Time flies

Never has this phrase meant so much than this month – my baby turned 1!  It always seemed so cliché when people would say to me, “it goes by so fast.”  But, wow, is it true! 

There’s only one instance where I think time flies faster than watching your baby grow, and that’s technology.  I hold my own when it comes to figuring things out, but I’m not an “early adopter” when it comes to technology.  My husband lovingly calls me the “techno wizard.”  I’m the one that didn’t think we needed a DVR at first, but now, it’s one of those “necessary conveniences.”

In my professional world, online marketing is a tough thing to keep up with.  Luckily at Griffin, my colleagues @heatherhungate and @julieflorida are our online marketing gurus and help keep the rest of us “techno wizards” up to speed.  There are so many new tools and “apps” that pop up each day, it can be overwhelming.  But, the key thing to remember is not to have a GMOOT (Get me one of those) strategy (heard Geoff Ramsey of eMarketer use this at a Houston Interactive Marketing Association luncheon last year). 

Before you spend time, energy and money trying to integrate the latest and greatest interactive marketing tool, you need to make sure it makes sense with your marketing strategy.  Is that tool the best way to reach your target audience?  For example, a mobile marketing campaign is not the best strategy for reaching senior citizens. 

Sure, many times these tools are inexpensive (often free) to use, but it’s the “sweat equity” that you have to put into them that can be costly. 

It’s certainly a good idea to have a presence with the basic, most popular social networking sites (facebook, LinkedIn, etc.).  But, if you’re an early adopter and pick your marketing tools based on how “cool” or “gee whiz” it is, you probably don’t have the most effective marketing strategy. 

Personally and professionally, the best way to keep your sanity is to have a plan or means of prioritizing.  Remember your goals and always evaluate if what you’re doing is getting you closer to attaining them.

Stacy Sarault

Make Time for Face Time

We’ve all heard it.  We’ve all touted its benefits.  But, in this day and age, the benefits of face time with someone can be easily overlooked…not to mention, a bit difficult to obtain.

I’m encouraged by what setting a weekly, in-person tag-up with a client can accomplish.  By setting this as a recurring meeting, it doesn’t take an act of Congress to get on the client’s calendar.  Working out details over e-mail and phone can often take far longer than a quick in-person meeting to review the same info.  The volume of topics that can be covered, the in-depth conversation that occurs and the decisions that can be quickly made are far greater from these face-to-face meetings.  Plus, I find that we often end up discussing other topics that have a deep influence on the greater whole of the work we are trying to accomplish.

Beyond the weekly tag up, in-person meetings can have an enormous effect on output.  Take for instance, two occurrences just this week –

I attended an annual retreat for a client where we all gathered in person for strategic discussion.  This client hosts weekly telecons with reps all over the country.  While these phone meetings are worthwhile, the discussion, candor and decisions made during the retreat were remarkably greater than any resulting from one of our recent telecons.  Not to mention, I now have a face with a name for so many of those folks!

We are looking for interns at Griffin, so we were about to interview a gal that looked like a great candidate.  She is studying abroad in Spain, so an in-person interview was out of the question.  We knew we could catch her on the phone, but really wanted that face-to-face perspective.  Skype to the rescue!  With five minutes of computer prep to set up a web cam, we were able to interview her “in person.”  What a difference to be able to see her and interact than to have just talked over the phone.

And now, I’m prepped and ready to roll on to another one of my in-person weekly tag ups.  I’m about to head into a one-hour meeting with a quick agenda that will most likely close out some projects and open doors to new ones.

I encourage everyone to make face time a priority.  It’s too easy to rely on e-mail and phone these days.  Heck, I even have a text message and Facebook relationship with some clients!  Make time for the in-person meeting.  You’ll be glad you did.

– Deanna Wilke