The client project is one of the more effective learning tools that I have worked with in the academic process. In addition to the ‘live case’ scenario that the opportunity offers to the learning process, there is also the added dynamic of managing client understanding and expectations.
One of the most learning opportunities in this project is the experimentation, triage and adaptation of the course material to come up with a strategy that suits the client. The adaptation of digital marketing strategies for industries that fit outside of the norm forces us to really grasp the concept behind the tools and models and align them with company objectives.
As our client, PenderFund is in the financial services industry, the specific terminology and phrasing required to satisfy their legal requirements makes it very difficult to put together sample short-form marketing materials such as Google AdWords and Tweets that the client could then use. For example, we could not use words like “Best Performing” or “Top Performer” when discussing the Small Cap fund for Pender, which was actually the category leader in 2013 in terms of its > 20% return, as it is not framed in a very specific context that would satisfy the lawyers. To work around this, we suggested using the “Best Canadian Mutual Fund” or “Top Performing Canadian Fund” as keywords to trigger AdWords that did not explicitly claim best performance.
For Twitter, we recommended tweeting links to articles or other party evaluations of performance and use phrasing like, “A very favourable Small Cap performance review from Rob Carrick…”. What may seem like mere semantics are very important to a client in a highly regulated industry versus dealing with a client selling consumer goods.
Working through the client scenario we were able to dig deep and gain a true understanding of some of the tools and concepts that we had been studying in class. The understanding of a concept in an academic concept is slightly different from the understanding of a concept with the purpose of trying to sell it to a client. Not only does one have to understand the concept in context to present a favourable cost/benefit projection to demonstrate its viability but the scrutiny of the strategy is far more intense in a real-world concept.
This was exemplified by another Google AdWords discussion, this time exploring keyword bidding strategy. The client focused intently on the architecture of this platform and how it influences the organic search aspect of Google rather than the critical points on the strategy. Our deep analysis of keyword research, bidding strategies, blog posts criticizing the Google algorithm, and keyword spy tools, we were able to aptly discuss the ecosystem that the apparatus of internet search and reiterate some of the experts’ opinions that enabled us to address some of the perceptual blind spots the client had in order to bring the conversation back to the topic we wanted to discuss which is the keyword search tool.
When dealing in the hypothetical or scenario-based environment that most commonly describes the academic learning process, there is a general consensus of background understanding among conversation participants that enables the discussion to move forward. The opportunity to work with a client forces us to confront the idea that we must always check with the client to make sure that they share a common understanding of some of the basic principles of the subject prior to moving forward with recommending strategy. This doesn’t seem to be a revolutionary idea but it did force me to step outside of my common role as I had become habituated to work and school environments where the people I converse with have equal or greater subject knowledge than I generally do. This will be a great personal reference tool to remind me that when presenting information from the position of a “subject expert”, having a few slides as an appendix to provide very top-level overview of the general subject matter would be key.
Another issue we had to overcome in our initial client meeting was a point of resistance our client had to our Twitter strategy. When we discussed the conversations that we wanted to participate in and the influencers to follow and how to create lists to monitor competitors without following them the client was very enthusiastic about the potential outcome but hesitated to follow through with implementing the strategy. Specifically, the client had refused to follow other people. The client is comfortable using the platform and had sent out a schedule of tweets that we had recommended surrounding an event they were hosting but the amplification of the voice was lagging because the client still objected to follow other users. When we sat down for our first client meeting, she revealed that she thought if she followed other people, then their conversations would fill up the @PenderFund feed and “clog” the info stream with noise. Apparently she had thought that the feed that she sees when she logs onto the Twitter account is the feed that the @PenderFund account broadcasts. This conceptual misunderstanding of the Twitter medium was something we were able to easily overcome in our in-person meeting and we quickly progressed with our implementing our strategy from there forward.
This made me realize that major obstacles that come up are not always difficult to overcome and there is real value in meeting the client face to face as often as reasonably possible. Our clients issue was something that she did not really know how to communicate in Skype or e-mail and we could only really demonstrate the difference between an account’s broadcast feed and the user’s home page feed by showing her.
In summary, the client scenario helped me improve my learning by increasing the urgency, enthusiasm and depth of content understanding further than a typical group project. Additionally, the act of delivery to the client also added an element of structure and narrative to contain the project in a holistic frame.