Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

Yesterday I wrote about revenue growth strategies that we could use in conjunction with digital to spark ideas that will help our clients focus on what is most important. Recall, this series is about going back to basics and really zeroing in on value creation and helping us help our clients with the fundamentals. Today I am writing briefly about operating efficiency and how digital strategies can help our clients create and realize greater efficiencies.

Operating efficiency is about removing friction and barriers. Contrary to what many believe, it is just as much about innovation as it is about cost-containment or saving money. When you look at digital as a means to create operating efficiency you'll immediately see an abundance of opportunities to do things smarter, faster, more automated and with fewer defects or greater predictability. You also see immediately measurement capabilities that make ROI (which is king in a slump) move up front and center.

Many of our larger clients would characterize operations efficiency by including things like;

1. Improving customer interactions (service)
   
2. Improving access to customer and market information
   
3. Improve campaign tools
4. Improving internal support services
5. Business alignment
6. Simplify IT's complexity

We are going to explore a handful of ideas that we can take to our clients and help them get more done with less.

1. Improving customer interactions.  One of the things that many companies fail to see is the composite experience their customers have with the product or service brand. The diagnosis we can make is disjunctive brand experience. The cause is silo'd departments responsible for individual channels not doing the work to evaluate the "quilting" of those individual experiences from the customer's vantage point. The prescription is a comprehensive brand experience audit across all online and offline touchpoints. The result should be a more global awareness of how real people experience our client's offering. Optimally, our clients want their customers to have the most positive experience across any front. We can help by first doing the audit and research then by helping them determine the next best steps thereafter.  See Todd Coats, Dan Moore or Steven to get more details on this idea.   
2. Provide our client's staff with better info on their customers and market. I think this has everything to do with knowledge management and analytics. One of the best ideas I have heard is an extranet (secured Web site for internal eyes only) that our client's staff can access which points to better information on high-value customers, their market, and other specific intelligence that is driven to their inbox or mobile if ther shoudl be out in the field.
   
3. Improve campaign tool suite. Here is a great idea that we have used with tremendous success. Our clients really benefit when they can realize some economies of scale and reuse. If they launch multiple campaigns each year and need to move quickly, we can offer to help build greater  campaign agility into the mix. This tool suite would include a user research kit (recruiting, surveying, analysis and ouput) helping them to understand the foundational approach to their campaign. It would also include a Web site framework enabling them to get off starting line faster. An unspoken benefit of this approach is that companies with multiple campaigns create experience consistency by adhering to one structure. So, in addition to saving money, they offer consistently positive experiences for each campaign based on user research, not designer instinct.
   
4. Improving internal corporate services. Digital is a tremendous opportunity for our clients to drive lower-value transactions to an automated or Web channel. This strategy is realized by using the Web to help people accomplish more menial tasks themselves online. The benefit is lowering the total cost per transaction, helping our client's customers self-serve and ultimately it creates a foundation for better overall experiences across the board. An example is using the Web to help an insurance company's members answer the most asked questions by themselves. By making the answers more readily accessible, we are helping their human support team have more time to focus on those higher-value transactions.  We can offer an audit of our client's support systems to arrive at a strategy to get more out of using less.
   
5. Business alignment. Aligning core organizational structures or governance with enterprise strategies is critical for our clients to get the most out of the digital channel. For one of our largest clients, we took their foundational enterprise goals, developed their go to Web strategy, organized the initiatives and processes to get them done, deisgned their staffing model and helped them get the whole thing implemented. Now, they have alignment from the corner office goals all the way through the customer's positive experience.  
6. Simplify IT's Complexity. Leonardo Da Vinci said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."  In IT, we can help our clients avoid the complexity traps that IT oftentimes sets or falls into. We help our clients avoid these traps by researching how IT process strategies of the organization and approaches the work it gets done. With swift and decisive standards design and process re-engineering, we are able to reduce complexity in the organization and allow for greater alignment between IT decision makers and the rest of the company. The yield is our client's ability to get more done in digital with agreement or consensus across the board.

These ideas ultimately lead to greater operating efficiency where it is most typically needed. Drop me an email skeith@capstrat.com if you want to go deeper on any of these or others. 

When companies prepare for a market downturn a different mindset sinks in and is proliferated. There are a handful of things we can do to remain relevant and indispensable. It is surprisingly simple.

Focus on value creation.

I am going to focus on one of five areas that can help you help your clients.

Here are a handful of ideas that will prepare us as our clients' mindsets shift to weather the storm. 

Here is my "hurricane list" that will prepare us as our clients' recession mindsets shift to weather the storm. I will present one each day this week.

1. Revenue growth (Monday)
   
2. Operting efficiency (Tuesday)
3. Measurable marketing (Wednesday)
   
4. Strategic counsel (Thursday)
   
5. Strong, executable ideas (Friday)

Revenue growth is about getting and keeping more customers or mindshare. Its universal. We all do it. How do our customers need us to help them, specifically? 

The question we need to ask is, "how does our client's business market and manage customers?" Are there ways that they can attract more attention using non-traditional means? Can they dive into social media to drive more awareness to their brand? Can they see the recession opportunistically by launching a suite of online videos that illustrate the value of thier brand in ways their customers hadn't realized? Can they create deeper relevance with thought leadership that will be rewarded via Google search? Does our client have higher-value customers that can be addressed uniquely with a microsite enabling them to offer better account management? Here are a few items that will get your creative juices flowing while thinking about revenue growth for our clients.

1. Improve sales skills of their staff. Are there ways they can use online sales-building tools to help them. There are an abundance of ideas in this realm.
2. Improve lead generation. There are few possibilities as great as digital to drive minds to our customer's doorstep. We do this for many of our customers. See Steven, Cord or Dan to learn more. 
3. Improve access to the company's information assets. One of the ways to increase sales is to more broadly distribute the company's information to those who talk to potential customers. For instance, I found a remarkable thought piece written for the Center for Disease Control accidentally lodged in a folder for our Google client. I am sharing that viewpoint with Blue Cross. I wonder how many other great nuggets are out there? Improving access to this will unlock many ideas and opportunities. 
4. Improve/change the way they advertise to their segments. Many of our clients have traditional advertising and marketing plans and budgets. Many of these budgets will be cut. There are dozens of non-traditional digital marketing and advertising approaches that often yield higher results. Many times it is simply a matter of introducing our clients to those alternatives. See Steven to explore some of these alternatives. 
5. Expand sales channels (move more to digital). Are there ways that our clients can use digital to move into other segments? We are helping Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina sieze opportunities to advance their service offering online while more and more customers are moving toward "consumer-driven healthcare."
6. Increase focus on highest-value segments. Are there opportunities for us to help our clients address the very specific needs of their customer segments or hierarchies? For instance, can we help them directly address the needs of one segment with a segmented Web site or extranet? If our clients can speak directly to one segment without alienating another, everyone wins.
7. Increase emphasis on design or configurability or products or services. Many of our clients have the same problem. They have a complex offering and cannot figure out how to translate the value it brings. Allowing their customers to configure a solution that more directly meets their needs is a winning approach. One good example of this is the configurable online tool we designed and developed for the EPA that allowed people to learn about air quality through play.
8. Urge them to examine their offering through a different lens. Sometimes our clients benefit from sitting down and looking again at how they see their offering. When we position great brands here at Capstrat, we force our clients to look at themselves through interdisciplinary views. This almost always results in an interesting breakthrough. 
9. Improve utilization or modularity of their offering. What if our clients could bring their offering to market differently. What if they could package thier products or services to help their customers weather the storm better. Hardtimes is the handmaiden of great breakthroughs. (Or something like that.) 
10. Improve collaboration with sales, design and management. Encourage your client to call a meeting with the top two Sales, Design and C-level folks. Throw two questions on the table for discussion. How can design help us sell better? How can Sales help us design better? If they don't have a design or Sales lead, offer to provide surrogate counsel. We do that well. 
11. Improve product/service lifecycle management. Can digital help our client to bring the best out of their process quicker? (I know this is closer to the operating efficiency but bears mentioning here.) Can they rethink the way they integrate their offering to acquire more customers? Will doing it faster yield a higher rate of sale? 
12. Focus on removing barriers to their customers' purchasing. Diving into the digital channel can oftentimes create interest from segments that hadn't considered our clients in the past. Can we urge them to expand their offering in such a way that it exposes them to segments or lowers the cost? Removing friction is creating value. 
13. Apply their brand to things they haven't branded before. GE is the master of this. Branding a byproduct of our client's service or product offering can oftentimes yield great returns. We should brand our simplification of the complex methodology because everytime we do it, it creates greater value for our clients. Can we help our client'sdo the same? 
14. Force service innovation into the mix. What if Duke Energy could allow their customers to moderate their consumption with an iPhone application? What if we could package the work we do for employee marketing for Quintiles to an online dashboard that allows their HR to see realtime recruiting status or online job posting effectiveness?
15. Improve brainstorming, teamstorming and global ideation. There are a handful of genius idea-directors here. Explore ways we can do Epiphany brokerage, thought sales, or strategy dating with them. Afterall, it is all about pulling in the big ideas, isn't it? 
16. Pretend your client's business is a videogame. How is played?
17. Improve total customer experience. When we shifted Capstrat's Interactive practice to a User-Centered Design approach, we hired User experience designers. Their job was to focus on improving online experiences for the clients who hired us for Web. Notice the user experience deisgners are now in incredibly high demand across the business. It turns out that all of our clients want to offer better experiences despite the channel. Bring the UXD's into your meeting and planning. Ask them to help you ratchet-up the positive experiences your clients seek for their customers. Explore what a focus on improving the total customer experience would yield for your client and their customers. 

Tomorrow is about opertating efficiency, and we will focus on how to do as much or more with less. Its about switching to a cost-containment mode without compromising quality or creativity.  See you tomorrow.

 

We’ve heard a lot about change lately. In the daily ad bombardment about candidates, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, the word seems to be overused on every front. Like many baby boomers, I’m not only facing change in my elected leaders and change in my financial portfolio -- I’m also dealing with changes to my diet and exercise plans and changes related to my aging parents. So today, the word “change” doesn’t seem far off and distant to me; it feels like a very active verb working in the here and now. It means in many areas of my life I have to adjust my focus and shift directions. But it also forces me to review my goals and determine how best to move forward.

I’ve learned that much of life is about adapting to change. But I’ve also learned through experience that if I have access to good information and I’m clear about what I want to achieve, I’m better equipped to plan for change instead of just having to react to it. If I can anticipate or initiate the change, I’m in control.

That’s what I like most about my “day job.” Having spent my career working in  government relations, I’m keenly aware of how important is it for companies and organizations to appropriately assess when it’s time to adjust their focus or shift direction. Change may be necessary because of circumstances beyond their control, but it can also be called for when new opportunities present themselves. I like to help clients assess where they are and where they want to go. I like to work with them to plan ahead before a crisis occurs. I like to talk with them about their goals and then strategically look at how best to proactively achieve those goals. I like to bounce ideas and strategies off the great team of professionals in my office. And at the end of the day, I like to feel that we’ve helped clients consider their options and make really good strategic decisions.

In less than two weeks, we’ll be electing a new president and a new governor. We’ll be electing new members of Congress, new legislators and new members of the Council of State. As I sit here today thinking about the upcoming elections, I’m excited about the new opportunities. And I know that regardless of the outcome of the elections, there will be new opportunities for education and outreach. There will be opportunities to pursue new issues and advocate new ideas. As difficult as some of the changes in my life feel right now, I think I’ll try to stay focused on how exciting some of these changes will be beginning on November 5!

During the Great Depression, the majority of Americans were forced to tighten their belts to a degree hard to imagine today. With millions of people deeply worried about getting “three hots and a cot,” survival was in – and luxuries were out.

Yet millions of Americans somehow found a way to scrape up the then-princely sum of 28 cents for one luxury nearly everyone refused to give up: a movie ticket. The hard-pressed, hardscrabble times created an unquenchable thirst for spectacular fantasies of high society and easy living that few people would ever experience. No matter how threadbare your existence, for about a quarter you could spend hours basking in the suave, debonair world of Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Marketers latched onto this trend, and found ways to reach consumers’ wallets even in the toughest times.

For example, with the help of product placement, cigarette consumption per capita shot up two and a half times between 1930 and 1940. Many reports stated that tobacco manufacturing was one of the most stable industries during the Depression.

Fast-forward to 2008 and a financial collapse so deep and vast that comparisons to the Depression are inevitable. Plunging stock prices and rising tides of pink slips certainly provide plenty of bad news from which Americans might want to escape. Wallets are shut tight to frivolous items, and consumers begin to ignore shiny ads and marketing tactics. But marketers still need to reach their customers. Brand loyalty is challenged more than ever and consumers still want to be engaged and interact with everyone and everything around them. This time around though, movies have serious competition when in comes to helping consumers escape the daily doom and gloom. You can bet where there’s escapism there’ll be magic for advertisers.

Video games just may be the bright spot advertisers need. Like Depression-era movies, they transport people worlds away from real problems. You may briefly forget about your finances while fending off hordes of evil undead threatening to eat your brain. Sweating the future seems unnecessary if you can escape for a few hours as a heavy metal axman rocking a packed arena.

Product placement worked in movies (reports show a 59% retention rate), but when Mario and Luigi jump Pizza Hut pizzas for points will consumers open their wallets? If the product’s audience is the highly sought after 18-34 male then advertisers are practically giddy with possibilities. This enthusiasm for creating new dynamic advertisements has prompted growth for the in-game advertising industry.  According video game network leader Massive Incorporated, ad revenue will grow from $56 million in 2005 to as much as $1.8 billion in 2010. No doubt this deal will become sweeter as advertisers continue allowing game designers to push experimentation with more innovative game-play. This promising new cost offset also helps increase profits for publishers by an extra 20% per game.

These are odd economic times but I think marketers are taking the right steps for future progress. The gaming industry is going to deliver us all a sweet escape from our humdrum lives. That’s inevitable, just as movies have done in the past. This recession is just a bonus level for the gaming industry.

Today I heard that the US Congress is to switch from RIM's Blackberry to Apple's iPhone. This is HUGE! Sure, they are simply testing the platform right now but I'll bet you they go toward the light. 

I recently traded my Blackberry in for an iPhone so I know what they are in for.

Now, I am far from being a congressman or a page but I know what the iPhone does to people. It makes people who aren't ADD a little bit ADD. It would make Steven Covey procrastinate. So, to help, I am writing the 7 habits of new creative iPhone owners to share with the US Congress. Here goes:

1.  Be selective. The iPhone comes in 8 and 16 Gig sizes and they fill up faster than you think. Don't put your whole music or phote collection on there. You're going to need to be frugal. Control your device, don't let it control you. Use self-determination, choice and the power to respond to stimulus, conditions and circumstances of all the applications out there. 

2. Begin with the fun in mind. Sure you're a congressperson and you have to look busy and all but this thing is going to blow your mind and you will be caught smiling hunkered over the glow of its illumination.  You're going to feel like you need to concentrate on relevant activities, to build a platform to avoid distractions and become more productive and successful--but it won't work. Accept the fact that this thing is really fun and so usable that you'll wonder what you did without it. That's a promise.

3. First things first and second things first too. When organizing and implementing activities of your day, you'll notice that there are applications (located on iTunes) that will help with this. I use the alarm, the calendar and two applications that are simple as they are life-changing. First is a simple To-Do list. There are 5 of them that all work great. The other one is a simple voice recording tool. "Note to self: Remember to give Dick Cheney the finger today."  I also use the iPod to gather great podcasts in addtion to my kick-ass music collection. There are MIT Open Courseware podcasts that allow you to take MIT classes (I am following Sloan School classes, Neurochemistry classes and Legal IP podcasts.) I am also addicted to Harvard Business Ideacast, Wharton Management podcasts and Real Time with Bill Maher. I listen to these while on the treadmill. Trust me, as a congressperson, you need to ingest a little more creative chit chat.

4. Think Win-squared. Winning is better when more than one wins. Using the headphone with built in speaker coupled with the elegance of the phone interface will enable you to return more calls from your constituents. Because it is so much easier than the Blackberry. AND there is text messaging so easy you can be IM'ing (instant messaging) your house homies in a heartbeat getting more done in less time. I would like to see text messaging play a bigger role in legislation. 

5. Understand and be understood. Twitterific is the greatest tool on the iPhone. It is Twitter for the people on the go. If you aren't aware of Twitter, Mrs. Congresswoman, you will be once you have your iPhone. You will be able to microblog and keep all of us back home aware of where you are on an issue and what we think of what you are thinking. All this with fewer words and immediately distributed to anyone who follows you. Scary at first, then simply revolutionary. 

6. Feel Cool. Spread the Cool. You have an iPhone, dude. Feel creative. Urge your counterparts to be more creative. Dream up ways to communicate better using the phone, Instant Message, Camera, Twitter, the built in Web browser and so on. We could use some fresh thinking from y'all. We also can send a message to the world that CONGRESS is using technology, creatively. 

7. Encourage each other. Use the iPhone to lift everyone's spirits. You need that right now. And God knows your constituents need it from you. There are applications that you can use on the iPhone allowing you to take a picture (the iPhone has a good camera) add a caption and immediately send as a postcard. Share these with the public. We want to know that you are human and that you have a sense of humor in addition to a sense of duty. Sharpen the human side and let us all know a little more about who you are and what you are thinking. There is nothing better than the iPhone to help you with that.