remind myself that what I class as generic, worn tales of how we should be open and honest, not hide behind banners and talk about social media being a marathon not a sprint, are in fact new stories to a large proportion of the client world.

One of the biggest differentiators with Social Media marketing is that the industry moves so fast. With new platforms and tools appearing all the time we’re inundated with options to meet different objectives, and new ways to meet existing ones. If these developments open up opportunities for clients, they should be considered and assessed and then shared with the client as another stage of the education proces, not just a promise of KPIs being met. If we as marketeers become clouded by what are rapidly becoming accepted norms or generic social media offerings, the strategies we have will stagnate and fail to achieve the objectives as the industry evolves and leave us behind.

Campaign objectives and strategies should always be on our minds as we broaden our social media horizons, asking how new technologies can enhance existing campaigns, and not solely how could they be used on the next one to come along…

Maybe you find it hard to educate your clients, or they push back on you when you try to implement new technologies because they don’t fully understand the technologies? What challenges do you face in this area, and what solutions have you implimented to tackle this? Do you ensure that you do educate your clients?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Give up Google!

Made Essential Reading on 9 August 2010 by Felix Hemsley | View Comments

First, we had Google Search, then we were given Google Maps & Google Earth, then it all seemed to go a bit wrong…

It’s rather odd that such a large organisation with a wealth of knowledge within it can so regularly fail in the realm of social media. The concept of collaborative document editing was handed to us in the wrapper of Google Wave, an application which was set to revolutionise how we all worked together online. Now it’s probably true that many people never even thought it came out of Beta or that invites were still being sent around the web…well to be honest they wouldn’t be far wrong.

All in all Google Wave was something of a failure which came to a head just a few days ago with the announcement that it would no longer be supported nor further developed.

Add to this, the restricted number of users who have adopted Google Buzz, and there’s a rather strong picture that maybe people don’t want Google being at the core of their social interactions? Maybe there’s a fear that the data hungry monster would be too invasive into our “personal” interactions?

The two most successful social platforms which Google has are surely; Blogger & YouTube, both of which were developed and made popular externally and were then subsequently bought by Google. What a coincidence! Or maybe not…

Maybe what we’re seeing is a company which has previously positioned itself in the users mind as a provider of search functionalities. We’ve even taken to verbalising the brand, “To Google”. We’ve all said “Google it” more than once or twice, and this goes to show that we associate Google with search and because of that, we’re almost blinkered from other ventures to a great extent.

There’s no denying that Google has nailed the search game, so shouldn’t they just focus on that, and maintaining their other platforms such as Blogger and YouTube?

I feel that we have all the social networks and sharing facilities we can deal with at the moment, we’ve barely touched the surface of what is possible with the tools we have so far without the need for more!

Maybe Google should look to integrate existing platforms better into their products and enhance their offering? Such as integrating associated tweets for videos feeding into YouTube pages etc building on what they already have in place…

I’d be interested to hear what you think about Google’s approach to the social space, and what approach you feel may work for Google. Feel free to leave a comment below…

We’re looking to hire a Gen Y but can’t find any!

Made Essential Reading on 28 July 2010 by Sam Rudland | View Comments

I’ve just had a bad experience from a young guy who was due to start with us today as a Junior Digital Marketing Assistant but didn’t show. No email, no phone call, nothing. We were genuinely concerned about him as he is a bright young man with an excellent degree who said he was desperate to get into web development. He appeared to have common sense and manners when we interviewed him on two occasions so we assumed that if he’d changed his mind he’d have contacted us before today.

When we finally tracked him down he said he’d had a good think about the job over the weekend and had decided that it was ‘too desk based’!!!! How else did he expect to develop websites?!

I have personally recruited a number of Gen Ys straight from University who have proved to be excellent members of the team and who have progressed through our agency and still remain with us today after 3 years.

What I’m finding today though is that the Gen Ys we approach through recruitment portals such as www.cv-library.co.uk hardly ever reply to our emails or our voicemails which is the complete opposite to the older candidates we approach. For those that aren’t aware of CV Library it’s a great online tool that enables the recruiter to search through thousands of CVs for candidates with the right experience and the right salary expectations. These are individuals clearly looking for work that have taken the time to upload their CV to an online database for recruiters within the last few weeks not people that have had their CV on the site for months. In the current climate I doubt the Gen Ys we have approached have been inundated with job approaches, so why don’t they reply? Surely even if they have found a position they should have the manners to return the phone call or email and say as much. This has perplexed me somewhat….

We’ve tried promoting our vacancies via social media to attract the Gen Y audience but I’m finding the only applicants we are getting via this route are from overseas outsourcers (who are very proactive indeed!). Yet we are led to believe that Gen Y are using social media. If this is the case how do I attract them as nothing I’ve tried so far has worked.

If anyone has any good suggestions within the online space that I can use to attract the Gen Ys then please let me know as I for one am not giving up on the Gen Ys due to one bad experience. Like any segment of the population there will be the good and the bad, but I’ve got firsthand experience of the great assets they can be for my business and I want to hire more of them!

If you’re a Gen Y with an interest in digital marketing and you’re looking for a great job opportunity with a Gen Y friendly company based near Oxford/Reading in the UK please get in touch!

The job details can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/2cus532

Sam Rudland

MD

Retainer Fees: At what point would you decline an opportunity?

Made Essential Reading on 23 July 2010 by Lee Lomas | View Comments

The story carried in PR Week today about a number of large PR agencies declining to pitch for the Ryanair account got me thinking. Basically, in 90s super-model parlance, several agencies have decided they wouldn’t get out of bed for the monthly fee on offer.

So, at what point would you decline to offer your services? Let’s face it – Ryanair is not a low profile account is it? Would my company have declined the opportunity for a £6,300 monthly retainer fee? Without seeing the detailed brief I can’t answer that and clearly we are at a different stage in our growth than some of the ‘big boys’-  but it still comes down to how you value yourselves.

Once you have looked at your own costs for staff and offices etc, you then must decide what margin you want to make on a job. This is then easily worked into a number of hours that you can spend on a job for a fixed fee. The simple question then is “Can the job be done in the time available?” If not, are you prepared to discount your margin to gain more hours for the fixed fee? If the answer is no to both of these questions then either the job is restructured or you decline the job.

In the early stage of any agency, where you are selling your skills by the hour, retainers are a double edged sword. They provide a bed-rock of income and therefore some stability but they are the jobs where extra hours (and therefore profitability)can easily be spent trying to please the client. It is so easy for your perceived major clients to actually be the biggest drain on your profitability.

Only once you have a firm grip on your own worth and can clearly monitor your hours against a job, can you thrive. Those companies that have declined the Ryanair opportunity clearly see a likelihood of their worth being diluted by the time required for a good job vs. The available monthly fee.

Guest Post: Is Cloud Computing all White and Fluffy?

Made Essential Reading on 12 July 2010 by Felix Hemsley | View Comments

This is a guest post by Terran Churcher, chairman of Codegate Ltd.

This was originally posted on The Codegate Blog.

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We’ve all heard of Cloud Computing, using the image that frequently represents the Internet as a title for a ubiquitous, all encompassing computing environment. But what does Cloud Computing actually mean?

Any computer system consists of many constituent elements; a computing engine, an operating system, a user interface, a communications infrastructure, applications and some form of storage, usually hard discs. In a Cloud Computing system a web browser is used to interact with an application running on a web based server(s) residing in a protected data store site. This approach has several advantages, namely;

1. All server maintenance and upgrades can be performed by professionals at the data centre without the end users knowledge and without interrupting their work.
2. Maximum availability of the system can be assured through Service Level Agreements.
3. Device and location independence, accessing the system through any Internet connected device, at work, at home or on the move.
4. Most Cloud Computing systems can be implemented quickly without the large capital expenditure usually associated with in-house solutions, and may be supplied on a pay as you go or ‘software as a service’ basis.

Many applications have been made available as Cloud Computing applications, including those from; Google, Amazon, SalesForce.com and others. Perhaps the most famous example of a Cloud Computing application is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. But from a mobile computing perspective what are the implications of utilising Cloud Computing?

A Cloud Client might use a rugged mobile computer to provide the hardware interface to the Cloud application. This could operate a simple browser application running Windows Mobile to access data held on the Cloud servers, thus minimising the users investment in server infrastructure. The resulting solution would be easily scalable and involve minimal intervention for operating system or application upgrades.

However, mobile computer users experience some unusual environmental conditions, running out of GPRS signal for one. As the Cloud Client relies on connection to the Cloud Server to display data and to capture input, a disconnection through lack of signal could be most disruptive, inconvenient and above all, costly!

If the Cloud Client uses a web browser, or ‘thin client’, the interface will have no control over the communication link and will only be able to display a ‘404 Page not found’ error if the Cloud Server isn’t reachable. Herein lies the problem, by taking away many of the elements that allowed control over the solution and relying on a ‘thin client’ for access, we’ve introduced the uncontrollable, the one thing which we’ve been trying to negate through tested infrastructures.

If instead, we utilise a ‘rich client’ or bespoke application on the hand held device we can instigate controls that enable local data storage when out of GPRS coverage and meaningful messages to transact and guide the user to a resolution.

So a ‘rich client’ provides the best way to provide control and to interact with a Cloud Server, which in turn provides the most scalable way of gaining computing power. But isn’t that what mobile systems have been doing since inception? Have marketeers created a new name for something the mobile computer industry has been providing for so long?

If they have, there are yet more Cloud Computing terms and implications to consider;

• Software as a Service
• Platform as a Service
• Infrastructure as a Service

Each of these could be the subject of a separate blog post and have specific implications for the mobile system user, or are they new names for what’s been in use for years? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this as the Cloud gains momentum and develops as an enterprise focussed technology.

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Diclosure: Codegate is a client of Essential Communications. The opinions contained herein are those of the author.

Digital Marketing is Like Baking a Cake

Made Essential Reading on 2 July 2010 by Richard Turrell | View Comments

I was recently asked to create an analogy for digital marketing. Racking my brain and accepting that inspiration arrives from the most unusual avenues, my moment arrived whilst watching a cookery show (hosted by Sophie Dahl if it helps my credibility?) when she hit the nail on the head with her description of how to bake a decent cake. The actual sponge is almost scientific, it is imperative that you purchase the right ingredients and use the correct volumes; it’s what you do around the base that makes the difference.

I hereby launch my Essential Digital Marketing Cake.

Basic Ingredients

As any WI stalwart will tell you, you should not mess with a successful formula; the following (in my eyes) are simply unavoidable:

• A website
• A customer / prospecting database
• A way to send emails
• A marketing resource

In theory, the better the ingredients, the better your cake tastes but don’t spend your entire budget at this stage or your cake will be rather plain and ordinary.

The filling

Anyone that likes a decent Victoria Sponge knows that the filling is what makes the cake. The following elements are pivotal to how successful you make your digital marketing:

• Some decent copy
• A well prepared marketing strategy
• Ideas (as many as possible)

Toppings

This is where you can create a digital marketing solution that works for your audience. The key advice that I can offer is that all of your metaphorical toppings should complement each other and be appealing to your customer base. You wouldn’t try to target senior management using street slang, as much as you wouldn’t add popping candy to your grandmother’s birthday cake.

As you keep your core audience at heart you can be as creative as you deem necessary and pick from the vast array of marketing techniques and processes that are available.

Time to finish the washing up

There you go, I’ve just backed up my career with advice taken from a cookery programme! Fortunately it actually makes sense, we have all tasted good and bad cakes but they are still cakes none the less, digital marketing is no different.

PS. If anyone would like to send me a cake to support my analogy I believe that would be a very good idea. Send your cakes to the Essential office.

The Essential Workshop Series: Slides & New Dates

Made Essential Reading on 28 June 2010 by Felix Hemsley | View Comments

If you weren’t able to attend our Social Media Workshop, fear not. We have just uploaded the presentation to our slideshare account and it can be viewed at the bottom of this post.

We have also recently confirmed the dates for the our future workshops, so be sure to register and add these dates to your diary:

Email Marketing, 8th September 2010 – Register

• Email marketing in 2010 – Changes & developments you should be aware of
• The latest technologies – Leveraging technological advances to improve campaigns
• How to create effective content – Content is king, but are you ruling your castle?
• Email design – What to do & where not to go wrong
• How to achieve the best open rates – It’s often the little things that make big differences
• Managing and growing your database – Without a refined contact list, you’re in the dark
• Best practices & legal requirements – Make sure you’re doing everything the right way
• Reporting and analytics – Insights are key to effective development, and measurement is the tool to get you there…Register

Co-op and MDF fund management, 10th November 2010 – Register

• Know the rules – Key points to look for in vendor co-op and MDF guidelines
• Get those approvals – How to write compelling funding requests that are sure to be signed off
• Managing the funds – Tips for managing multiple co-op funds
• The importance of evidence – What counts as evidence and what does not
• Closing the loop – You’ve done the campaign and raised the claim so now you get paid right? Wrong! Why? – Register

Media Consumption is Shifting. Are You?

Made Essential Reading on 25 June 2010 by Felix Hemsley | View Comments

I spend a huge amount of time reading content from across the web and creating content in various locations on both a personal and professional level. I have come to realise that the wealth of knowledge and sharing on the web enabled by social platforms has meant that this consumption is a never ending process.

So how do we penetrate this plethora of information? How do we get heard and seen above everyone else? Differentiate and facilitate.

It feels like we all have less and less time each day to do each item on the to-do list, so anything which can save us time is greatly appreciated. With this in mind, I encourage people to explore different media for sharing information.

If you’re looking to write a detailed product review, why not create a video short? If you’re holding an interview, rather than provide a transcript, why not create a podcast or an Audioboo which can be listened to on the move?

Here at Essential Communications, we have clearly identified that video content in email marketing is by far and away the best way to attract engagement. It offers more personality, a richer information feed and above all, saves time and effort for the audience.

With media sharing becoming easier by the day, the technological barriers which we used to face with uploads and file formats are behind us. So next time you’re looking to put content into the online space, consider a different medium for your broadcast.

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