Developing an App as a Marketing Tool

Posted: April 2, 2012 in Social Media, Strategic Planning, Technology
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App create for CareFusion by PKA's General Manager of Medical Marketing, John Mader

Nike has an  app, Martha Stewart has several apps, Capital One Banking has an app, American Airlines has an app, even Colgate toothpaste has an app! Why not you? Apps are a great way to promote a company, enhance brand recognition and connect with your market.

If you’re considering joining the app-mosphere and hiring a designer, but have no prior app experience yourself, here’s some tips on how to get the most out of the experience.

Come up with a great idea
Looking for inspiration? Users love how-to guides, games, money/time management assistance, calendar and planning apps. Think of your market. Colgate’s app allows users to show off their bright white smiles, American airlines gives their users not only flight tracking, but games to pass the time in the air with their app. Think of an app that could solve a problem, serves a niche market, makes people laugh, enhances life and encourages interaction.

Marketing research
Research your apps target audience, and the app itself. What does your market look like? What sort of apps do they already download? And, as obvious as it seems, research to ensure your app doesn’t already exist. If your great idea does exist, don’t be discouraged, you just have to make your app better.

App engagement
Download and use apps yourself. Keep a list of all the things you like or dislike about apps, and refer to it when designing yours. Pay special attention to details like how the app functions, the verbiage used and how information is organized.

Prepare a non-disclosure agreement
Check with your lawyer to ensure your companies’ rights are represented.

Define the objective
Is the goal of your app to generate business? For Nike, their Nike + GPS app generates revenue as any other Nike product would, but for American Airlines, the app is free and used to as a marketing strategy to generate more flight business. Ask yourself: do you want your market to pay for your product or generate buzz about your brand?

Market the app
Traditional marketing efforts should not be ignored as a great avenue to market your app. Create buzz and start marketing your app online, on TV, on the radio or in a magazine with a QR code.

Have a mobile version of your website
If the goal is to increase your consumer base, make sure they can research you through their smart phone as well. Keep your app connected to your company’s website and maintain brand consistency thought the app platform.

Incorporate Social Media

Allow users to share their app activity with their Facebook friends, twitter followers or post on Pinterest.  The more ways to keep the buzz going, the better.

Be feedback ready
Submit your app to a mobile app testing platform for geek testing before launching the application. Also include a way for end users to make suggestion and comments on the apps performance.

What do you think?
Have apps changed the way you market your company? Tell us about it!

Getting Ready for the Holidays in the Office

Posted: November 23, 2011 in Careers & Networking, Public Relations, Strategic Planning
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Ready or not, the holidays are here. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US, and for many local businesses it can mean business strategy is out the window and all staff is in crisis mode.  The holidays shopping frenzy can make up to a full third or more of many retailers’ yearly profits.  And more business are joining the fun every year— app developers are trying to make life and shopping easier for smart-phone addictsImage, credit card companies are pushing their gift cards, even car manufactures are trying to get a sale from the deal-minded consumer.

For the rest of us, where opening at midnight on Thanksgiving will never be company protocol, the holidays generally mean slow business. That said— there isn’t a better time to run a promotion, say thank-you to your loyal clients and boost office morale.

Do:

Dress up your website, Twitter feed, Facebook page and all online platforms with photos, images and captions that celebrate the season.  Tweek your tweets to include holiday buzz words and let your fans and followers know that you are staying up-to-date with the holiday action.

Plan a Holiday party with your employees, clients and/or business partners.

Offer discounts, coupons and holiday specials to your consumers, no matter what your service or product is, everyone is looking for a deal around the holidays.

Share personal details of your holiday festivities with your social media followers, though stories, memories and photos. The holidays are a great time to get to know your market, and let them relate to you through the common thread of holiday traditions.

Prep your staff on what to expect this holiday, from where you store the extra salt for the icy sidewalks, to vacation day protocols, let your staff know what to expect as the holidays and winter approach.

Gather information. Many people only visit businesses once a year, in the month of December. And if you’ve ever wondered where they spend their money the rest of the year, find out. Ask for emails of new costumers and follow-up once the holidays are over.

Give to a charity. Ask staff to help you organize a food drive, make your office a used-coat donation site for the community, organize an all-staff paid volunteer afternoon at the local soup kitchen, or simply pass an envelope around the office asking for a holiday contribution to your charity of choice. And whatever you do, be sure to write a press release about it.

Don’t:

Target your verbiage or images towards a particular religion. Be inclusive: there are many religions and nationalities that celebrate something through the months of October to January.

Miss out on valuable time. If your business isn’t busy, the holiday season is the perfect time to set goals for the New Year, reorganize company policies and review campaigns or projects.

Stress out. Visiting crazy relatives and planning dinner for 42 is stressful enough, don’t let work stress you out too. Try to keep a balance of work and personal life though the next few hectic weeks.

Are you ready for the holidays in your office? Tell us what your office holiday traditions are!

Why Open Graph is Great for Facebook and Business

Posted: October 17, 2011 in Opinion, Social Media
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By Kelly Krumsee, Social Media and PR Coordinator, PKA.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that the new Facebook just made your life difficult. “Just when I get good at something, everything about it changes! With all this open graph and subscribing stuff… how do I track my exposure and influence now?”

Users and page managers alike, we’re all experiencing the subtle angst of change. It’s true, the almighty Facebook will never be the same, and neither will the way we conduct business through it. And I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Why? It’s the end of hoarding “Like’s”.

The like button has been the primary way we interact with our followers up until now. We keep track of and evaluate our impact by the amount of likes and shares our pages receive. Not anymore. Now, users will be able to interact with our content in ways beyond “liking” it: they can “read” a book, “play” video games or “watch” the football game. These content posts will be less supportive and endorsing and instead more matter-of-fact and engaging. More of what a Facebook friend is looking for.

More verbs, means less worry about over-producing content. Previously there was a taboo for individuals to interact with companies, because it was seen as spam. Users chose not to “like” a company simply because they wanted to interact with their friends and family, not receive regular updates from their grocery store. But with the new open graph, users can “shop at” or “bargain hunt” or “taste test” at their grocery store without endorsing the company with a like.  This means: I don’t have to like a company in order to interact with them, and if I don’t want to interact with that company again, I don’t have to.

No more numbers taboo. Before the open graph, if you liked a company with very few likes, you were a bit intimidated that you would be the entire source of their interactions. Or that your friends would judge. Now, the amount of actual “likes” a company has matters less. Meaning we can stop focusing on our  “like” collection, and spend more time actually engaging.

Although we may be tempted to entirely write off the “like” feature, don’t. The “like”  isn’t going away—it’s just taking backstage to other verbs’. This is the end of the “like” as we know it, but the beginning of a whole new language with our  consumers and friends. A language that is dictated by them, and made possible through us. Say hello to the new Facebook: increased engagement, more interaction and greater influence.

For more details about the Facebook changes, check out our All About Facebook post.

All About the New Facebook

Posted: October 10, 2011 in Brand Management, Digital Marketing, Social Media, Technology
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Not sure where to click in the new Facebook? We’re here to help!  The biggest changes will be new verbs , the ability to subscribe, increased organization, ticker and stream, the timeline and a new platform for app development.

 

 

Verb

Think receiving a “like” is all it takes to gain business? Think again. Now users can “drink” a Pepsi or “snooze” at Starbucks. Our new focus as businesses is to provide our market with the ability to interact publicly with our companies: the more interactions, the most business mentions. This new content sharing will be more matter-of-fact and engaging than the endorsing and over-used “like”.

Subscribe

Facebook users now have the option to subscribe, or un-subscribe to top stories on their newsfeed. Users will automatically be subscribed to their friend’s feeds, but now they have the option of subscribing to information from other sources not at the “friend” level, like Mashable, Lady Gaga or Old Navy.  This creates a great space for those relationships that aren’t friendship, but still want a connection.

Organize

You probably have already noticed the new folder-like filing you can do with your friends and family. In what seems like a direct response to the GooglePlus platform, users can now organize their friends into categories, allowing for easier viewing of updates and shares. Currently, you can’t post updates into specific groups, but that may come in time.

Ticker

The ticket is a constant stream of updates as to the where’s and what’s of your friends. The constant strolling of the ticker is like the Twitter feed, and allows the user to see instant updates on friends’ activities.

This means that when you post something, if the Facebook Edgerank algorithm decides that you are not relevant content to that user, your post may only reach the level of ticker, and your chance of being discovered and commented on is low. Even more than before, marketers have to pay special attention to WHEN we post (knowing the habits of our followers is made even more crucial) and WHAT we post. Relevance, eye-catching key-words and impactful information will be the deciding factor if your post goes from ticker to stream.

Stream

All information goes into the ticket. What is commented on, or is most relevant, finds its way into the Stream, or the home tab. Stories in the feed are completely customizable and positioned as top stories and recent stories. Stories’ prominence in newsfeed are based on direct action, like’s, comments and chosen settings.  The stream moves slower than the ticket, and users are more likely to look to their stream for weekly, daily, hourly or most recent updates.

Timeline

Timeline, in our opinion, is just pretty darn cool. Think of it as an internet scrap-book that creates content based on your own interactions. Facebook chooses your most popular posts and makes them a focus. Users can scroll through their entire Facebook history and see the events and posts that have attracted the most attention featured with a caption and large image, such as a new car, baby, marriage, relationship status or vacation.

Of course, the idea is to fill out your “timeline” more fully, including the pieces that Facebook missed. Adding titles to photos, dates to trips, and even going back to the time before 2006 and uploading childhood photos, stories and images from the younger years to give viewers and friends a more complete view of your life.

All About APPS

Apps took center stage at the F8 conference. The Facebook developers teamed up with several dozen well-known companies to create new open graph apps, like the Washington Post—where all the articles read by an individual are shown on their profile and Spotify— where users can share music with their friends. Although it does still take a developer who knows coding to create an ap on Facebook, it’s becoming easier.

 

Change is good. It just takes adjusting.  Before Facebook was about getting people to ‘Like’ your brand. Now, it’s about getting people to take social actions enabled by that brand.

September Tech Blog

Posted: October 7, 2011 in Digital Marketing, Social Media, Technology
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Haven’t had time to catch up on the latest tech news? No problem. Read on to catch this month’s tech highlights.

Google Plus goes LIVE 
The long anticipated Google Plus  goes from the trial field-testing stage to the live beta stage. A couple new features are added and the users just keep growing. We love the new circles, increased privacy protection and ability to manage multiple applications with one easy interface.

How does this affect me?
New ways to connect with your friends and followers, as well as an innovative way to keep your personal life separate from your business.  Check out our google plus business post for more on the basics of G+ and what it means for your business.

Facebook Timeline
With the launch of G+, Facebook got a little competitive. The new additions to Facebook stress the novelty and longevity of Facebook and remind us of our long-time interactions on the social network that changed the internet. The new application Time Line allows users to view their life’s most important events streamed via their interactions. And Open Graph makes sharing online more just “likes”, but verbs galore. Now users can share things like “want” “love” or“cook”.

How will this affect me?
Timeline doesn’t have an application for business platforms yet, but we’re sure they will. Stay tuned,because these additions will totally change the way businesses interact with consumers, making the Facebook platform a more social, interactive place for everyone.

Google Wallet
It’s about time someone came out with a mobile payment system! This virtual wallet developed by Google allows users to store credit cards (or any plastic card) on the systems secure memory system.

How does this affect me?
The possibilities for this are endless: new promotions imbedded right into the payment process make remembering and using virtual coupons easier. While it may seem like a huge security concern, the Google Wallet needs a unique pin code to work, making the wallet less accessible to thieves than a normal credit card.

Kindles Fire Tablet
This  sleek tablet at the low price of $199 offers a competitive offer to the IPad, which starts at $499.

How does this affect me?
Competitive pricing and more features will likely lower the price on Apple tablet products as well as create a new competitive environment for added tablet features. Both tablets are a great addition to any business using media, and a superb new environment for placing ads.

Next Month

All about Apple.

Viral Videos and Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Posted: October 5, 2011 in Opinion
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By Social Media Coordinator, Kelly Krumsee 

Top five YouTube videos, 3-2-1 GO!

David After Dentist, Ultimate Dog Teaser, Grandpa gets a Webcam, Charlie Bit my Finger… Again and Boys will be Girls.

Phew. Now let me think, where did I first hear about them? My Mom? Maybe my best friend’s cousin? The babysitters parents? Doesn’t matter. Those are MY favorite videos and I will show them, relentlessly, to anyone who claims they haven’t seen them. In fact, I have been known to get into hour-long show-downs with friends over the “Funniest YouTube Video”. I will engage in fierce debates and battles over the validity of the woman-falling-into-the-pool-during-her-vows and the originality of Lonely Planet raps.

How do you find great YouTube vids? If you’ve ever tried typing funny video into YouTube’s search bar you were probably disappointed in the quality of the videos cached.  More likely, you look at the Most viewed or genre section which auto-aggregates the top performing videos for you. That way, you don’t have to search though the muck of bad videos to get a real belly ripper. OR you simply follow the advice of your friends who spend way more time looking at videos than you (or so it seems) and watch the videos posted on their Facebook feed.

My point is, the YouTube video war is super-charged, rapid-fire word-of-mouth advertising. WoM advertising works mainly because the product is good: a funny video, a great new song or a delicious stick of chewing gum. Nobody can force great WoM advertising if their product stinks. Joe Shmoe can claim his dog-recites-ABC’s video is the funniest and best YouTube video EVER… but if nobody shares it, claims it, puts it on their Facebook page or laughs with friends over it… it’s never going to make it past 500 views.

We’re not just talking about YouTube here: the wired WoM phenomenon shapes an entire brand through social media.

Would you type “best cream cheese” or “best plumber” into Google and trust the first thing that comes up to be the truly best? Probably not. But if 70 of your friends “liked” it, it’s Klout score is 82 and it has 53 recommendations on LinkedIn you might consider switching brands, in fact, with popularity like that, you may just call that plumber up pronto and ask him/her to fix your leaky porcelain throne right then and there, no matter what the price.

So next time you claim “I don’t pay much attention to Facebook and Twitter, because I get all my business from word-of-mouth”… think again. The world isn’t hearing your message just from their friend’s mouth anymore, their getting it from any number of social media outlets.

Don’t sweat it,  If you really have an awesome product, that you are confident will sell and create happy consumers, just make sure that social media channel is open and let the positive words flow. Even better, you can hear what your consumers are saying, interact with them, and learn about potential new costumers all at the same time.

Moral of the story is: world-of-mouth advertising has changed. It’s no longer just the word on the street you heard from your hair salon, it’s the word online. YouTube is a great example of how much we trust what other people have participated in. What better example than the new “Back to the Start” viral video.  Christian Oestlien, a leader in the GooglePlus revolution posted this Willie Nelson/Coldplay/Chipolte video on his GooglePlus feed, and in no time the video had over a million views.

How to Make #Hashtags Work for You

Posted: September 19, 2011 in Social Media
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An introductory post about hashtags

A hashtag is a grouping of keywords preceded by a hash symbol (“#”) that makes the term searchable and linkable on twitter.

Getting Started
Research the trending topics of the day by checking out the trending topics on the side bar of your twitter homepage, or use one of the many hashtag organizing sites such as top twitter trends , twubs or hashtags.org .

Trending topics
You may find that many of the top trending topics are entirely unrelated to your field. Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean that you’re never going to gain traction because your company has nothing to do with #justinbeiberhaircut or #UknowUHungryWhen. Twitter’s trending topics algorithm identifies topics that are immediately popular, showcasing the latest news or humor. Trending topics generally don’t represent the all-time most popular tweets. This means that although #fashfoodaddiction may be popular right now, you don’t need to post about your company’s share of Mickey D’s stock to fit in.

Top Tweets
Where trending topics may not always be useful, top tweets are. Make a list of the tops tweets relevant to your market. For example, if you own a hair salon, some of the trending topics are: #hair #beauty #hairsalon #NYFW (for the New York Fashion Week) and #HairIdeas.

Localize
While checking out what is trending in the world may be interesting, it may not pertain to your market. Twitter allows you to localize and check the trends in your area. Right above the trending topics, click the link change and choose your region.

Organize
Find a couple of great hashtag groups, and comment to them repeatedly. This will establish your presence in a world where a post often has a life of three minutes or less. Moreover, if you are creating your own hashtag, such as for an event or promotion, make the hashtag well-organized and easy to understand. Create your own hashtag early on, and stick to it. Let your followers know by including your hashtag on your website and Twitter feed that they can track the conversation.

Be Vocal
Add photos, blog posts and unique content into your chosen hashtag groups. Set yourself apart from the constant stream of data and provide the market with your valuable insight.

Hashtag don’ts
Keep hashtags relevant and clutter free by avoiding these spam-like actions.

- Adding several trending topics or hashtags to a single post.
- Tweeting the same hashtag repeatedly without adding new information in an attempt to garner higher trending.
- Tweeting about a trending topic just to garner attention.
- Posting an unrelated article in a hashtag group.

Most importantly when it comes to hashtags— just have fun. Hashtags help you save precious time and energy when working on your social media implementation, allowing you to spend more time engaging with your followers and getting to know your field.

The Value of a Give-Away

Posted: September 14, 2011 in Generational Marketing, Strategic Planning
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Using promotional items in today’s viral market

Stop reading for a moment and look around your office. I’m serious. Do it. Look for promotional items… the sticker on your water bottle, notepads, key chains, giant bobble head of your favorite baseball star, digital jump rope… okay, maybe not the jump rope, although you can buy those. Point is, we use promotional items every day! Although a solar flashlight may not be relevant to your business, every business can benefit from the name recognition that comes from a give-away.

Before you buy five-thousand combo laser pointer/USB drives, let’s examine the business of promotional items and how to best reach your potential customers.

Our Rules of Promotional Giving

1)       Be relevant

2)      Be valuable

3)      Be promotional

Relevance:
Perhaps the most important thing to consider when purchasing promotional items is your market. A chip-clip probably isn’t the best way to promote a fitness center (or perhaps it is), and a voice-recording tape measure is pretty meaningless to the board members of a bank.  Do a quick audience sketch and search out a couple of items that would be useful to your clientele. For example Coffee Shop=coffee mug, stickers-to-put-on-thermos, measuring spoon, coasters. You get the idea.

Value:
Ten-thousand cheep carabiners are not promoting anything when they land in the trash after one use. A thousand well-made USB drives will always be more effective.  Think about the items you pick up at a trade-show or career fair. People don’t need more stress balls, but they will use pens and tote-bags. To be sure that the promotional items you purchase are high quality, demand samples and make sure the company you purchase from guarantees their products.

Promotion:
This isn’t just money spent, this is advertising. Include more than your name or logo. Use your website URL, phone number, address, product name, campaign title, fun quotation… anything that makes the recipient remember your company.

Tips for when and how to use promotional items

Anytime.  Always have promotional items on hand to say thank-you to referrals, add an extra something to new business proposals or to boost morale among employees. Promotional items are gifts that have a functional purpose and a mission to increase your brand recognition.

Free contests and drawings. Looking for people to sign up for a newsletter, or get involved in a campaign? Hold a contest.  Winners can receive high-value promotional items, such as sweatshirts, luggage or costume-label wine bottles. Smaller prizes, like stuff sacks, t-shirts or hats can be given away as consultation prizes, encouraging participation and company visibility.

Added purchase bonus. Encourage customers to spend a few extra bucks to receive a free gift at no extra cost. It’s been done to death because it really works.

Gift shop items. Don’t just give away promotional items, sell them! You might be surprised by the amount of people who will actually purchase three-foot wooden pencils, novelty T-shirts, pint glasses and magnets.

Reward loyalty. Can you think of five people who, without them, your business would be nowhere? Let them know you appreciate them by sending a small gift. Nourish those relationships and encourage their continued commitment to your brand.

Holiday giving. Put your name, logo and/or website URL on everything you can possibly put your name on. Do you give gifts around the holiday seasons? Make part, or all of it, promotional.

Fundraising.  Remember the Livestrong bracelets? People love to receive things for donations. It says thank-you and is a great way for them to show off their generosity.

While we all get swooped up into this new age of social media and online marketing, it’s easy to forget about the tried and true marketing essentials. Plus, these promotional ideas can always be used in conjunction with a social media campaign, give away items to Facebook friends, those who retweet your messages or give you a K+ on Klout.

Happy giving!

QUIZ: In-house or Out-house? Choosing the Best Marketing for Your Company

Posted: September 12, 2011 in Brand Management, Marketing Research, Public Relations, Strategic Planning
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Thinking of implementing a new marketing plan? Go back-to-school with our marketing  quiz!

1. How do you staff your marketing communication department?

A)     What department? It’s just me and some support people.

B)     We employ a complete staff of creative, media and PR people, offering salaries and benefits.

C)     We manage a network of preferred vendors for specific functions and pay only for the work delivered.

 2. How do you manage marketing costs and return on investments?

A)     We have a small budget for marketing and can’t exceed it.

B)     Since most of the work is done by internal staff, we don’t measure productivity, only payroll costs.

C)     We give vendors a purchase order based on their estimate and hold them to it.

3. What tools do I currently have available for marketing?

A)      Nothing. I have a few envelopes and a laptop with an internet connection.

B)      We buy the latest software (such as Adobe CS 5.5) so we’re always upgrading equipment and programs.

C)     I have a few things, a nice camera and small printer and a few contacts at the local news paper. I rely on outside agencies for the big projects.

4. What’s my competition up to?

A)     Everything. My market is saturated with marketing and advertisement, I have no idea how I will gain a foot-hold— they are so far beyond my company.

B)      I have a good idea of where my competition is, yet I feel like I’m constantly playing catch-up. I know that my company has an edge in the market, but I don’t know the best angle to utilize it.

C)      We’re keeping our head above water, but we could be doing more.

5. What is the primary purpose of your marketing efforts currently?

A)     To inform customers about our products.

B)     T o produce all the materials ourselves.

C)      To engage customers and build our brand.

9. The biggest challenges in your marketing efforts are…

A)     Finding the time and resources to produce materials.

B)     Managing a large internal staff and keeping people and equipment up to date.

C)     Coordinating various marketing suppliers to maintain brand image and message continuity.

10. What’s the future of your marketing efforts?

A)     Can’t do much more unless business improves.

B)     We can keep increasing staff and equipment to keep up with new marketing challenges.

C)     We’ll continue working with trusted marketing partners and continue to demand new thinking and solutions to improve the efficiency of our marketing efforts.

Results

Mostly A’s
You’re a busy person, trying to do too much with too little. You know you need marketing guidance, but at the same time, you like the idea of keeping the company lean while focusing on doing what you do best.
Concerns: The thought of hiring a marketing department is daunting, and you’re tight on both time and money.
Suggestions:  Starting looking around for great marketing efforts in your area. You might want to talk to a small agency or studio that can take on some specific business building projects, such as direct mail or social media. This will create more revenue to do more marketing projects which in turn will…you get the idea. Be realistic in your expectations and always share your ideas.

Mostly B’s
You have always followed the model of keeping your marketing efforts in-house. You feel that a small team of dedicated player’s best serve your industry, but sometimes wonder if their complacent and the quality could be better.
Concerns:  Turn-over is costly and losing one person can be a detriment to your marketing efforts. Yet, you don’t want to isolate your internal employees by hiring out. Also,a  fast-paced market means that employees spend a majority of their time doing research and investigating new modes of marketing rather than producing great creative work.
Suggestions: Regularly evaluate your in-house team. Make sure that your employees have the most adequate services and tools to be successful and that the operations are running smoothly. You should consider the real cost of in-house marketing departments in terms of productivity, expertise, efficiency, market awareness and competitive creativity. Consult regularly with an agency to boost morale and generate new ideas. You may want to consider expanding your marketing efforts by working with an agency on retainer to take on projects where your internal team doesn’t have the bandwidth. Be honest and open with your internal staff about the reasons that you are considering hiring an agency, and keep them involved in the process.

Ultimately you must decide— do I want to build a department or build my business?

Mostly C’s
You understand the value of working with trusted marketing professional partners and you expect cutting edge thinking, sharp creative, challenging marketing concepts and dedicated service.
Concerns: You spend a lot of time shopping around for the best marketing firm for the task, and are worried about maintaining brand image and message continuity.
 Suggestions: Regularly evaluate your marketing efforts regularly and maintain an open relationship with your agency. Keep informed and updated, always share your opinions with your marketing professionals.  A successful marketing relationship is an extension of your business and provides you with an excellent ROI and market awareness.

Using Crowdsourcing for Marketing

Posted: August 31, 2011 in Brand Management, Editing & Proofreading, Generational Marketing, Marketing Research, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategic Planning
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Let’s cut through the clutter and explore this new and potentially dangerous form of marketing.
It’s really no more than outsourcing tasks, which clients and agencies have done forever. The difference is, crowdsourcing is outsourcing to anyone on the internet.

Remember the old rule of thumb? Good, fast, cheap–pick two. It applies well to crowdsourcing. While crowdsourcing your marketing efforts may be cheap and fast, the goodness is questionable.

Finances
Crowdsourcing is cheap, often costing only a few dollars per photo or a few hundred per logo, but it can end up costing a company much, much more in the long run. Unexpected time to manage the project and hidden costs add up. More than that, a company risks violating copyrights. CitiBank and the DataPortabilityProject found themselves staring at hefty lawsuits from unhappy companies with surprisingly similar logos. A crowdsourcing site, such as 99designs, designcrowd,  or the logo factory can create a logo in seconds, for very little money, but they do so at a detriment to the market. Many designers who work on these sites reproduce similar designs for different companies, or simply steal existing work of established companies. According to the fine print, they deny liability if there are problems.

Ethics
Many crowdsourcing websites seem unconcerned with ethics. They boast below-market wages or no wages at all, relying on “contests” and barter. Many designers are from China, India, Serbia or developing nations. Sound a bit like an offshore sweatshop? It is.

Business security
In many cases, there are no written contracts, non-disclosure agreements, and or even people to contact. What’s more, you have no real assurance about protecting your concept or design. How many other companies around the world are already using it?

Managing the idea stream

The challenge is to manage the crowd. That means a professional needs to define the objectives, set the parameters and narrow the scope of a project. In addition, professionals need to evaluate the work submitted. Still more professionals may need to check for trademark or copyright issues. Without professional management crowdsourcing is no more than throwing stuff on the wall and seeing what sticks.
Our point of view

We obviously have a vested interest in maintaining client relationships as well as producing unique, high quality work. Crowdsourcing may be just fine for small projects or just for fun, but we don’t think it should replace a trusted relationship with an experienced marketing team of professionals. We like istockphoto and flickrcreativecommons for blog photos, all the clothing at threadless, and for lodging and community there’s Betterthanthevan and couchsurfing. But for marketing your business, nothing replaces a professional partnership.

Consider the risks of crowdsourcing as well as the benefits. You may find a professional marketing partner will not only provide better quality work, but will also keep you out of trouble.

Other bloggers who know their stuff:
aiga/whats-the-harm?
Laurelsdesigndeli/crowdsourcing-in-my-face
wired/crowdsourcing
unicast/when-crowdsourcing-gets-ugly

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