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Freelances: “Users, cheaters, six-time losers”? (Bob Dylan, 1965)

Sunday, September 25, 2011

No, generally in our experience they are none of these, but if you are a freelance, here are a few tips that might help keep you in work, together with some reflections on why we’ve stuck with some and not others.

First, the quality of the work has to be good. If I as an amateur find that I can do as well as a soi-disant professional, it’s going to be a very short business relationship. It’s only happened a couple of times with us. Obvious moral: if you are thinking of striking out as a freelance, make sure your work really is good. If you are not sure, ask people who are neither friends nor your mum for a brutally honest opinion.

Secondly, there’s reliability. I have enough to deal with managing my time, managing my own staff and responding to the changing requirements of clients. So, quite simply, I expect freelances to manage themselves. That means delivering work on time and in line with the agreed spec. Under-promise and over-deliver, not the other way around. We parted company with one designer who had done excellent work for us in the past because her chaotic, sofa-surfing lifestyle eventually affected her work. A simple job took weeks for her to deliver, emails arrived repeatedly without attachments (somehow the fault of the internet cafe she was using for broadband access, apparently) and things got hopelessly confused when we asked for different amends to be made to two different products. Oh, and sadly the creative quality of her work seemed to have slipped too. If you really cannot manage yourself, consider this: maybe the imposed discipline of life as an employee would be better for you than the “freedom” of being a freelance.

Finally, you must be generally available. We understand that freelances need a work-life balance and that they sometimes go on holiday, but there are only so many times you can tell agencies you are unavailable before the calls will stop coming.

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Getting beyond the launch

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Image source: NASA

The Apollo missions have been back in the news this month, with photos released that show the astronauts’ footsteps still visible on the lunar surface four decades later. But if NASA had approached the missions the same way that many SMEs run their websites, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would never have set foot on the moon.

For while it’s great that companies lavish great care and attention on the launch of their websites, it’s vital to realise that the launch is just the start of a journey. To remain a useful marketing tool, both the content and the structure of websites need to be regularly updated, making sure that they stay relevant to your customers and other website users amid changing markets.

Doing that effectively and reliably requires quite a selection of skills – from copy-writing and image handling to navigation planning and HTML programming. That can all be a little daunting, so it’s not surprising that many hard-pressed in-house marketing departments recognise the value of calling in an agency to keep their websites on course.

At Edge Media, we’re not only specialists in content (both print and online), we can also offer a cost- effective service to maintain websites. We’ll talk through what you want your website to achieve and then deliver a straightforward strategy to deliver it, both now and on an ongoing basis. Our services include copy-writing, a proof-reading system, image handling and photography, HTML coding, e-newsletters, integration with social media and the filming and production of simple web videos. We’ll consider any projects, whether or not your website has a content management system.

To discuss how we can keep your website on the right trajectory, do get in touch.

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Time for a little fresh air

Monday, May 16, 2011

UK consumers are among the most sophisticated – and cynical – in the world. They really have seen it all. One of the consequences is that marketing which impressed in the past now provokes only a yawn or, worse, derision. Take a look at a few 1970s TV commercials if you need convincing. Today, being slick in your marketing just isn’t enough. It’s now about engaging the customer or potential customer in what marketers like to call a ‘conversation’. Key to making that possible that has been the rise of web 2.0 and social media – facebook, blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter et al.

In truth it’s often a strangely one-sided conversation, because the marketers who initiate it have usually have a very clear agenda and don’t take kindly to those who want to take things in a different direction. So I prefer to think of it as letting in a little fresh air. There are different models of effective leadership but it’s fair to say that the formal, autocratic leader whose default position is that knowledge is power – and who therefore tells people as little as possible – is strongly out of kilter with the realities of marketing in Britain in 2011. People now expect even the grandest institutions and businesses to talk to them – to talk regularly and interestingly, and to talk to them as equals, not to talk down to them. How you go about talking is another question, of course.

The proliferation of all the new web channels creates its own challenges – which do you use? how do you moderate? how do you ensure a co-ordinated approach? As ever, the starting point should be to be clear on what your organisation stands for and where it’s going. Obviously, if you run a leisure attraction, your approach is going to be very different to a heavy engineering company. But that’s not enough. Even within sectors, you should think clearly about who you are and, therefore, what your ‘voice’ is. One of our clients, Queen Elizabeth’s School, is a high-achieving grammar school with an academically rigorous approach.

In its marketing communications, it is friendly, yet measured, eschewing hyperbole at all times – to get the tone, think perhaps university dons engaging in cautious public debate. Compare that with, say, an under-subscribed inner-city comprehensive Academy which needs to reach out to local communities where educational aspirations are low. What tone should that school adopt? Is the written word best, or would video and other visual approaches be better? Technology has provided marketers with a fantastic range of tools, but they are just that, tools; as ever, the trick is learning how to use them.

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