tdog.blog

If your current ad agency/interactive firm/PR firm fits any of the following, be afraid. If they meet five or more of these anti-criteria, run for the door.

1. Still thinks that the Web is just “TV with a mouse.”
2. Still thinks that web = branding, instead of web = content/information.
3. Killer marketing solution = print newsletter.
4. Killer marketing solution = email newsletter that’s just a print newsletter ported to HTML.
5. Wants to build a Flash-only site for your business.
6. Still trying to figure out “this whole SEO thing.”
7. Doesn’t really want to deal with accessibility, not really.
8. Thinks that online PR is simply sending “best of breed” press releases through PRWeb.com.
9. Thinks that social media = blogging.
10. Thinks that social media = Facebook.
11. Thinks that social media = Twitter.
12. Thinks Facebook is “just for kids.”
13. Doesn’t know what Twitter is.
14. Suggests that Twitter is a good place to post links to all those online press releases.
15. Wants to send press releases to all those bloggers. Every day.
16. Insists on spending $250,000 on snazzy commercial video instead of $100 on a DIY YouTube video that has some humanity, humor, and heart.
17. Suggests that you figure out how to draw attention to your new site with a “Facebook competition” or “Blogging Scavenger Hunt.”
18. Wants you to blog, but doesn’t want you to turn on comments.
19. Two words: Banner ads.
20. Wants to spend a quarter million dollars developing a lame advergame for the iPhone.
21. Thinks that RSS is “too technical” for anyone to understand.
22. Wants to design a web site for you, but without any input from an information architect or usability expert.
23. Thinks that interruption-based advertising still has a place at the table of high-integrity marketing approaches.
24. Wants to pay people to ghost-blog for you.
25. Cornerstone of CEO blog strategy = let the admin assistant write it.
26. Not understanding how insanely passionate and focused bloggers are, and what big allies they might become.
27. Doesn’t endorse Facebook for your company, because then you might have “weird ads in the sidebar.”

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There’s a different air about this SxSW, that’s for sure. Last year, we had the Zuckerberg/Lacey disaster, where the audience was tweeting away while the oblivious panelists just kept yammering about irrelevant stuff. This year, we had panel after panel (including mine, “Your First Year in Freelancing”) using Twitter to gather instant feedback and questions from the audience. 

The Small World Labs guys did it right — Sam Eder served as e-moderator (twitterator?), keeping the panel moving along by gathering and sythesizing tweets. I had a much smaller group (a room for 20 had 40 folks in it) and had set up a few hashtags (#geektopeak and #g2p) and at some point, the questions and conversations with those hash tags got too much to follow, so I went back to the audience directly. 

Here’s another thing I noticed: everyone is talking about ROI in social media. Realism. Pragmatism. It’s quite energizing, really. We’ve had these tools for a while, now we’re trying to make sense of them. Some of us are working at places where social media is the next big scary thing, and just being with folks who are also grappling with all this stuff fills me with hope. We’re on to something important here, and now there’s just this confident air that we will get it right, eventually.

In the “Selling Social Media to the Man” panel, I loved what Peter Kim had to say: “Either be the catalyst for change with social media, or get a new job.” I think he’s started something interesting. There’s going to be a huge shift of people and talent from old, stodgy places that put their thumbs down over to more progressive firms that embrace not only these new tools, but the new outlooks and DNA that these tools represent.

One of the things I’ve said since the beginning of Triple Dog Dare Media was: Fail fast. Don’t linger and dawdle. Figure what does and doesn’t work. Throw out what doesn’t. Move, move, move. And social media is like that, which I deeply respect. However, most corporate cultures don’t allow (or reward) failure. These places are going to have to deal with all of us out here who have been imbued with these technologies and philosophies.

SxSW Interactive 2009 is only half over, and I’m already brimming with ideas, plans, and thoughts about the future. After such a crappy 2008, it sure is good to feel good.

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If you’re of a certain age group, and by certain age group I mean “impossibly hip and tragically cool people who were entering adolescence around 1982 or 1983 or 1984 and were therefore steeping in the pop culture offerings of Duran Duran, Van Halen, time-traveling De Loreans, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg generally, and mucho mas” then the headline of this blog post is pretty self evident.

Seriously, how many posers did you meet in junior and senior high? How many of us were accused by our peers of being posers of one kind or another? Right? Right? You know what I’m talking about, oh members of my ungreatest generation.

There was always that klutzy kid, par example, who couldn’t stay on a skateboard to save his life dressing up as a skate rat, complete with the haircut and the anarchist symbol around his neck.

Oh, the scorn heaped upon this kid’s head by the real skate rats. Until, that is, the kid learned how to skate, maybe starting with kickflips and moving on to vert ramps, et cetera, et cetera. But even after that, it may have taken a while for the scorn levels to descend to non-lethal levels.

Same thing happens when you, the running dog capitalist, enter a niche that isn’t inside your normal sphere of knowledge or influence. Think computerphobe trying to market to the enterprise software space. You have to really really really really work your butt off to get there. Not so much if you’re marketing to other computerphobes. If you’re a computerphobe trying to market to other computerphobes, suddenly you’re no longer a poser.

You’re the real deal! You can talk about your frustration with this or that, your common hatred for technology, your workarounds for stalled software or junky hardware. You’re able to make sound and useful recommendations for this or that product, nudging people towards microsites or affiliate products that will help them.

In fact, you’re not really marketing any more, not really, right? You’re helping. You’re informing. You’re educating. You’re empowering. And if you do it right, you’re making some money in the bargain, and there isn’t anything wrong with that.

Bottom line is, there are millions of opportunities out there for the niche marketer. Why spend time and energy in places where you’ll lose all credibility? Why be that kid with the clothes and haircut but no actual skills or props?

Now, there is a way to actually become a viable part of any community, but I’ll talk about that a little later. But only if you promise to use your knowledge for good and not evil.

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There are lots and lots of reasons why marketers fail, really, but there’s one BIG giant reason why you keep missing your goals: you play it safe.

Part of me gets this. Really. In the old pre-Web days, you paid through the nose to get print collateral out the door. You had to live by certain constraints (get it to the printer on time, distribute it a certain way, multiple signoffs along the way). You agonized over the copy, the design, every little aspect of branding. Usually in committee.

If your brochure or poster came back with so much as the wrong color register–better redo it! At huge expense.

So yeah, you had limited budget, unlimited micromanagement overhead and a bunch of sissies hanging around worrying if the new logo might not offend some unheard-of demographic who probably don’t even buy your product.

The end result? Your collateral had to be as drab, boring, and vanilla as possible. You only had the money for one brochure, not five or six. So what if you really needed to target C-suite executives differently than you did the software engineering managers or the QA geeks? It’s all the same, right? They’ll just pass the brochure along with little helpful notes stuck to them! Because everyone loves brochures! Let’s go read one right now.

Guess what? You live in a new world! Your customers want to read blog posts about you, subscribe to RSS feeds, tweet about you, bookmark you on Delicious, yack about you on forums. If they can’t find you, they’ll just talk about you like you weren’t even there, which, if you think about it, is pretty true.

The problem is, you may be living in this brave new world but you haven’t bothered to remove the shackles and blinders from the old world. It’s like you’re wearing some kind of lo-jack on your leg. Out here, you can create exquisitely targeted emails, blogs, and landing pages. (Hardly anyone bothers.) You can create authentic voices that don’t sound like the product of a brain-dead committee of MBAs. (That’s way scary!) You can be sassy, peppy, and full of life. (Oops, let the lawyers review the web copy first! That’ll zing it up.) You can show how much you love your product and how excited you are about the space you’re in. (I just work here.)

Out here, NICHE IS NICE! In fact, niche is to marketing as design is to competitiveness. Good design (see: iPod) can lead to more sales (see: Apple’s recent great numbers). Stodgy crap (read: anything Microsoft) can lead to missed numbers and layoffs.

Same goes for you, my marketing brethren and sisthren. Focus. Reach out to a niche. Don’t have a clue what niche you need to be in? Your customers will tell you! Doesn’t matter what business you’re in, there’s an untapped, undiscovered niche of people thirsting for some attention and devotion. They’re the 20% of your customers who give you 80% of your sales. Or might, if  you would just listen to what they’re already saying!

Believe me, if you give them some love, they’ll reward you with sales, and profits, and glory, and fame, and galactic conquest! (Oh wait, sorry about that.)

Now go out there and WIN.

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In just a very short while, Barack Obama will become our 44th president. Change indeed has come to the USA, and its because of a whole bunch of hard-working folks all across the nation. Whichever side you were on during the elections, you have to admit that it was heartwarming to see such a high level of participation in presidential politics.

Something that is troubling though, and I guess I should have expected it, is the sudden appearance of the Obama Niche. Just about anything that will hold his name or image is being sold, hawked, peddled, and moved. It’s almost like those guys who hoard bottled water before a hurricane and then sell it to desperate people at cutthroat prices.

Hell, some would argue that the timing of this blog post is designed to attract some kind of attention, and I guess you’d be right about it.

Don’t get me wrong. Anything in the world can become a niche. Anything. Even the man who will be our leader.

So your question to me is, “Is there a right way and a wrong way to handle public events or personages?” Think back to all the folks who made a buck off the sudden passing of Princess Diana. In the midst of all that outpouring of grief we got a mailer for “commemorative china” with her likeness on it. Meh.

The point is, people wanted that stuff, and if I guess you’re in the “commemorative china” business, then go for it. Otherwise, I think it’s a bit tacky. Beyond the tackiness, you have to consider the ephemeral nature of such things. We’re about to hit the high water mark of the Obama niche. Give it about 90-100 days into his administration, and the bloom will be off the rose.

If you’re in the Obama Niche, better get ready to move on to the next thing, or you’ll be left holding a whole lot of bags, each filled to the brim with t-shirts, caps, mugs, tea towels, christmas ornaments, dinnerware, and whatever else has the man’s visage on it.

The only smart way to handle niches like this is to either have extraordinary (and uncanny) market timing, or to be an expert in ephemeral niches. In other words, you’ve either got to be really lucky, or really experienced at working these kinds of deals. I suspect that anyone who has the latter probably has any number of things going on at the same time.

(And if that’s true, I can’t help but chuckle at the niche marketing firm handling Tonya Harding, Michael Jackson, Girls Gone Wild, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles all at the same time, then suddenly moving on to whatever is hot next. Must be exhausting. Better have a good system.)

In any case, it’s time to watch the inaugural, so I’ll leave us to it.

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