Digital Wild West
I’ve had the fortune of blogging here since the inception of this blog and deliberately never wrote anything marketing-related with regards to my current employer. Today is one exception I hope you will grant me.
So I’m not accused of 'ambush shilling' or taking 5 minutes of your time that you will never get back - I’m warning you now. You can close this browser and get out of Dodge. I won’t take offense. I promise.
Still here? Thank you. So let’s saddle up ‘pardner’ and we’ll mosey on out for a little ride!
Some may know I have the fortune of working at Harlequin Enterprises. Yes, that Harlequin. The Harlequin that is one of the leading publishers of women's romance and fiction around the globe.
Recently we launched a new campaign promoting our HQN imprint series ‘The McKettricks’ by author Linda Lael Miller. So what's so special about this online marketing campaign?
Last fall our Creative Director Margie Miller teamed up with our Director of Digital Content & Social Media Malle Vallik to create a unique behind-the-scenes video that shows the making of a Harlequin cover. We had never done anything like this before. Take a look.
Now I’ll admit I’m not a big cowboy fan but I appreciate good content. And although I’m biased, I think this documentary is terrific. As Malle points out in her blog, it gives you a greater appreciation of the work that creative directors and photographers do on a regular basis.
How has the campaign done? We’re very pleased with the response so far. We took some excellent content and promoted it via various online marketing and social media channels by directing people to Take A Cowboy Home which features the video content, sample editorial, cool contest and (most importantly) where to buy the books.
We also got some great support from the fine folks over at MSN who created a unique section promoting this campaign. Not to mention many friends/fans/authors/bloggers who spread the word via various social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook.
So everything is perfect and we ride off into the sunset, right? Not so fast. There were a few things I learned from this campaign. Call them the '3 Cowboys' like the McKettrick brothers:
1. Many companies work in silos. Often campaigns are created and other teams such as Social Media, PR, IT and/or Legal are left out until the end and then added like a check-box. Do not make that mistake. Involve key groups from cradle (so they become stakeholders) to the grave (so they share in the successes and learnings).
2. It will not always be utopia. There will be hiccups. The issue is not ‘if’ they happen but ‘when’ they happen. And how your team reacts to quickly address them and ensure they don’t happen in future. We started creating a ‘list of oops’ so we include them in our campaign post-mortem report.
3. This is my biggest takeaway. Regardless if you sell books, lotion, laptops or luggage - it's my view you must have a good combination of strong content and promotion for your digital campaigns. They are not mutually exclusive and together make them all the more stronger. Especially in the digital wild west.
