Marketing Automation and DIY marketing tools are great.  Powerful tools for the marketer that directly enable you to communicate in a more frequent, relevant and timely manner with customers and prospects.  No need to rely on an agency to send out every email (still smiling!).  I am an absolute advocate of these tools - if used correctly. 

Yet when in untrained hands these tools can quietly erode your brand right in front of your customer's eyes in a way that almost goes unrealised if your antennae is pointed elsewhere. 

I write following recent experience as a recipient of a series of emails as a customer of the sending business (I'm not going to name names).

The basic fact is that you send most emails to people you already have your best relationships with: customers.  Don't underestimate this.  These are the most important people in the world to your business.  Yet email is often delegated as focus put on other 'higher impact' comms.

Why?   Because we 'now have a template',  and with that QA seems to go out of the window.  Yet systems and users have a habit of managing to break templates pretty quickly.  'Those 1000 words will fit.'  'That 1200 pixel wide image will CAN be a thumbnail.'  'Over-compression - they love it!'

Templates are incredibly useful as they let you send out frequent comms without the need to re-invent the wheel each time.  But how thought-through and tested are they?  How understood is their use? Does your sender understand good communication design principles?  Are these being tested across all email clients using tools such as Litmus? Just whose hands are you putting them into?!

So here's the recipe:  a lack of understanding of the brand or good design, consequent template abuse, and the desertion of QA.  Put these in a pot and stir.
Let's see what you get:

So I get an email...  here's what happens in about 5 seconds.

I recognise the sender so I open it.
First impressions: it looks like spam. 
There's an heavily over-compressed logo.  Why has someone turned that into a JPEG?
I can't believe that image has come from an approved library.

Poor text formatting: can hardly read it.  Margins and spacing are everywhere.
Too much content.  Too many links - unstyled.  
Nothing stand-out. 
And didn't I get this before last week?
Delete.
My opinion of the brand has just gone down a few notches.
I will probably just hit delete if it arrives again.

Maybe the primary concern of the sender is about 'just getting it out'. 
That's a phrase I hate. 

So what's the point of this rant?   I suppose I'm trying to point out that even activity deemed 'routine' should be crafted with as much care and attention as the sexy stuff. 
When you consider the audience who receive it, you could easily argue its impression and effect matter far more.

An updated EU ePrivacy Directive comes into effect on May 26 with a controversial new stipulation that websites must ask users for permission to set cookies, and during this process must explain what the cookie is used for.  

The legislation is driven by concern about how some cookies store user data that is then shared between sites without the knowledge of users. This is a genuine issue that quite rightly needs guidelines (though often hyped up by scaremongers), but however well-intentioned the legislation is, it will be difficult to make work in practice.   For instance, the Directive takes a one-size-fits-all approach to cookies and doesn't distinguish between a purely functional cookie that stores no user information and a more 'intrusive' cookie used (say) by 3rd party advertisers for behavioural targeting.

For this reason the legislation touches just about every website as the web is underpinned by cookies, and they are not going away anytime soon.  The main issue facing businesses right now is how to comply given there's such a short time before it becomes law.   No one exactly seems to know what to do or how far to go.  

The truth is that everyone is watching to see how everyone else is going to tackle this.  Even the Information Commissioner's Office website has 6 cookies placed when you visit it, so it'll be interesting to see how they manage things (as of time of writing they are still in the same boat as everyone else).

The government have announced that, while the law comes into effect on 26 May, they will give all businesses a reasonable period of time to adapt and adjust, and that no one will be in trouble providing they are taking steps to comply.  They appreciate that making changes and updates will take time and will cost each business money.  

The first thing every business should now to is audit their site to understand how cookies are used.  But you know this already don't you?  After all this should be disclosed in your existing privacy policy (a legal requirement since 2003).

There are then probably five options right now for businesses:

1. A strict interpretation means implementing a strict opt-in policy for every type of cookie your site.   This pretty much means the death of user experience, and just watch your bounce rate rocket.  See this humourous example of how bad it could be.
   
   
2. A similar but slightly less irritating version involves putting a single popup/layer/splash page in front of first time visitors asking them to agree to place cookies on their site.  This should be a one-size-fits-all statement covering all cookies that could at least be styled a little nicer to the example above.  Still not good for first impressions, and we still imagine some adverse effect on bounce rate.
   
   
3. A subtler approach, and one we think can be used as a stop gap, is to have a clear flag/button on your homepage about the EU Directive (e.g. a tab on the top left that expands on user click), that lists the site's cookie usage.   If you clearly state that 'We are working hard right now to comply with the EU directive etc', then your are following Government guidelines.  This then allows you to....
   
   
4. 'Wait and see what others do'.  This will be the most common approach.   Do nothing drastic right now and let's see what the ICO and others implement on May 26 and shortly afterwards then to see what standards emerge.   (In fact, many businesses (including large brands) are quite unaware of the legislation, so are taking this approach through ignorance).
    
   As advice on implementation has been woolly and no one has any idea how the legislation will be enforced (if at all), sitting tight to see what others do first is arguably the best approach.  You are unlikely to get 'done', unless you being very naughty and unscrupulously selling on user data.
   
   
5. A final method is to develop a new or alternative site that will never use cookies.   This is fine for a simple, flat site, but ultimately will be limiting on functionality and (when more functionality is required) will cost a lot more to develop as timely workarounds will need to be coded.  But this isn't economically or functionally feasible for most businesses.  
   

I'd suggest a combination of #3 and #4 above is best for the next 2-3 months. If your business is the type whose legal team starts hyperventilating at the mention of this legislation then maybe you need to consider #2.   Overall, we think that a practical, usable approach will emerge, gain consensus and be adopted over the next 6 months or so, and as long as we make it very easy for users to understand what cookies are being used for, we feel it's good to sit tight for this consensus to appear.>

Ultimately, in future this issue will probably be solved by browser developers, so that users can set their own personal cookie preferences within browser settings, allowing users to set the types of cookies that they will allow and (in fact, Firefox 4 already has an option allowing users to block Google Analytics.).  

But to do this, standards need to emerge to classify types of cookies.  This is going to take time, and similar but (of course) subtly different US legislation is due out soon, which also need to be accommodated.  

So in the meantime, be seen to be taking steps to comply, then let's see what  practical approaches emerge.

I've just been looking through two sets of brand guidelines, both for household-name b2b brands. They are nice, shiny, well produced documents. Look great in print. But I'm looking for guidance on how we use the brands for online projects we're planning.

What we need to know - and I think should reasonably expect of proper, complete, fully-rounded brand guidelines - is how the brands should live in the online environment.

And nope, there's nothing there. It's completely absent. It doesn't appear seem to have been considered at all. They aren't even that old - the last one was produced in 2008.

So I've come to the conclusion that most of what these 'guidelines' contain is a now total irrelevance to the way a brand needs to be used now.

In this very compelling and thought-provoking presentation, Umair Haque presents an alternative perspective on the current economic situation.

Part economic treatise, part manifesto, he first discusses how the situation we find ourselves - the bankruptcy of the western economic model - was fuelled by the pursuit of what he calls 'thin value': not real value at all, but about creating perceived value out of nothing in a self-centred and unsustainable way, and not benefiting the greater-good at all.    The result of this he calls is the 'Zombieconomy' - industries and corporations now worth nothing.  Great phrase.

Interestingly, he then argues that for the economy to grow we need to re-conceive value creation, and it needs to be based upon providing real value all the way through the economic chain.  To be based more upon principles than strategy.  It's certainly and interesting perspective on where we find ourselves now and definitely worth 20 minutes of your time to view it yourself.   He has some interesting examples.

To me it seems for B2B brands, taking up the positions of leadership, stewardship and trusteeship Umair talks about could provide the potential to become truly different and to grow sustainably out of the current crisis.  

Offhand, I can't think of many in b2b who are really taking this kind of approach right now.   Do we think that the up-turn will come and we'll be back to how it was before?  View the presentation and let me know your thoughts.

I've been reading about Augmented Reality, which no doubt offers the most incredible new way to prompt a response from DM, or on page ads, or any other printed materials.

To see what I mean, read about this trailblazing campaign for Mini in Germany.   Now, imagine that's your DM piece in their hands.

OK, not everyone has a webcam on the computer right now, but in 3 years they will.  Now's the time for the creative minds of the B2B world to start flexing in preparation.

I really respect Mini for being brave enough to invest and test in these techniques.  OK, a lot of people may not have the ability to respond - but I bet they were intrigued.  And the publicity Mini receive for doing this will only help an already stellar brand (can you tell I'm a fan?). 

The use of video and rich content across the web is now ubiquitous. Just look at BBC Olympics coverage: I watched most of it online - often live - rather than on the telly (not during working hours of course), and could access highlights for any event, at any time. It was great. I now expect this functionality on websites.

That's a high profile example, but this trend is coming to B2B too. For instance: highlights of b2b events can and should be taped and streamed online. I don't want to read a boring long, text based case study, I want to watch customers talking enthusiastically about the company I'm considering. I don't want to download a technical PDF of how to do something, I want to watch someone showing me. I want to interact.

It's all far more engaging for prospects and customers, and brings far more proof to what you say.

And now there's another reason to develop this content, as highlighted at the Beyond Search Event at the Tate Gallery this week: with Universal Search, rich content will now be indexed and appear in search results alongside traditional entries. These entries standout against others and mean users are far more likely to click on them to visit your site.

The barrier is that this content takes more thought, determination and time to produce. And will cost more also, though the increased return should balance this.

Because of this though, I think it represents a real opportunity for those prepared to embrace this: while others find reasons why not to do it, it gives those who are determined a chance to move ahead of the pack.

This month's lead article in my very favourite magazine Wired posits that we are now in the petabyte age. This heralds 'The End of Science' as we know it. 

The central theory proffered is that with the massive amount of data that we now have, we no longer need to use the centuries-old 'hypotheses->experiment->prove/disprove' empirical approach to make new discoveries, we simply need to analyse and understand what this data is telling us to make advances in the future.

Hmm, at first glance for the B2B marketer of a digital persuasion this sounds very nice indeed. All we need to do is glean this information then give them to the data geeks, then voilà, the answer! Pass me those log files...

But here lies the issue. How do get the answers from all this data? Google may be the undisputed #1 as it worked out to be the most efficient way of organising the web, and even it can't claim to be definitive (e.g. see Knol - an attempt by Google's head of search to fill the gaps in information he says exist on the web). The analysis seems to lag way behind the gathering. We still find that we need to use - shock horror - real people to get the most insightful information when researching. Data gives you statistics, results, validation, but can it give you insight? Can it tell you how people behave and interact with your products?  

If Wired are right, the answer is probably yes, but we just aren't very good at doing it yet. In the near future perhaps those that can create tools to visually interpret data, but in a meaningful way that relates back to actual people and their behaviours, will be very powerful.  Watch this to be inspired.

I agree with 37 signals dictum that it's best to create half an application rather than a half-arsed application.   What they mean by this, is that it's best to start small and realistic rather than create a bloated monster, ridden with functionality that no one actually uses or understands.  From this ethos they created the excellent basecamp and from it the whole ruby on rails development framework.  They make a LOT of money.

In software, the reason the American companies dominated, rather than the Japanese (who in the 70s and 80s dominated the home consumables market) is that they weren't afraid to quickly release their software and then update it once in the market with new features, rather than wait and perfect their product before launch.  So they were first to market and they then developed their software and its feature-set based upon feedback from the users.  Those who were successful saw their software as a iterative entity, constantly evolving, and were passionately hands-on throughout.  And of course i don't need to tell you who they were.

This is not a bad approach for the b2b marketer in developing a website: just focus on the core things, which will generally be generating leads from your core user groups, and get your site up quickly, and learn together once it's live, building it up in phases, being agile, constantly improving, constantly evolving, based upon what works and what your users do and want. Certainly helps your budget go a whole lot further.

It might mean your new site might not be as big as the one you have now, but is anyone really interested in those news items from 2002?  

Alternatively, you could spend 9 months and a whole lot of money developing a site then releasing it and just then letting it pretty much sit there for then next 3 years while you recover from the effort, before doing it all over again?  So, best to start with creating the perfect half-site than a scrabbling around for half-arsed content to fill your huge empty site.