Digital Marketing Strategy Bootcamp

I have some exciting news to share: I will be hosting my first Kickframe training event!  Over the past 5 years, I have designed and delivered hundreds of hours of training for a number of clients and on behalf of marketing organizations.  This time, I will be overseeing the training experience entirely and opening it up to any interested participant.  The Digital Marketing Strategy Bootcamp will take place over a full day on May 12th in Toronto.

Designing the session has been a fantastic process.  I have incorporated a number of elements that I know from past experience work really, really well.  I have also tried to design the overall experience to be refreshing for participants, by addressing a lot of the things that I find frustrating or underwhelming from typical training courses.  Specifically, the Digital Marketing Strategy Bootcamp has been designed to be:

  • Interactive: the format will be live and in-person with a high degree of participation from everyone, to encourage shared learning and professional networking.
  • Strategic: the training materials are based on strategic marketing principles, rather than starting from the latest digital tactic or digital buzzword.
  • Actionable: the guidance and tools provided are practical for marketers, and the session will involve participants working together on a brief from a visiting guest ‘client’. 

Finally, the session is designed to be really enjoyable—with no cold sandwiches or stale coffee served on a boardroom table.  If you are spending a full-day at a Kickframe event, it is important to me that you feel that it is a great investment (hence the 100% satisfaction guarantee).

The detailed course description and enrolment form can be found under my fancy new Events tab or my Eventbrite Page. If you know anyone interested in increasing their Digital Marketing Strategy IQ, please share.  And if you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact me.  I hope to see some of you there!

Do We Need Digital Strategists in a Post-Digital World?

Over the past few years, there has been a debate in industry circles about entering into a post-digital age in marketing.  I hesitate to call it a debate, since I have actually never heard anyone argue that digital and ‘traditional’ marketing should be kept entirely separate from each other.  What I have heard, amidst much industry navel-gazing about job titles and terminology, is a healthy discussion about how organizations can best exist and operate now that digital is interwoven into all aspects of our day-to-day lives and marketing activities.  This is where things get a lot more tangible and complicated. To help untangle the subject and the questions that arise (at least in my own mind), here is my kick at the can.

 

Are we truly in a post-digital marketing world?

Yes, but to quote Douglas Gibson: “The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet.”  All client and agency leaders I know believe that marketing needs to be planned and activated in a holistic and integrated manner, but are at varying points along their journey to making it happen.  It is difficult, particularly for larger and more established organizations.  The most significant challenges that I have seen remain lack of executive-level commitment, resistance to organizational change, and lack of critical in-house skills. But it’s here, and it’s happening.  If you need more convincing, Tom Goodwin has evidence.

 

In this new world, does the digital department exist?

Yes, in a new form.  Marketing is both broadening to include a greater number of potential tactics and channels, and deepening to involve a greater degree of underlying technology, UX, and data analytical know-how.  Marketing organizations, now more than ever, need people who understand what is possible and how to enable effective marketing using these increasingly sophisticated tool sets and skill sets.  The new post-digital group (title TBD!) will own marketing empowerment, not marketing strategy.  The group will accomplish this through capability building, operational governance, and tactical innovation.

 

In this new world, will the ‘digital strategist’ exist?  

Yes, in a new form.  In our post-digital age, we will abstract out the nature of media and focus instead on the nature of solutions.  Agencies will be defined by how they solve problems, not by what they actually produce.  And to think that a single agency can do it all, given the scope and complexity of marketing today, is absurd.  The new Digital Strategist (title TBD!) will need to become both more of a generalist and more of a specialist.  A generalist in the sense that formerly Digital Strategists will need to become capable of leading or contributing to overall marketing strategy planning rather than exclusively contributing to a digital sub-set.  A specialist in the sense that Strategists will also need to become more focused on a particular area of marketing, in the same way agencies now have to do.  Strategists, particularly those starting out, will need to ‘major’ in one of 4-different areas: Services, Connections, Content, or Canvases.

Planning in the post-digital age requires strategists that are far more T-shaped, capable of crafting ‘Capital-S’ strategy while understanding how programs can be empowered by core medium-agnostic marketing disciplines.

 

In this new world, how do I exist?

Good question.  I will become either (1) a Post-Digital Strategist or (2) Post-Employed Digital Strategist. 

Check back soon, and see.

Digital Strategy Discovery Guide

The start of any digital strategy initiative is critical.  It is the time when teams align on goals, scope, expectations, priorities, timing, and start to gather the inputs required to develop a strategy recommendation.  This part of the process is generally referred to as the Discovery Phase, and typically involves a mix of stakeholder meetings, interviews, and research activities.  It is also the part of of the process when you have the most questions (and granted forgiveness for those questions that start with “this might be a dumb thing to ask, but…”)  To make the most of this precious time, it is important to have a firm grasp of the most pertinent questions to ask and data to review.  While the right mix of questions will ultimately depend on a number of variables (e.g. familiarity with the subject and project team, nature and scope of the initiative, personal role and mandate), there are core areas that always need to be considered.  
 
The dense-looking framework below is my attempt to provide a starting point for helping to plan Discovery Phase activities.  Depending on the nature of your initiative you may need to cover all or some of these areas, in varying levels of depth (and ideally not in a single meeting!).  The Digital Strategy Discovery Guide is designed to be used from:

  • Left-to-Right: Understanding general business and marketing context before exploring how digital marketing may add value.
  • Top-to-Bottom: Understanding strategic background and direction before exploring potential tactics and delivery.

If you have any feedback or would like to discuss, please reach out.  Remember, there is no such thing as a dumb question. 

Predictapalooza 2016

It is that time of the year for annual lists of marketing and technology predictions.  Based on the volume of posts in my feeds over this past month, we may have reached ‘Peak Prediction’ where the number of ways that the world may change through technology has now been outstripped by the number of people actually blogging about it.  In an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff, here are highlights from a few strong reports that I read between sips of eggnog that present interesting digital strategy questions to ponder this year.

 

Trend Watching: Consumer Predictions for 2016

One of the 5 trends outlined by Trend Watching is ‘Contextual Omnipresence’, along with some recent research and examples that involve deriving new insights from data.

“In September 2015, Barcelona-based Telefónica Research published a report showing researchers are able to tell from a smartphone user’s mobile activity whether the user is bored with an 83% accuracy rate. Participants were then sent notifications recommending content on Buzzfeed.” 

Q: How can marketers start to use data to more finely target customers based on their current emotional state?

 

Frog Design: Tech Trends 2016

In addition to being a beautifully designed publication, Frog has a great write up on ‘The Open Enterprise’ (think Uber). 

“As companies seek to transform around the principles of human centered design, they need to plan for the reality that most human work extends beyond the boundaries of their business model…While there is a very real threat of market share loss to companies who miss how to design and build for this trend, the market opportunities for those who embrace it will be profound.”

Q: How can companies better adapt their business models to how customers naturally behave instead of forcing customers to adapt to how their business operates?

 

Fjord: Fjord Trends 2016

Another well-designed publication is from Fjord, who has a provocative write up on the trend of atomization.

“Atomization is widespread in music streaming apps like Spotify, which now transcends environments (think: your living room to your car to your workspace) and is delivered through various branded partnerships. The atomization of Spotify is part of a much bigger transition we’re now witnessing.”

Q: What is the ‘smallest’ and most shareable format of a service from a brand that has value and can be distributed throughout other platforms and contexts?

 

Contagious: The Most Contagious Ideas of 2015

Always an inspiring read, the latest Contagious report has a very insightful dissection of what makes Snapchat such a unique platform that is positioned to become a real force in modern media.

“Did the platform shift the paradigm, or did the paradigm shift inform the platform?  This chicken and egg discussion is indicative of how Snapchat has hit its stride at just the right time, making platform advancements indistinguishable from consumer behaviour shifts. Indeed, Snapchat seems to be perfectly positioned for 2016, with user habits and platform mechanisms dovetailing perfectly to create an unstoppable force in media.”

Q: Should Snapchat move from curiosity to legitimate channel for marketers, with the same attention and investment as the major social platforms?

 

social@Ogilvy: Key Digital Trends for 2016

This is a fun deck on social media with a lot of personality.  The authors provide useful advice around measuring what matters in content marketing:

 “Marketers are obsessed with content but oddly only measure effectiveness by website statistics.  Yet when it comes to [arguably one of the world’s best content marketer] Buzzfeed, of the 18.5B impressions it receives every month only 2% of those are on its website.”

Q: How can marketers finally evolve measurement capabilities to be able to effectively understand the impact of content beyond owned properties?

 

Hopefully some interesting food for thought as you start your new year.  If you have any additional links or predictions you would like to share, I would love to hear them.  Finally, I wish—make that predict—that you all will have a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2016.  

Digital Marketing Strategy Seminar

This past November, I delivered a Digital Marketing Strategy Seminar in Toronto that was hosted by the Canadian Marketing Association.   The session was attended by 24 marketers from a variety of industries, roles, and career paths.  The group was extremely engaged, and we had a rich discussion on topics spanning digital measurement, marketing planning, and organizational design.  As I have said before, the real benefit of facilitating training is the opportunity to learn from others.  It was a great day all around.

 

For those of you who are interested and did not attend, I have put together an executive summary of the material.  The focus of the session was on providing a strategic foundation for planning digital marketing.  The approach for this session was:

  • To go broad across the digital marketing toolbox, and not deep on a specific tool
  • To provide guiding principles that are lasting, and not more specific tactical advice
  • To arm participants with relevant planning tools that they could take and put into action

 

As always, I’d love to hear any questions or feedback you may have.  I am also planning additional training sessions in 2016, so stay tuned or reach out if you are interested in learning more.


How to Design an Effective Digital Marketing Training Program

Digital marketing training is critical for organizations today, and it is sorely lacking. Studies show that only 48% of digital marketers feel proficient in digital marketing, and a mere 18% actually take in-person courses (vs. 82% who learn on the job).   Forward-thinking organizations recognize this need, and invest in training to enable and grow their marketing teams accordingly.

One such organization is Loblaw.  Over the past year, I have had the pleasure of providing in-house digital marketing training for Canada’s largest and most successful retailer.  This training program covered a number of topics over multiple sessions and involved all 150+ members of the Loblaw Marketing Department.  I partnered closely with the brilliant Sr. Director of Digital Marketing at Loblaw, Michelle Read-Kulig to design and facilitate the program (which meant that I learned plenty, too).

Given the importance of understanding digital marketing today, I thought I would share some tips based on my Loblaw experience that you may consider when planning digital marketing training within your organizations.

 

1. Identify The Desired Learning Outcome(s)

Before launching into any training initiative, understand the change you want to actually make within the organization.  Take the time to identify this clearly, as you can then (and only then) determine (a) if training is the most effective way to accomplish it, (b) what type of training may best support it, (c) how training may fit within the context of overall learning and performance development, and (d) who needs to participate.  

For Loblaw, the desired outcome was to establish a baseline understanding of digital across the marketing organization—which is why all Loblaw marketers participated.  And even though many marketers within LCL had deep digital experience, it was important for everyone to participate to establish this common foundation as a basis for effective communication and integrated planning across teams.

 

2. Establish Clear Senior-Level Sponsorship

Senior-level sponsorship is a must for any digital marketing training initiative.  Securing a Sponsor demonstrates commitment from the organization to digital while reinforcing the connection that the training has to the future of the business (and to people’s jobs within it).  Without the right Sponsor, training may be considered interesting rather than essential.

Michelle is the head of the Digital Marketing Center of Excellence (DMCOE) for Loblaw and reports directly to the SVP of Marketing.  Having Michelle as the Sponsor and the co-facilitator for the training program was a key part of its success.  Her active involvement demonstrated to participants that the training was an organizational priority and that the training content aligned to the strategic thinking of the DMCOE.

 

3. Start with Principles, then Tactics

When beginning with a digital marketing training initiative, start with principles before discussing tactics.  While it may (and will) seem basic for some, spending time discussing the foundational differences, advantages, and challenges relating to digital media and technology provides a necessary baseline to build on.  Doing this effectively up-front can eliminate distracting digital buzzwords, broaden perspective, and build confidence within the group.

For LCL, we began the program with a session called Digital Foundations.  It was a level-set for the group on the state of digital marketing today and introduced a number of principles to be applied across all aspects of digital marketing strategy.  This session effectively set the table for subsequent sessions focused on specific tactical areas, such as social, mobile, and search.

foundations.png

4. Make it Interactive Across Disciplines

Group exercises are a critical part of adult learning, and in digital marketing training it is particularly important.  Using the right mix of exercises allow participants to apply concepts and learn from each other—particularly those with deeper digital experience (also providing them with an opportunity to share and shine).  Establishing a more interactive style for training also reinforces the multi-disciplinary and highly collaborative nature required for digital marketing today.

After Michelle and I ran a pilot course with a single Loblaw department, we decided to mix up the groups for the following courses.  Each of the 20+ participants within each session came from different groups, including Promotions, Customer Service, Brand, Content, and more. The result was a richer dialogue among participants, more interesting application of the concepts in the group exercises, and new connections.


5. Provide Support to Make Learning Actionable

How participants transfer learning to job responsibilities is a fundamental consideration for program design, and is particularly important at the end of digital training (along with assessment).  Carefully consider how you would like participants to start to behave differently after completing the program.  Develop the necessary supporting material and job aids that may be used to support direct day-to-day application.

Upon completion of the final session for the Loblaw training, we distributed Loblaw Digital Marketing Playbooks to all participants.  These books included the key points from all of the sessions, templates for digital marketing planning, as well as an FAQ guide for ‘doing digital’ at Loblaw written by the DMCOE.  This proved to be a useful takeaway and resource for those who completed the course. 

A special thank you again to Michelle for the opportunity to collaborate with her and the awesome Loblaw team.  I hope that you learn as much from these tips as I did from working with her on this training program.

How to Become a Digital Strategist

Now that I am “of a certain age”, I find myself meeting with more people seeking advice on becoming or advancing their careers as digital strategists.  It can be tricky to break into and to navigate as the area of strategy has always been ambiguous and the role of ‘digital strategist’ can mean very different things across different organizations.  Since I have had a few of these chats recently—which I thoroughly enjoy—I thought I would share some of the advice that I have found myself repeating.  Before I do, a few important caveats:

  • This is coming from the perspective of someone who has focused on marketing, working largely within digital agencies and consultancies.  They may not apply in other organizations.
  • These things have worked for me, and come from my own personal experience.  They may not work for you, and others have very different perspectives (which you should listen to).
  • These don’t come close to replacing larger and more important points about navigating your career like finding your own strengths, mentors, passion, and purpose.

 

Now that I have appropriately set, if not completely watered down your expectations, here are 5 pointers on starting out and getting ahead as a digital strategist.

 

1. Find a Place to Learn

The best things that happened to me early in my career was being part of a large, experienced, ambitious, and terrifically opinionated strategy team at a digital agency (you know who you are).  These strategists intimidated me, challenged me, and humbled me.  They also supported me, and helped me to understand what great digital strategy work is and how to get there.  It was a great place to start. 

 

So, look for a place in the smart room.  Avoid roles at organizations that are looking to hire a few, smart, young people as strategists to compensate for their lack of ‘digitalness’.  These may seem like attractive roles, but are usually terrible places to start a career in strategy.  You will not learn, grow, or understand how high the bar truly needs to be set.  Do not become The Digital Expert, and be suspicious of organizations that need one.

 

2. Start Narrow, Then Go Broad

At one point very early in my career I was the lone planner in a digital agency and I worked on everything that came in through the door.  At the time, I loved the challenge, the variety, and the chaos. Now, I know that it was a mistake. My work was incredibly uneven and I was put in positions where I could not succeed (though I did not recognize this at the time).  While perhaps not as exciting as a ride, I would have been far better served to find a situation where I could have started out by focusing on a sub-discipline of digital strategy (analytics, UX, research), and grow to become a more integrated, generalist strategist.  This only comes with experience.

 

Tim Brown is known for espousing the term T-Shaped people to describe the ideal candidate for working at IDEO.  The horizontal bar of the T represents the ability to collaborate across disciplines and the vertical bar represents depth of a particular expertise.  While digital strategy requires both, it is important to keep on strengthening that vertical bar, as it is your foundation.  So start by focusing on a specific area of expertise that interests you and that can lead to broader strategy work.  Don’t leave your development solely to your client work—add a course or certification every year, and broaden out over time.

 

3. Become a Great Facilitator

When I first moved from client side to agency side, I encountered an environment where everyone was competing for the ‘silver bullet’; that single insight, idea, or creative “aha” that quiets a room and announces your staggering brilliance.  I was game, and even garnered a few “aha’s”, but my approach completely changed after my first time with a truly great facilitator. He was the CCO, and he came in and completely reoriented the structure, values, and atmosphere of a work session by leading a process to collectively reach an idea.  He found a way to get to better thinking by empowering this broader group, and he got exactly what he needed.

 

The most interesting digital strategy work is messy, and requires a number of different disciplines working together to solve.  Reorient your focus as a strategist to be the one responsible for leading the development of the strategy, not the one individually creating it.  Adopt a highly inclusive approach that invites contributions that you can then synthesize and use.  It will not be comfortable at first, so invest in a facilitation training course and practice.  Learn how to keep responsibility while distributing access and ownership.  You will need it.

 

4. Ask The Right Questions

One of my all-time favourite clients was the CIO of a multi-national corporation based in the Netherlands.  We were in the middle of a kick-off meeting chock full of PowerPoints and Gantt charts when he stoically rose from his chair and announced that he had 3 ‘hamvraag’.  While this translates directly (and deliciously) from Dutch to English as ‘Ham-Questions’, it refers to a crucial question.  Holding up three fingers, he described what he considered to be the three questions that this digital strategy had to answer.  In answering them, we would then address every other item detailed meticulously in the decks and charts.  We did not pay much attention to this at the time, but once we started to put our recommendations together we realized that he was exactly right.

 

So before you start pulling data, thinking of solutions, or even opening a browser make sure that you stop and think of the right few questions you need to answer as part of your digital strategy.  If you are starting out, ask your client or manager to articulate them for you.  Focus all of your energy on answering these, to the exclusion of everything else.  Good clients and managers will recognize this and value it over a fat deck filled with graphs and screenshots. This also extends to the digital news and articles that you track and share socially.  Take the time to think about what it means, and the interesting questions that may arise for you to chew on.

 

5. Prove It, Then Sell It

“YOU are the one who needs to prove ROI!!!”  This line—a subject line, I believe—is from an email that I received from the CEO of an agency that I worked for after a particularly difficult presentation (specific names and colourful language omitted for brevity and taste).  In short, our recommendations were challenged and our case was weak.  It was a painful but important lesson to plan for the worst and always build a strong case.  As a digital strategist, it was also an important recognition of the value that I could bring to the table for an organization in proving and selling work.  I remember it to this day.

 

So the next time you are developing a digital strategy recommendation, think of the smartest person you know.  Now pretend they don’t like you or your ideas.  Next, picture them at the back of the room for your presentation.  You are their last meeting of the day before they start vacation.  And…you’re up!  Going forward, consider this your audience.  Take the time to prepare the case that illustrates the benefits from your recommendations.  Write out (and I mean literally write out) your rationale for why you would invest this money if you were in their shoes.  Get to know the supporting details and the data.  Believe me: the next time you run into this person along with your boss, they will invest in you.

Orchestrating the Toronto Symphony Experience

In March, I was approached by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) to help create a digital strategy and supporting roadmap.  The organization had recently made significant leadership changes and the new head of marketing and sales shared his ambitious mission: “We’re transforming a 93-year old start-up”.  It was music to my ears (last pun, I swear).

 

Over these past few months I have had the privilege of working closely with the TSO.  It is truly an amazing institution that provides innovative arts leadership, rich musical education, inspiring community outreach, and—of course—a world-class orchestra.  The following is a glimpse into some of this work, specifically around customer experience mapping.

 

The digital strategy for the TSO needed to achieve a number of goals including increasing revenue from ticket sales, increasing contributions from donations, increasing TSO brand equity, and increasing overall marketing efficiency.  Customer experience mapping became a key tool for us to analyze opportunities through a more customer-centric lens.  The model itself was created based on customer research and stakeholder interviews and includes a journey that spans before, during, and after a TSO performance.  

The customer experience map allowed us to identify a number of areas where the TSO could use digital channels to create additional value.

Reducing Points of Friction:

  • Providing helpful guidance to less confident patrons trying to choose a performance
  • Allowing people to purchase tickets immediately, on the move, across any channel
  • Making new patrons feel more comfortable in the hall through cultural wayfinding

Amplifying Moments of Delight:

  • Fuelling excitement for an upcoming performance with interesting background information
  • Facilitating the collective sharing of the event experience through social media channels
  • Deepening engagement with patrons with relevant ongoing news, perspective, and music

 

These opportunities and many more were analyzed, prioritized, and included in a digital strategy roadmap that the TSO will be activating over the next 2 years.   I for one look forward to experiencing them myself.

 

A special thank you to the TSO for granting permission for me to share this work and to my frequent collaborator Rob Tilley for his brilliant accompaniment (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Audience Targeting Opportunity Map

I recently put on a seminar hosted by the CMA called Creating Your Digital Strategy, in Toronto.  It was an intensive full-day session that included over 30 senior-level marketers across a variety of industries.  The session was focused on helping marketers understand and apply Guiding Principles for digital marketing, with a view to creating their own strategies and plans within their organizations.

One of the Guiding Principles that we covered during the seminar involved using data to fuel creativity and relevance.  From a tactical perspective, we spent time discussing the opportunities that marketers have to leverage a growing set of data points, ad tech tools, creative formats, and media canvases.  I find this space very exciting and have seen fantastic creative concepts and performance results from programs that made smart use of audience targeting.  I also find that this space can be quite confusing as marketers, agencies, and media companies struggle to create plans under the ambiguous shadow of Big Data.  In an effort to try and inspire and structure smart conversations about how data can fuel creativity and relevance I put together an Audience Targeting Opportunity Map.

In the same vein as the Mobile Opportunity Map, it includes many of the key areas that are available to marketers today to target customers and create more relevant and profitable connections.  While certainly not exhaustive, I hope that you might find it useful as a periodic table of sorts—providing you with a powerful targeting 'element' to include in your marketing campaigns (pun intended).  Since the session sold-out and generated very positive feedback (and was so much fun to do), we will be putting it on again in the Fall.  The CMA (@cdnmarketing) and I will be sharing more details closer to the date.     

  

Mobile Opportunity Map

The area that I find the most interesting and challenging in my consulting and teaching is ‘mobile’.  As a topic, it is difficult to clearly frame since it in equal parts refers to specific devices (the platforms used by people to engage), specific tactics (the activations used that are designed for those platforms), and specific contexts (the use-cases specific to people beyond their desktops).  Throw in the frenzied interest and confusion around topics such as responsive design, beacons, and the Internet of Things, and you have incredibly exciting, yet murky waters.

Something that I recently created to try and untangle this topic is what I call a Mobile Opportunity Map.  In it, I try to lay out what I see as the unique areas of potential advantage that mobile presents for businesses and marketers.  Each opportunity area is organized into one of three groups: (1) The Device, (2) The Context, and (3) The Ecosystem.  I plan to use this as a catalyst in my sessions with clients to ensure that we probe and explore the many different ways that we can unlock value through mobile—and there are many.

As always, would love to hear any feedback that you may have.  Hopefully it unlocks some opportunities for you, too.


Living, Dying, and Advertising in Social Media

“What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?”

 

This controversial quote from the GM of Interactive Marketing at P&G five years ago continues to stick with me.  As glib as the comment reads, it strikes at a fundamental tension between the people who use (and generate) social media and the marketers who utilize these new digital canvases to target advertising back at them.  I was reminded of this quote after experiencing two events in social media recently that made me rethink the place of advertising in user-generated social platforms.  One joyful, the other tragic.

 

Friends living overseas have been trying to conceive a child for many years.  Finally, last week, I was thrilled to see an update in my Facebook News Feed showing a mobile photo upload of a healthy baby boy.  Comments lit up the post with emotional congratulatory messages.  The communal expression of happiness was immediate and tangible, amplified by every additional Like.  I felt so fortunate to be connected and sharing this moment across time zones in such a vivid and immediate way.

 

While this experience connected me to the best in life, the worst occurred in a theatre in Denver in July.  As I followed the coverage of the tragic events, I noticed that journalists were referencing and directing readers to public Profile Pages and Twitter accounts of both the victims and the accused.  Many of these pages were filled with updates just minutes before the shootings took place.  They were pages like all of our pages, providing everyone a glimpse into who we are and how we want to be perceived, and that uncomfortable place in between.  It was beyond an invasion of privacy.

 

So what does this mean for marketers?

 

Perspective.

 

Social media is generated as an output of platforms used by people to share and connect with others they care about.  So as members become targets, updates become content, and pages become inventory, advertisers need to better recognize the context in which their messages in social media are being consumed (life), and the other content it is competing with for consumer attention (what happens along the way).

 

Maybe marketers need to think less about being social, and more about being human.

Photo posted on Facebook by the author when his twins were born.

Note: Originally posted in 2012 on the Cossette Blog 

 

 

Social Media Platform Playbook

One of the challenges that marketers face today is having a clear and strategic view of all of their social media platforms.  Many have built out a large number of platforms over the past few years and devote a great deal of energy and resources towards keeping them up and running.  The challenge comes in the form of constant change across a number of interrelated areas:

  • Social Platforms - how new and existing platforms evolve in terms of user features, advertising products, technical capabilities, and overall marketing efficacy
  • Target Audiences - how communities adopt and abandon different platforms, and change their own personal mix of what they use and why
  • Marketing Objectives - how marketing goals and plans for a brand shift over time, resulting in changes to social media objectives
  • Internal Resources - how investment, staffing, and internal commitment to social media platforms ebb and flow over time within an organization

 

How do you map out your territory when the tectonic plates are shifting beneath you?

 

One tool that I have used with clients to help create a clear view of their social media platforms is a playbook of sorts.  It is a simple framework and living document that organizes the goals, role, and level of commitment for each social media platform they are active in. It also helps to illustrate the similarities, differences, and relationships between different platforms to create greater clarity in terms of how each should be used (or if a platform should be used at all). 

While this framework appears on a single slide, you are essentially looking at a summary view of 3 different areas: Marketing Objectives, Platform Role, and Platform Plan.  When I use this as a facilitation or planning tool, I typically focus on each separate area as an exercise and work from left to right to complete ‘the playbook’.

 

Marketing Objectives:  After listing all of the social media platforms to be considered by the brand down the first column, evaluate the contribution of each platform to your relevant marketing objectives listed across the top.  You can simply assign as High, Medium, Low or use a 1-5 scale.

 

Platform Role: Next, identify all of the different social-media related tactics and activities that you are considering to support your marketing objectives, and indicate which platforms will be used for each.  It is important to note here any contingencies or relationships between platforms, captured in the ‘Used With’ column.

 

Platform Plan: At this point, you will have a clear view which platforms are expected to contribute most towards your marketing objectives and the relative role that each play.  This should provide you with the ability to indicate relative priority per platform, and start to map out posting volumes (relying on internal performance data and best practices per platform) and paid media investment (relying on internal budget figures and advertising costs/platform).

 

So go ahead and create your playbook, just be prepared to revisit as you feel any tectonic trembling beneath your feet.

The Evolution of Digital Marketing

I recently completed a number of fantastic corporate training sessions focused on digital marketing.   While the participants, environments, and training goals for each of the sessions differed, I began each class the same way: with a brief discussion on the history and evolution of digital marketing.  It is a great way to help a group contextualize how all of the changes in technology, media, culture, and economics have driven (and have been driven by) changes in digital marketing over the last 20 years.

 

One of the slides that I use to help tell this story is below.  While absolutely generalized and inexact, it (I think) does an effective job of illustrating a few important points for those trying to better understand how the space has grown and continues to evolve:

  • Tactics & Channels are Additive.  While the focus areas for marketers may change across 'eras', the majority of the tactics and channels that become available remain available over time.   Sure, they all change and some may become less relevant but choice continues to grow.
  • Tactics, Channels, & Technology Recombine.  Some of the most interesting opportunities for marketers today are in some ways re-combinations of earlier tactics.  For example, proximity marketing leans heavily on apps, personalization, and mobile messaging (and some good old direct-marketing principles).

 

I know that many of you who are (hopefully) reading this have worked in this space for a while.  For me, it was fun to put together and trace back points in time where marketing conversations shifted and where professional and life events occurred (married with 3 kids in the mobile era!)  I hope you find it useful, if for nothing else than to bring back a few fond memories.

Lessons from Class

One of the things that I enjoy most about teaching the CMA Digital Marketing Course is having the opportunity to bring in amazing guest speakers.  Since digital marketing is such a broad and evolving subject, it is hugely valuable to have experts with different focus areas and perspectives come in and share their thoughts.  This past term, I was extremely fortunate to have a number of industry leaders visit the class and share their stories, opinions, and advice.  Here are a few highlights:

Dave Lougheed (@DLoTO)

To start off, Dave gave an epic talk on his long and successful career (so far) in digital.  He shared a number of candid, personal and inspiring anecdotes including the lessons that he has learned along the way.  His talk also included one of the most critical lessons for someone pursuing a career in digital: “stay calm when the shit goes down”.

Richard Fofana (@richardfofana)

Rich delivered an amazing talk about how media, advertising, content, and digital are converging to create a unique set of opportunities and challenges for brands.  He stressed that content can no longer be mediocre, as we "need to make stuff that people will value and invite into their lives". 
 

Kim Rellinger (@KimVsTheWorld)

In addition to bringing in Google Glasses for the class to play with, Kim shared some amazing data points from Google.  Specifically, that 15% of searches each month are essentially ‘brand new searches’ for Google and that 50% of Google searches worldwide will be through mobile by the end of the year.
 

Jean George (@jean_george17)

Jean delivered a great presentation on how to effectively manage your own personal brand through social media.  She reinforced that marketing professionals should apply the same level of rigor in defining personal target audiences and key messages that are typically used for our organizations and client brands.

Scot Riches (@scotriches)

If there was any impression that email is dead, Scott killed that misconception with his presentation on email marketing.  He shared recent Canadian data that 50% of marketers in Canada plan to increase their spending on email next year.  This is powered in many ways by continued growth in mobile and targeting capabilities.

Sandy Fleisher (@pescatore) & Penny Norman (@Penelope_Fay)

"It’s not how you sell, but how customers want to buy.”  This was one of a number of great lessons shared by the fine folks from Pound & Grain.  Penny shared a user experience framework used by the agency to help understand context, identify points of friction, and find opportunities where mobile can provide value for consumers.

Hilton Barbour (@ZimHilton)

My favourite Marketing Provocateur Hilton arrived to provide the class with his point of view on how powerful human insight is the basis for all great advertising (digital included).  As someone who always asks great questions, Mr. Barbour ignited great discussions around the topics of “who owns digital?” and “what is a digital problem?”

Andrew Bergstrom (@a_bergstrom)

And to close out the term, Andrew delivered a brilliant keynote that spoke to the power of digital when part of a focused and integrated marketing program.  He also shared some inspiring closing remarks for the class and (I think) anyone passionate about marketing: “Be curious. Be brave. Be about the idea.”

So to all of these amazing presenters, I am so grateful that you donated an evening to share your perspective with my class.  I know they appreciated it very much, and I now have a notebook full of scribbles from your tips, examples, and thoughts.  Thanks, friends.

Gamification Framework

Digital marketing buzzwords are funny things.  On one hand, they make it possible to discuss new marketing, technology, and cultural phenomenon that make its way into our collective consciousness but not into our collective vocabularies.  On the other hand, attaching a buzzy-label to something new often classifies it as a trend—something with a short shelf life that is easily dismissed.  In many ways, the concept of Gamification has suffered such a fate, and is considered in many circles to be a trend whose time has passed.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.

 

Gamification—the notion of applying familiar game mechanics to non-game contexts to engage ‘actors’ to help achieve a ‘goal’—can play a powerful role in many marketing programs.  Organizations with frequent, ongoing, service-based relationships with customers often have programs where gamification can play a natural role.  Gamification elements can be seen frequently today in many loyalty programs, online self-service platforms, and social community programs.

 

Over the past year I have worked with two clients (one in financial services and the other in retail) on large assignments where gamification played a fairly strategic role.  In both cases, I needed to spend time with stakeholders to discuss and explore the concept so that we could see beyond the ‘badges, awards, and mayorships’ that are so closely associated with the term.  To do so, I used a framework to help organize our thinking and explore the role, fit, and potential of gamification. I found this framework useful, in that it helped to start the discussion at a higher strategic level.  We could then 'work down the pyramid' to effectively design the experience.

Gamification Framework

The purpose of this framework is to help define and design a gamification approach for a marketing program.  When completing the framework, it is critical that groups work down from the top as all levels relate and contribute to each other.

 

Purpose: What the brand ultimately strives to help customers achieve

Describe this shared purpose from the brand.  Ensure that it is written in a way that is (1) meaningful and desirable to the customer, (2) authentically ‘from the brand’, and (3) is viewed as credible.

 

Goals: What tasks can the customer complete to help reach this achievement

List all of the tasks that can contribute to this ultimate achievement.  Ensure that they are (1) clearly connected to the ultimate achievement, (2) easily understood by customers, and (3) can be attained by customers with the help of the brand.

  

Behaviours: What actions can the customer take to help complete a contributing goal

List all of the actions that a customer should stop, start, or continue to help achieve a goal.  Ensure that they are (1) clearly connected to achieving a goal, (2) easily understood by customers, and (3) can be recognized and quantified by the brand.

 

Motivators: What incentives can be offered to help propel positive customer behaviours

List all of the ways that a customer can be encouraged to act, considering intrinsic, extrinsic, tangible, and intangible motivators.  Ensure that motivators are (1) clearly connected to contributing behaviours, (2) desirable for customers, and (3) can be supported from the brand.

 

Indicators: What progress signals can be provided to help customers remain motivated

Considering all of the available interfaces between the brand and the customer, list the ways that progress may be communicated.  Ensure that indicators are (1) clearly connected to motivators, (2) consistently accessible by customers, and (3) forward-looking from the brand.

What do we want to learn?

The art and science of digital marketing measurement and optimization has been around for many years.  The majority of digital marketers today have adequate systems in place for reporting on and managing performance.  That is not to say that this stuff is simple.  It remains a challenge to identify the right metrics for different internal audiences, implement the necessary tools and tracking, produce the required reports and cascade results, and analyze data to action improvement.  That said, most businesses today have the necessary tool-sets, skill-sets, and mind-set in place to effectively manage their current state digital marketing activities.


So how can we optimize optimization? 

By reframing what we are optimizing for.


From: Tactical Adjustment (what we need to measure to improve an existing tactic)

To: Strategic Insight (what we need to learn to inform our digital strategy)


Marketers need to spend more time identifying not just marketing goals but learning goals--what the business needs to better understand to support future changes and investments. This type of planning should be done during digital strategy sessions, where ‘big bets’ and roadmaps are being discussed.  If the business is considering a significant change to its digital marketing strategy, it should also be considering what data it needs to support and help shape it.


The following framework is a simple guide to facilitating this type of discussion.  The left-hand column represents the familiar process of creating a digital measurement plan: mapping goals to tactics to measures.  The right-hand column illustrates how using a similar approach, marketers can start to create a learning plan: mapping hypotheses to tests to measures.

Over the years, the industry has built a strong foundation to measure current state digital marketing activities.  To take the next step, let’s start optimizing for greater strategic insight.  Let's start looking forward.

Creating a Digital Ecosystem Map

Over the last five years, organizations have focused on creating a large number and variety of digital assets, platforms, and programs.  This is largely due to the fragmentation of media and the growth of mobile and social channels.  The result is a new type of marketing challenge, as organizations shift focus from figuring out ‘what more do I need’ to ‘how do I ensure that what I have best fits together’.  Enter the rise of a new term (the ecosystem) and new set of visual models (ecosystem maps).  Marketers with large digital portfolios are now using these new models to help visualize and plan how to best use their touchpoints to support various business and marketing initiatives. 

At its most basic level, a digital ecosystem is a comprehensive inventory of existing digital touchpoints.  This inventory should include key details for each touchpoint including:

  • Purpose: Why does it exist and what role does it play?
  • Platform: Where does it live and how can it be found?
  • Priority: How important is it in the short-term and long-term?
  • Customer Value: Who specifically uses it and why?
  • Business Goal: What benefit does it provide for the business?
  • Connections: What other touchpoints does it integrate with?

The inventory is typically organized into a number of categories and illustrated for clarity. This is always where digital ecosystem maps start, and often where they stop.  The real value comes when these touchpoints are organized into models that add context and bring clarity to a specific type of marketing decision.  Understanding the type of decision that you need to make is the first step in understanding what type of digital ecosystem map you need to produce.  The following is an overview of 3 different types of ecosystem maps that answer 3 different types of marketing decisions.

 

1. Customer Experience Based Ecosystem

This type of map organizes touchpoints into the different phases within a customer journey where they play a meaningful role.  The phases will differ based on the nature of the business, but typically follow the traditional funnel or customer journey metaphor.  These touchpoints can be visualized in a simplified experience map (which Adaptive Path literally wrote the book on).

Questions that these maps address:

  • Are there any specific customer needs at different stages that we can better deliver upon?
  • Are there any business or marketing goals at different stages that we can improve upon?
  • Are there any transitions between stages where we can better progress the experience for the customer?

 

2. Connections Based Ecosystem

This type of map organizes touchpoints based on the role they play in a marketing program, and their relationship with each other.  These types of maps are particularly useful in campaign and media planning, as touchpoints are visualized according to the role they play within a marketing activation along with any connection points they may have with other touchpoints.

Questions that these maps address:

  • Where do we want to direct customers as part of a marketing program, and in what priority?
  • Do we have enough separation between the roles of touchpoints within this program? 
  • Are we providing customers with the best path to accomplish their goal and further engage?

 

3. Content Based Ecosystem

This type of map organizes touchpoints based on how they are used to publish a specific topic or communicate with a specific audience.  The topics will differ based on the organization, but should be listed as mutually exclusive and completely exhaustive.  If you produce content on this topic, it should be listed along with the corresponding digital touchpoints used to share it.

Questions that these maps address:

  • What touchpoints are the most appropriate to use for publishing this content or story from the brand? 
  • Do we have any areas where we are too deep or too shallow in promoting this type of content?
  • Are we present in the right composition of media channels to engage different customer targets?

As your digital properties, platforms, and assets continue to fragment and grow, I hope you find these models helpful in starting to get a handle on what touchpoints you have and how you can best connect the dots.

Why Would a Customer Join and Remain Engaged?

The most powerful way that digital media and technology has empowered organizations is by providing a new way to directly connect with customers.  The ability for organizations to now interact in an ongoing, personalized, and cost-effective way represents a potent new way to sell, serve, and create value.  Over the last 10 years, this capability has been embraced strategically across a number of industries:


  • CPGs fostering direct customer connections and communities, without retailer involvement or co-op dollars (e.g. Kraft)


  • Automotive OEMs creating owner portals to provide service notifications to increase repurchase and after-sales revenue (e.g. Ford)


  • Manufacturers augmenting the value and lock-in of their physical products with new digital services (e.g. Nike+)


  • Retailers establishing new promotional platforms for shoppers that provide personalized offers and valuable currency (e.g. PC Plus)


  • Telcos offering subscriber applications and programs to provide new ways to serve and increase ARPU (e.g. Bell)


  • Financial service providers creating personalized dashboards and self-service tools to increase customer retention and lower service costs (e.g. RBC)


  • Publishers creating new membership tiers and channels to distribute content and create new revenue streams (e.g. New York Times)


The list is long and the digital tactics are varied, but at the core of all of these initiatives is the same challenge: convincing a customer to join and remain engaged with a platform and a program.  To address this challenge, marketers must establish a compelling value exchange: a proposition for a customer to join and engage, with the promise of reciprocal value delivered over time. 


Establishing an effective value exchange can be challenging, as it must be attractive to the user (or they won’t join), simple for the user (or they can’t join), and achievable for the company (or they can’t afford it).  Those who get it and do it well have a broad view of what they want, what they have of value to give, and how they can establish a system that makes it simple to enroll and equitable to provide over the long term.   


Which brings us to our next framework, a model to address the Frequently Asked Digital Question (FADQ): Why would a customer join and remain engaged?


The purpose of this framework is to try and help organizations to develop a value exchange that is balanced and mutually beneficial, that includes new dimensions of value from both customer and business perspectives.  It is based on 3 steps: (1) Identify, (2) Prioritize, and (3) Equalize.


1. Identify

The first step is to generate a list of potential ways that the business and the customer can provide value, considering a broad set of value dimensions.


What will the business give?

Start with the business, and identify all of the potential relevant ways that you can provide value to your customer.  Make sure to not only focus exclusively on traditional financial and service-based benefits, but also explore a broader set of value dimensions.


  • Relevance: What additional level of customization can you provide?  This may involve more specific personalization and tailoring of treatment, content, and offers to members.


  • Utility: What digital features may be unlocked after registration?   These may be exclusive or full-version features that may only be used by recognized members.


  • Access: What digital content may be unlocked after registration?  This may include access to exclusive data, premium content, and full-length versions.


  • Status: What level of public recognition can you provide?  These may involve ways to allow a member to be recognized, to project status, and to experience social esteem.


  • Influence: What level of ‘insider’ influence can you provide?  This may involve providing members with access to an exclusive community and opportunities to provide input to the brand.


  • Service: What service and transactional advantages can you offer?  These may include more privileged ways to treat members, reducing friction from service experiences.


  • Pricing: What pricing advantages can you offer?  These may be one-time advantages to incent registration and ongoing discounts for members.


What will the customer give?

Next, explore all of the different ways that a customer can provide you as a business with value.  And in the era of social media and data analytics, many of these dimensions may actually fuel more relevant interactions and enhance the overall value exchange.


  • Information: What personal data can a member provide?  This may range from data required for the program to actually function, to data that may be interesting to other business areas.


  • Permission: What additional terms will a member agree to?  Beyond legislated opt-in, these are other permission areas that are valuable to a business for a member to accept.


  • Connection: What other networks can the member connect to?  These may involve connections to social networks, providing data back to the business and permission to post to the member’s network.


  • Endorsement: What attribute or product can a member endorse?  These may involve ways in which a member can positively and publicly validates a brand, product, or claim to increase reputation.


  • Contribution: What content or input will a member provide?  These may be user-generated content elements or input provided publicly by a member such as shares, reviews, and comments.


  • Participation: What other actions can a member engage in?  These may include different dimensions of digital engagement, such as time, frequency, duration, and key actions within a platform.


  • Payment: What might a customer pay for?  This may be a one-time registration cost and ongoing subscription-based payments for longer-term access.


2. Prioritize

After generating your long list of various ways that a business and a customer may provide value to each other, the next step is to prioritize the strongest candidates.


For the business, prioritize the potential benefits offered according to:

  • Desirability to Customer: What is most attractive to my customer?


  • Feasibility to Business: What is least costly for my business to provide?


The strongest candidates are those that are most attractive and least costly.


For the customer, prioritize the potential contributions required according to:

  • Desirability to Business: What is most valuable to my business?


  • Feasibility to Customer: What is most acceptable for my customer to provide?


The strongest candidates are those that are most valuable and most acceptable.


3. Equalize

The final step is to establish an effective balance, pairing the right set of benefits provided by the business to the related contributions required by the customer.  The relationship must be clear and the value must be mutual.  It is best to begin with a core value exchange (represented by the inner circle of the model) and plan to broaden out the exchange over time to increase overall value (represented by the outer rings in the model).


As always, I’d love to hear any thoughts that you may have on this framework or your experiences in establishing a value exchange for your brand or business.  In the meantime, I hope that you join the Kickframe newsletter and remain engaged with what we share with you.

What Should We Talk About?

Organizations are entering into a new phase of integrating social media into their business and marketing plans.  Over the past few years, many companies have established a social media footprint complete with branded platforms, content publication, and community management.  Now with Facebook ostensibly becoming paid media and new platforms emerging based on private networks, executives are taking a more strategic look at the role of social media and its expected contribution back to the business. 

 

Once these new goals and priorities for social media have been established or re-calibrated (‘the why’), the next step for organizations is to determine the right value proposition for their involvement (‘the what’).  Specifically, this involves defining the particular topics the brand will publish to and be actively engaged in. Too often, marketers rush to and fixate on optimizing for audience engagement with ongoing changes to content format, frequency, and voice (‘the how’).  While these are all important components to consider and optimize over time, they are worthless without a clear and strategic proposition.

 

Crisply defining a focus the topic(s) that you as a brand are to be active in (and not active in) is critical.  Social media by its very nature has no boundaries and is constantly changing. Establishing the right proposition allows marketers to focus on what is most critical and avoid endlessly chasing trends and dousing fires.

 

Which brings us to our first framework, a model to address the Frequently Asked Digital Question (FADQ): What should we talk about?

 

The following framework attempts to bring a simple structure to an exercise of defining and aligning the right mix of topics for a brand to engage in.  As with many aspects of digital marketing, this is an area where it is often difficult to ‘connect the dots’ and ensure that business needs, customer interests, and marketplace opportunities are aligned.

1. The Brand

Motivation: Starting from your business objectives (‘the why’), identify all of the potential topics that you as a brand would like to be involved in and influence.  These are areas where the business may want to affect public perception in some way, demonstrate leadership in a category or cause, or lead to a direct commercial outcome.

 

Authority: Next, distill possible topics into areas where you have credibility—ideally recognized by your target audience—to engage and publish in.  These are topics where the business may have a core competency or an information advantage over competitors.

 

2. The Audience

Attraction: Starting from the general space where the target audience naturally intersects the brand, identify all of the potential topics that this community finds particularly interesting.  These are areas that are relevant throughout the year, and may involve passion points or achievement of a particular goal.

 

Disclosure: Next, distill possible topics into those areas where people will engage publicly through social media.  Typically these are areas where a person wants to project and endorse a particular association, while avoiding matters that are personally sensitive or potentially embarrassing.

 

3. The Marketplace

Commonality: Starting with the output from the Brand and Audience analysis, identify overlapping topics of common interest.  Group common topics, and keep others separate.

 

Opportunity: Next, compare these shared topics to existing conversation in social media to identify areas of opportunity.  These opportunity spaces typically involve topics with a lack of quality content or have an opening for a new, different perspective.

 

4. The Topics

Finally, review these remaining topics and analyze the degree to which they relate to each other.  If there are several topics, analyze each to understand the degree to which they accomplish the original business objectives (‘the why’) and prioritize accordingly. 

 

From here, identify your topic(s) with the most potential (‘the what’) and move forward with defining the corresponding activation plan (‘the how’).

 

As social media continues to evolve, it is important for organizations to have solid strategic footing.  Establishing a clear focus for topics of conversation is a critical piece of the puzzle.

 

 

The Digital Strategy Toolbox: The Plan

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have always been interested in strategic frameworks. Sketching them, using them, cursing them…well-designed frameworks properly used can be very powerful tools.  So, I am embracing my unhealthy interest in frameworks (there are worse vices) and starting what I see as a sort of ‘open-source’ digital strategy toolbox.  Since sharing this admittedly vague idea, I have received quite a bit of interest from folks asking for more scoop (Hi Michel Tjoeng!) The following is a bit more detail on what I have in mind.  As the initiative is designed to be participatory by nature, I would love to hear any feedback that you may have to make it more interesting and valuable to you.

 

The Goal: Better Decisions

The primary goal of this initiative is to help people make better decisions relating to different areas of digital strategy.  Above all else, this is the purpose of the initiative.  That said, I do have a selfish secondary goal: to meet, collaborate with, and learn from other like-minded folks who share my interest in this area. I want to make better decisions, too.

 

The Output: Useful Tools

The aim of this program is to produce a collection of digital strategy frameworks.  Each framework will be focused on a specific aspect or decision relating to digital strategy that is important and frequently considered (potential topics below).  The intended audience includes individuals and groups planning digital programs—a mix of strategists, facilitators, marketers, product owners, and startups.  Each framework will be a planning tool (a visual structure) with process directions (a written set of instructions).  The structure and level of detail for each framework will try to strike that tricky balance: “make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler”.  The overall guiding principle: to be useful.

 

The Approach: Organized Chaos

Admittedly, this is the part of the project that is fuzziest and where I expect things evolve the most: how we work together.  To start, the goal is to complete an individual framework every month.  Throughout each month, we will go through 4 gates:

  1. Introduce & Focus Topic
  2. Share Thoughts & Findings
  3. Post Draft for Feedback & Test-Drive
  4. Publish Final Version for Use

Your input and feedback is invited/required throughout.

 

The Topics: FA(DS)Qs

Below is an initial high-level list of potential areas to explore: Frequently Asked Digital Strategy Questions.  It is absolutely not exhaustive, in no way mutually exclusive, and in no particular order (how is that for a caveat?).  It is a start:

  • Channels & Touchpoints: What mediums and platforms should we use, in what role?
  • Devices & Platforms: How will what we provide differ across devices and platforms?
  • Value & Engagement: What proposition can we provide that will attract, over time?
  • Principles & Positioning: How will we deliver an experience that is authentic and differentiated?
  • Customers & Communities: Whom are we targeting and how can we best engage?
  • Experiences & Moments: How will we provide the right user experience, capitalize on key moments?
  • Content & Conversation: What are we going to create, share, talk about?
  • Prioritization & Phasing: What is most important, and what comes first? Next?
  • Value & Monetization: How do we generate positive ongoing revenue and value?
  • Measurement & Optimization: How are we going to measure and improve performance over time?

 

The Platform: Kickframe.com

To start, my plan is to house the content and input in a separate section on Kickframe.com.  I will publish the material as posts, and feedback will be captured in the comments.  If we have enough participants and contributions I will move it over to a richer collaboration platform.  To keep up-to-date, you can sign-up for updates on the blog, follow @kickframe, and/or sign-up for the Kickframe monthly newsletter.  Again, very open to suggestions here to make things easier and more interesting for you.

 

Next Steps: Over To You

I’d love to know your thoughts on what you think of the initiative and the plan, specifically:

  • Does the process seem clear and logical?
  • Would you like to more or less involved?  How?
  • Are these topics relevant?  Anything to add/remove/edit?
  • Is there a better platform that we should be using coming out of the game to collaborate, communicate, and share?

 

All feedback most welcome! 

We’ll kick off May 1st