Slightly Askew

Photography by zachstern

You go into town to buy a nice new jumper. You don’t know exactly what you want, but you’ve got an idea of what it looks like in your head. (A red wine kind of colour, tight fitting, a nice thin wool.) You’ve got money in your pocket and time to look around. You’re looking forward to buying that nice new jumper and wearing it to what’s-her-name’s party tonight.

Except you can’t find one you like. Not anywhere.

So you walk home empty-handed and, just when you’re about to turn into your road, some guy walks past with a really smart shirt that’s much better than the jumper that’s still tumbling around your imagination. And you wish you’d looked for that shirt instead.

And this is the problem with digital marketing.

Are you desperate to be found? Or happy being discovered?

And that means making a decision.

Because unless you or the company you’re working for has a cowshed full of fivers to dip into, you’ve got to make a big “impact” (everybody uses that word nowadays – and I get a little bit of sick in my mouth every time they do) on a limited budget.

Do you do search marketing? Or relationship marketing?

They’re both pretty simple concepts as far as I’m concerned.

Search means SEO and AdWords. You start with a million potential customers, get the attention of one percent and make your pitch, and then hope that one percent of them buy your product.

From one million, you get one hundred. And then you put the data into a spreadsheet and work out cost per acquisition and a plethora of similar ratios.

Relationship marketing is quite the opposite. You start with one customer. Do a bloody brilliant job and hope one becomes ten. And then hope ten becomes one hundred. All by word of mouth.

Of course, you can create catalysts for spreading the word: nice websites with blogs so you can feel more involved, well-written opt-in emails, maybe even a Twitter account. (Note: this isn’t social media marketing. If you’ve got nothing worth talking about, a Facebook page isn’t going to make a sliver of difference.)

The battle lies where the two meet.

Does search marketing happily sit alongside relationship marketing?

Is there any joy in giving attention to someone who’s been desperately seeking it anyway?

Can you start with one and one million?

I don’t know, and it’s something I’ve been wrestling with all day.

Any thoughts?

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Photo by slimmer jimmer

If you’ve arrived here looking for information about Aldburgh, the lovely seaside town in the equally lovely county of Suffolk, there’s good news and bad news.

The bad news is that you spelt Aldburgh wrong. (You need an e after the d – just like the alphabet.) And what you’ve stumbled upon here is an experiment to see if I can generate a bit of website traffic based on a typo.

But I guess if you’re here, the good news is that my experiment’s worked.

(By the way, if you’re still reading and really do need to find somewhere to stay in Aldburgh, why not head to The Brudenell? It’s an independent hotel owned by the lovely people at Thorpeness & Aldeburgh Hotels. Or if you’re only going for the day, don’t forget to buy some chips.)

Anyway. The reason for this little post is that I’ve been fiddling around with Google’s Keyword Tool today, and I discovered that “Aldburgh” is searched for 3,600 times a month. And “Aldburgh Suffolk” a further 390. That’s nearly 4,000 searchers who are ready to be welcomed to this here blog.

And if you are one of those 4,000, “welcome” says I.

Take a look around.

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What a difference a year makes.

365 days ago I sat in a dark room and was asked if I’d like a representative from the company to join me in this meeting. If you’re ever asked such a thing, it’s probably not good news. I was told that my position as web editor / copywriter / marketer was “under review”.

“Under review” is the employment equivalent of terminal illness. It means: “you’re a goner – but not quite yet.”

It became apparent that, in three days, I was going to be made redundant. All bar divine intervention. And since I don’t believe in a man upstairs, I asked my employers to take me to metaphorical Switzerland.

“There’s no point in me hanging around where I’m not wanted,” I shrugged. “I’ll go now if you give me a few months’ salary.”

They agreed to pay me what I wanted. I packed up my books and walked out of the office.

* * *

Why did I get made redundant? Good question. I’m still not sure. It wasn’t for financial reasons, I know that much. The company was doing very well. Still is.

The reason, I think, was that they wanted a calculator.

You can put oodles of information into a calculator and it’ll return the right answer. Every sodding time. If it doesn’t, it’s because you put in the wrong data.

I’m being a bit abstract, but bear with me.

This company, you see, liked democracy a lot. Not just a little. A lot. Especially when it came to marketing and anything remotely creative. Everybody had a say. “It’s your company!” the Leader would cry. “And we want everybody’s ideas!”

Which is very nice and empowering, but bloody frustrating if you’ve been employed to do a job that 30 people now believe is sort of their job too. Because I got absolutely nowhere. Because everybody’s opinion had to be collated and considered and calculated – and then, they thought, you’d get the right answer. I didn’t agree with them then and I still don’t. Such an approach is perfect for achieving average, but not for being remarkable or astonishing. I like thinking and creating and doing and improving stuff. I don’t like being a calculator.

So they were right to make me redundant. I wasn’t the calculator they were looking for. The job made me miserable. And I never got to give my opinion on what colour toilet rolls we should buy. So much for democracy.

(Don’t get me wrong, I don’t deliberately stand in the way of apple carts. But I’ll gladly stick a landmine underneath one if I think the apple cart is in fact full of shit.)

I was actually rather ecstatic to be made redundant. Being forced into making a new start is exciting. That night, Caroline and I opened a bottle of champagne and got a greasy takeaway from the chippy down the road. Glasses clinked. “To the future,” we said.

* * *

One year on and I’m working in one of the best creative agencies in the East.

Every day brings a brilliant new project. I get to think and write and program websites for loads of different clients. I get to wear jeans and novelty t-shirts to work. And I get to eat the finest bacon and sausage baguettes known to man whenever I choose.

All that thinking and creating and doing and improving stuff is now my job. I’m a very lucky boy.

I’ve gone from being a web editor at a tiny insurance company that thought it was creative, to a copywriter at a revered creative agency. (Via, it must be said, a joyous summer of watching sport and pretending to freelance.)

I’ve seen my words in big, proper newspapers (The Telegraph, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune) and in London Underground tube trains. On the sides of bus shelters and on the backs of buses. In a specialist luxury watch magazine and on flyers for a major political party. I’ve written loads of scripts for radio ads too.

Not bad for a reject.

I’m still rough around edges and prone to ending up in ridiculous grammar cul-de-sacs where a mistake is bloody obvious to all but me. But I’ve got a boss who’s pretty much omniscient and an incredibly talented creative director to slap me into shape. And I bloody love my job.

What a difference a year makes.

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