Because brand development needs to happen through a generalist approach. Agencies function as generalists.
You need someone who knows how to create your website, films, and social media strategy, make you google-able, write your core messages, buy your advertising, and help you strategize on events. And they all need to be brand-aligned.
Working with an agency means you won’t have to manage the multiple people and thousands of individual tasks it takes to do brand development and create media. Working with an agency means you don’t have to become an expert in lots of crazy technical stuff.
An agency provides you with a complete team of thinkers, strategists, producers, and creatives all at your disposal. Ideas abound. Efficiency rolls. Management happens. Results occur.
I recently read this little story in the Monday Morning Memo (a weekly column you NEED to be reading). The lesson will be obvious. If you need help learning to not be a wimp in your messge and advertising, call us at Wordswell.
My partner Peter Nevland recently bumped into the owner of a bottled water service who asked him for some free advice. Peter asked, “Why should the customer of another water service switch to yours?”
“We’re locally owned.” “Ten percent of our profits go to charity,” blah, blah, blah.
Peter was unimpressed.
Exasperated and grasping at straws, the man mentioned his water had recently been voted “Best Tasting” by the readers of an obscure, local business journal.
“Why do you think you won?”
The man hung his head, “We cheat.”
“How?”
“Our water is saturated with dissolved oxygen, twice the amount found in regular water.”
“What does that do?”
“Dissolved oxygen is what makes water taste good. It’s why cold water tastes better than warm water. Cold water contains more dissolved oxygen.”
“You’re saying your room temperature water tastes like cold water?”
The man nodded his head.
“Do you always saturate your water with dissolved oxygen?”
“Yes, why do you ask?”
SAD ENDING: Peter was unable to convince the man to promote his better tasting water with dissolved oxygen. I swear I’m not making this up. The man remained convinced his ads needed to say, “We’re locally owned and give ten percent of our profits to charity.”
Social Media ROI
Wordswell is helping a Real Estate Agent in Jacksonville Beach get leads
Eric Miller, a real estate agent in Jacksonville Beach, Florida has hired Wordswell to help him get more leads from home buyers and seller.
We have created a website that will specifically focus on Jacksonville Beach real estate. The site will have house search functionality, tools to help buyers and sellers, and information about the following communities:
Neptune Beach
Jacksonville Beach
Atlantic Beach
Ponte Verde Beach
Intracoastal West
We think the design is really cool. Eric looks engaging, and there is clear communication of how to get in touch with Eric. We will be adding contact forms and other sources of lead generation shortly, and of course, we’ll help Eric navigate the social media world to contribute to his success.
Communiqué: “White Space (Part 3)”
White space is typically a term used in graphic design that means the space between elements in a composition. It’s often the mark of simple, clean, and clear design.
The past month we’ve looked at white space in new ways.
In “White Space (Part 1)” we note, as did Da Vinci, that “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Often complex ideas can be best explained by using metaphors or examples. By utilizing these techniques, we can all bring a greater understanding to what we do.
“White Space (Part 2)” looks at how the internet is creating another sort of white space. By having multitudes of information always available when we search for it, we can relax, clear our brains, and be ok with decentralized knowledge.
All of these approaches to white space lead to a hopeful reality for our emerging world:
Great ideas will win.
This is largely due to the technological changes happening right now, in real time. The internet is redefining “authority”.
Culturally, the playing field is leveling. It’s less about how much influence you can buy and more about how much influence you can earn. It’s about how good your ideas are and, of course, how well you communicate them.
Here’s why:
We’re in an opt-in world. Increasingly, we only consume the information and media that we want to. We self-select the influences we want to have and so we care more about what those people and brands say. Time-shifiting products like TiVo, DVRs, podcasts, other on-demand services, and even Google itself, mean that we get what we want when we want it. The role of interruption-based messages (like traditional advertising) is changing drastically.
Communities are evolving, and they’re going online. Instead of turning to big media outlets to tell us what’s happening and what’s cool, we are looking more and more to our hand-picked communities (or, as Seth Godin calls them, “tribes”). These tribes are developing online where we can create and digest tons of content, stay in touch with more people than ever, and essentially leverage our time, our expertise, and the value bring to the table.
All media is becoming “social media”. This means that we can engage with and/or contribute to the messages we consume like never before. Walls are down. Gatekeepers are dead. Ideas can spread with the click of a mouse or cell phone button. For example, if one of your Twitter messages is “retweeted” by a few folks and again retweeted by some of their friends, you’ve reached an audience of thousands within seconds. We have more potential for influence and power than ever before.
The real question is, what are we going to do with it?
Brody
P.S. A great example of this whole concept is that in a matter of days, over 1,000 people signed to participate 40 Days of Water, a Blood:Water Mission campaign to bring clean water to our neighbors in Africa. In the 2 days after launch, about 10,000 people had visited the special website dedicated to the campaign. All of this happened almost exclusively through social media and word of mouth. It’s incredible.
Wordswell had the privilege of building the website and software application that is supporting this campaign. You can sign up to participate by making water your only beverage for 40 days. Otherwise, if you’d like to donate to the cause, visit my profile page at http://40Days.bloodwatermission.com/brodybond.
Communiqué: “White Space (Part 2)”
Information overload is crushing to the soul.
It’s why we should all be excited about emerging web technologies. Here’s why:
We will no longer have to wade through the mire of content packed into tight, unsearchable places.
The old way
Jam lots of content into a printed newsletter. Force people to have to read though everything to find the pieces of content they actually want. Make sure none of this content is ever accessible again. Do not leverage this content outside the scope of your current audience. Oh, and spend lots of money to print and mail it.
The newer way
Put all of your content online – text, pictures, audio, and video. Allow users to see titles, summaries, categories, and tags to find what is useful to them. Make all this content searchable, both so that it can be found in the future and so outsiders might find something valuable to read. Store all this content for free (regardless of how many people see it). Allow folks to comment, share, link to, and otherwise engage your content.
The web lets us spread out information. It allows us to find information on demand. It’s like a proxemic white space.
It allows us to find those needles in the haystacks.
It allows us to breath.
It also levels the playing field of influence… but more on that in Part 3 next week.
Create white space. Revive your soul,
brody
The Wordswell blog is the place for information on communication and brand development.
