Business Excellence Series: Marketing 2013

MARCH 2013

POSITIVE FEEDBACK Smak Media’s Jeff Berry favours the flexibility of digital strategies and the way they conform to meet a variety of marketing needs WAVE OF THE FUTURE Online spending habits and interest in social responsibility are key factors to consider when marketing to gen-Yers, according to Monique Janower of Red the Agency FOLLOW THE LEADERS Bryan Mavrow and Holly Paton combine marketing, business and technical expertise in their project management teams

MIXING IT UP Ballistic Arts CEO Ted Lau highlights the importance of understanding your business before finalizing an appropriate mix of digital channels

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Confidential Group / One-to-one Mentorship / Business Thought Leadership / Global Membership /

tec-canada.com

“Fourteen years with The Executive Committee and I’m still learning.

The growth and success of my business is directly attributable to my TEC experience.”

Steve Heim President, Brenco Industries Ltd.

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MARCH 2013

Join the evolution

CONTENTS

In the online communication realm, the first decade of the 21st century was heavily focused on the growth and uptake of social media. In the second decade, we are moving into an arena of marketing strategies where social media is just one avenue of dozens for connecting with consumers; where new directions are limited only by people’s imaginations. That can be exciting, but it can also leave one in a state of confusion and indecision.

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In this year’s marketing instalment of Business in Vancouver’s Business Excellence Series, we outline the basics needed to jump into the digital realm full force and suggest solid strategies that will make your marketing decisions easier.

In keeping with the theme, we’re launching this week with Layar – an augmented-reality app for print publications that enhances the reader’s experience. You can bring these pages to life in four steps: 1. Download and open the Layar app on your Apple or Android smartphone or tablet.

2. Hold your device over this page, ensuring the entire page is in your view screen.

3. Tap the “scan” button to reveal enhanced content.

4. Move to another page and repeat.

Accompanying the digital strategies edition of Business in Vancouver’s Business Excellence Series is a breakfast on the same topic with speakers Andrea Hadley, president and partner, dStrategy Media, and producer of next month’s Digital Strategy Conference; and Bryan Mavrow, senior vice-president, marketing, First West Credit Union.

The breakfast takes place March 27. Visit www.biv.com/events for more information.

Get your online in line Goal setting and customer profiling are still the first steps to take to ensure effective outcomes

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Measure for measure Analytics help take the guesswork out of online marketing

10 Age of integration HTML5 is changing the face – and pace – of digital marketing, allowing companies to communicate faster

14 Channel surfing Get your strategy right before determining what means of communication will best serve you

18 Mapping the millennials The lifestyle of the gen-Y crowd calls for more complex marketing plans with several options for touch points

20 Special teams Project managers need to create strong collaborations between technologists and marketers

22 Eye of the storm Overcoming overwhelm in a surge of innovation and technology

– Baila Lazarus, features editor, Business in Vancouver

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Let’s get digital Marketing your business in the digital space can be extremely effective – but it has to be done right

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BY NOA GLOUBERMAN

eyond traditional advertising through print publications, television commercials, radio spots and roadside billboards, most businesses know that in order to remain competitive in today’s marketplace

they must include the digital space in their marketing strategies.

“Digital … includes all forms of advertising that takes place on computers, tablets and smartphones – everything that you see and are able to interact with on a screen,” said Carlos Obregon, a searchengine marketing specialist at Bloom Digital Marketing in North Vancouver.

From websites to online advertising to email marketing to social media, digital marketing Asking who needs digital lets organizations of various sizes across sectors target existing and potential strategy nowadays customers through the biggest directis like asking who marketing opportunity of all time: the needs water to live Internet.

“You can use the web to grab the attention of the consumers you’re trying to JEFF BERRY reach and bring your products and serviPARTNER AND DIRECTOR OF CLIENT ces to them,” Obregon explained.

RELATIONS, SMAK MEDIA & PROMOTIONS The first step to creating an effective digital strategy is to drill down and define what the goals are for your company.

“The next thing is to establish a profile of your typical customer, whether it’s a teenager, pet owner or another business,” he said. “This will help you determine how to best spend your budget in the digital space.”

For example, Obregon says Facebook advertisements are often used to reach a younger audience

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while Google Adwords tend to perform better in a businessto-business campaign.

“It’s also important to determine the objective of your website, which is where you’ll be driving many of the Internet users who click on your digital ads,” he added. “Is it an informational site where people can find your address and hours or is it a transactional site where you’re actually selling things? Depending on the answer you may need to know where your customers are physically located.”

Timing is also of the essence.

“If you’re selling, say, Christmas trees, you can set specific dates and times for your campaign so you’re not blowing your budget in July,” Obregon said. “You have a lot of control in the digital space.”

Jeff Berry, director of client relations at Vancouver’s Smak Media & Promotions Inc., agrees.

“You can conform your digital strategy and whatever platform you’re using, whether it’s an app or a Facebook promo, to suit your specific needs,” he said. “It’s so elastic in terms of what it can and cannot do and what it needs to cost.”

The days of spending “hundreds of thousands of

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dollars on a 30-second TV spot are over.” Berry says building a video product for the digital space can be a cost-effective way to educate and engage customers about your business.

And, because digital lets you measure levels of user engagement, Berry says the feedback you receive can be used to drive your strategy forward.

“These types of measurements are worth their weight in gold in terms of helping you reach the right people at the right time,” he said. “It lets you make better business decisions and helps you grow your business.”

Not being in the digital space, he adds, is “severely limiting in marketers’ ability to build relationships with their customers.”

“Asking who needs digital strategy is like asking who needs water to live,” Berry said. “But it has to be done right if it’s going to be effective.”

Both experts say one of the most common mistakes organizations make in their digital strategies is simply creating a Facebook page and leaving it at that.

“If your goal is to really benefit or increase your business … then there’s far more to it than that,” said Obregon.

“Search engines, social-media channels – these things change at such a fast pace it’s hard, even for those of us who look at it all day every day, to stay on top of all the developments, so it would be really challenging for someone in-house who may have other duties to remain current.”

For that reason, he highly recommends relying on an expert to create and manage your digital strategy.

Jeff Berry, director of client relations, Smak Media & Promotions: “you can’t measure customer interaction on a billboard like you can in the digital space” | DOMINIC SCHAEFER

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How do you measure up?

Analytics take the guesswork out of online marketing

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BY LINDA TOBIAS

magine cutting your online marketing budget while increasing your sales, knowing the exact degree to which calls to action on your website are working, or even accurately predicting what your customers are going to want months before they know it themselves. If your business is using analytics,

chances are you’re already reaping some of these benefits, along with many others.

There was a time when marketing was very costly.

“Businesses used to say, ‘Fifty per cent of my marketing works, I just don’t know which 50.’ They just knew that they had to do 10 different things as part of the marketing mix and all those efforts [together] would pay off,” said Flavio Marquez, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Analytics provide a Snaptech Marketing. His website design and Internet marketing company helps good sense of the mind businesses access the benefits of anaof the consumer and lytics to get results from all of their onhow they browse, what line marketing budget, not just 50% of it. are they thinking and “Analytics provide a good sense of the mind of the consumer and how they why are they viewing browse, what are they thinking and why specific pages, so are they viewing specific pages, so you you can optimize can optimize your website or your campaign accordingly,” said Syed Hussaini, your website or your director of demand generation at Buildcampaign accordingly Direct, whose website receives more than one million visitors a month.

Most analytics are now done through SYED HUSSAINI script-based collection where a small DIRECTOR OF DEMAND GENERATION, amount of code is added to the webBUILDDIRECT page. The script tracks visitors’ actions on a website and then aggregates them to provide feedback and useful data on trends. The Internet has a variety of free analytics software available for businesses to download, but the one that the

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experts recommend is Google Analytics.

The amount of information available from Google Analytics is vast. For example, the analytics it creates can indicate how well a webpage is optimized to make it search-engine-friendly by showing how much free traffic is arriving at the site and what search terms were used to get there. It can also be linked to a Google Adwords account to give detailed information on pay per click (PPC) data at the keyword level.

Keywords or terms that aren’t returning more money than they cost can be eliminated to increase the efficiency of an online marketing budget. Google Analytics can also tell what page visitors land on, how long they stay at the site and what pages they view. A business can then adjust individual webpages to enhance visitors’ experience as they move through the site.

And soon, Google Universal Analytics (currently in beta testing) will allow users to monitor customer activity across various platforms and will integrate online and offline data to create a holistic view of a website’s contribution to both online and offline sales.

But it’s with the use of predictive analytics that businesses really see results.

“Predictive modelling, which is our bread and CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

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TIPS FOR GETTING THE MOST OUT OF ANALYTICS

Alex Soria, director of advanced analytics and business intelligence, Coastal Contacts: “at the end of the day, we’re a business, we’re trying to increase revenue, but we’re also trying to provide the best solution possible for our customers when they come to our site, and that’s all possible through analytics”

1. Set goals Know what you want to measure and have specific benchmarks in place. Goals can be set for lead generation, revenue transactions, return on ad spend, new account creation, etc.

2. Set filters Exclude your own Internet protocol, as well as developers, designer or anyone working on the website for cleaner data. Create a separate analytics profile for any sub-domains such as blogs. This way, the higher engagement or lower transactions of blog visitors won’t skew the main e-commerce site if it receives pay per click (PPC) traffic.

3. Check in Customize your dashboard, so that a quick glance gives you all of the important information you need, saving you time. Set up daily or weekly email summaries from your analytics software so you’re doing regular reviews.

Snaptech has its own heatmap software, which allows a business to see where there are hotspots of activity on its website. It gives feedback on how to optimize calls to action by changing the wording or moving their location on the page | SNAPTECH

Flavio Marquez, co-founder and chief strategy officer, Snaptech Marketing: “it’s possible to quantify whether an online campaign is working or not.

Through analytics and tracking mechanisms you can get all that information”

4. Reduce the bounce rate Find out what page visitors are bouncing from (exiting) your site. Use a site overlay or heatmap to identify problem areas. Optimize those pages to better engage with your customers.

5. Check site speed regularly This metric is easy to overlook, but it’s incredibly important. A slow-loading website will often lead to site abandonment and a low conversion rate.

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Dan Brodie (left), vice-president of information technology and data analytics, and Syed Hussaini, director of demand generation, BuildDirect.

BuildDirect started using analytics in 2004 and was able to cut marketing spending in half while doubling its sales | BUILDDIRECT

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MEASURE UP CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6

butter, means using what has happened in the past to predict what will happen in the future,” said Alex Soria, director of advanced analytics and business intelligence at Coastal Contacts, who uses his own predictive analytics software.

And it’s working; the leading online vision care retailer was recently ranked number 3 in social media

by Internet Retailer magazine and surpassed $1 billion in cumulative sales (since 2000) last September.

But it’s not just about sales.

“At the end of the day, we’re a business. We’re trying to increase revenue, but we’re also trying to provide the best solution possible for our customers when they come to our site and that’s all possible through analytics,” said Soria.

BuildDirect is also benefiting from predictive analytics. Dan Brodie, vice-president of information technology and data analytics, explains that by applying proprietary algorithms to data from its website, the online building materials retailer can anticipate customer needs.

“We’re able to work with the manufacturer to let them know what products they should be manufacturing and which of our warehouses they should be putting those products into. We have a very high degree of accuracy in terms of ensuring they’re manufacturing the right products that will sell in certain areas.”

Online marketing generates quantifiable results.

“You need to track how many people have gone to your website, contacted you or filled out a form [and other data] like that,” said Marquez. “It’s possible to quantify whether an online campaign is working or not.

“Through analytics and tracking mechanisms you can get all that information,” said Marquz, adding that not gathering or following up on the information available is an opportunity few businesses can afford to miss. ■

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LET’S GET DIGITAL

‘Vorsprung Durch Technik’

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Progress: It’s the ability to unceasingly look forward while others look back.

The belief that ‘good enough’ is never good enough and that the status quo should be left to someone else. It’s the courage to have a vision, and the conviction to see it through.

A remarketing campaign – like the one designed by Bloom Digital Marketing for Origin Home Financial Partners in Vancouver – allows you to show ads to users who’ve previously visited your website as they browse the Internet. Search engine marketing specialist Carlos Obregon says it’s a powerful and cost-effective way for smaller firms to stay engaged with their target audience and compete with larger players in the same space

And the truly progressive not only look inwards for inspiration, but also seek to recognize opportunities in the path that lies ahead. That’s why at Audi we are honoured to sponsor Business in Vancouver’s Excellence Series and the conversation on Digital Marketing.

For over 100 years, Audi’s approach to progress has been summarized by our motto, Vorsprung durch Technik – or, loosely translated, “advancement though technology.”

“We go to mandatory courses and testing by, for instance, Google, to make sure we’re up to date,” said Obregon. “It’s our job. If we don’t stay up to date digitally we’re dead in the water.”

“Go to an expert to help define what your strategy is and engage your target consumer in the digital space,” Berry agreed. “Really take the time to determine why you’re in the digital space and what purpose it will serve.

“If you just jump on the digital bandwagon because it’s new and you know you need to be there, it’s likely to backfire,” he added. “Take the time to do it properly or your messaging will start to get diluted and you’re back to square one.” ■

If we don’t stay up to date digitally we’re dead in the water

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CARLOS OBREGON SEM SPECIALIST, BLOOM DIGITAL MARKETING

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The age of integration How HTML5 is changing the face, and pace, of digital marketing

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BY PETER DEVRIES

or those who have suffered through the intolerable agony of watching a dotted circle cycle incessantly on their mobile phones while waiting for a YouTube cat video to buffer, the introduction of HTML5 will be welcome news.

The ‘Eddie Would Go’ HTML5 campaign designed

by Idea Rebel for Quicksilver, exhibits seamless integration between web, social and mobile platforms

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When BIV spoke with Jamie Garratt, president of Idea Rebel, to find out what’s new in digital marketing for 2013, he purred about HTML5.

“HTML5 has completely opened the doors to mobile development,” he said. “It has taken the old ways of doing programming online and made them very fast.”

Like most digital marketing agencies, Idea Rebel has traditionally focused on three platforms: web, mobile and social. Historically, marketing campaigns would require development of separate components for each of these verticals. Not so with HTML5.

“Whatever we come up with, it’s a cohesive unit of web, social and mobile,” said Garratt. “Based on how technology has progressed over the last couple of years, we’re not separating them anymore – we’re combining them.”

Mobile is the future, according to Garratt. His voice is only one of a chorus of technophiles and digital soothsayers who say the same thing, and they collectively reveal the rationale behind the shift.

The digital marketing benefits of HTML5 include: ■ it runs well across the spectrum of low-powered devices such as smartphones; ■ it accomplishes better, faster handling of more exciting and visually appealing multimedia and graphics; ■ it offers better integration with multiple social media platforms, resulting in a more Internet-like

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consumer experience on mobile deIdea Rebel vices; president Jamie ■ is distributed through the open Garratt: “if you look at the history web, releasing consumers from being of development forced to use native apps distributed only through markets and stores govof the Internet, it’s all about erned by the platform’s owners; and ■ is monetized through advertising communicating because, currently, it lacks the “clickfaster” to-buy” functionality built in to naCredit: | RICHARD LAM tive apps.

Last December, the HTML5 markup language reached the final stages of ratification as an approved technical standard as established by the World Wide Web Consortium, a global working group that seeks to standardize web technology.

Add to this the fact that research firm Strategy Analytics, a global organization with analysts based in Europe, Asia and the Americas, predicts at least one billion HTML5-compatible phones will be sold in 2013. They are one of many who forecast similar growth in consumers of mobile technology, heralding what appears to be an imminent HTML5 revolution.

“If you look at the history of development of the Internet, it’s all about communicating faster,” said Garratt. HTML5 accomplishes that. “It’s a technology that really truly works on mobile devices.”

But speed isn’t everything. Integration is also key, and HTML5 better facilitates connectivity with actionable items.

For example, when a mobile user buys something, clicks on a link or watches a video, that action can be seamlessly integrated with the social network, thereby making the marketing structure more BUSINESS IN VANCOUVER BUSINESS EXCELLENCE SERIES

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The ‘Eddie Would Go’ HTML5 campaign designed by Idea Rebel for Quicksilver, exhibits seamless integration between web, social and mobile platforms

Matt Raminick, digital brand manager at Quicksilver: “it’s growing faster than anything else we’ve experienced”

effective by broadcasting consumer behaviour more ubiquitously.

Analytics are also enhanced through this process.

Because HTML5 offers faster, more personalized information through integration with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, information-based marketing can be more specifically directed to a particular individual.

“Everybody wants a custom experience – everybody wants to feel unique,” said Garratt, speaking of the online consumer experience. “Through tying in to the social network, we can know way more than we ever did in the past about what people are doing and how they’re doing it.”

That knowledge, he said, can arm marketers and 12

their clients with the information they need to develop campaigns that are better able to influence consumer behaviour.

For Matt Raminick, digital brand manager at Quicksilver, videos of surfers riding death waves and snowboarders dropping from helicopters is a cornerstone of his brand’s marketing strategy. In his industry, being able to view them with ease on mobile devices is a big deal.

“With more and more emphasis on video nowadays, and especially with the amount of good content we have, it’s definitely become more of a focus,” he said. “It’s growing faster than anything else we’ve experienced.”

Being able to offer high-quality graphics with seamless integration into social media drives up video views and clickbacks to websites, and that means more purchases for businesses like Quicksilver.

“The thing that’s undeniable is that the way people engage our content on mobile accounts for so much,” he said. Since using HTML5, they’ve seen a 20% increase in traffic being driven to their website.

“It’s definitely something we’re acting on.” ■

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Channel surfing Marketing strategy essential to choosing the right means of digital communication

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BY SHERYL GRAY

aving a good understanding of your business is a key first step to knowing what digital channels will work best for your marketing campaigns, according to Ballistic Arts Media Studios

Gloo Studios vice-president, business development and marketing Cecilia Lu: video intersects traditional and social media

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The company has built a reputation as a “marketing department for local business,” with a Greater Vancouver client base that includes construction firms, home builders and real estate developers.

Clients must come prepared to compete.

“I can make anyone look good,” said Ted Lau, CEO of Ballistic Arts, “but if you can’t deliver at the end of the day, don’t bother.” Lau considers digital marketing channels as just another way to communicate – another set of tools within an overall marketing strategy.

Ballistic Arts delivers a full range of marketing services, from developing strategy to developing traditional and digital marketing tools. For Lau, the work process doesn’t change with the decision to start using digital marketing channels.

“The first step is to evaluate your business,” said Lau. “Can you compete in the current market?” Clients must have a solid business plan, and a commitment to deliver. From there, an overall marketing strategy identifies the most appropriate tools for communication, usually a mix Ballistic Arts Media Studios CEO Ted Lau: “Show the world how of traditional and digital. great you are” is the company motto | DOMINIC SCHAEFER As part of a digital strategy, Lau believes in social media’s instant and two-way com- with customers,” said Lau, citing the example of one of his own staffers who was stranded in Calgary due munication.

“Social media gives regular folks a way to interact to a cancelled flight. She tweeted a major airline to with businesses and gives savvy businesses the op- ask what they could do to help, and soon found herself portunity to be more transparent and more human on a flight back to Vancouver. The delay was averted

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Sponsor’s Message

Out-Smarts Marketing founder and chief marketing officer Mhairi Petrovic: good marketing strategy is the foundation for choosing digital channels and customer loyalty retained.

Vancouver is Cecilia Lu, vice-president of busiin an adoption ness development and marketing of curve; people Gloo Studios, agrees that all marketing tools affect a company’s brand, for are using the better or worse. The Burnaby-based new digital film studio specializes in corporate tools in an oldvideo and visual effects for the web, fashioned way with a focus on animation.

“Video directly affects your brand,” said Lu. “If it looks like it was shot MHAIRI PETROVIC in your basement, it implies that the FOUNDER AND CHIEF product might also be a knock off.”

MARKETING OFFICER, With video, a company has seconds OUT-SMARTS MARKETING to impress, so presentation must be spotless. Video can keep people on your website longer, which will positively impact your presence in search-engine results.

A common misconception about video is that it needs to “go viral” (multiple online views over a short period of time) to be successful. Gloo Studios helps clients use video as part of an overall marketing strategy, basing success on views by the target audience.

“A local transportation company was having difficulty recruiting new drivers,” said Lu. Gloo created a hiring video featuring the company’s own drivers who gave testimonials about why they liked their jobs. The video was available for the website and recruitment fairs, but also got shared with potential employees through social media by the drivers themselves.

Videos can also increase exposure to your company through planned sharing, or “developing

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TEC Canada is proud to support BIV’s Business Excellence Series and the conversation on Digital Marketing. As a premier leadership development organization, we recognize the potential of the digital economy to help us connect with each other, with the best in thought leadership – and to do it in new and imaginative ways.

Seth Godin has remarked that a digital economy is a connected one, where the value lies in the connections created – the new precious resources in a digital age. When the digital dialogue is engaging, transparent and trustworthy, when the subject is innovative, intelligent and insightful, connectivity is expanded and enhanced. This is what we do at TEC Canada – as a mentorship organization, creating genuine human connection to realize the highest of human potential is one of our most cherished values.

We are pleased to further BIV’s discussion of digital market strategy. To build online communities where the marketing of nextgeneration products and services connects us in new and meaningful ways is to use digital media to its best potential.

Warm regards,

Catherine Osler, President, TEC Canada

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A video for T-Lane Transportation

by Gloo Studios showed corporate culture through an intimate look at employees

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From a video in a drip marketing campaign for Star Produce (parent company of BC Hot House). Videos were shared with Star Produce customers such as Safeway, who could link to them on their own websites, offering customers tips on produce preparation and storage

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channel relationships.” Gloo Studios produced a social media drip campaign for a large produce wholesaler with a customer base of large-chain grocery stores. Fifteen-second videos offering quick tips for selecting, storing and serving fruits and vegetables were shared with their target audience. The grocery chains, in turn, linked to the videos on their websites for their own audience of store customers.

Identifying your target audience is the key component of developing a successful marketing strategy. Mhairi Petrovic’s team at Out-Smarts Marketing Inc. spends considerable time working at a granular level to compile an audience persona, akin to the subject profilers on criminal investigation dramas. For Petrovic, founder and chief marketing officer of Out-Smarts, audience is a given in developing digital marketing strategy.

“The idea that a whole new digital marketing

strategy is required is a lot of hooey,” said Petrovic.

“Overall marketing strategy hasn’t changed, just the way we use the tools we’ve been given.” That said, she believes the local market is in an “adoption curve” of using digital channels for business marketing.

“People are only halfway there using the new tools, but in an old-fashioned way,” said Petrovic, who believes that there is not enough attention being paid to listening. Entering into digital channels means two-way communication, with an expected response. Listening to other business’ conversations can help to define trends, expectations, depth of content, etc., and provide guidance for appropriate channels for your own business, she said, adding that if no one is dedicated to listening – and responding – to the channels, then it’s not a good fit for your company.

Social media is a necessity for businesses who have identified 20-somethings as their target audience, said Petrovic.

“People under 35 are living and breathing those technologies,” she said. “If you want to interact with this consumer group, you need to use their channels of communication. They don’t want to use email, and they certainly don’t want to phone.”

Digital channels take communications further, and faster, than a digital answering machine with a catchy greeting. But, whether high-tech or printed on a copier, all tools extend from a solid business plan and a high-level marketing strategy. Audience rules, and if they’re not at the other end of your message, you’ve dialled the wrong number. ■

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Mapping the millennials Gen-Y requires complex plans and multiple touch points

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BY LORNE MALLIN

hile baby boomers could be reached with traditional media, marketers need to engage the millennial generation from teens to 30 with multiple media and experiences – what Monique Janower calls channel mapping.

Port Coquitlam Sports Alliance executive director Ryan Clark: “I realize that if I do a great job, they are inclined to relay their experience to their networks immediately”

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“Instead of two or three touch points, we’re looking at more complex plans with six or seven,” said Janower, partner and chief marketing officer of Red the Agency, a full-service marketing communications firm in Vancouver.

“It means that marketing strategies come from a place of channel mapping rather than media planning.”

Janower said traditional media remain important but strategies for millennials – also known as generation Y – require many other channels, such as in-store retail experiences, brand microsites, social media, search engine marketing, street teams, interactive experiences, community relations and sponsorships.

“They are the first generation to be brought up online,” she said. “They quickly not only adopt technology but adapt it for their lifestyle. They see technology helping them remain closer with family or friends.”

Janower pointed out that millennials are on their way to passing boomers in spending in the next five to seven years, a trend that can be seen in such facts as 46% of millennials have made a purchase using their smartphone in the past six months.

“That group happens to be the most active in online spending and they spend the most.”

Janower said this generation thoroughly researches purchases. “Millennials will consult with at least three information sources before making a major product or service purchase, the top sources being family and friends, followed by search engines and expert websites,” she said.

“As marketers, we really need to be aware of how we can influence perceptions of brands among friends and family, but also how are we being found via search or what are those expert websites saying about our products or services.”

Janower said there is still a role for traditional media such as television. “Viewing has remained constant and is one of the first ways millennials are introduced to new products or services.”

She said millennials are looking for brands that fit their lifestyles and they tend to be socially conscious.

“They place value on brands and businesses that behave responsibly.”

Janower said this generation has added online viewing to their media consumption habits.

“Content providers such as Netflix are capitalizing on this with exclusive online original conten,” she said, adding how you approach marketing to millennials also depends on the category of product or service you’re selling.

“For example, millennials will make up approximately 40% of the Canadian car-buying market by 2020. However they do not view cars the same way their parents did. Many are opting to drive less and use alternative forms of transportation where possible.”

Janower said millennials are crucial to brand reputation management.

“Millennials are very quick to share information about their experience with brands, products and services. Marketers can harness this positively but they also need to be aware of this when potentially things

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go awry with one of their brands or businesses.”

Red the Agency has completed the initial branding of the new Port Coquitlam Sports Alliance, where Ryan Clark has become its first executive director after almost a decade as CEO of Tennis BC. As president of Game Changer-Sport Advancement, he is also contracted to be tournament director of the Vancouver Open tennis tournament and part of the management team of KitsFest.

“In sport, I am often dealing with athletes, parents, coaches and event teams, all of whom are from different generations.”

Clark said that his sport experience with gen-Y (his preferred term) has affected how he communicates, interacts and delivers programs, services and events.

Echoing Janower, he said reputations are on the line with this generation.

“When you go to engage now, you’re really thinking things out. I realize that if I do a great job, they are inclined to relay their experience to their networks immediately,” he said. “Conversely, I know if I underdeliver that it will also be sent around fast. Reward and risk can be higher with gen-Y this way.”

Clark said the biggest priority to engage with gen-Y is keeping things fresh and new much more quickly than with earlier generations.

“They have to see freshness, whether it’s from content or programing. You have to wow a lot more.”

He said it’s important to be active on all different fronts to get the message out – texting, instant messaging, website, podcasting, YouTube postings, Twitter and every other form of social media.

“I know that if I get the message out to key people, it will get spread out very quickly.” ■

Monique Janower, partner and chief marketing officer, Red the Agency: millennials are looking for brands that fit their lifestyle and they tend to be socially conscious | DOMINIC SCHAEFER

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Special teams Digital project managers partner with technologists to create a high-quality user experience

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BY LORNE MALLIN

hen experts in the field talk about what’s important in managing digital projects, the factor that comes up again and again is collaboration.

“The interesting thing about the digital space is that you need to create a collaborative team between the business and technology,” said Bryan Mavrow, senior vice-president of marketing for Langleybased First West Credit Union, which has 37 branches from suburban Vancouver to the Okanagan under two regional brands, Valley First and EnThe interesting thing vision Financial.

“We have a business team that has SPA about the digital space – or single point of accountability – for is that you need to create the success of the project,” said Mavrow, a collaborative team who came to B.C.’s third-largest credbetween the business it union last November from Vancouver’s Hot Tomali Communications, an inteand technology grated marketing agency.

He said the business lead is typically a digital marketer who understands the BRYAN MAVROW customers the company is hoping to enSENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT OF MARKETING, gage, what its offerings are and its brand.

FIRST WEST CREDIT UNION “It’s that trifecta that needs to come together to create the right execution of the digital project.”

Since these projects require diverse skill sets, the person who understands branding and how to engage customers is very unlikely to be the same person who knows how to code websites.

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“So we tend to partner with a senior technologist in the organization who will have technical skills reporting to him or her,” said Mavrow, who is responsible for overall online development.

“And we collaborate so that we create the requirements for the project together and we execute together.”

First West will also bring in skills from outside the organization, depending on the need. It is currently building new websites for its two brands and went to FCV, an interactive ad agency in Vancouver, to create an excellent user experience.

“They helped us architect the content and worked with us in creating the visual design of the site,” Mavrow said.

Then the First West team, led by digital marketing manager Holly Paton, developed the templates, pages, content and imagery, and is building the site internally.

Digital marketing is fairly new territory, with few opportunities to earn a degree in the field, but Mavrow teaches a digital marketing course for the Canadian Marketing Association.

For Heiko Peters, director of project management at PNI Digital Media in Vancouver, PMs or project managers can come from many backgrounds: software

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Bryan Mavrow, senior vicepresident of marketing, and Holly Paton, digital marketing manager, First West Credit Union: the business team has a single point of accountability for the success of the project

developers, people with business degrees and people with project management degrees and diplomas.

Whatever the background, Peters said basic accreditation for project managers is becoming a project management professional (PMP) through the Project Management Institute, a non-profit located near Philadelphia. The Canadian West Coast chapter is in Vancouver.

“If you want to be a PM in the industry, having your PMP is beneficial because it’s a check that most employers have. It makes sure that you understand the fundamentals of project management.”

Applicants need at least a high school diploma with five years of project management or a bachelor’s degree with three years experience. Many books, elearning courses and classroom experiences are available to prepare for the exam.

Peters’ office oversees PNI projects – the company provides software and technology to retailers, Internet portals and websites, and telecommunication service providers – and then each project is led by a PM. “We use PMs that have agile experience,” he said.

“Agile experience is all about iterative or incremental development – releasing short and fast and getting it in front of the client so that they can see the results

and course correct along the way.”

Peters said there are certifications for agile PMs. One is the project management institute’s agile certified practitioner and another is the certified scrummaster designation. Scrum is an agile softwaredevelopment method for project management.

He said most companies in the digital or software world are switching to agile.

“You can deliver better software, more predictably and faster.”

Peters said a PM in an agile environment is much more collaborative than in a traditional environment.

“It is less top-down and command and control.

Their whole job is to identify roadblocks and remove them. They provide vision for the team, shield them and make them more effective and efficient.”

Important traits for agile PMs are being organized, adaptable, transparent, fast and, that key word again, collaborative.

“You need to find issues quickly and deal with them in a positive way,” Peters said.

“The last thing you want to do is tell the client two and a half months into a three-month project that you’re going to be late. You want to be as upfront as you can.” ■

Heiko Peters, director of project management, PNI Digital Media: a PM in an agile environment is less top-down and command and control

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DIGITAL DOMAIN

EYE OF THE STORM COUVRETTE/OTTAWA

How to find calm inside a surge of innovation

BY KELLY KUBRICK AND ANDREA HADLEY

A An organization’s digital strategy needs to be about the bigger issue of competitive advantage – how to identify it, how to articulate it and how to execute to achieve it

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recurring theme in conversations with colleagues is the sense of feeling overwhelmed by digital – by wave after wave of emerging technologies and trends, by the multitude of channels and fragmentation of platforms, by the potential they know to be significant, but which is so fluid that it’s hard to get any kind of traction.

This sense of feeling swamped has flowed into many functional areas: marketing and communications, customer service, sales, operations and IT. It’s a digital deluge and it’s not getting easier – in fact, in the short term, it may be getting harder.

There is a solution. It’s one that is often intuitively understood, but escapes our reach. It’s about getting perspective, accepting what is and shifting our thinking. We need to step back, see the larger horizon and remain open. An organization’s digital strategy needs to be about the bigger issue of competitive advantage – how to identify it, how to articulate it and how to execute to achieve it.

We need to ask how digital allows us to better connect our people – customers, constituents, donors, employees, partners – to improve the experience of doing business with our organization.

And as we all know, improving that experience pays off – retaining a customer, employee or supplier is always more cost effective than acquiring new.

How do you address these issues? Where do you begin?

You need the perspective that can only come from stepping out of the turbulent vortex and into the calm that will result from having a plan. You need to create a framework to address the realities of both organizational expectations and operational readiness, and then establish a road map that connects the reality of where you are to the evolving expectations of your customers, constituents and members.

One of the expectations you need to address is scope – to help the organization understand that digital is not simply part of a marketing or advertising strategy. It is not the launch of a Twitter account or a mobile application. It is not simply a bulk purchase of tablets for your sales team so that you can claim to have a mobile workforce. Your digital strategy is much bigger than any one sales, marketing, communication or technology tactic.

In reality, digital is impacting across all channels, is forcing transparency, and is making it easier

Andrea Hadley

Kelly Kubrick

for new competition. While the majority of organizations keep digital in a marketing and technology silo, those with a holistic understanding and an eye for competitive advantage are weaving their digital strategy into their business strategy – challenging what was, acknowledging what is and planning for what could be.

What to do?

Here are some basic first steps toward planning your digital strategy.

1. Identify the risks digital might bring, but don’t let them stop you from discovering and leveraging new opportunity; 2. Although intriguing, intuition is neither replicable nor scalable; it cannot give you competitive advantage. Instead, take advantage of insights from data that digital generates – it’s what makes digital fundamentally different from our offline world; and 3. Depending on your organization’s digital maturity, chances are that the thinking that got you where you are today is not the thinking that will move you into the digital age. It would be short-sighted of you not to learn from those who’ve gone before; it is worth asking for input. Don’t be surprised at how accessible insights of others can be; don’t underestimate that the very nature of digital is how it thrives on openness and transparency.

So, when you are feeling overwhelmed, take a step back and get some perspective. Start looking at the bigger picture of how digital can weave into your business strategy, and then start planning your road map that considers new opportunities, data and openness. Suddenly, the noise and distraction of what’s new today will no longer provoke stress, but instead it will take its place as opportunities to be evaluated against your larger plan. ■ Andrea Hadley is president and partner, dStrategy Media, producer of the Digital Strategy Conference soming to Vancouver in April. Kelly Kubrick is vicepresident and partner, dStrategy Media.

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