Ontarians value the arts

According to a poll conducted for the Ontario Arts Council, 81% of Ontarians believe the arts are important to their quality of life.

So, in the thick of the performing arts season, think about how you can add to your quality of life. For those in Ottawa, check out Romeo and Juliet or the National Ballet at the NAC. For families, Opera Lyra Ottawa performs Hansel and Gretel at the 4th Stage this weekend and next.

Attend, enjoy, discuss and share.

While Inga's away the cat will play?

So, Inga's off trekking in South America for three months and has left me minding the Strategic Moves shop, or at least, answering the odd email and following up with current clients.

Hmmm... what mischief can I get into?? quite frankly, work is too busy (and rewarding!) to be playing right now...

Whereas Inga did fine work wrapping up client projects before her departure, she neglected to post something here on the Strategic Moves blog before she jetted off to Peru. So, in case you're looking for Inga, check out her travel blog: talkingtrails.blogspot.com

And, while Inga's away, I'll endeavour to blog a little more often about my work - strategy and business development for arts and culture organizations, and maybe a little about play too.

What do you want from the web?

I'm preparing training material for a client: "How your Web Presence Can Help You Build a Stronger Profile".
The point of view I am taking is what it really means when your audience can do everything your organization can do online. Think about it: individuals possess the power of the printing press without the cost of printing and distribution. All they need to figure out is how to create content and attract audiences. That of course, is the hard part.


And yet, much of what goes online leaves me with a back to the future sort of feeling.

• Facebook: Social (Connecting and sharing with your friends)
• Youtube: TV (Broadcast yourself)
• Flickr: Photo journalism (The eyes of the world)
• Twitter: News (What’s happening?)
• Podcasting: Radio (video) by everyone

That's why the training program will focus on providing an understandable thought framework, and then demystify some of the voodoo - like SEO, UXD (yes, that means user experience design) - to empower my client to think smart and make good decisions as they strengthen their web presence, purposefully and without running off in all directions.

My basic message is that online marketing is about connecting with the right people where they are in ways that are meaningful to them. The enabling aspects are tried and true concepts:

Online channels are about dialogue and conversation; they work because of relevance to the audience and timeliness; and, most difficult of all in this engineered world they demand authenticity.

Who is the audience?

My friend Richard recently posted this on his Facebook page with a link to the You Tube video of a Snickers commercial: I'm a twix man myself, but full marks to the creative team behind this one. However, watching it again, I'm not entirely sure who the target demographic is. Is it college aged men (who likely have no idea who Aretha and Liza are), or is it boomers (who know who the Divas are and are nolstalgic for their carefree road trip undergraduate years note that the car is a late '80s era Volvo)... or is it Gen Xers like me who fall in between, repost the ad, ponder its significance online and... oh shit the bastards nailed me again!!! Just when I thought I was impervious to even their best efforts, those sneaky marketers co-opt me again and make me an accomplice.

So, who exactly is the audience? And, is it the pinnacle of marketing when people tweet, retweet, blog and otherwise post about your commercial or product? Not if the reason people are talking about it because they have no idea who it is for. If the intention of the marketers was to throw in so many different cultural references that people talk about it because they are confused, the exercise has failed. Do we relate to the references? Does the commercial inspire us to buy the product or interact with the brand?

I'm one of those people who "isn't myself when I'm hungry" - I get it. But the next time I'm bordering on a diva moment because of hunger, am I going to reach for a Snickers? Not likely.

Creative collaboration

I had the pleasure of seeing Sting in concert last night in Ottawa. Sting, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Now, seeing either the Royal Philharmonic or Sting on any given night would be a treat, but the combination was incredible. The collaboration of these two musical entities was fantastic. Always beautiful, sometimes witty, and often unexpected. It was a great reminder of how great brands working together realcan absolutely enhance one another.

And, in looking at a body of work through a new lens, the body of work becomes that much richer. Listening to some of my favourite songs with a new, lush, string-filled orchestration made me rediscover the music, listen more closely to the lyrics and admire the musician-ship of every talented person on stage.

The halo over Sting and the Royal Phil shines a little more brightly for me today. And it was thrilling to see the orchestra get multiple standing ovations from a stadium full of appreciative fans.

Research on Social Marketing

On June 22, the MRIA Ottawa chapter is putting on a conference on research on social marketing. I'm excited about being part of making that happen. The format we use is very focussed on discussion and participation.

This conference is designed to showcase the results of sound research on specific social marketing programs and foster a discussion between researchers and social marketers on best practices, target audience orientation, and program development.


An excellent line up of speakers will address their work with a wide range of audiences. I'm looking forward to this day and most importantly the discussion. I've posted on social marketing here before and intent to add additional thoughts leading up to the conference.

Who answers phone surveys anyhow?

The answer should come on May 13! At the next MRIA Ottawa speaker's event:

"We’ve seen the evidence of declining response rates – the focus of discussion at our April 15 panel discussion - and we’re troubled or at least challenged. We’ve seen evidence that suggests lower response rates may not necessarily have a clear negative impact on the quality of the data gathered. Yet, we worry that it may just be a matter of time before response rates and other challenges conspire to change that.

We know that certain segments of society are less accessible: they may be less willing to do surveys, they may be less accessible because of schedules or how they use communications tools. There may be other unrecognized factors at play, or it may be some combination of issues."

Understanding something about finance

Have you read your organization's financial statements lately? Chances are they tell you more about the business your organization is in, ie what its success depends on, than its mission and vision statements.  Ask yourself: what's the biggest asset my organization has? And what are its biggest costs? Where does its profit come from?

You might just be amazed.

Leadership, influence and brand

I recently took a 5-day management course at Schulich School of Business. It was a very good course. I learned some things, validated expertise and I particularly enjoyed seeing profs who work in my field, marketing and strategy, teach.

The program consists of five parts: leadership, marketing, strategy, finance, HR. It is left to the participants to put this all together into a holistic thought pattern for themselves.

In my view, this is essential.  

For instance, marketing is not merely something other people do in your organization. 'Marketing' is what everyone who wishes to influence decisions - at any level - needs to do. The processes of getting consumers to buy product A vs product B are remarkably similar to what it means to leverage one's hard won influence. 

Indeed, in my view, influence is best defined as your personal brand equity expressed in the willingness of others to follow you. Frankly leadership is not about leading - it is about giving others reasons to follow.

Case in point: As an external consultant I never have the authority to change anything, I also have no way to reward my clients' staff with more money. Yet, I lead and we make good things happen. My success is tied to how well I infuse projects with meaning, communicate appreciation, and generate desired outcomes. Naturally, with each successful project my brand equity grows and my capacity to do more good work increases. That's why leadership (inspire) is such a powerful concept, as compared to management (perspire).

Customer Service - getting it right

My love for my Subaru and my Subaru dealership is well known and often mocked by my friends and colleagues...

But great customer service is one of the pillars of consumer loyalty, and there is no question as to which car dealership I'll go out of my way to use.

So, what makes the customer experience so good?

1. Friendly, helpful, human staff. When you call the dealership, your call is answered by a live, friendly, bilingual receptionist. She or he transfers you to a live, friendly and knowledgeable member of staff in the appropriate department. No voicemail unless you call after hours.

2. There are no stupid questions. Go ahead, ask them where the block heater is or how to open the frozen gas cap door. They listen to every question and make sure they answer each one and that you understand the answers.

3. Feedback and Follow up. After every service call, I get a short automated survey call to ensure I had a good experience and that I was satisfied with my service call. Subaru compiles this information and uses it to train staff. When I wasn't happy, they called back immediately and went above and beyond to made the situation right.

4. Living the brand. Subaru is known for safe, practical cars and kicking butt in rally events. Take the shuttle and you get a personable, calm driver who quietly and efficiently navigates traffic and alternative routes to get you to and from the dealership on time.

Social Marketing - Evaluating Programs

A British Medical Journal article on Interventions to reduce unintended pregnancies among adolescents: systematic review of randomised controlled trials concluded that “Primary prevention strategies evaluated (1970 to 2000) do not delay the initiation of sexual intercourse, improve use of birth control among young men and women, or reduce the number of pregnancies in young women.” The study reviewed the “effectiveness of primary prevention strategies aimed at delaying sexual intercourse, improving use of birth control, and reducing incidence of unintended pregnancy in adolescents.”

I found particularly interesting a study finding that “four abstinence programmes and one school based sex education programme were associated with an increase in number of pregnancies among partners of young male participants. There were significantly fewer pregnancies in young women who received a multifaceted programme , though baseline differences in this study favoured the intervention.”

In short this study from June 2002, points to the challenges of developing effective and long-term strategies to affect behavioural changes in the intended direction.

Social Marketing - Constructing a Message

Numerous studies cited for instance in Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein point toward a deliberate, effective message construction for social marketing campaigns that aim at changing behaviour. For instance, in experiments it has been shown that behaviour can be modified by not merely emphasizing the nature of a problem, but by offering a positive message. (Example: a sign that reads “Many past visitors have removed the petrified wood from the park, changing the natural state of the park,” was far less effective in preventing visitors from removing artifacts than this positive message: “Please don’t remove the petrified wood from the park, in order to preserve the natural state of the Petrified Forest”).  

Similarly, a message focused on how many people are engaging in an unhealthy activity have been shown to be less effective at motivating the desired behaviour than one that emphasizes how many people are already doing things right. This type of message can aid in correcting social misperceptions and boost the healthy behaviour. (Example: “20% of Montana college students drink too much alcohol.” versus the much more effective “Most (81%) of Montana college students have four or fewer drinks each week”).

Again in a similar vein, a neuroscientific study reported on in Buy-ology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom showed through bran scans that explicit non-smoking messages, for instance the explicit depictions of the effects of cigarette smoking found on Canadian cigarette packs, and explicit messages like smoking causes lung cancer or smoking kills do little to keep smokers from smoking. On the contrary, brain scans showed how these messages in fact stimulated the craving in smokers, suggesting they may well be achieving the opposite results. 

Social Marketing Or What it Takes to Change Behaviour

This is the first in a series of posts I will write on social marketing over the next few days. 


Recent research on the effectiveness of social marketing campaigns has demonstrated that some campaigns aimed at changing behaviour produce superior results while others based on the same message premise fail to meet objectives. Steering people toward healthy choices, it appears, has to go beyond the typical methods of raising awareness of an issue and highlighting rational strategies for changing behaviours. This may well be of particular importance in activities that are essential to human survival, such as sexual reproduction or food consumption, yet also hold significant health and social risks.

Therefore, it may not a matter of categorical change, but of discriminating change. A level of emotional intelligence should be appealed to and fostered through a variety of methods in order to achieve the desired behavioural changes. Research suggests that a large number of decisions are made every day in an instinctive, automatic manner, learned over time and reinforced in many subtle and explicit ways. Advances in neuroscience, in particular the ability to examine information processing and decision-making through brain scans, have enabled more clarity in how these processes might work. 

Website code and Competitive intelligence

I recently came across a piece of code on a web site I was checking out in preparation for my SEO seminar.

Programmers used green comment text as a way to distinguish notes to the programmer or reminders, from code that makes the site work. These notes do not show up as content in the graphic interface of the web site. If you want to see what sort of "conversations" and notes programmers leave behind when building a site, simply look at the source code and scroll for the green bits.

Now, imagine a company in a highly competitive field having this sort of programmer's annotation about a future product in the code. This could well be a major issue if a competitor receives advance notice of future actions, just because a programmer wanted to identify a placeholder for a future product on the web page.

While I find this interesting from a competitive intelligence perspective, it raises another question: when you approve your web site, do you ever actually look at the code? Have you considered the liabilities that inadvertent disclosure can bring to your company? Do you have any sort of quality assurance and brand protection process in place re: coding? And, in earlier posts I talked about the importance of meta tags and title tags - so: what is your quality assurance process to make sure these search engine optimization aids are in place and make sense from a brand and messaging architecture point of view?

SEO Analytics

Analytics are an important aspect of search engine optimization. You can use analytics in developing a brand new site or you can use it to assess performance of an existing site and figure out what changes need to be made to improve the standing of the site.

Some of the analytical data at your disposal, often available using free tools but at least cheaply includes:

• Web Traffic Statistics - Traffic and keyword analysis. Whether you use a custom, proprietary package or Google Analytics, just remember that they give you great trending information, but they may not be comparable data points because they may use different methodologies, e.g. cookies based tracking vs. IP address look up, to arrive at their reports.
• Text analysis - this includes keyword extraction from your curent web page to see for which keywords your page does well, and assessing term targeting, ie how well does your site perform against your important keywords
• Crawl test - ie how does a search engine see your site
• Indexed pages - are there pages missing that shoudl be indexed by a search engine. Here a sitemap and robot.txt file can alleviate any problems
• Rank Tracker - software that tells you whether your site ranks anywhere near the first page of search results for specific keywords
• Back links - get a report on how many sites and who links to your site. Linking strategies can be an important part of achieving high search engine rankings.
• W3C validation - the World Wide Web Consortium is the standards organization for the web. It offers several free validation tools such as HTML validator designed to help you determine whether your site meets international standards.

SEO - keyword thinking

No doubt, the most important part of your web site is what it says to the human visitor. However, when you write your site with SEO in mind you should evolve a keyword mindset: Humans categorize and we use keyword concepts to make sense of the world and the web.

Keywords are also the driving force in search engines. That's why in addition to weaving these important words and phrases throughout your web site, you need to ensure that the coding aspects of the site are considered.

Here's the source code view of my web site (if you click on the image you can see it larger)  at www.strategicmoves.ca. Note the underlined elements:
- Description and Keyword meta tags
- Title tag
- Image alt tags
These tags exist in code only and should support your actual content. They are useful in ensuring search engines interpret your site correctly.

Consider this question: how do you make keyword thinking an integral part of web development?

For instance, do you task your creative writing team and technical web team with creating these tags as each new page is written? Who writes your description, keyword, image tags- your writer or the developer? Who determines the title tag - and are they in tune with your brand strategy?

I always recommend that the writing and web teams work closely together from the outset and involve the client to ensure the best results for the users. I say for the user because SEO is about users and positioning yourself effectively in the content of search engines.

New blog: Talking Trails

The new blog is up and running. It is all about our preparations and adventures during our upcoming three months backpacking, trekking trip to South America, with most of our time spent in the Andes.
http://talkingtrails.blogspot.com

SEO goes beyond search engines

This is a snip from my Facebook page: A colleague posted my new website to their feed. The text used to describe my site comes from my site's description meta tag. It's a concise positioning statement. These words do not appear anywhere on my web site other than in code. However, being written for people my home page  does present my consulting business in 4 paragraphs that expand and explain this positioning further.

SEO: write for people, code for search engines

One way to get search engine optimization right is to think of SEO from the earliest stage of conception of a web site, or a web page. That means you'll write the site for people and you’ll construct the code for search engines.

Writing for people includes

• Starting with your keyword list
• Using your most important keywords, rather than many variants, in title tags, urls, page’s description tag, headings, and body text
• Be authentic and trustworthy

Construct code for search engines

• Heed the power of the url
• Create the most important Meta tags; title tag, description tag, keyword tag
• Create image tags for each image on your site (this is also a good accessibility guideline)

You can optimize every page on your web site. If you have 40 pages that’s easier than if you have 40,000 pages. Simply triage the needs for improvement and invest where you’ll see the biggest return on your investment: for instance, home page, secondary landing pages, or key sections. 

New content should simply be conceived with these simple SEO concepts in mind, rather than be retrofitted later.

Telemarketing - a field guide

As I got the fourth phone call in a week from a telecommunications company wanting me to switch or upgrade, I sighed with frustration. As someone who has managed telemarketing campaigns, and who has benefited from excellent service calls, I know that telemarketing can be positive and profitable - in terms of sales and in terms of enhancing the relationship between company and customers.

So why are telemarketing calls so annoying?

1 - the caller doesn't know who I am or the relationship I have with the organization. Seriously - how does Rogers, who owns Fido, not know that I have cell phone service with Fido? How is it that my fairly simple name get mispronounced almost every time?

Companies track purchase behaviour and a multitude of other details about their clients. Phonetic pronunciation of names and tracking the comments of the customer are absolute requirements for any company undertaking telemarketing. Please acknowledge that I do business with you and that it's valued.

2 - the caller isn't offering something relevant to me. Why switch phone service when the costs and services are identical? Want me to change to your service? Offer something significantly better than what I currently have. Why did you think I'd want tickets to the circus? Is my name from a list of people who have supported a particular charity or are you cold calling from the phone book?

3 - the caller doesn't know the details of what they are offering. So I am interested in getting a subscription to the dance series. Is that ballet in tutus or contemporary dress? The caller had no idea.

Callers need to know as many details of the business as possible and know how to quickly find answers to customer questions. Small details really do make or break the deal.

4 - the caller doesn't ask me anything about my experience with the company. I don't want to listen about you - I want to talk about me and how I experience your company. Callers representing the company are contacting current and potential clients - it's an amazing opportunity to advocate for the company and collect quick feedback on brand awareness and customer satisfaction.

Telemarketing is as much a Public Relations activity as a Sales activity. Use it wisely to carefully promote your message and collect important information from your customer base.

Intrinsic connections: SEO and Brand

In my recent SEO seminar I put search engine optimization firmly in the context of branding and building customer relationships. My premise:

• Web users want: what they want, when they are ready, wherever they are, and in just the way they want it 
• People don’t want to ‘search’, they want to ‘find’, so SEO must foster user-centred and brand-oriented keyword thinking and writing

Online Channels are about: Dialogue and Conversation

• They work because of: Relevance and Timeliness
• They demand: Authenticity

In that sense then, brand matters. Because trust can be won and lost in an instant. And search engines are often the first encounter a web user has with your brand; they might also be the last encounter when web users choose another listing over yours.

I used a simple three step process to explain the importance of SEO from a brand point of view.

1. Search for company name, or important keyword relating to your company in a search engine (do this with the top 3 search engines and note the differences): What does the listing say? Is the headline and short description search engines use understandable and a meaningful communication about your brand? Does it leave the right impression?
2. Look at your company's homepage: Identify where each engine is getting the information it shows from? Typically search engines use title tags - that's the text that shows up in the browser's tab - and either words appearing on the site or the description meta tag, if you have one set up.
3.  Title tags and meta tags: Anyone can, you included, look at the source code of your web site. Most likely its in a menu drop down like "View - Source". Or look for developer in the page icon drop down. Title and meta tags should be easily found at the top of the page for each of your web pages.

This may well be the first step to making improvements to your web presence that are championed beyond the confines of the web team, or maybe the web and marketing teams.

Because, SEO is a way to ensure your brand is effectively communicated. It is also a way to be found by the right people in the online environment.

The Qualitative-Quantitative Divide

MRIA Ottawa held a fascinating panel discussion on qualitative-quantitative research approaches. The discussion explored combined focus group and survey methodology but touched only lightly on other methods of marketing research.

In my view the following merit consideration:

• Marketing research is not merely doing focus groups and surveys. It includes the full gamut of research activities that contribute to better decision-making: from literature reviews to know what is already known, to web reviews to find out what others are doing and how, to communications audits and semiotic analysis, to customer data mining/behaviour modelling, to competitive branding assessments.
• Opinion bias comes from ones own experience. A Survey house invariably discusses the marketing research business based on what they are so very good at. Other practitioners who offer another range of services will have a point of view that is informed by that. As a consultant I am not tied to a call centre or focus group facilities and I do not need to achieve any particular scale to amortize my hardware or infrastructure investments. I am free to build research methodologies to any budget and I can make sure that better information is used to make decisions.
• Computers count, people measure. I heard this at a recent Third Tuesday meeting and was struck by how much it resonated with the audience. Technology is simply a tool, decisions are made by people supported by tools. As a researcher part of my job is to interpret data points relative to a business decision. That requires me to know enough about my clients' business - without that I am liable to misinterpret data points and my recommendations may or may not be all that relevant. 
• Budget is important but it's not everything. I can use research methods that fit nearly any budget and improve the situation. A marketing/communications materials audit may take as little as 1 or 2 days and can result in major transformative decisions that improve effective communications. An intelligent review of web traffic statistics can reveal important insights to improve a web site.
• There is no qualitative-quantitative divide. What we call research (primary or secondary, qualitative or quantitative, statistically valid and reliable or directional), is not all that important. What is important is to choose the most effective methods possible within time and budget constraints that allow for a better decision. 

Search Engine Optimization

I presented my new SEO webinar yesterday to a fine crowd of 40 connections, with several having multiple participants on the webinar. It went well and the feedback on the content was very good. My approach,not surprising, is strategic in nature: where does SEO fit in the marketing mix, where does it fit in the online mix and what does good SEO entail. I showed some neat examples of the power of code, some simple tricks and a few keyword tools.

Now, I will seek places to make this presentation again and again; it'll last at least a few weeks maybe even months.

This time it was presented by MRIA, which I am really pleased with.