This is what ‘almost’ every business is now experiencing and the associated ‘pain’ is a great teacher!

Nothing new here … BUT …. What this often forces is knee jerk responses associated with cost cutting; all driven by financial metrics; an unbalanced approach that can result in a spiral and most often impairs your competitive positioning and enterprise sustainability.

HOWEVER, what every business still needs, maybe now more than ever, are their clients and customers. You cant walk away from your marketplace if you want to survive and for many, that’s what this cycle is about ….. surviving.

As W Edwards Deming preached many years ago …. “Survival is Optional”!

It’s what you DO now and the decisions you make now that will determine your own survivability and the longer term sustainability of your enterprise.

There will be lessons, some of them hard, that will be learnt from this cycle but what is obvious is that it is driven by two factors; recession which in the normal cycle of events we were probably due anyway, but which could probably have been more easily manageable if it were not compounded by credit crunch making access to finance even more tougher and therefore feeding the recessionary pressures.

OK; so what’s this got to do with a Digital Agency blog??

Well, the fact is that the efficiency and effectiveness of your enterprise is now at the forefront of your mind like never before. And with financial support being even more focused on ’minimum risk’ business cases, this approach will continue to be so even after this cycle of recession has run its course.

Within this challenge, investing in and maintaining your market presence, gaining market share and servicing your clients/customers profitably remains a business imperative.

These factors MUST be prioritised within the prime drivers of cost effectiveness and efficiency as opposed to purely cost-reduction in the quest for improved cash generation and usage.

And for those that get this right, there is the additional opportunity of gaining market share away from your competitors.

OK … so for some of you that have not yet caught onto what this has to do with a Digital Agency blog ……………..

The fact is that the internet now provides the most cost effective AND efficient route to market you have (or is available to you). Even for B2B clients. Getting your internet strategy right and structuring your key business processes and business models properly aligned to the Internet will be vital for survival and for taking market share from the opportunity presented by the current climate. Particularly when RoI from the investment in such a strategy can be clearly demonstrated within accpetable timescales.

If you don’t …………. Your competitors will. What impact will this added pressure have on your business if this happens?? Alternatively, if you do …. What impact will this have not only on your survival but also your sustainability ….. and on your competitors??

So change may be being enforced at this time, but there is also a great opportunity to embrace this change and take advantage of the opportunities presented by pro-active engagement to influence its outcome. Some of the other blog topics on this site will give you some insight into how to approach these challenges; alternatively give us a call … particularly if your FD is driving head-count and cost reduction without appropriate balance.

Whatever happens, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Christmas and a Healthy and Successful 2009.

Our chosen charity is hSt.Gemmas hospice so please give generously here http://www.justgiving.com/bloom-beard-off

An internal debate at a recent BM Board meeting revolved around the frustration experienced by our management team regarding delays then being experienced with certain clients that were impacting both our ability to deliver AND particularly the RoI estimates we had provided for these projects. These delays invariably revolved around client inter-departmental ‘dynamics’ and decision making; into which we had little, if any, influence or contribution and for which we feared we would ultimately be held accountable! This sense of frustration was exacerbated by the knowledge that from our perspective it was a ‘no brainer’ for the client to commit fully to the project due to realistic ROI and business benefit projections; even when prudently calculated. However, we also acknowledged that we were engaged as an ‘external’ agency and as such were not party to the decision-making criteria or process used by the client; a position that only served to ‘fuel our fire’! After all, our ultimate objective is not just to deliver value but to make a significant contribution to client success.

The ensuing debate brought up a number of key challenges faced, we believe, by many digital agencies and their clients. The following is representative of the dialogue that took place during this debate:

The business world, both B2B and B2C, has evolved to a point where traditional business strategies, models, processes and even organisational structures are CHALLENGED by the ‘New Way’ enabled by internet technologies and techniques.

Young internet focused (.com) enterprises are structured and focused from inception to engage fully with the power of the internet and are taking full advantage of their first mover status. More ‘traditional’ enterprises are encumbered by the ‘old way’ of doing things and potentially face radical change to achieve the same level of efficiencies and effectiveness.

To the ‘initiated’ the internet has already become such an obviously powerful tool for brand and image management, market positioning, business development and strategic decision making. These ‘experts’ therefore consider it a business imperative to embrace with this change and engage fully with the Internet. Tesco’s .com response to the insurance marketplace is a recent example of this change imperative in action.

However, the problem many traditional business enterprises face, particularly in such a fast paced technological environment, is that the internet can often appear to be a ‘Black Art’ and even a ‘Black Hole’; particularly those faced with the challenge of potential radical change. This is further complicated by young internet entrepreneurs and their businesses being required to INFLUENCE larger, historically successful and more experienced business leaders and ‘advise’ on full engagement.

The time has come, I believe, for Digital Agencies to be BOLD and positively project their role WITHIN their clients to engage pro-actively with their decision making forum and influence a move away from procrastination, re-activity and dabbling to one of full engagement with the ‘New Way’ enabled by the Internet.

With the challenges presented and opportunities afforded by the current economic pressures, this pro-active approach surely has to be a MUST.

That said ……………… digital agencies are therefore faced with the challenge of HOW to impact change within their ‘traditional’ clients and WHAT that change should be ………………as well as justifiably expect the client to value and pay for this support/advice/representation!

Agencies in turn therefore face the challenge of HOW this approach impacts their own market positioning, service portfolio, client engagement …. business model, etc., etc. Also, with capacity management having such a big impact on business performance, this challenge also has to impact on their client selection criteria!

It therefore seems to me that the ‘agency child’ had better evolve rapidly into an ‘adult’ in order to engage properly with its client parents ………… whilst the ‘parent’ needs to mature rapidly in order to respect and listen to the advice of its young adult ………. IF they wish to survive that is!!

I am not sure if I/we am/are alone in this view and perhaps can already anticipate the ‘after you’ responses but would certainly appreciate and welcome critique and feedback from both client-side and other agencies; particularly those who have already ventured down this path ………. ???

Flash video can be delivered either via a streaming server, which allows for on-demand/live video, or via the more commonly used progressive download method. Progressively downloaded videos do not start until a proportion of the video has downloaded to the client, ensuring a smooth un-interupted video experience.

While this is fine and dandy, what happens when you want the entire video to download before it begins to play, or if you have several bandwidth intensive videos as is the case of our own “Meet the Team” page. In either case, preloading flv’s is not a documented feature, and it must therefore be simulated.

What follows is one method you can use to simulate preloading Flash video files, including a progress bar and percentage label.

/**
* Preloading FLVs with progressbar
*
* Actionscript developed by Bloom Media Ltd. | www.bloommedia.co.uk
* Contributors: Dominic Kelly
*/
 
// open a net connection
var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
// null connection for progressive download
nc.connect(null);
 
// create a stream
myNetStream = new NetStream(nc);
myVideo.attachVideo(myNetStream);
// load video
myNetStream.play("dom-kelly.flv");
// pause video to hide it from the stage
myNetStream.pause();
 
// hide load progress
percentage._visible = false;
percentage._visible = false;
 
// resize video onload, based on meta data
myNetStream.onMetaData = function(obj)
{
	myVideo._height = obj.height;
	myVideo._width = obj.width;
	// show load progress
	percentage._visible = true;
	percentage._visible = true;
};
 
// listen for the 'Stop' status event, and restart the video to loop it
myNetStream.onStatus = function(info)
{
	if (info.code == "NetStream.Play.Stop")
	{
		this.seek(0);
	}
};
 
// create a preload interval to check load progress every 1 millisecond
myInterval = setInterval(checkBytesLoaded, 1, myNetStream);
 
// preload loop progress
function checkBytesLoaded(mns)
{
	// calculate percentage of video that has downloaded
	pctLoaded = Math.round(mns.bytesLoaded / mns.bytesTotal * 100);
 
	// update textfield on the stage
	percentage.text = pctLoaded + "%";
 
	// update progress bar on the stage
	progressBar._xscale = pctLoaded;
 
	if (pctLoaded >= 100)	{
		// the video has fully downloaded
		_root.percentage.text = "loaded";
		// play video from the beginning
		mns.seek(0);
		mns.play("dom-kelly.flv");
		// clear interval
		clearInterval(myInterval);
	}
}

And there you have it, a simple and effective flv preloader.

View the demo or download the source code.

E-mail harvesting and website hacks are the main ways for spammers to get to you. For example, a plain text e-mail address on a webpage can be harvested by e-mail “bots” then added to mailing lists and sold to the highest bidder.

To stop this, developers quickly adopted the use of graphical representations of the letters, displayed using a static JPEG or GIF image. But the bot programmers began to use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to read that address just like the human eye.

In response, developers got smart and started to use contact forms. That was a good idea, only humans can fill in a web form, right? Wrong! It didn’t take long for the bots to get smarter. E-mail bots can now fill in those contact forms themselves.

Give us this day our daily spam.

So, what’s wrong with that? If you get spammed with your website form, you just delete when the spam hits your mailbox? That will work for maybe 1 or 2 spams a day, but what about 20? 200? Once your contact form is found by the bots, then you will start getting hit with more offers for fake Rolex watches and Viagra than you can deal with.

What is worse, this will impact on your e-mail server. If your e-mail server is a shared server from your ISP, you could find yourself in breach of their terms of service, and have your site shut down. Worse still, often those forms will be filled in using already harvested addresses, meaning any automated replies could be sent to innocent victims using YOUR mail server, from YOUR e-mail address. This could result in you and even your ISP being blacklisted which may again find you in breach of contact. In the worst case, compensation may be sought by your ISP or third parties as a result of system downtime, loss of revenue and time for remedial work.

So what can be done? How can you tell the bots from real people?

It’s actually relatively easy to spot a robot. The Turing Test has been around for a while, and so far no one has made a computer which can fool a human into thinking they’re real. What is needed then is a reverse Turing Test which challenges anyone using the form, with a question only a human could possibly answer. You will be glad to know that there are many different kinds of test which have been developed and are collectively referred to as CAPTCHA: “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”

You may already have used a CAPTCHA, they typically take the form of a graphical rendering of a word. The user must type the word in response thus passing the test. Early versions were easily broken using the same OCR methods as with e-mail harvesting, but the test have quickly been made harder by deforming the words, and adding extra graphics to make the words hard for the OCR to decode.

CAPTCHA done the right way. Care of reCAPTCHA

As a result, some CAPTCHA systems are very hard to read and have serious usability and accessibility issues, but systems such as re-CAPTCHA give very useable results and have audio versions of the code for increased accessibility.

Many ISPs are now making it mandatory for CAPTCHA systems to be installed on any web form they host, and with the risks discussed above, it’s clear why this is the case. No ISP wants to be blacklisted, accused of spamming and they certainly don’t want the performance of their servers compromised either.

This is why CAPTCHA systems are here to stay and anyone not taking on the new technology will be left behind … Still clearing their inbox probably.

We hear our clients shout, (more than likely in internal marketing meetings), “Let’s do a mail shot”. A single piece of electronic communication destined for failure! Why? Let me explain….

Generally the outcome of the user journey and call to action is not really thought through but at a strategic level a ‘mail shot’ is not Email Marketing, it is merely a shot in the dark with the email addresses you may have acquired over several years and sending them content/offers which probably doesn’t bear any relevance to them anymore.

With every email marketing strategy, testing has to be carried out , I cannot emphasis this enough. This will help cleanse your data, outline data segments for your recipients, understand what type of tone of voice, creative and subject lines works best for those data segments. All in all this process will enhance the success of your strategy.

It is only once this phase of testing has been carried out should your campaign strategy be planned. For example, the types of mailers to be sent e.g. newsletters, sales, a combination of the two. Also the frequency of your mailers, how and when they will tie in with your other marketing activity, whether that be online or offline.

It is this thought process that will define your email marketing strategy and allow it to coincide with your yearly marketing plan to enhance what we call the ‘halo’ effect of your overall marketing activity and really generate some meaningful ROI.

Taking a step by step approach:

- Cleanse your recipient database

- Segment your recipient database

- Send test campaigns

- Analyse reports from test and align creative/content accordingly

- Plan your strategy

- Initiate your campaign

- Generate ROI

To understand this process in its entirety please take a look at the pretty picture I’ve drawn…

http://www.bloommedia.co.uk/email_marketing.pdf

Ketan Ladd

I’ve invited all the team here to post and would welcome our peers and clients to also share their thoughts on all things digital and beyond.

I thought i’d get stuck right in.. hope this sparks some interest.

I’ve been working in digital for 10 years now and have watched this industry grow and mature with pleasure. At first communicating the opportunity digital presented to senior decision makers was always an uphill struggle but over time this has eased and every year we are lucky enough to take an ever larger share of our clients marketing spend. So you’d all think I’d be happy right? So did I, but actually I’ve found myself getting ever more frustrated.

Whilst things have moved on from ‘why do I need a website?’ still all too often we (digital agencies) are treated as a bolt-on side strategy, measured solely on our own capacity to generate ROI. This is plainly the wrong way to go about it..

I think if a client wishes to truly seize the opportunity of digital then they must be prepared for change.. change to their marketing strategy, change to their media evaluation and measurement, change to their back office systems, changes to their sales strategy but most difficult for them to accept is often the requirement for change to their organisational structure. The customer journey from initial brand exposure, to contact to conversion has been changed forever by digital and at every stage in the process, in this brave new world the customer controls the brand, the best the corporation can hope for is influence!

I think the problem we face is a consequence of the fact that our industry is still young and consequently there is a gulf in understanding this between the maturing leaders of digital agencies (such as myself) who are now experienced enough to understand business, and the leaders of our clients’ organisations who cut their teeth in business in a totally different age. The big opportunities for agencies like us are therefore restricted to companies that have managed to bridge this gap themselves and embrace the change (and there are some) or where we can find a way of overcoming these hurdles.. the only obvious solution being appointment to a decision making role within the clients management team (not that easy to get agreement to).

We find ourselves increasingly looking for new ways in which to approach clients to try to drive this change within their organisation and often that means looking beyond the fee based model to payment on results/commission based structures linked to a win-win. Essentially this is a cock-on-the-block gesture from us to the client to show them we really believe in what we are pitching, and this is what it takes to convince them we are worth listening to. If they engage with this approach then we have a platform for a true partnership and can insist on measures such as board/senior exec representation.

Reading what I have written, it makes me envy the situation the old skool advertising and marketing agencies are in, but I guess once upon a time it was the same for the ‘ad men’. I can’t help but think this would be easier for us if we were coming in as part of the overall marketing plan rather than the afterthought or parallel strategy. It’s time to stop thinking in terms of media silo’s and start thinking in terms of customer journeys across many media (search being just one of these), integrated strategy, integrated measurement. Clients are starting to stop thinking in these silo based terms and are looking for this joined-up thinking.. call it full service or whatever you like but either through partnerships or groups of companies or single ‘full service’ agencies I really think it’s the future.

I’m not sure I have fully evolved this thought yet but its convinced me to re-attend this year’s ‘New Agency Models 08’ master class run by Centaur(marketing week etc).

So if you are reading this and you are a client, or an agency I’d love to hear your thoughts.. does this scare you? Excite you? Can you envisage a relationship which isn’t just based on day rate but mutual reward?

Alex Craven

MD - Bloom Media