Internet Marketing and Digital Media Strategy Sydney Australia

Marketing and making waves - beware the dumpers

Surfers watch weather maps for low pressure systems that will generate big waves in the days ahead.

Experience tells you which breaks will get the best waves - the best spots are usually busy.

Out in the surf pack on big days there is a strong hierarchy, a pecking order, a combination of experience, talent and bravado. 

In any group there are usually those who make their presence known quietly and others who bully and yell like greedy anxious seagull waiting for the next chip.

No matter what type of surfer you are - with every big wave you catch you have to wary of the dumpers that close out, the ones that suddenly explode out of control, sucking and grabbing you into the white water turbulence and smashing you across the reef.

There's always a risk in whatever we do - in surfing, the nirvanic reward, a perfect tube - the self realisation, the hoots from your peers, the applause from the crowd.

It's how you handle the situation that counts.

From the observers point of view standing safely on the cliffs above, the "spectacle" of both victories and defeats at the hands of the elements - that's sport, that's entertainment, that's business and relationships.

AND there is a significant difference between those doing the surfing and those observing from the shoreline.

Up on the hills and out in the water there's little sympathy for the weasel bloke smashed across the reef, picking up the pieces of his expensive broken board, crawling up the rocks and out of the water.  The chorused boos and indifference of the crowd.

"At least I was in the water" he says defiant and raising his finger, oblivious to the quick buck mentality road of destruction.

It's not the destination but "the journey", the "how we got here" that echos idol collective.

A new day, more waves to conquer, another surfer paddles out.

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.

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.

One thing about the digital media space is that it is never boring - there is constant innovation and learning but at the end of the day it's all about communications - which is people talking with people.

Digital communications is now embedded into all our lives - from your mobile phone, conventional email through to blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

As the NBN (National Broadband Network) pipe expands so will the range of digital products and services on offer.  In fact,  Australian's spend more time on the Internet than watching TV or with any other media (Neilsen/ Love Digital)

Video on demand, IPTV, peer-to-peer (P2P) video, and Internet video are forecast to account for nearly 90 percent of all consumer IP traffic in 2012 (Cisco), more importantly around those video elements will be a myriad of interactive services - many of which we haven't thought of yet - health, education, entertainment and so on.

The economy of tomorrow will be connected by this high speed network connecting Australian customers and businesses to the global market.  At the moment Australia is ranked about 18th in the world and we are about 1% of the global GDP marketplace.   The potential opportunity is substantial.

Australia has the potential to be world leaders - in fact the US is already looking at what we've done with the NBN but the answer is more than infrastructure - ie like power poles are to electricity - it's how you use and create that counts and with limited capital that requires strategy and focus.

If Australia is going to compete on the world market then we need to not only develop the technical infrastructure but the skills development, effective capital investment framework, digital media strategy and thought leadership for the next wave of Aussie entrepreneurs.

The week that was!

An "interesting" week in the wide world of the web -

• Sensis (Yellow Pages/ Telstra) concedes defeat dumping it's search engine for Google search results; 
• we sat in on the Australian Broadband Conference and learnt more about the Australian National Broadband Network NBN shamozzle;
• there was a US Presidential Election (smiles) - the first tech savvy President!
• we had our first CLIVE Sales Partner conference and
• we tapped into the Web 2.0 Conference in San Fransisco.

How are the events related?

During the week Internet marketing guru Seth Godin, wrote a piece on "marketing lessons form the 2008 Presidential election."

One of his points "Influencing the Influencers"  

Seth writes,

Motivating the committed outperforms persuading the uncommitted. The unheralded success factor of Obama's campaign is the get out the vote effort. Every marketer can learn from this. It's easier (far easier) to motivate the slightly motivated than it is to argue with those that either ignore you or are predisposed to not like you.

To get a deeper understanding of this we need to take a few steps back and understand

1. The evolution of society and economy from nomadic to agricultural, industrial, informational towards the Creative Economy (see HP's Phil McKinney's presentation)
2. We are currently transforming from an industrial based economy to informational (see Morgan Stanleys Mary Meeker Web 2.0). Key points are
   
   1. An 81% correlation between GDP and advertising growth.
   2. Undermonitezed social networks/ VoIP and Video which is driving powerful usage growth
   3. Facebook and Youtube gained 500 basis points of relative share while Yahoo and MSN lost share over the last two years
   4. Focus on BRICS (Brasil, Russia,India, China and South Africa)
   5. Companies with cogent business models that provide consumer value should survive/ thrive.  consumers need more value than they have needed it in a long time and the Internet should be the best place to find it
3. An understanding of Groundswell - Internet user technographics - from "inactives" to "creators"

 So what does that mean for Australia?

Australia is currently looking to implement a National Broadband Network (NBN).  One needs to understand that the Creative Economy of the future is based on the broadband infrastructure of today.  The challenges of an aging population (e-health); skills shortage (e-education); green (carbon reduction); economic (global service export) are underpinned by a world best practice broadband infrastructure.

With the basic world class broadband infrastructure in place, innovation will prosper.  Australia has the opportunity to take a global leadership position in the development of the Creative Economy.