Posts Tagged ‘Experience’

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Enough About ROI Already!

Since One On One ventured into the digital landscape these past couple of years, we’ve had numerous clients ask how they could move their own brands into the space. Inevitably, the question of “is it worth it?” always crops up.

It’s understandable to be wary of something new; after all, we all have businesses to manage and failure is a good motivator to keep things as they are. Lately, there’s been a big push to uncover the ROI of digital marketing. If you read as many blogs as I do, you’ll find daily postings looking for or touting “tried and true” ways to deliver ROI. My question is, are you toiling as much over the ROI of your newspaper campaigns?

It’s All The Same (but Different)

Look, digital marketing is still marketing. Talking to a client on Facebook can be similar to talking to them through a radio spot. The difference? One approach can be more conversational. Note, I said can be, not is. That approach is up to you. The exciting thing is, we have more choice and more ways to engage our audience. It behooves us to try them out.

The Good and the Bad Sides of Measurement

What gets a lot of people excited is how measurable everything can be. Facebook insights, Google analytics, Twitter stats. Each serves to give you a better picture of who you’re interacting with and what these people are doing. But, you can get lost in a sea of measurement and none of it will actually tell you what to do next. That’s where your marketing savvy comes in. And frankly, that’s where the hard work comes in too. Is Twitter perfect for all businesses? Absolutely not. Is Facebook great for some? Without a doubt. Will Search work for you? It depends.


Conversation on Twitter

So What About that ROI?

Let me ask you this: what’s the ROI of a golf game with a client? Can you effectively say those 9 or 18 holes resulted in the sale of x-more widgets? How about those newspaper ads? You got your message in front of 2 million potential customers, but did they see the ad? Did they remember it? Did they act? What’s the ROI of that newspaper ad?

I can’t tell you what the ROI of Twitter is but I do know this.
It can work very well.

I’m the Marketing Director for a local, not-for profit cinema—a pro-bono client for One On One—which has no budget for any traditional marketing. Instead, I try everything I can to communicate with our customers–Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, e-News, and a slew of other technologies. Do all of them work? Some better than others. But they all require work, and patience and time.

A few days ago I tweeted what was playing at the cinema that evening—this is just one of the ways we let people know what’s happening. One of our followers replied that she was excited to see a particular documentary. I tweeted back, hoping she enjoy the show and suggesting she bring a friend to this important documentary. She later replied she had “persuaded” a couple of friends to tag along.

How’s that for ROI?

Posted: December 14, 2010 by mcharbonneau | View Comments
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Finding Your Groove

I’ll admit, we’ve been struggling to keep this blog going. It’s not that we don’t want to, it’s simply finding the time to do so. Ironically, we’re always telling clients who are thinking of starting a blog that they’ll need to commit to it and continually create content. And that it’s hard to do so. Alas, for us it’s like that story of the cobbler’s son having no shoes.

The first stumbling block—at least as we’ve come across it—is figuring out how often you should post. However, there’s no right answer.

Personally, I follow quite a few blogs (and write my own, personal blog). Some are written daily, others every few days and others still, once a week or more. But when you’re immersed in a world of information that’s shooting 140-character snippets at you every second, with RSS feeds that stack up with dozens (or more) of full-page blog posts every single day, it’s easy to feel like you need to hurry up and contribute to the noise. But that’s where you need to step back and take stock of what it is you’re trying to accomplish.

Do you know who you’re talking to? (Yes) Do you know what to say? (Mostly) Is it relevant? (We hope so) The “how often” is less important. Having something to say and saying it consistently is more important. So whether you post every day, or once a week, just keep at it and it’ll work out in the end.

Posted: November 25, 2010 by mcharbonneau | View Comments
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Geeking on Arcade Fire

Screengrab during playback of the Wilderness Downtown film

Please allow me a moment to geek out.

This article is less about Arcade Fire’s latest album, The Suburbs, which is fine in its own right, and more about their experimental film created by Chris Milk. The film uses HTML5, the latest revision of the HTML web language, plus the band’s song We Used to Wait to tell an immersive story. As you watch the film, you’ll find multiple windows opening, moving and resizing to choreographed points in the song, plus custom Google maps (which should look familiar) featuring animated composites and more. It’s a great demo of both technology and people’s ingenuity.

But enough talk. Head over to www.thewildernessdowntown.com to see experience the film for yourself. One caveat: you should install Google’s Chrome browser for the best performance.

Posted: September 2, 2010 by mcharbonneau | View Comments
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Tweetindipity

I love Twitter.

Like everyone else, it took me a period of adjustment to “get it” but once I did, I fell in love with Twitter wholeheartedly. Why? In part because of it’s immediacy. It can also lead you to so many different places; down the rabbit hole, as it were. If you’ve ever spent an evening at home clickling your way through “if you like this artist, you’ll like…” links in iTunes, you’ll know what I mean. But mostly, I love Twitter because of serendipity. In my opinion, it is by far the most serendipitous social network out there. Let me give you an example.

This morning I was scanning through my Twitter list when I came upon this tweet from C.C. Chapman: “One of my favorite views…”. Naturally curious,
I clicked through to see a picture taken from his perspective in the back of a canoe. His son is paddling in front of him, his daughter sits squarely in the centre and his wife is at the front. The canoe floats quietly on a lake covered in lily pads and the scene is very peaceful. As an outdoorsy guy myself, it inspired me to look into canoes at Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC).

Upon landing on their home page, I spied a link to MEC Paddlefest, an annual celebration of canoeing and kayaking. I clicked through to discover that the event will be in Toronto, in our neck of the woods, in two weeks. I called to check the availability for the Canoeing for Parents and Kids program and $11.30 later, we were booked.

I then returned to my Twitter client—Hootsuite—and tweeted: “Inspired by cc_chapman’s photo, I’ve signed up for Canoeing for Parents and Kids as part of MEC’s #paddlefest. Can’t wait!” He responded with: “Awesome! It is a great family activity and SO peaceful. Hope you guys enjoy it.” and then re-tweeted my original post adding “This made my morning.” Indeed, and my morning too.

How has Twitter opened up the world for you?

Posted: June 1, 2010 by mcharbonneau | View Comments
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When Will It All End?

Screengrab of scanned barcodeThat’s a common question we get from people entering the social fray. “Facebook. Twitter. Foursquare. When does it end?”

It doesn’t. And that’s a good thing.

The latest social network I’ve looked into is called Stickybits. Where Facebook connects you to a network of friends and Foursquare connects you to a location, Stickybits does this with both and a brand. How does it work? First, you download an application to your mobile device (only Android and iPhones thus far), then scan anything that has a barcode–a granola bar, a box of Band-Aids, a bottle of Coke. Stickybits then asks you to attach a note, photo, video or audio clip which it then sends (with your location) to a stream where others from around the world can share.

What’s the point?

Well, I could scan a can of Guinness and send like-minded drinkers a cheers from Toronto. I could scan a food product and send along a recipe for others to try out. As David Berkowitz from Inside the Marketer’s Studio explains: “People are already experimenting with Stickybits in cases such as scavenger hunts and business cards. Soon enough, brands will get to take control of their own bits and share their own messages with consumers. Right now, it’s all about having fun, and with any luck it will largely stay that way.”

But what about the numbers? Exactly how many people are doing this and do I really need to be there? The answers: not many and probably not yet. Maybe never. But with all things social, you should be less concerned with how many people you’re hitting and working toward conversing with those that matter to you and your brand. Will Stickybits work for you and your business? Perhaps. The key is to keep yourself open to these new opportunities and decide for yourself if you should embrace them or not.

Are you ready for the next thing?

Posted: May 5, 2010 by mcharbonneau | View Comments
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