One of my favorite things about my role at Strategic Blend is keeping up with clients, and seeing what they’re up to, how they’re using their digital properties, and watching them grow!

Some examples of recent innovative uses come from Drivin N Cryin, Karli Whetstone (and her new site theme), and The CO

DNC

Drivin N Cryin is a great example of motivating your community in a time of crisis/tragedy.  In a blog post dated Sept 13th, Drivin N Cryin took to their website with the following message:

Between 3:45am and 6am on Saturday September 11, Drivin N Cryin’s tour trailer containing their stage gear was stolen from the La Quinta Inn at x-169 on I-75 in Macon, GA. The black Quicksilver Racing 5×10 trailer held the band’s guitars, amplifiers, drums, merchandise and stage production gear. A complete list can be viewed here: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=5912085821&topic=15178#topic_top and photos can be seen here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=235150&id=5912085821. 3 items have since been recovered at a pawn shop in Atlanta, GA. The person responsible for pawning these 3 items has been identified as Atlanta resident Reginald Ellis. More information on Ellis can be found here:http://www.drivinncryin.com/thief/.

Drivin N Cryin would like to thank their friends, fans, the Georgia music community and the Atlanta/Macon media for the outpouring of support and assistance. For 25 years, you guys have been the best fans. We are truly grateful.

Not only is this horrible for a touring band, but especially for a band that’s been on the road for 20+ years.  Taking a look at some of that gear will make any music fan tear  up.

Using social media (and not to mention craigslist, hilarious!) to showcase the gear stolen, adding a page to the site to help catch the theif (that rotten bastard).  The general response has been overwhelming.  Bringing an entire musical community together in the search for their stuff, and, more importantly, getting the word out that they’d been robbed, someone was pawning their shit, and THIS IS THAT DUDE.

A great use of WordPress, a great use of facebook, and a good strategy in a time of panic.  DNC, may all your stuff be found, may it all be in one piece, and may they put Reginald Donta Ellis in a cell UNDER the jail, and never let him loose.

Karli Whetstone

Karli’s career has been steadily progressing, and she decided to give the site a new look!  What I feel is a more grown up / sophisticated look and feel.

In addition she’s also begun blogging.  And unlike this blogger…. she’s diligent.   Rarely missing a day to update you on what’s going on in her world.  It’s very “daily diary” in nature, and is currently the most popular section of her site.  Between that and a persistent twitter feed, her fans know what she’s up to every day… and that will pay off in spades!

A loyal, devout, and connected following is a very powerful thing!

The CO

The CO are one of my favorite artists we’ve worked with.  They just GET IT!  They have integrated every portion of their digitally owned properties into a really robust site.

Troy’s Blog is filled with some great video updates, quick quips and stories… and most importantly, his passion for giving back to the world around him.

Collin’s Blog has great introspection, and images.

Not to mention the great video blog on the general band blog page

Much like Karli’s site, you really get a sense of who these guys are, and what they’re up to!

So here’s to you guys…. I hope to continue learning from you, growing with you, and helping find success with you.

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.