But I’m looking forward to the completion of the job; a clean and happy home that incorporates the best of the old, with new innovations and inspirations. And that’s really why you renovate, isn’t it? Rather than just buying something new, you disrupt the comfy piles of detritus for a fresh start that doesn’t get rid of the old things that work. It’s a start that incorporates what is still useful and comfortable about the old, with the clean, fresh and exciting of the new.

Such as it is with our homes, sometimes our online presence can use a freshening up. You don’t necessarily have to get rid of the old things that work, but tighten the screws, slap on a fresh coat of CSS, and re-caulk the sidebar widgets … ok, I’m getting a bit carried away with the metaphor, but you get what I’m saying.

So, here are three ways to help you give your website a boost without busting your marketing budget:

1. Counter the Design Drift
   Remember how great your website looked when you launched it a couple of years back? All crispy and clean with clear blocks of information, yummy calls to action, and just enough imagery and negative space to keep the viewer engaged and interested? Then what happened? Where did all those off-kilter, fuzzy logos come from? Why is the homepage 26x longer than it was when you launched?The answer, my friends, is called Design Drift – the inevitable kludge that comes as more stakeholders (and new VPs) want to leave their mark on the website. Well, marketing and sales execs may come and go, but the brand is still the brand, buddy, so dust off those expensive website mockups that your agency or in-house team sold you on, and get that website back on track. You paid the big bucks for a reason, and unless your corporate strategy has changed a lot in the last 2-3 years since your website last got updated you probably don’t have to spring for a re-design.
2. Freshen up your colors
   Ever wonder what the hip colors are this season? Well, our friends at Pantone are in the business on keeping up on the latest trends and are always happy to share the results of their research (http://www.pantone.com/pages/pantone/Pantone.aspx?pg=20708&ca=4 ). And remember, fresh colors don’t have to take you off-brand. Use tools like Adobe’s Kuler site (http://kuler.adobe.com) to match the latest hues to make accents to your brand pallete, or use photography to bring in a fresh splash of color while still keeping the flavor and tone of your message on target. By the way, the big color themes for Fall 2011 will be “modern nostalgia” — coffee browns joined by yellow, and orchid with purplish blue and jade green accents (thanks Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute!).
3. Speaking of photography…
   There aren’t a lot of things that I truly hate in this world (except maybe PowerPoint), but one of them is stock photography. Is it easy? Yes. Is it cheap? It can be. Is it a good idea? No, not really. I mean seriously, how many people in business suits really group around a desk and point at a computer monitor? And how many times do we really need to see a bunch of out of focus, moving legs cropped at the knees? Custom photography may be a bit expensive, but how costly is it to your brand to have the same images on your website as on your competitor’s? And since we as marketers are supposed to be all “engaging” and “enchanting” and have “real conversations” with our customers now, why the heck would we be so disingenuous as to use stock photography anyway? So hire a decent photographer or give Steve in QA his big break as a shooter. (That’s what many amateur photographers call themselves. I know, right? Nerds.) You don’t have to invest thousands for decent images either. Plan your shoot and do it close to home. Show pictures of your staff at work (if they agree) or your fancy front foyer. Think about how real images of real people doing real things can help your online narrative, then book a couple of hours for the photographer to come in. And hey, having a photographer onsite always feels a bit like a movie shoot and can be pretty fun for the troops.

So, get your website back on track and enjoy kudos from your boss and co-workers. Your company will be glad not to invest the money and months associated with a website re-design, and you can be a brand hero and have more time to work on your tan.

See original post and comments at rewardstream.com

As we all know, and love to remind ourselves, marketers are a bit of a breed apart. We’re smart, media savvy, love shiny, pretty things, and are generally interested in people and communication to varying degrees. We like to understand how systems work; systems of people, systems of business, systems of psychology and sociology and how those systems can be analyzed and distilled from the vapor of nuance and opinion to the concrete reality of actions and plans. We understand the value of entertainment in marketing. There are different sub groups of marketers for sure – writers (the folks sitting in groups of two or three against the wall making hushed comments or tweeting incessantly), designers (laughing just a little bit louder than everyone else and dressed not so “businessy”), quantitative marketers (pouring over spreadsheets, Google analytics and ROI), but we all have one thing in common … we love things that are cool. Cool gear, cool clothes (whatever style you prefer), cool copy, cools ads and cool technology.

So what makes a presentation cool enough to keep a marketer sitting still for 40 minutes? Continue reading to discover what we learned:

Make it funny

I’ve made this my first point, but in some ways it should be the last. Making a presentation funny is much harder than it seems, and generally requires a great deal of confidence from the presenter. Confidence in the subject matter, confidence in their knowledge and confidence in their material. Scott Stratten and Tod Maffin are two presenters who can masterfully guide an audience through a narrative doing what I call “standup for marketers.” Scott is a professional marketer and Tweeter who exploded onto the scene last year with his humorous treatise on social media marketing, “Unmarketing.” An unabashed tweeter, Scott has almost 92,000 followers on Twitter, and from his presence on stage I can see why.  Seriously, if you get a chance to hear this guy speak, go for it. He has a good grasp of social media and how it can be used for marketing, and he’s funny.

Similarly, Todd Maffin is a skilled and experienced speaker.  Using stories from his broadcasting days as well as his years as a technology marketer, Todd clearly has a unique style that borrows heavily from standup. His presentation on what makes a video go viral is worthwhile if you ever get a chance to hear it. Plus, drinking excessive amounts of coffee prior to speaking makes for an energetic delivery!

Make it pretty

I’ve said it before, I’m a designer and I like things to look good and function well. For many years, the bane of my existence has been the same as designers all over the world – PowerPoint. For years Microsoft has kludged together one of the most vile pieces of software ever to inflict aesthetic hell on the eyes of the audience in the name of “making it so easy, even a sales guy can use it.” Yes, the content of your presentation is important, but what’s the use if the audience is clawing their eyes out from another soul-killing PPT?

Breathe, Rob, breathe. Ok, get ahold of yourself now. If you need, and I say NEED to use PowerPoint, please make sure you keep the following in mind:

• Keep it simple. No one wants to read the exact words you’re saying up there on that 20 foot screen. Just put the main points in your slides – the ones you want people to tweet about.
• Keep it simple. Charts and graphs can be ok sometimes, but make sure the graphic is large enough we can actually see what it is. Rows of numbers in a presentation aren’t interesting to anyone. Even accountants. I know … I’ve asked.
• Keep it simple. An image on a slide can be great, 20 images on a slide usually sucks.
• Keep it simple. Pick a font and colour palette and stick with it.
• Nikki Hellyer, Director of Marketing at Future Shop, Canada’s number one retailer online and offline, did a lovely presentation using Prezi (http://prezi.com/ ), a delightful break from the bile-inducing confines of PowerPoint. And no, she didn’t point that out, we noticed. Actually, Alexandra, our VP Marketing noticed – I was tweeting, trying to avoid looking at another PowerPoint. I looked, I loved.

Make it personal

If marketing is about relationships and engaging the consumer (the big message these days), then presenting is about the relationship between the presenter and the audience, and engagement is just as important. Scott Bedbury, former marketing exec at Nike and Starbucks, talked a lot about using emotion in advertising and being authentic, and took this theme right into his talk. Sure, all the stories about helping Nike create the “Just Do It” campaign were great, but the story about how he reacted to his 16 year old son crashing the convertible into the garage had most of the audience sniffling, even me. His son was fine, by the way.

Make it factual

Did you know that 80% of stats that people use in conversation are made up in the moment? Or is it 88%? Let’s go with 88%, it sounds better. If you have some stats at your disposal, use them! 99% of marketers love stats, they’re especially useful when we’re trying to justify what we do, so give a marketer some useful, qualified, reputable stats and you’ll have a friend for life.  Just remember what I said before – keep it simple. There can always be too much of a good thing.

Make it useful and real

Theory is great, but if you want your presentation to really be successful, have examples of how your theories have actually worked for real companies in real campaigns. Marketers can be forgiving, but can also be jaded and suspicious, so get on the credibility bandwagon and show us some things that have worked. If you know why they worked, even better.

Dress the part

Alexandra, our VP Marketing, made some observations about the parallels in style of dress and delivery:

While listening attentively to the insights of these great marketers, my mind wandered into a profound exploration of the important role of style of dress in the overall perception of the presentation. Scott Stratten, un-marketer extraordinaire, donned his Mr. Rogers cardigan with good humour and wore it over his jeans and t-shirt while engaging the audience in an honest, direct, and humorous conversation about why it’s important to be awesome in your marketing. Rumpled, intelligent, unself-conscious and familiar, Scott’s outfit matched his message. Perfect.

The other Scott, Scott Bedbury of Nike and Starbucks, opted for a pressed dress shirt and jacket with his jeans; his talk, which was packed with direct stories of his own experience, was personal, professional, and backed up with plenty of proof. He was commanding in his presentation – in my mind, his command derived from his incredible depth of experience, his stories and his ability to articulate how to engage consumers in a brand’s storytelling. He conveyed both command and humility, combined seasoned reflections with hands-on experience. The blazer and jeans worked well together, knitting both aspects of his delivery beautifully.

In short, style does make the man.

Many thanks to the BCAMA and the Vision 2011 team. You put on a great day. Thanks also to all of the presenters, you’ve given us a lot to think about.

See original post and comments at rewardstream.com

A bit of the back story: Brains on Fire (BoF) is not just a book, but an advertising agency out of Greenville, South Carolina. To see how they describe themselves, here’s the meta-description from their website source code (yep, I’m a nerd as well as a marketer and designer):

“Brains on Fire helps organizations build movements. Born out of the bond between
word of mouth marketing and identity development, we are devoted to helping organizations
discover and sustain excitement about who they are and why they exist.”

“Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements” is sort of a set of uber-case studies, detailing ten word-of-mouth marketing “lessons” illustrated with examples from past BoF movements.

After reading the introduction I knew these guys were going to be right up my alley. What the authors really seem to realize is that marketing is about people and relationships, not just companies talking about how great they are. We’ve all heard it a million times – marketing and advertising are everywhere, blah, blah. The message itself has become almost as meaningless as the advertising it refers to, it is just the background noise of our technology driven, consumer age. So, rather than harping about the problem, the Brains on Fire folks have come up with some really interesting ways to break from convention and make marketing more about connecting people to each other and the things that are meaningful to them.

In the book they outline lessons learned from several marketing movements that they helped ignite, from organizations as diverse as a charity working to abolish child sex slavery to a scissor company serving scrap book enthusiasts. Oddly enough, these are two areas that I find very (although not equally) scary – child sex slavery and scrapbooking. Exploitation of children is one of the most important issues on the world stage, but scrapbooking and those who engage in this arcane form of OCD is, I think, more of a personal fear of mine.

At any rate, through the course of the book, the authors detail their ten main lessons:

• Movements aren’t about the product conversation, they’re about the passion conversation
• Movements start with the first conversation
• Movements have inspirational leadership
• Movements have a barrier to entry
• Movements empower people with knowledge
• Movements have shared ownership
• Movements have powerful identities
• Movements happen both online and off-line
• Movements make advocates feel like rockstars
• Movements get results

I don’t think I’m really giving too much away by showing the titles here – most are obvious enough to make the seasoned marketer say “well, duh, of course.” Where the real gold glitters in this book, however, is in the stories of how these lessons have been achieved and in the examination of methods for transforming customers into brand advocates. I think there are some concepts that will scare a lot of traditional marketers, like sharing ownership of one’s brand with one’s customers. Yikes! What on earth will they (the customer) do with my shiny, lovely brand that I have taken so much time to craft, and feed, and clothe? Well, if the lessons from the book can be trusted, there’s a good chance that a well-nurtured advocate will treat your brand with just as much care and protectiveness as you do.

One of the other gems in this book is in the first lesson – that the real conversation isn’t about the product, but the passion that the product supports. As much as we all like our “things” it is usually what we “do” with our possessions that is most interesting, rather than the possessions themselves. I find this a great reminder that we need to be talking not just about features and benefits (boring), but rather people and their needs, pains, or desires and how our products and services can help them (fun!).  Also important is the fact that the customer is the marketer’s best ally, and that the customer’s reach to other potential customers is farther and, potentially, much more personal than our own.

I also appreciated that the book didn’t devolve into a how-to for Facebook and Twitter. There are some good guides on social marketing best practices out there (“Unmarketing” by Scott Stratten being an enjoyable one to read), but this was more of a high-level conceptual read.

Of course, the scale of many of the movements in the book are probably out of reach for a lot of organizations, at least in the short term. To think of my company hosting a fan club of RewardStreamkateers in key cities across North America with matching t-shirts advocating for measurable and sustainable social marketing and loyalty is probably not realistic … or is it? Maybe it is my own comfort in the tradition of “telling customers what we think about ourselves” that makes me doubt that I could create this kind of movement for the products I work to develop and promote every day.

So, let’s keep the conversation going. Have you read the book? What did you think?

See original post and comments at rewardstream.com