Marc Scibelli | Creative Director

Tomorrow will be day two at the Incisive Media Booth here at LegalTech NY 2009 - This year we’ve decided to use the booth to target our digital products and sites. We’ve also planned to highlight the editorial talents of some of the publications, namely - Law Technology News.

We put to together a two section booth - A Blogging Station and a Video Interview Studio.

The blogging station allows visitors to choose among our family of legal technology blogs and post comments about the LegalTech event. We also added access to two submit forms that will allow them to instantly receive links to our blogs as well as submit a blog post, article or other item directly to the editors.

The live video interview area on the other side of the booth allows us to conduct interviews with key opinion leaders about legal technology topics. Today it began with Monica Bay, Editor-In-Chief of Law Technology News asking guests what they hate about technology. We had about 22 interviews in 2 hours.

Within minutes of completion, the short videos (about 2-3 minutes) were posted to YouTube and then to a standalone video bog site where viewers can continue the conversation by leaving comments after each interview.

The overall idea is not so much the exciting part - it’s how quickly and for limited funds you can get something like this together.

Traditionally a digital video camera would have to have been brought in with an operator, the the video would have to be digitized, edited compressed and posted. You may even need to hire an outside tech or videographer. It could be days before your video even got to you.

Instead we simply used a 20″ iMac with a buil-in iSight camera along with two lapel mics. The iMac instantly digitizes the footage, optimizing for YouTube, and by using the embed code from YouTube we’re able to add it instantly to our own hosted sites.

Using a second monitor we are able to point the iMac camera at the participants while working the software from the other. We used iMovie ‘09 (’08 works just as well) which lets us to go straight from camera, add titles and post to YouTube, almost instantly. You can also use Google’s free application Vidnik.

After the videos are posted to YouTube we feed them over to the standalone Wordpress site we designed and hosted, but you can use any video blog Wordpress theme out there. This was done by simply pasting the embed code.

While the technology is easy and inexpensive - what’s really exciting is that both of these ideas allow for us to use our digital content to enhance our message rapidly.

At the blog station users are able to join the conversation and talk about LegalTech and our other brands, and at the video interview area they are a part of the show, while creating interesting content.

The rapid deployment of the content also allows bloggers and participants to talk about it now, while they are at LegalTech.

By being nimble we allow participants to post the videos on their own sites and blogs, perpetuating our message.

One of our interviewees, Rees Morrison, a legal blogger has already posted his video to his own blog.

You can see all the interviews on the video interview page.

We all know ad spending is down in all markets. From newspapers, magazines, TV and radio, overall budgets are shrinking.

In an Epsilon survey of CMOs conducted in September 2008 79% strongly or somewhat agreed that “During an Economic Downturn the Marketing Budget is the First Thing to Get Cut:” I assume they answered this to mean they agreed with it as a fact of life not an effective business tactic.

The increased budget tightening will most certainly force the emphasis on finding media that is more efficient and easily measurable.

The answer in 2009 won’t be “where”, we know the web, but more likely, “why”.

This lead me to an article written almost three years ago by John Hagel regarding the future of marketing.

Mr. Hagel wrote:

We have to continue to ask  “How much effort and cost did I invest in acquiring information about individual customers and how much value have I been able to generate in return, both for the customer and for me?” In this context, lead-times matter; the more quickly a vendor can turn around and deliver tangible value in return for information from a customer, the more quickly and effectively the vendor will be able to build trust and willingness to provide even more information.

No where has this been more obvious than on the web and in more recent terms in social media. We are seeing more and more marketers realizing social media cannot be part of the equation without a reliable metrics.

Mr. Hagel goes on to make a valuable point regarding our clients:

Old habits and old instincts die hard. While there is a broad recognition among marketers that attention scarcity is becoming a big issue, the response has been increasing desperation to get some of that scarce attention. Intrusive ads are appearing in more and more places

The missed opportunity is how to engage the attention of customers at a more fundamental level in ways that create more value for the customers and for the client.

So if the web is so good at doing all these things easily why are we seeing a projected decrease in online ad spend. When it has consistently trended upwards? I believe it comes down to metrics and and answers.

In 2006 when Mr. Hagel wrote his article clients were still slow to engage and enact true digital and social media attemtps, he said:

Clients continue to develop a narrow focus on new, network-enabled marketing tools like blogs, wikis, virtual communities and social networks, treating them like a checklist to be deployed like artillery in a military campaign – “yes, we’ve set up some blogs.” Few of them systematically ask how these tools might be used to increase return on attention for customers. Even fewer ask who else already has deployed these tools and how they might help their customers find and connect to these resources and perhaps where they might participate in existing environments in ways that provide more return on attention.

But now, in 2009, we are most definitely at the stage where clients are now asking these questions and most of the answers we continue to provide are vague at best. Without these answers the economy and tightening budgets are forcing our hand - to explain something we aren’t totally sure works, but know builds over time.

Clearly the need to quantify and measure all digital media including social should be at the top of our lists this year. Anyone want to tell me where and how?

Back in April The McKinsey Quarterly did an interview with animation director Brad Bird who was brought into Pixar in 2000 to direct the Academy Award winning The Incredibles.  

One comment that struck me to be very interesting is the value Mr. Bird places on “black sheep”— what he calls, “restless contributors with unconventional ideas.”

Often as a Creative on a business team I will find myself “blessed” with this very role.

Bird believes strongly in pushing his teams beyond their comfort zones, and even encourages dissent.

When Bird took on the Director role at Pixar he asked for all the black sheep animators, “I want artists who are frustrated. I want the ones who have another way of doing things that nobody’s listening to. Give us all the guys who are probably headed out the door.”

Bird gave these black sheep a chance to prove their theories, challenging the Pixar “purists” and in turn created cutting edge animation on the thinnest budget Pixar had experienced. Achieving the very thing Pixar had hoped by bringing Bird in, to shake up the status quo.

Having worked in enough corporations, all this leads me to ask, “Are you challenging the purists at your company?” Are you willing, like Bird, when told by animation purists they couldn’t animate a flying saucer in time, threaten to film a pie plate flying across the screen just to get the shot he wanted? That blasphemy got the animation purists thinking, anything to avoid an ugly pie plate zooming through their film. They found Bird’s solution along with countless more.

I can’t help but believe that in this economy black sheep are more important than ever.

Not just for creative but corporate leaders to listen to. Stop taking the “NOs” IT, sales and even marketing purists keep giving you and seek out those talented malcontents and find out what would they do to solve your company’s challenges.

I bet their answers scare the “purists” - and that’s the point.

I’m in the process of developing a new site with my biz-partner, Tino Chiaviello, we’re developing a proof of concept site using Wordpress MU. It’s called GuruStarter  and its intent is to offer free wordpress blogs and resources for content creation. Not exactly a ground breaking exercise, I understand - but the intent is to build a branded, small-scale wordpress MU blog community - with the hopes to use the knowledge to scale up for a few other ideas I have for other larger projects.

After refining a working logo and tagline, I’ve spent a few hours today putting together the PSD mock and what we plan to hang the Wordpress MU front end on.

I’ve placed a few of the mockups here:

I struggled for a good hour on whether the two characters with the ladder should be walking in frame or out. Usually in print we like eyes, faces and general motion to bring the reader back in. But for some reason I struggled between having their motion point us toward the action (the buttons) or point us out of the frame.

Lately, in web, I am often driving the viewers eye right, particularly on home pages. I find myself trying to get the user to feel as though they should turn the page. Countering years of print ad design logic. But getting the user to “turn the page” usually means a click not a click off. They’ll want to go inside. And frankly that’s all I really want, all my interior pages should reinforce the same basic message the home page had.

More to come.

“Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping him up.”
- Jesse Jackson

I started Scrappy Upstarts for like-minded entrepreneurs starting up in a down time.

Tom Maduri posted that quote on his blog, and I had to post it on one of mine.

2009 is two days old and the majority of tweets and posts I am seeing are the middle band looking to push through the noise and find out how its really done.

Its great to aspire to the likes of a Guy Kawasaki or the other bloggerati - but in this economic time - I think we need clear tactical solutions as much as, if not more than pontification and discussion.

Unearthing nuggets of tactical wisdom like those offered over at ProBlogger and CopyBlogger are an incredible start. They are not speculating or just sending out links - they are writing blueprints to success.

There is certainly a spectrum of web entrepreneurs - I am going to dedicate 2009 to finding and helping those slightly above me on the online status scale but more importantly those below me.

Will you?

I started out in this business as a designer - but over the years I learned that to be a better designer I needed to be a proficient writer. Only when you can optimize a message through design and language are you really marketing effectively. And only when you’re building on this marriage daily are you creative directing.  

Consumers are bombarded with hundreds of images and messages every day, which means reaching them and moving them to action is harder than ever. That’s why it is also more important than ever to not only design effectively but write great advertising copy.

First, you need a powerful competitive advantage you can tout. Skip advantages such as “providing the best customer service” or offering “the widest selection.” These phrases have been used so much they are meaningless. When is the last time you reacted to an ad because of these types of phrases? It’s probably been a long time, if ever. Instead, find a specific benefit you offer that your competitors do not.

If you have the lowest prices, your work here may be done. Your best approach may be to highlight your products and prices in your ad. But if you don’t have the lowest prices or don’t want to emphasize pricing for image reasons, you need to dig deeper to find a powerful point to persuade consumers. For example, if you sell big-screen televisions, you could promise free delivery and installation the same day a customer buys the set. Or if you sell supplies to contractors, let them call in orders that you promise to deliver for free within a half hour.

Another approach is to find out what brought your customers to your business. Don’t guess. Spend several weeks and ask each of your customers what attracted them to your business. Don’t settle for their first answer. Gently prod them so you can be sure you are getting an honest answer. The top reasons might not be what you expect. For example, when companies began selling high-speed Internet they were sure consumers would sign up because of the blazing connection speed. But their research soon found that consumers actually purchased the service because it was always connected, and they didn’t have to waste time dialing. These Internet providers wasted no time emphasizing in their advertising that their service “was always on.”

Once you’ve identified key selling points, highlight them as headlines in your ads. If you find you are unable to identify key selling points, enlist the help of business or marketing students at a local college. Ask them to survey your customers, analyze the data and present ideas for selling points. Design an ad campaign that will test different points, so you can determine which are the strongest. Remember that the more powerful ad copy you develop, the more your sales will increase.

It’s that time again, for new years resolutions, so fire up your favorite RSS reader app and resolve yourself to be add some great resources.  

Last week Business Pundit posted The 50 best Business Blogs of 2008 It’s a great collection across some great categories for any small business or entrepreneur a few of my favorites include:

• The Toilet paper entrepreneur
• StartupAddict
• Endless Innovation
• Duct Tape Marketing
• Copyblogger
• Seth Godin’s blog

Anyone that knows me will tell you I talk at what can only be described as Ludicrous speed which is probably why my audiences always look exhausted at the end of it all.

Anyway, I was speaking about direct and online marketing for small business. Aside from touching on what went into writing an effective direct campaign (Make a good offer, state it in the first paragraph and repeat it four times) I also touched on some of the products and services we use over at VAdA to market ourselves. You can read about those here.