Something all agencies can relate to as a critical part of business is proofing and testing. From copy to brochures, emails, invoices or briefs, you name it, it’s going to be proofread or tested as part of the QA process.

At Canyon, we have a set process that involves making sure multiple people see and sign off on any particular piece before it’s released to the client. The beauty of this is in the event one person misses any errors in the material, they can be caught by another reviewer, and vice versa.

However, I recently heard this story on NPR that, while there’s no excuse for lapses in attention to detail, made me feel slightly less foolish about those times where I overlooked a seemingly obvious mistake.

Photo courtesy of NPR

The story describes how radiologists, who are keenly trained to spot the smallest and faintest faults in medical imaging, can still sometimes miss important information. It detailed a study in which the image of a gorilla was superimposed into a medical slide that a radiologist typically reviews. The study found that 83 percent of reviewers failed to notice the matchbox-sized gorilla right in the middle of the image.

The researchers continued to explain how this “inattentional blindness” happens:  When viewing things with a certain difficult directive, more often than not, it causes us to overlook or miss other critical elements. They illustrate this with a video in which two teams are passing basketballs, and you have to count the number of passes each team makes. Without giving it away, take a quick look and see if you are able to follow along with the selective awareness test.

Now if you noticed it, pat yourself on the back, as you are among the minority. But in relaying this back to proofreading, it’s important to check work holistically. If you narrow your scope to what you think you are looking for when going through the QA process of any work, it only increases your chance of possibly missing something else!

To curb the amount of errors we might miss when it’s our turn to review something, remember to think about more than just spelling and grammar. Sometimes there might be a gorilla or moonwalking bear that you just didn’t see, right in plain sight.

Add Comment   |   No Comments

Starting back in the 19^th century, when people wanted to share an opinion, wax philosophical or impose their views on a topic to a group of people, they would stand on soapbox. Today, the Internet is the platform of choice for opinions, and when it comes to marketing, there is no shortage of them.

Fortune favors the bold?

While sometimes it seems like there is a Starbucks on every corner, at any given time, there is probably a marketing consultant, UX architect, social media expert, and blogger inside each of them. And, each one of them makes bold claims, stronger than the espresso, about guaranteed results.

Despite what the content of over 500 million-plus indexed Google pages would have you believe, achieving B2B marketing results is not as easy as it sounds. If you agree that business marketing challenges are, in fact, challenging, how do you know which consultant or which firm to partner with in order to navigating those tumultuous channels?

Your role in making marketing work

There is no single lightning rod that will propel your marketing program forward, so you must temper your expectations for what the marketing counsel you partner with can deliver. You also have to take a long, hard look in the mirror to make sure you’ve done your part as an organization. If you have B2B products and services that solve real-world problems, if you give your customers reliable service, or if your company can deliver customer value in every transaction, then you’ve done your job, and firms such as Canyon Communications can do ours. After all, a sustainable marketing program will not be possible if it is built on false claims.

At the end of the day, your products and services communicate the strongest message. Buyers will decide if they are indispensible to the success of their own business.

An agency is an agency, is an agency. Or is it?

Canyon’s motivated business development team gets us involved in conversations with a lot of business-to-business organizations. We end up working with, some, and some we don’t. They all ask, “What makes you different?” A fair question, and ironically, one we always ask of our clients.

The answer is two-sided. In many ways, there is little difference between marketing firms. As noted at the beginning, there are thousands of marketing firms and many times as many consultants who will take a swing at a logo design or brochure layout. Big differences emerge though, when you start to look at a firm’s experience, thought process and work ethic.

With Canyon, you’ll find philosophical differences

The best widget, system or solution in the world is no good unless people know about it. At Canyon Communications, we work hard and smart to implement marketing strategies that deliver the outcomes our clients expect. We commit to building resilient brands, helping you foster genuine connections with your customers and implementing unique, integrated programs to let your audiences know just how indispensable you are.

It’s our industry experience and continued adoption of marketing best-practices that have enabled us to produce successful work from our clients. We don’t throw ideas against the wall to see what sticks. Every day, we call on experience of our staff, composed of business-first professionals, to develop strategies and programs that work.

You’ll also find our B2B focus refreshing, because we appreciate the role that the sales reps and their critical customer relationships play in your financial success. Every B2B organization stresses the importance of relationships. And it’s true. The problem is that while the world is increasingly connected via email, the web and mobile technologies, we are less connected. So B2B marketing today is more about facilitating those same relationships that result in sales and loyal customers through integrated online and offline interactions.

The complexity of that endeavor is why we bill ourselves as a full-service integrated marketing communications firm. We don’t shy away from being a pivot point for all of your marketing communications needs and have positioned ourselves to directly provide, or strategically guide, a complete set of end-to-end marketing services. That spectrum ranges from research, branding, public relations, traditional advertising and direct mail to digital services such as web development, email marketing online lead generation and nurturing and more. Our current clients like our full-service approach because of the accountability it brings to their business and the outcomes they expect from us.

Prioritizing our approach

To help form that accountability, we break down our purpose and value in very simple terms. The three components we prioritize in every initiative is critical thinking (because you want to work with smart people), understanding the ROI that matters to a specific client (because every client measures success differently), and plain and simple hard work (because good ideas and effort aren’t independent of one another).

In the end, our driving force is to create enthusiastic buyers for your products and services. Canyon Communications will find the right integrated formula to make you indispensable to your customers and sought after by prospects by attracting, informing and educating the market on just how you solve those real-world problems they are challenged by.

Let me know if you agree or disagree with any of these philosophies, or if you want to share your own point-of-view. I believe our guiding principles can benefit any B2B organizations. Of course, that’s just one marketer’s opinion.

Add Comment   |   No Comments