With that in mind, setting up a positive experience can be summed up in three steps:  Expectation, Communication, and Implementation.

Expectation:

Setting up expectation is possibly the most important of the three.  What will you be providing, and more importantly, what WON’T you be providing?  What’s an expected timeline for implementation of each individual step?  The idea here is to go through your entire process, ensuring the client doesn’t have any expectations that are unrealistic.  In addition to the explanation of your process, make sure to follow up with the client to see if they have needs that your services may not be able to meet, advise them, and suggest solutions.  This will ensure that there won’t be any unmet objectives at the end of the project.

Communication
As many of you know, things don’t always go as planned.  Timelines are skewed, dogs eat homework, employees get sick… whatever the excuse, we don’t ALWAYS meet our objectives.  This can cause a great deal of anxiety for both parties.  The most important lesson that can be learned from anything you read here is this, get ahead of your stumbles. The more lead time you can give a client that things may not go as planned, or that you may miss a deadline, the more coordinated your business will seem.  Whenever possible, determine new deadlines or other objectives within the process that can be completed.  (It’s times like these when a flow chart of the project comes in handy).  If ever the question pops up “should we tell the client”…. the answer is almost always “yes”.  Over-communicate if necessary, but make sure everyone stays on the same page, and on the same team.

Implementation
This simply comes down to implementing the game plan.  Do what you said you’d do!  If you’ve effectively set up expectations, and communicated with the client throughout the process, implementation can be the easiest of the challenges.  It probably goes without saying, but always do your best work, if the project can be improved by a little more TLC, give it.  Never walk away from a project with the mentality that “it could have been a better solution IF”.  Communicate the solutions with the client, and if they fit the objectives, make the project all it can be.

We’ve made it our goal at Strategic Blend to overachieve every opportunity we get.  As we continue to grow our business, we will always strive to meet expectations, effectively communicate the common goals, and implement them in a timely fashion to reach the greatest outcome possible.

Within the month, we produced a full site design to capture the new album’s look and feel.  Our goal was to bridge Tanya’s existing fan base of many years with new online mediums via a simple and intuitive interface.

Through the site we were able to integrate Tanya’s social media presence – positioning new YouTube-hosted content as well as Tanya’s twitter feed directly into the established look and feel of TanyaTucker.com

Future plans include building out the back catalog, and creating a fan club/subscription model.

launch project

]]> http://www.strategicblend.com/tanya-tucker/feed/ 0 http://www.strategicblend.com/terri-clark/ http://www.strategicblend.com/terri-clark/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:38:27 +0000 Strategic Blend http://www.strategicblend.com/?p=1233 Terri came to Strategic Blend after a long relationship with a “fan club” company.  She was taking control of her career, launching her own record label, releasing two new albums and launching a fall tour of Canada.  She needed a strategic partner for all online business needs.

Our work with Terri has covered several disciplines:

creating the online vehicle

The first step of any Strategic Blend project is to create the online vehicle or the “hub of the brand.”  In Terri’s case that meant building a totally new website around a new and improved content management system (CMS).  We then connected her social networks so she could present unified messaging across multiple channels.

social media integration

One of our primary goals was to create as many touch-points to the Terri Clark brand as possible.  Instead of hosting all of Terri’s media content internally, we placed photos, video and audio content across multiple media networks.  Then we streamed that content back into TerriClark.com.  Leaving a trail of detailed metadata allowed music fans searching for photos on flickr or videos on youtube to discover Terri’s content.  Additionally, any views/streams of this content on her website fed back into the overall views/streams on the networks, raising the overall visibility of the content and the brand.

community development

The paid subscription model allows Terri to sell unique items to fans, keep them interacting with one another, and set up exclusive experience-based items like meet and greets and pre-sale ticketing.

marketing strategy

Not only did we build the vehicle for Terri’s online brand, but we also help drive it.  Each month we develop strategies and promotions to engage Terri’s fans and continue creating new ways to discover and interact with Terri online.

And every step of the way, we collect and monitor the data – using every stream, every comment and every page view to better understand who Terri’s fans are and how to serve them.

launch project

Check out the brand new ChuckMead.com here

http://www.thetravelingvegetarian.tv/on-the-cover-of-the-nashville-scene

Provider Resources was a company in need of a makeover, both online and in the physical world. Company President Mike Crosby approached us to create a new logo and brand identity – allowing him to expand PR’s profile and image in the marketplace.  They also needed a new website that better communicated the company and its services to its doctor clients.

the blend

We approached PR’s brand from all sides – first with a kick-off meeting to fully understand what Provider Resources means to its employees AND its clients.  We collected thoughts, ideas, concepts and goals – nothing being too big or off the table. Then we boiled those ideas down into what the company truly is and should be. From there, design comps were created and more ideas were refined until we arrived at a logo and messaging that matched the NEW vision for the brand. We integrated that vision into a website that puts communication front and center – with a clean walkthrough of the company’s services on the home page and contact information prominently featured throughout.

the results

The PR team walked away with a logo and brand identity that represents what Provider Resources is, and where it’s going. They also got a website that stretches the boundaries of what a traditional business website is, and provides information to customers and doctors in a way that’s palpable and attractive. They’re able to effectively use this digital hub as a primary means to continue growing their business.

launch project

Yvonne Smith, vegan expert and host of The Traveling Vegetarian has launched a new website for her brand.  We were excited to work with Yvonne as it represented an opportunity to integrate all the points of a true lifestyle brand.  Apart from her show, Yvonne wanted to become a dedicated blogger, and create a place to interact with her fans.

We’ll be conintuing work with TTV as the site grows and evolves.

Their exceptional vocal harmonies, delivered with flawless perfection, led to a string of hits that included “Bluest Eyes in Texas,” “I’ll Still Be Loving You,” “That Rock Won’t Roll,” and “Why Does It Have to Be (Wrong or Right).” Then the early 90’s Crossover smash “When She Cries.” Disbanding the way they did, what they now simply refer to as “irreconcilable differences”, left them without closure and it was fourteen years before they reunited in the studio. Their long over-due reunion resulted in a their long over-due latest studio album, aptly titled, Still Restless.

The award-winning band, with all five original members, now sounds better than ever. In “What We Know Now,” the autobiographical final cut on their previous project, they sing “We were reckless, young and proud. We had the whole thing figured out. We never saw the writing on the wall. Even though we thought we knew it all. Oh my friend, if we knew then what we know now.” It is very clear that, with the passing of time, they have deciphered the writing on the wall and the best part is that they do know now what they didn’t know then. They haven’t lost any of the talent that took them to the top of the charts and their vocal harmonies remain so tight you wouldn’t be able to get a laser beam between them.

Today, driven by the musical force which brought them together more than a quarter of a century ago, and tempered by their combined experiences and talent, Restless Heart continues to thrill old and new fans by doing what they do best, making great music and having fun.