Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Family and Friends

Lots has been going on here at Turner-Riggs headquarters. For one, you may know that we have a new intern: Georgia Kate Riggs was born early at just over five pounds in ... February. Your thank-you card is coming if you sent us something! Thank you!

Though she is amazingly gentle and as low impact as a baby can be, Georgia’s arrival was (a) early and (b) coupled with spinal surgery for me. And we have a three-year-old. And I wasn’t done work. And I needed to get my driver’s license. It was all a bit crazy, truth be told.

I finally went on mat leave in April while Craig continues to drive the bus (have you checked out Canadian Bookshelf yet? It’s still developing, but it’s already a thing of beauty. More on that in another post).

Before I went, though, we had the great opportunity to work with Elizabeth Hay on her new website, timed to sync with the launch of her bestselling new novel and one of the season’s major releases, Alone in the Classroom. We worked on the site with our friend Don Aker from AgencyZed, and hired the design talent of Aires Almeida at Operativ. We built it in WordPress with some special AgencyZed sauce added in.

For us, in addition to the usual priority of developing a site that really felt right to Liz in terms of look and feel, we wanted to see how much we could play with WordPress to make it accommodate features an author would appreciate. Turns out a lot: we were pleasantly surprised by how flexible and extendible WordPress is. We were able to provide automatic linking to event and news items for Liz, to incorporate some nice display widgets for covers and FAQs, and to whittle down the back end of the administration so it’s nice and easy for her to change or add things herself whenever she feels like it.

She’s happy, we’re happy, and it was a dream to work with not only an author I have admired for years but also a lovely, warm woman we now consider a friend.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Blogging Basics

Got a resolution to start a company blog or just be better at updating it? Here are a few tips to help you with your goal.

Tip #1: Write for your audiences.

The first thing to do is figure out who you want to target in your blog. Once you’ve narrowed down and listed each audience, ask questions like:

* What information might help them in their lives/work?
* What kind of expertise can we share with them that matches up with their needs?
* How much time do they have to read the blog? (The answer is probably not much—so think about that in terms of frequency and length of post.)
* What kind of information would they find unhelpful? (Two likely answers are overly product-pushing posts or posts that don’t relate to their needs.)

Tip #2: Define what goals you want your blog to achieve.

For example:

* Interact with current customers
* Gain new customers
* Increase sales
* Increase word-of-mouth
* Keep products top-of-mind
* Build brand image
* Increase brand loyalty and equity

Knowing your goals will help you determine your content strategy.

Tip #3: Define a personality for your blog, and write in that voice.

The rest of your site is likely all about making sales, so don’t go overboard in this area in your blog. You don’t want to come across as a mercenary salesperson hitting your audiences over the head with product after product push. Words that come to mind for a possible personality for the blog are:

* Friend
* Peer
* Ally
* Helper
* Expert

If, through your blog, you help your audiences do their jobs better and feel knowledgeable, they will be more disposed to buying your products, in large part because they will trust you and like you. This doesn’t mean you can’t highlight products you think are wonderful for your audiences—it means do this softly and in the context of other helpful information. Don’t make every post product-related.

Tip #4: Engage your audiences when possible through interactivity.

Think about incentives and the ways in which you’d like your audiences to engage with your content (e.g., discounts, contests, promotions). It’s fine to have the bulk of posts concentrate on good content alone, but try to regularly include ways your audiences can participate (and “win” though doing so). Make sure to repeat such incentives or contests on social platforms like Twitter and Facebook (if you’re up and running on these potentially helpful sites).

Tip #5: Tie your blog to overall business strategy and the social actions you want to inspire.

Think about seasons and cycles when designing content. Think about the products you really want to highlight. If you want to gain fans and followers, design a contest with great prizes and make a condition of entering “liking” your company on FB or following on Twitter. If you want to inspire a commenting culture on the blog, make your audience comment on a post to enter the contest.

Tip #6: Write out a Blog Blueprint—including your thoughts on Tips #1-5.

Keep this handy when writing each and every post. It’ll keep you on track for content—you’ll be ahead of the game in ensuring you make your blog helpful and attractive to your target audiences.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Talking About My Gasperation: A Fix for The Giller Dilemma

By now most of us have heard that Johanna Skibsrud’s Giller win this week for The Sentimentalists has provoked heated controversy. Countless Tweets and blog posts have offered opinions on whether or not Skibsrud’s publisher Gaspereau Press is right to limit the available copies for sale to those they can produce by hand—roughly 1,000 copies per week—in their in-house print shop. The company has reportedly rejected offers from other publishers to collaborate on a commercial printing that would put more copies in stores more quickly.

The debate goes something like this: those who commend Gaspereau’s stand applaud the press for its commitment to high standards and craftsmanship; those who don’t criticize the publisher for failing to seize and leverage the rarest of moments for one of its authors. (See Tasha Kheiriddin’s recent National Post column and Nic Boshart’s accompanying comment for an illustration of both points of view.)

The argument is fuelled, especially within the book trade, by the knowledge that the opportunity provided by the “Giller effect” (the term used to describe how a win like Skibsrud’s can massively increase sales) can be fleeting. The spotlight is on Skibsrud and her book right now, but readers are fickle, Christmas is coming, and the shelves are loaded with readily available alternatives to The Sentimentalists. For Skibsrud, right now is an incredible but shrinking window of opportunity that won’t be served entirely by the always-on eBook edition.

Here’s an idea for the hopper: why not continue to print the handmade editions for which Gaspereau is so justifiably famous and collaborate with another publisher or printer to put a second, commercially printed edition into the market quickly? Maybe even attach a modest premium to the price for Gaspereau’s handmade editions, and/or look at other manageable enhancements (signed by author, anyone?) for those beautiful handmade books. This would respect (even highlight) the publisher’s commitment to craft and further differentiate the value of its original edition for readers who want it, while also allowing the press to meet its responsibilities to its author and her would-be readers by ensuring the book is more readily available across the country.

Above all, why not put the focus back where it belongs? On Skibsrud’s and Gaspereau’s fantastic achievement in writing and publishing a very fine book. And on many more readers discovering it than either of them could ever have dreamed.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Faces and Voices Still Matter

As we all pour hours of our time into Tweeting, Facebooking, and optimizing our websites, it’s worth remembering that we—and our companies—are still basically human. A slick and chatty personality on the web is wasted if you can’t back it up by being courteous and friendly when it comes to the good old traditions of face-to-face contact and phone conversations. Done well, such personal—arguably more intimate—brand touchpoint opportunities can inspire otherwise hard-won trial and loyalty.

Three recent interactions with local companies prompted this post:

Company: Three Bakers and a Bike (1281a Wellington St, Ottawa, 613-729-6236, no website I could find)

Experience: With negative time left to pick up stuff for my son’s birthday party, I was dismayed and panicked to learn at the Three Bakers’ cash register that I couldn’t pay with a credit card for the gorgeous cupcakes I had ordered. Cramming my hands into my pockets, I found a $10 bill amid 500 other crumpled bits of paper—not enough to cover the cost. Before I could check my socks or ask to wash dishes, the owner calmly took my $10 and wondered if I might come back sometime to cover the rest of the bill.

She had never met me before. I thought of her with every bite of delicious cupcake at the party, rushed back the next day to pay her the outstanding amount, and now visit Three Bakers and a Bike whenever I need dessert.

Company: Flowers Talk (1305 Wellington St, Ottawa, 613-321-0592, website under repair)

Experience: My mom’s been fighting a flu for a while. I haven’t been able to go chicken-soup-and-magazine her since our son’s just come off a bad virus (nothing like sick kids when you’re self-employed!) and I’m pregnant and trying desperately to avoid coming down with something this season.

I called Flowers Talk and spoke to a lovely woman who helped me pick out a bouquet and then lingered with me on the phone to perfect the message for the card—double-checking spelling and asking me if it would be okay to add “love” with my name at the end (it was). She so obviously cared about my gesture coming off right, and made sure she could do everything she could at her end to ensure that. Sending flowers is a pretty personal thing, and they get that at Flowers Talk.

Company: Town Restaurant (296 Elgin St, Ottawa, 613-695-8696)

Experience: With a great old friend coming into town for the night, we were excited to get out and try a new restaurant—and had heard Town is pretty special. Sadly, it was a Friday when I called to make reservations and they were booked solid. This didn’t stop the woman on the phone from patiently answering my questions about the menu, checking if we might be okay with bar seating, and getting us onto a cancellation list so she could call me if space unexpectedly opened up. She made me really want to try Town another time—and we will. Contrast that to the couple of other hot spots I called where the people I spoke with who triumphantly declared they were full for the evening and then raced off the phone.

As much as I love a good brand experience on the web, I gotta say that these three offline interactions have stuck with me in a uniquely resonant way.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Better Metadata Will Ensure That Canadian Books Don’t Get Lost Online

We’ve been doing a lot of work around discoverability for the last year or so, especially with regard to how readers discover books—or other cultural products—online. A version of this post appeared as part of feature called “7.5 Ideas for Fixing Canadian Publishing” in the 75th Anniversary Issue of Quill & Quire, Canada’s Magazine of Book News and Reviews, April 2010.

How do readers find books today? In many respects, the same ways they always have: word-of-mouth recommendations from friends, suggestions from trusted sources such as booksellers or media reviews, and impulse buying from end caps, table displays, or homepages.

But we’re also discovering books in very new ways. For one thing, our filters are shifting. Newspaper review sections are shrinking, and there are fewer independent bookstores hand-selling books. But it’s the Internet that is really moving the needle on book discovery: the Web is where we go to find out about things, and increasingly it’s where we go to find books. Whether we buy them online or not, we look up books on Amazon or other major retailers’ sites, we join online book communities, we read blogs, we share links to books that catch our interest, and we discover books while searching or browsing online.

This is more than a change in behaviour. It also marks a sea change in book marketing. It used to be that the press release or catalogue was the foundation of the marketing plan. No more. Now it’s the metadata: the title information that publishers send out into the world about their books.

If publishers don’t begin improving the quality and depth of their metadata, they risk being lost in a sea of information and competing titles-especially the rising tide of books published outside of Canada. Good metadata makes it easier for people to find and buy books: it registers a book’s availability throughout the supply chain, allows the book to be presented on retailer websites, and primes the awareness pump for search engines, bloggers, online book communities, media, and readers of all kinds. Bad data makes books invisible in a crowded marketplace where the balance of power is shifting to readers.

If you’re a publisher, what other information could you include in your data file that would help readers - or librarians, or educators - find your books? How about expanded author information such as a detailed bio, a photo, and the author’s nationality? Or rich descriptive content like review quotes, extended book descriptions, or excerpts? Did the book get nominated for or win any awards?

Every publisher has this information. Relatively few include this rich content in their data feeds, but it’s time to do so. Above all, publishers need to own their data - to ensure its accuracy and completeness and to be authoritative sources of information about their books. It’s too valuable a resource to be treated any other way.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Super Clients, Super Websites

We’ve had the privilege of helping two very cool people launch their brand websites: Carrie McCarthy of Style Statement and Toby Nangle of Nangle+Partners.

Carrie and Toby—despite their very different businesses and audiences—came just as we like ‘em: passionate, intelligent, open-minded, and right on board the idea of strategy driving execution. We developed branding plans for both Carrie and Toby before jumping into tactical work, and it was thrilling to see things progress according to these blueprints.

Congratulations Carrie and Toby for your awesome sites, and big kudos for design and development to Vivien at VG Universe Design (for Style Statement) and Travis and Susie at Hop Studios (for Nangle+Partners).

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

What’s Your Brand’s Major Hurdle and What Can You Do About It?

Every brand has challenges. The best brands—actually, the people behind the best brands—know this, identify the challenges, and come up with solutions to at least minimize them and at best overcome them. Mediocre brands endure a perennial state of a problem’s existing but being ignored in the hopes it will somehow take care of itself or that people—read, audiences—won’t mind too much.

When a brand problem occurs on its public-facing website, it’s a big deal because websites obviously represent such a crucial touchpoint. Following are issues on all too many brand websites:

• failure to state up front what the brand or company is and does, and/or to explain this enough,
• insistence on brand features to the exclusion of benefits,
• presenting in a bland, cold, or otherwise unappealing tone,
• overestimation of the amount of time users want to spend on the site,
• failure to address audiences’ needs, manifested in non-user-centric navigation and/or site behaviour, aka ...
• designing the site according to internal understanding of the brand/company and not according to what audiences want to learn and find.

All of these mistakes are very easy to make, and again, they’re commonly allowed to persist because they’re “not dealbreakers.” Says who? Certainly not the visitors who walk away because of them, since they’re not talking—they’re gone.

Does your website suffer from any of them? We’ll be reviewing ours over the next few months to see where we can improve (do let us know if you have suggestions), but in the meantime, here are a couple of examples of brands that have taken the challenge of confronting—and we think, solving—a major issue they faced.

Brand: Bookriff (currently in closed BETA)
Challenge: Convey a very cool but rather complicated idea as simply as possible so visitors don’t lose interest/get confused/feel it’s too complicated and navigate away from the site.
Solution: Main benefit is written in bold—“build your own book”—with clear explanatory text right below. But most importantly, they include a prominent link to a high-quality how-to video for visitors who would rather learn audio-visually, as well as a link allowing them to try out the concept. We’re excited about Bookriff!

Brand: VisionCritical
Challenge: Bring humanity, energy, and warmth to what could be a very cold, impersonal site (VisionCritical is an online panel research and interactive technology company). Market research sites are often plagued by jargon and boring language.
Solution: On balance, ambitious and interesting copy and content. Lots and lots of video with employees talking like people really do (not canned) about what moves them and excites them. Sometimes the language gets carried away, but for the most part it’s way, way above average for its sector. Take the following for example:

With Vision Critical, grassroots insight is always on, poised to deliver when you need it. Discover and amplify what moves your biggest fans. Find out what your customers want right now. Find out what little touches keep them loyal. See trendsetting customers for what they are: a wealth of winning strategy waiting to be tapped.

Our interactive technology, strategic research and global panels turn customer groundswell into authentic, resonant brands that move with confidence.

Right now.

Because when your customers take the lead, so does your brand.

What comes across with VisionCritical is passion—and that’s a huge achievement considering how dryly the brand could have come across with another treatment. Another nice touch is their interview series: check one out at http://j.mp/6atLaN

So what’s your branding challenge?

And what will you do about it?

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

How to Get Your Target Audience to Open Your Emails

For starters, don’t include the word “free.”

Way back in 2007, Mailchimp, a company specializing in sending clients’ email newsletters, published an excellent article on what works and doesn’t work for email subject lines. We still go back to that article sometimes because it’s so helpful, so we thought we share some of its highlights and provide its link.

The article is based on Mailchimp’s study of open rates for over 200 million emails.

Highlights
Don’t

• Don’t include “free”—it’ll trigger spam filters—and avoid “help,” “percent off,” and “reminder”—they reduce open rates.
• Don’t keep repeating the same subject line from campaign to campaign. It’s good to keep basic branding intact for some consistency but then it’s important to include a focus on new content. So if your September email subject line was “Bookcentral Study Shows No Interest in New Online Bookstore” you could make the next one “Bookcentral’s Top Reading Picks for 2009.”
• Don’t send too frequently—everyone has too much information to process.
• Don’t using splashy promotional phrases, CAPS, or exclamation marks.

Do

• Do keep subject lines short—50 characters or less.
• Do make it clear that your information is timely (e.g., details on an upcoming conference’s speakers).
• Do make it a “newsy” headline with information designed to pique your readers’ curiosity (then make sure you satisfy their curiosity in the newsletter).
• Do put yourself in your readers’ shoes—they are pressed for time and they’re only going to open your email if the subject line is relevant, respectful, interesting, and useful.

Mailchimp ends with this advice: “When it comes to subject lines, don’t sell what’s inside. Tell what’s inside.”

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Launching a Whitepaper

We’ve been working with Launchfire, a leading interactive promotions agency, on a new series of whitepapers, and the first one was just released. The topic this time around is how to motivate consumers with interactive promotions. The premise is that the advertiser-consumer value exchange that has fueled the advertising business for the last 50 years (i.e., 22 minutes of television show wrapped around eight minutes of advertising) needs to be adapted and applied to the Internet.

Interactive promotions—advergames, contests, and other viral promotions—activate this value exchange in a dramatic way. Because of this, spending on interactive promotions is expected to overshadow online search and display advertising by 2012.

The whitepaper presents findings from a new consumer survey and draws on Launchfire’s 10 years of experience in delivering interactive promotions for leading brands. The paper is available for $0.00 on the Launchfire website, and is well worth a read if we do say so ourselves.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

How to Tell Your Customers to Go to Hell and Have Them Love You Even More

I received a message in my inbox a little while ago that made my day. It damned me to hell and told me I was despised.

The message was from a company I have always admired. The message made me love this company even more. The company is The Onion, the very funny “news” organization that parodies the real news.

The Onion knows that anyone who likes them and their merchandise appreciates twisted humour. They know their audience expects marketing to be clever and that we’re thrilled it’s now harder for telemarketers to bombard us during Sunday dinner. They know we like to laugh, and that we don’t like earnest, insincere ploys for our attention and dollars.

The Onion knows their audience, and makes sure everything they do considers our taste and speaks to us in a unified, audacious voice.

The Onion is brilliant.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Seth Godin Wants Me, He Really Wants Me

Somewhere in my permanently backlogged RSS reader, there’s a feed from Seth Godin’s hyperactive marketing blog. It turns out that Seth has a new book coming out this fall, and he’s come up with a new way to promote it. A promotion so clever that—before you could say “act now”—I was signed off, paid up, and anxiously awaiting further news.

Here’s the necessary context: the new book is called Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, and it’s all about “groups of people aligned around an idea, connected to a leader and to each other.” The main argument of the book appears to be that the web makes it easier than ever to find and participate in your tribe, and this in turn uncorks no end of opportunities for marketers and other tribe-interested folk the world over.

But who cares what the book is about. I bought it because of the promotion.

Here’s the invite from Seth’s promotional message yesterday:

I’d like to invite you to join a members-only tribe. A tribe for marketers, for leaders, for those focused on building communities or creating products or spreading ideas.

This online community will live on a site we’ve created that will feature blogs, forums, social networking, comments, photos, videos and a job board. And it’s by invitation only until October. Spots are limited and early members get privileges and bragging rights.

Members get a password and the privilege of meeting each other, posting thoughts, connecting to big ideas or projects and more.

The catch is you have to pre-order Tribes and send Seth your proof of purchase in order to get a password to join this new online community. “It’s not about selling more books, of course,” says Seth. “It’s about creating a small hurdle to get the right people in the door.”

Genius. Here’s why:

• Who doesn’t want to be “the right people.” (Where do I order my copy?)
• The invite is time-limited and creates an incredibly effective sense of urgency. (How soon can I buy?)
• The invite appears to offer real value—an exclusive online community of like-minded folks. (I’d be crazy not to buy this. These are my people.)
• The promo proves the central argument of the book—tribes good, join one now—as well as a minor argument that the most powerful tribes are those that are not open to everyone. (This guy’s really on to something. Do you take Amex?)

We spend a lot of time at Turner-Riggs working on strategies for better book marketing, and this is as nifty an idea as we’ve seen recently. Months in advance of publication, Seth has engaged his community of interest (the term we use around here for “tribe”), cranked up the pre-sales for the book, and seeded the marketplace with lots of good word of mouth. I’m in the tribe, if only to see what happens next.