The Gatekeepers

Maurie the doorman stands with his arms crossed outside the football teams locker room and lets the TV Crew enter.  It wasn't like that in the old days he thinks to himself.

Gatekeeper (plural gatekeepers)

1. A person who guards or monitors passage through a gate
2. A person or group who controls access to something or somebody
3. A common butterfly, Pyronia tithonus.

 

From the earliest days of society we built walls around our towns and cities to stop attacks and keep our people and businesses safe.

In most sports, arts and business we have also have gatekeepers - those burly guards at the door of football team locker rooms, nightclub or building; the Artist Manager; the CEO's Secretary or Personal Assistant filtering calls, interruptions and potential time wasters.  All diligently protecting the jewel from the masses.   

As people we also build our own walls and our own personal gatekeepers.  

Emails, Advertising and Marketing Communications

Today we're all bombarded with thousands of messages per day trying to get us to do something or sell us something we mostly think we don't need.

All those messages a bit like rock star fans screaming for attention and action.

Our mind, as the gatekeeper, constantly filtering our sensory inputs for what is important. 

Not everything has the same level of importance and there is ofter a difference in perspective to what is important between the sender and the gatekeeper.

Maurie has a job to do and he'll do it to the best of his ability. 

More than often, the gatekeeper is unaware of the any bigger picture issues and problems but if the gate is closed then no solution can gets in.

Understanding Problems and Discovering Solutions

Every person and business has challenges - more time, more money, more happiness.

Back in the old days solutions weren't as easy to find as a Google Search but a "solution" is much more than a product or service.

What makes us select this product or service over someone else?  What are the most important elements to sales and marketing success?

• A real solution to a customers problem
• Getting past the Gatekeeper
• Trust in you to deliver the solution
• The price the customer is prepared to pay

 

The greatest influences on our decisions - trusted Word of Mouth (WOM) referral - and that's were Digital Media Strategy (DMS) and online social media marketing comes in.

CLIVE ALIVE MEETUP

Funny how sometimes ideas come together so quickly it's like it was just meant to happen, one element the piece that makes the puzzle come together.

We had Gerry Gannon, one of Australia's leading MC's in the studio the other day and the conversation over lunch moved to CLIVE marketing strategy - how we are going to develop demonstrations around vertical market applications and start holding events.

Less than ten minutes later we had a video focused on event registrations.

Event Management 101

Event management is considered one of the strategic marketing and communication tools by companies of all sizes.

From product launches to press conferences, companies create promotional events to help them communicate with clients and potential clients

BUT getting people to know about your event and register can be hard work.  Customer Attention is scarce.  You need to create something that they must attend - that's in their interest.  That your audience leaves with something special and then tells their friends.  In a lot of ways it's no different than a band, a film or any other product.

This article(s) are my personal notes in putting together our first CLIVE ALIVE event and the process we go through.

Intro/ Background

On the 29th July our CLIVE will be one year old - that's given us time to get familiar the latest edition to the family - from a strategy point of view it's now time to go offline and get face to face.

Purpose

Bring together a mix of film and video, technology, media people around our solutions and case studies - create social interaction and foundation for Australian Internet Video Production.

The idea here is that people who come to events are

1. Interested and
2. Likely to talk and share their experience

Putting an event together

Any event is essentially a combination of project management and creative concepts. Elements to consider.

• Purpose of event?
• Target Audience - number, reaching, engaging, registering, servicing.
• Format - date, time, style (theater, boardroom etc)
• Speakers
• Venue
• Logistics
• Marketing - target engagement, registrations.

Purpose

From a business strategy and time management point of view it makes sense to try and talk to effectively to 20 or more people at once then many 1:1's.

Prior we'd experimented with just developing videos online BUT that only goes so far. The fact is people buy from people and everything is about trust and building relationships.

Also, it's socially important to get out from behind our computer screens.

Target Audience

Film, television, media, advertising, marketing, corporates, technologists.

Content

I already know our subject matter "Internet Video" is a hot topic. Most important, what does the audience leave with? The call to action, the message.

Speakers

The first gig I'd like to get Chris in to talk from a Video Directors creative perspective and Nathan in from a client results. I'd like to add one other senior presenter to take a helicopter view and offer their perspective

We have a wide network of potential guests in the pipeline. I love to get Naomi Simson, Trevor Sykes, Holly Kramer, Len Rust, Paul Budde, Iggy Pintado and others to hear their experience of digital media convergence.

Chris to get his film mates, Martin to talk about the Red camera, Hugh, etc the list of potential speakers is endless.

Other elements

One of the key pieces I'm going to use is the number "5" - "CLIVE, ALIVE, FIVE" through everything we do - 5PM, 5 minute presentations, 5th day etc. People remember patterns.

Timing - after work before dinner- 5PM (for 5.30PM) - 7PM

The Format - theatre and network layout. People are time poor, adopt the same process we're using with all our communications, short and sharp, from the broad down to specific (inverted pyramid). Tight time schedule. Intro, 5 min presentation, 5 min Q&A, next guest. 6.00/6.30 Netowrk, 7.00 End.

From a continuity point of view make it once a month, either the 5th Day or the 1st Tuesday.

Venue - the City is most important etc - I search the web, Twitter a question, Nathan suggests NSW DSRD (Event the previous night) - I've presented their before - great location and facilities. In terms of overall strategy could benefit - build government support. My good event management mate Monique suggests a new night club she's doing the marketing for - will look at that for next time - locations can change.

Marketing the event

Usual approach is to target audience by using the news media, hoping to generate media coverage which will reach thousands or millions of people. Also invite their audience to their events and reach them at the actual event.

For our marketing - the check list

• Create the event details online
• Create this web blog (search engine optimised)
• Develop database of potential partners, influencers, clients
• Prepare a press release and distribute through online PR and other online distribution.
• Promote through Twitter through Facebook.
• Email marketing to existing subscriber database.

Til later.

The A-List (or Aussie J List)

An Aussie online marketers dream list - Australian journalists Twitter list.

Last night a much more updated and comprehensive list of Australian journalists on Twitter appeared on the web - certainly more interesting and valuable then the content of the Governments website censor list.

What is interesting is how the relationship between your PR department (for most small businesses themselves) has now moved even more into cyberspace.

The Good Old Days of the Long Lunch

In the good old days you or your PR company would write a press release and then send it out to journalists you knew or wanted to know.

Better still you go out to lunch (still my much more preferred approach) or have a beer at the pubs around Surry Hills or Park St (if in Sydney).

Your Press Release would have a great header to get attention, the opening paragraph written to quickly summarise the key statement. The content all written in a way that would be easy to quickly cut and paste if your journo had an urgent deadline and needed 100, 200, 800 words to fill.

As you may know Twitter is limited to just 140 characters - not a lot you can say.

In the same breath - we are getting better at quickly shortening and filtering information.

Creating Brands Online

For a long time conventional media has been a long way behind online's speed of communication - there are a number of reasons - production values and media economics.

In digital marketing to create brand you'd focus at identifying early innovators and influencers who spread the word through to early adopters and so on.

Twitter, Facebook and other online social networking applications have been great tools for being able to rapidly communicate to your followers, create discussion and interest.

The idea being your readers then blog and share your product, news, video or article.

Eventually this groundswell of "interest" hopefully touches an investigative journalist from the mainstream media who then produces an article, a radio or television interview and broadcasts your story to the masses.

Remember, TV is still the 800 pound video guerrilla, radio feels more personal and the lines between online and offline newspapers and magazines are rapidly blurring.

So what happens when the mainstream media moves onto Twitter en masse - The Oprah's , a list of Australia's Top 100 journalists (below).

There have been a few lists of Australian journalists on Twitter (see end of post), but this one is a little different, and much larger.M, Australia’s top 100 Journalists and news media people on Twitter, Apr 2009

I suppose the first thing you do is follow them with the aim of the journalist following you back and the beginning of a relationship.

Stepping in the journos shoes I can imagine their email Twitter alerts as this list becomes popular. It'd be like walking into online equivalent of a high speed desperate and dateless dating service or the only "sheila" at a poorly organised B&S Ball.

Fact is - we are all already bombarded with emails and information. What makes you and your Tweet something that will get cut through and be of interest?

As always, its the first 12 seconds of attention that counts.

Entertain to Inform, get Creative, Personalise the Experience.

Design - From the broad to the specific

Like a lump of clay on a spinning wheel the Australia's Most Influential Photo project is beginning to take shape.

With any new idea you need to start with a broad idea in mind, let it spin and take shape. 

What do you want to do?  What is the objective of the exercise?  How will success be measured?

Objectives

• Increase awareness of CLIVE and generate sales.
• Incorporate online social media marketing into the marketing process and use as a case study.
• Incorporate my photography (particularly portraits) interests into customer engagement process (build photography skills and customers).
• Start now

Action

So, what have we done today.

1. Further conceptualisation of the project.
2. Created a website page for the project.
3. Created an Influencer submit form on the CLIVE website (using RSFORMS) for people to submit.
4. Created a Flickr Group
   
5. Created this blog entry - this will automatically feed into Twitter, then into my Facebook; RSS feeds etc.

What to do next?

1. Fire these links off to a few friends and start to get a bit of traction.  Note to self:  This is not a short term project so it is going to take a year or two to really evolve.
2. Short-list my own influencers and contact them (this will enable me to work through the next part of the process).
3. Develop some database reports and marketing ideas