https://soundcloud.com/newfangled-agency-marketing-matters/episode-10-tell-them-what-you-do-and-what-to-do/s-mtvgp
Lauren Siler:
Hello and welcome to Newfangled’s Agency Marketing Matters podcast. It’s a bi-monthly program where we get together to discuss the changing landscape of digital marketing. At Newfangled, we empower agencies to generate ideal new business opportunities through creating a nurturing digital marketing systems and habits that have a measurable impact on their bottom line. The stuff is constantly changing, so there is always a lot of interesting things for us to talk about. We are excited that you are joining us. My name is Lauren Siler. I am the Director of Marketing here at Newfangled.
Chris Butler:
I am Chris Butler. I am the COO of Newfangled.
Mark O’Brien:
I am Mark O’Brien. I am the CEO of Newfangled.
Chris:
We are going to do a few things this time. Number one, we are going to change the format a little bit. Past episodes we have had a conversation and that has been it. We want to add a few things to the program. Number one, we want to tell you something that we are excited about. Something that we have observed with a client or internally that we think you would be interested to hear about. So, we are going to talk about that. Each one of us will share something. Then, we do have a topic that we want to sort-of batter on a little bit. Then we are going to close out by telling you what to do next. In fact, there are a bunch of things that we think on our site that you should read or take a look at. I think each one of us has a recommendation to share. Lets start off with something interesting. Mark, what is interesting right now?
Mark:
I think it is interesting that Lauren nailed the intro on her first take.
Lauren:
I’m a total pro.
Chris
That was pretty good.
Mark:
Well, this is an internal thing. Today we’re just back from our traction off-site. A year and a half ago, we decided to implement the entrepreneurial operating system. The EOS program that was created by Gina Wickman, who is the author of the book Traction a lot of you have probably heard of that book. Basically what it is, is a system that people, entrepreneurial organizations, like ours and yours, can use to bring a little more corporate rigor measurement and analysis to the day to day scenario. We’ve found it incredibly helpful and it has driven a ton of change inside of Newfangled and we have also worked with lots of agencies who have implemented the program with great success as well. Yesterday was really fun because it was the most efficient offsite. You do quarterly off-sites as part of this. We had one yesterday, it was probably our seventh or so off-site. It went really, really well. I feel like we have finally now gotten the hang of Traction after doing it for a year and a half. Its been a benefit since day one, but it feels like part of the culture now. For me, that is really exciting to see that take hold and for us to have a real foot-hold inside of that system, Traction with Traction. That is my good news.
Chris:
That’s a good one. If you out there and Traction is of interest to you, you should check it out. It has definitely transformed our team.
Mark:
Yeah. 100%.
Chris:
We know there is definitely some agencies who have worked with that, that have had similar transformations as a result of Traction, so check it out. On that note, actually, I am working with an agency right now that is in the process of the transformation. We are working with an agency. What I’m excited about is they came back with their design and I’ve been coaching them on for a few months now on thinking more strategically about their design choices and whether or not they are going to help them achieve their marketing goals. They came back with their design and it was a very exciting moment, just looking what they produced. This is an agency in Minneapolis named Azul Seven. They have a really strong design sensibility. They are passionate about design and I just loved what they produced. I told them on the phone that this was probably the most original synthesis that I had seen of our recommendations, just because of who they are. That was really exciting to see. They are excited about the design. I think they are probably going to be launching in the next few months. It was one of those moments where I was like, man I am really glad to be a part of this.
Lauren:
Yeah. Getting to see that kind of transformation inside of an agency up close is really fun. It is a fun part of what we do. That actually really is something that I am really excited to share about today. Which is, the kind of internal transition and transformation around marketing that we have seen with a content that we are working with on content strategy. That is with Woodruff Sweitzer, who we have been working with for several months now on adopting their first content strategy. They are a really interesting firm because they have grown over the years through acquisition. As a result, they have five different offices across the United States and Canada. They haven’t really approached content marketing before. They have done such a beautiful job of adopting a content strategy that requires collaboration across all of those five offices. It is a pretty aggressive plan. They are sustaining two different market place positions, so they have got a content strategy that is specific to ag focus and they’ve got a content strategy that is specific to pet health in the market. Each content strategy is distinct. They’ve got teams applied to each one. They’ve got people collaborating across all of their offices. It has really worked out so beautifully and seamlessly. To see the internal culture around content marketing, really be born at this firm and be executed again so successfully, has been just a lot of fun and really inspiring to watch happen over these last several months.
Chris:
I love the idea that an idea, not a technology is the thing that’s sort of unifying five different offices. Right?
Lauren:
Yeah.
Chris:
Because a lot of times, you would think about, how do you make sure that five different offices in different geographical locations could work together? Well, we will do this teleconferencing thing and it’s not about that at all.
Lauren:
Right.
Chris:
Which is very very school.
Lauren:
Exactly, yeah.
Chris:
So, I guess we can go from there into what we are going to talk about today, which is loosely related, it is kind of related to everything we do. We have been talking a lot about the design of marketing over the last quarter. It has been our theme. Something that I have been finding myself saying over and over again and I mentioned to you guys in different conversations. From my perspective, everything that we are advising our clients to do when it manifests visually, kind of comes down to two different rules. Two rules, that’s it. It’s just tell them what you do. Right? And then tell them what to do. That’s it. If you get your positioning right, if you are articulated, whether that’s at a top level on-sight or deep within their content marketing program and then make it clear what the action is. That is all that matters and yet that is so easy to stumble over or to forget about or to do backward. It’s just an interesting, really simple proposition, but I could apply that to every stage, or every aspect of what we do. If I were to look over anyone’s shoulder at Newfangled, you could probably take that idea and apply it to something that is being done or something that is being thought through.
Mark:
So, what is an example of that? When you are looking at an agencies site that is just starting to work with us. Maybe it is Azul, Woodruff, or somebody else. How would the typical agency not tell them what they do and tell the prospect what to do?
Chris:
Yeah, there is a million, but here is the classic example that we have been seeing for years and years and years. Agency so and so from some place has been looking at the big players in the agency world for years and they want their site to look as cool as that site. Most of those sites operate completely differently. They don’t understand that that site actually doesn’t serve a business development purpose. They have the liberty to do whatever the heck they want and those sites sometimes are like games, or sometimes are like looking at Sports Center. You know? Sometimes they are like looking at a news site. There are a grid of all kinds of things and nothing really makes sense, but it doesn’t matter. It looks exciting. So, what ends up happening is that an agency that is relying upon their site to help them with business development, will look at that and not understand that their emulating a site that has no need to tell anyone what they do. So, they don’t write on their homepage what their position is in the marketplace. They don’t tell the viewer or the visitor of the site who they work with best or what they can offer. So, that is a big hole and then a corresponding hole that even the agencies that get that, tend to miss, is that they forget to do that everywhere else. They might do that on the homepage. They might say this is what we do and going here to learn more, but they forget that 99.9% of their featured traffic is going to come in through a lower level page and you land on that page and you get an interesting logo, but you get no other information.
Lauren:
Yeah, I mean, do you think it’s because these agencies are maybe a little too close to their own brand? Right? We sort of assume that the market knows who we are and we put so much effort into the homepage anyway, so we are putting that messaging on that sort-of what we see as the front door of the site, when people are not other areas. We just sort-of assume that of course they know where they are or what the background or history or context is here.
Chris:
That’s right, yeah. An agency that we are very close to and have worked with for many years. I use them over and over again as an example of how to do this right, which is Big Duck Communications in New York. There name alone doesn’t tell you anything about what they do and that’s okay. That’s the liberty you have, if you can find a really simple way of covering that base elsewhere. If you land on any page on their site, from anywhere, it says right next to Big Duck, smart communications for non-profits. Four words, in a nutshell, gets done a big job. I’m never unclear or no one would ever be unclear about what they do and so, they are a great example, where you don’t have to put that information in the name, if you don’t want to. They could even have just a logo mark, if they wanted to, as long as that tag line is there.
Mark:
And this relates to another thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot and has come up in some bar different con-initiatives, in terms of public speaking, the webinar we did today, which is, your two points are, tell them what you do and tell them what to do. This pursues all that, which is what do you want to do? Right? I think this is a really interesting idea and something that I think few of us think about enough. What do we actually want to be doing with our firms? This goes back to what we started with at the beginning, when I talked about traction. Traction is all about looking at that. What do you want your firm to be in ten years, in three years, in one year, this quarter, this week? Going out big picture, letting loose of all things that are binding you. Letting loose of all of the ties of reality that are defining who you have to be at this moment and really thinking big picture about what kind of firm you should be. The entire exercise of it is pretty exciting, but once you do figure that out, getting to the idea of being specific about what you do.
Lauren:
Yeah, and I think keeping in mind that there are different ways that that messaging, that articulation of what you do can manifest itself from the site. You may have your big positioning statement on the home page and we talk about sometimes having a reassurance statement beneath that, that gives a little bit more clarity or context to that positioning statement, but then finding a way to distill that down to just the few words that can exist visually across the site, multiple different templates, so that the prospect, the visitor, always has that context to remember where they are. It doesn’t have to be the full-blown positioning statement.
Mark:
Right.
Chris
Right. And this is sort of a concept that I think, per Mark’s point, is it’s a tool which you can zoom in and out at any point. So, you could take that concept and zoom all the way out to the inception of the business. What exactly are we here to do or what do we want to do next? You can also zoom all the way in to the most trivial interaction details possible. I think that is what is profound to me, is the more I review the way the agencies sort of express themselves on their sites, the more I realize that it does always come down to that. Even if they get the positioning thing right, what I see over and over again is that they forget about what happens next. It’s like, okay, you’ve got this beautiful positioning statement and you’ve got this beautiful reassurance statement, and you’ve got a button to learn more, but you linked me to a PDF.
Mark:
Right.
Chris:
Or you linked me directly to a contact form, when you have this whole other section that you have designed to explain your services better, why wouldn’t you point me over there? Then, if you are going to put me over there, you go back to that again, tell them what you do, go deeper, tell them what to do next and that applies everywhere.
Lauren:
Yeah, and it’s true, particularly on the, tell them what you do side, but we also see it on the tell them what to do side. We think about different content types and different content portfolio that would be associated with having different CTAs associated with different content types. So, different actions that you would want people to take, whether they were on a blog or white paper, webinar, what have you, but we see those forms buried in all kinds of places on the site and there is not intuitive to the reader. What am I supposed to do when I arrive here? We see all the time on a blog template page, we’ll have a wonderful expertise and thought-leadership, but the call to action to learn more or sign-up to receive those updates to your email, or even go under related material. It is all buried at the bottom of that template because it is just where all of the stuff goes after we get through the thought-leadership. Thinking about more strategic ways to approach that, by designing those templates so that that call of action is in the side bar. It’s really easy and accessible as the reader is going and skimming through that article to see if they want to be able to sign-up for that blog. It is right there. You are not relying on them to get to the end of the page. That is another example of making it really clear what the readers supposed to do, based on this particular template.
Mark:
I think it comes down to it being really intentional and everything we are talking about today and everything we ever talk about is boiled down to just a few ideas. One, to give yourself the freedom to think about what you should be doing as a firm and to take that very seriously. The freedom to think about that and to make a decision about who you want to be in the future, regardless of who you are today and that is always true for any agency at any stage. So, one be in touch about who you should be. Two, be brave enough to say it, on your site, in a very specific way throughout your site, in the ways that are appropriate on different pages of the site, so that long version of it, the median version of it, the short version of it. Three, make it easy for your prospects to identify themselves, as you are saying Lauren, to really sign-up there in the research stage or the evaluator stage or the purchase stage, to allow them to engage on their own terms so that they can get to know you as you express yourself through your content strategy and they can self select and graduate themselves through the marketing prospect stage to the point that they are ready to speak with you about doing those things.
Chris:
Right. That is actually such a huge point that has clicked with me many, many times and I see it getting lost when a client is applying all the things that they learn about content marketing, whether it is through us or not. That is an epiphany, but I see in the application there is a hole, which is, you are trying to take that interest and graduate it and that is the perfect word.
Mark:
Yeah.
Chris:
If they are a researcher and they have found your expertise through some Google search or some social media or for all. They’re not interested in who you are, they are interested in the material that you have to share, but you need to take that interest and graduate it to something that is a little more business focused. Because it could remain interest forever.
Lauren:
Right.
Chris:
You know and I think there is a squeamishness, especially within the art industry, of being promotional and not knowing when to do it or how to do it. Something that occurred to me recently that I said to a client is, you know, if you just stayed doing this and you never figured out this promotion thing, it would almost be like if every doctor was like, well let me tell you a little bit about bronchitis, but never mentions that I can actually help you.
Mark:
Right. Yeah.
Chris:
You know? It’s like well you are interested in bronchitis, let me tell you a million things about it, but then what?
Lauren:
Right.
Chris:
You know? And a doctor would never do that because they understand what their role in society is and I think that that’s something that we all have to do. We have to understand what our role is and what we are offering our market and if we never get to the point of saying and here is what I can do about this.
Lauren:
Right.
Chris:
Then, what is the point of the marketing?
Lauren:
It is almost as if we’re feeling, like that is presumptuous of us. You know? Like how dare we talk about what we do on our site.
Mark:
Right.
Chris:
Yeah, well we are afraid of selling. You know? I think particularly in creative services, selling has a bad name. I think that is changing. I think that when you work with people like Blair Enns, who are helping with that for quite a bit.
Mark:
Right.
Chris:
I think that’s a great thing and honestly I think, especially now with there are internet trends that I think are helping with this. People are so distracted and so overwhelmed and there is not enough time. That honestly, there is not enough time to BS around what it is you do or don’t do or what you are trying to get somebody to do with you. You really have to cut to the chase. I think people are becoming more comfortable with that.
Lauren:
There is a way to accomplish. There is a way to be educational and to provide value and also say what you do. It doesn’t have to be an either or thing. It is not as if when you are providing that information and context is to how you solve a particular problem that you aren’t actually providing education about that original brand problem in the first place.
Chris:
Yep.
Lauren:
Those two concepts, that idea can exist in the same piece of content.
Chris:
Yep
Mark:
In fact, Blair is very sure of three to one, I really like a lot. Pretty educational pieces to want promotional or 75% educational, 25% promotional.
Lauren:
Yeah.
Chris:
Yeah and he is so good at it. When you see him doing that.
Mark:
Yeah.
Chris:
It doesn’t feel mechanical. It feels very true.
Mark:
Smart.
Chris:
Yeah. And I think there is a way of doing that if you can just integrate it. Anyway, we could go on and on about this forever and ever, but we’re not going to. One thing that we want to wrap up with. Something that we want to introduce into the program, is just recommending some things for you to do next. We’ve got a ton of material on our site about all of these topics. So, starting with you Mark, what do you want people who are listening to do next?
Mark:
When I referenced the webinar that we did today, earlier, there is TV magic. Right? Where you can put the pot in the oven and it comes out in the next second and it’s all cooked and ready to go.
Chris:
Right.
Mark:
This is podcast magic, so we just did the webinar today, but this podcast won’t be up for a while from now.
Chris:
That’s right.
Mark:
By the time you are listening to this podcast, the webinar will be live on the site, which is magical. What was really fun about this webinar is that it was the three of us and also Chris Creech, all collaborating on the webinar, live and we start with a video segment and it was a whole lot of fun. It is all about the design of marketing, it’s the general topic. So, I would recommend that to check out the webinar, to be really nice actual follow-on to this because it touches all the topics and goes deeper on many of them.
Chris:
Yeah. That is a great choice. So, the title that is the Design of Marketing. It is about 45 to 55 minutes, covering design stuff, covering content strategies stuff, and marketing automation and how design applies to all of that. That’s a great choice.
Mark:
I didn’t realize that I stole Lauren’s fire.
Chris:
Yeah, she’s …
Lauren:
He’s a total thief, but it’s good. I have back-ups, it’s fine.
Chris:
She’s now thinking, I am going to kill him.
Mark:
I didn’t know.
Lauren:
It’s cool. Chris actually wasn’t lying when he said we have a ton of content of the site that is related to this topic, so it’s not difficult for me to have a back-up here. In addition to the webinar, one of the things that I would recommend you go check out, actually Chris, you just posted not that long ago, it was a five part series on the user flow part of this, so how to intuitively guide a prospect through the steps that you would want them to take on this site and what the implications on different design templates are going to be to achieve those different purposes.
Mark:
Yep.
Lauren:
And so, checking out that series, I think would be really valuable and relevant to what we are talking about here.
Chris:
Yes, please read my stuff. And actually Chris Creech kinds of kicked off this theme. He wrote a post, maybe a month and a half ago, at this recording, about how to design good forms, but what is useful about it is that he’s doing two jobs in that post. He is doing a job of talking about an interaction design issue, like how do people understand what the forms for business and how do they use it, results in talking about how information needs to be structured so that it can be used within marketing automation and CRN systems as well, so there is a technical component to it that a lot of people forget about and a lot of his recommendations are the perfect balance between how do you get someone to want to fill out this form and to do it well, but also to get the information in the right place, so that you can use it later for really important marketing purposes, so I would really recommend that post.
Mark:
Alright. Well it’s been fun.The new format.
Chris:
Me too. So, we’ll see you guys next time.
Mark:
Have a good rest of your day.
Lauren:
Thanks for listening.