A couple of days ago, I came across this video of a man who was, shall we say, emotional about a double rainbow he finds in his front yard—a complete double rainbow, all the way.
The first time I watched, I thought it was pretty funny, but upon watching a second and third time, I found myself wiping away tears of laughter. So naturally I shared the video with my peeps here at Digett, and soon we were all enjoying that same double rainbow.
Miscommunication, my friends, can lead to embarrassing results. While writing for my college newspaper, I found myself covering the landfall of hurricane Katrina (from afar). The story, the focus of the front page, quoted speculation from experts that Katrina could be the most costly hurricane in United States history.
“Early estimates,” I wrote, “place costs upwards of $25 dollars.”
Go ahead, read that again. Indeed, it says that the natural disaster would cost no more than a Jackson and a Lincoln.
Customer service is the process of taking care of a customer before, during, and after the sale. While the level of service may differ with the value or cost of the goods or service, the outcome should be the same: a pleasant customer experience that reinforces perceptions gathered through marketing materials, referrals, etc. That's the theory, at least.
One of the more challenging aspects of content governance is maintaining a blog, particularly if it's well-established and contains years worth of posts. Trust me on this one; as part of my role as guardian of Digett's content, I've been auditing and maintaining a half-decade's worth of blog posts from more than 10 authors. Invariably, the emotional response to this activity tends to range from:
A few weeks ago, Mike Wolfsohn of Ad Age wrote about what lessons agency directors could learn from Project Runway. Yes, the fashion design, reality TV show, Project Runway.
He argued that Tim Gunn, the wisdom-imparting godfather of the show, can be a role model for agency creative directors, as he encourages each designer to find solutions that reflect personal style, but are still appropriate for their target audience.
In our office, we frequently invoke another treasure of Tim Gunn advice from Project Runway: beware the monkey house.
Normally, I leave all the artsy talk about graphics to Andrew, and for good reason. However, my background includes editorial work, and art selection is an important part of that role. Properly sourced and prepared artwork can set the tone for any content item, but the process is often done outside the glare of critical eyes (except in egregious missteps) or given second billing to other creative pursuits. No more, I say.
Of all the principles of content strategy, governance seems to be the one treated most as an afterthought. Strategy firms/agencies don't perform it (typically), large businesses want the technology to do it (automatically), and small businesses don't want to spend any money on it (tragically). I'm part of the first and I don't often work with the second, so I'll address only the third:
Whatever your resources, good content governance is possible.
Economic times, increased awareness, and online competition are making affordable top search rankings harder to come by. The day of simply placing an ad and assuming it will rank well are over. Considerable time and attention to detail are required to obtain front-page ranking while not overpaying for the coveted positions. Ad, keyword, and landing page quality—along with competition and other factors—are part of the mysterious algorithms search engines use to rank your ads. While this is all quite complicated, a simple ABC approach will help you get started.
Our biggest barrier to change is not technology, but our entrenched way of thinking about a given circumstance.
This holds true even for me, as I am reminded of my early days as a programmer. We were cutting edge, my colleagues and I, building powerful applications that would—once installed on a user's personal computer—talk to centralized servers where a thoughtfully designed database waited to return requested data.
In this industry, we hear a lot of snarky talk about traditional media and how practitioners "just don't get it." From my vantage point, the same could be said for engagement practitioners; if anything, their condescension comes with a great deal of irony.
Still, there are good points to be made about the viability of pouring resources into traditional, "interruption" marketing techniques, particularly as consumers tune out and the still-rough economy promotes the online shift. But where to start?
