See, the past few weeks we’ve been in casting for our latest film. I’ve seen a lot of actors who have been gracious enough to come in and read for this project. And seeing so many actors work their craft has taught me something: the ones I care about, the ones I remember, the ones who have a shot at landing the role, are the ones who make bold, strong choices.

They may not always make the right choices. But making a bold choice is far better than making a forgettable one. Or not making a choice, at all.

I think this lesson applies to every business on the planet. It seems to me that unless you want your business to be utterly forgettable, you’ll take risks and make bold choices, too.

For instance, there’s a competitor to one of our favorite clients here at PatrickOrtman, Inc., who’s running some really beautiful tv commercials. He’s clearly spent a lot of money on these ads, and they look great. But when you visit his website, it looks like he hasn’t touched his site since 1999. There’s broken links, bad text, and a really outdated design. All of the buzz that he’d generated by these slick tv commercials instantly vanished the moment I saw his website.

Likewise, one of our web design clients from a while back recently hired another company to do some video work for them. Unfortunately, they hired a filmschool student, and the project looks very amateurish. Seeing that video play on our client’s website makes me cringe, because all the hard work that we’d done to create a beautiful, professional image for them utterly vanishes once you hit “Play”.

I know it’s gotten harder to effectively market your business, whether you’re a multinational or a SMB. As a business owner, I know this firsthand. It’s not enough to have a good website, social presence, and video marketing. You need all three.

In other words, these days you need to have an overall multimedia campaign and you need to spend some time and a lot of thought towards how your customers may find and interact with you. If you don’t, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot.

Courtesy of director Mark Toia in Australia.

Last week, a client asked me to explain the secret to why we’re winning so many awards. Thing is, it’s no secret. I’d like to say it’s because our work is generally awesome (hey, you have to blow your own horn a bit, right?), but a lot of why we tend to win awards is because we know how to work with our clients to tell their stories effectively, whether their project is a tv commercial, website, or whatever.

I don’t like to skimp on the storytelling aspect of creating effective digital marketing projects. It seems to me that everything emanates from the spine of your story, and if you keep your client’s story and audiences in mind as you create their digital marketing, you instantly up your chances of creating work that resonates. If you do it wrong, or don’t do it at all, your clients risk alienating their audiences or falling into the terrible position of being seen as a commodity product or service. Nobody wants that, not even commodities (witness the recent “California Cheese” campaigns, for example).

We always work the storytelling process in with our clients during the preproduction phase of the project. Sometimes it’s overt, and sometimes it’s less so. We ask a lot of questions, and we do a lot of listening. I believe that every client is unique, and I believe that every business or organization has something that sets them apart from the competition. It’s our job, as their digital agency, to identify that special something and use it to elevate our clients above the noise.

The thing about storytelling is, the best of it is based on truth. It’s not something made up out of whole cloth. It’s not some artifice that one wraps around an inferior product or dysfunctional organization. At least, it shouldn’t be. Made up stories don’t hold up, and the end result is embarrassment for all parties. No, the best stories are truthful stories, and truthful stories begin with an honest evaluation of a client’s organization and what it stands for.

Sure, the storytelling side of things is something that a lot of digital and marketing agencies have hitched their wagons to in the last few months, but it’s something I’ve worked into client projects from the beginning. As humans, we are natural storytellers. We love to be entertained and enlightened. We love learning new things. And we absolutely enjoy a good story, well told.

Done right, storytelling is pure gold. Which, sometimes, comes back in the form of pretty statuettes for your wall, too.

One of the most common reasons we’ve let clients go is that they’re just no longer a good fit for our agency. We’re looking for a specific mix of clientele, and we try to stick to that mix because we like working with the type of clients who can best utilize our expertise. We’re also mainly interested in client situations where we can nurture an ongoing relationship, instead of a “one-off” situation.

Of course, other common reasons you’ll need to say goodbye to a client during the lifespan of your agency include events such as your client  being acquired by another organization, your key contacts moving on to other jobs, or a realignment of priorities at the client’s company. Sometimes all these things happen at once.

When a client is no longer a good fit for us, for whatever reason, we make a point to work with the client on a transition plan if they’re interested. Of course, this is assuming that the client’s account is in order, but that’s a post for another day.

We hand over video masters and all logins and password information. We assist in the transfer of the website to another hosting provider, and we work with the client’s new digital marketing team to make the transition as smooth as possible. If the client doesn’t have a new digital marketing team, we make recommendations when possible.

In our personal lives most of us learn that it’s always best to try to leave a relationship on as good of terms as possible. I’ve found that it’s even more important to apply those lessons when a business relationship’s time has passed.

Often, breaking up with your client is the best thing to do- not only for you, but for them. If you learn how to say goodbye as gracefully as possible, only good can come of it. I’ve had clients we’ve parted ways with who have referred us to plenty of new business over the years.

I love helping clients get the most out of their budgets, and we’re known for delivering high end work at a reasonable price for our website design, video, and interactive clients. That said, there’s smart ways and foolish ways to try to save money on a project. This post talks about the foolish side of things.

Foolish Mistake Number One: “I Don’t Need A Great Website”
Actually, you do. Here’s why- your online presence has long ago become the most frequent “first contact” your company has with a customer, client, or partner. Would you meet a new client wearing a crappy, ill-fitting suit that makes you look like a fool? No. You’d dress appropriately. Your website needs to be updated on a regular basis, and it needs to keep up with the times. It blows my mind that clients who spend huge amounts of money buying domain names, doing AdWords campaigns, and so forth happily fall down on this.

A corollary to this thought is your website really should stand out from the competition. By spending the time and money to make sure that it does, you instantly boost your credibility in the eyes of your audience. This part comes down to this: does your business compete solely on price? If so, go ahead and aspire to mediocrity. If not, spend some thought and money on your website.

Foolish Mistake Number Two: “I Don’t Need To Do Social Media”
Maybe it’s a simple campaign that consists of you updating your Facebook and Twitter accounts whenever your company does something cool. Maybe you need to have an involved campaign that really puts serious resources behind social media. But you need a social media plan, and it needs to be ongoing.

Foolish Mistake Number Three: “All I Need Is Facebook”
Businesses that put all their eggs in the Facebook basket will one day find that the policies of Facebook have changed and their hard work is gone. This has happened quite a lot, especially to bands and companies that have rivalries. All you have to do is get a copyright complaint against you, and you’re gone. Smart businesses use Facebook as one of the channels to get their message out and foster strong customer relations, not as their home base.

Foolish Mistake Number Four: “I Can Get A TV Commercial For $300″
And I can find you a website for $300, too. And a car for $300. Heck, if you want a free TV commercial call up your local cable company. If you advertise with them, they’ll make a commercial for you for free.

But it won’t help your business. It may even hurt your brand’s reputation. Why would you spend thousands of dollars airing a crummy tv commercial that makes you look like a fool? The best tv commercials created by the $300 guys are absolutely terrible, because they have to be: you’re part of an assembly line, and that means your video will look pretty much like everyone else’s.

The Bottom Line
No matter what marketing collateral you’re developing, the bottom line is quality still matters. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you so they can make a quick buck. By putting out crappy marketing, you’re attracting crappy clients and losing the opportunity to show off all the great reasons why people should do business with you. Mediocre, unimaginative marketing can make a great company fail. Great marketing can help a small organization compete and win against global behemoths.
(Awesome photo by Editor B)

STUDIO CITY, CA — PatrickOrtman, Inc., PatrickOrtman, Inc., an award-winning digital and interactive agency located in Los Angeles, California, today announced that it has been awarded Outstanding Achievement in Website Development by the Interactive Media Awards™ for its work on the PatrickOrtman, Inc. Website. The honor recognizes that the website surpasses the standards of excellence that comprise the web’s most professional work. The site was honored specifically for excellence in Professional Services.

The judging consisted of various criteria, including design, usability, innovation in technical features, standards compliance and content. In order to win this award level, the site had to meet strict guidelines in each area — an achievement only a fraction of sites in the IMA competition earn each quarter.

Patrick Ortman, CEO of PatrickOrtman, Inc., said, “It’s an honor to have our work recognized by the Interactive Media Awards. We feel strongly that our projects are world-class examples of how the Internet can be used to enhance a company’s message and branding. This accolade is further proof of this fact, and I’d like to single out and thank our design team, especially Ryan McMaster, for their efforts on this project.”

About PatrickOrtman, Inc.
PatrickOrtman, Inc. is the digital agency founded by Internet/digital marketing pioneer Patrick Ortman. He brings over 17 years of experience creating some of the best online and digital marketing projects around, including the first major rock concert on the Internet, successful large-scale website design projects,  genre-defining mobile and web series productions, and promotional and commercial TV and online videos. His work has been featured in USA Today, The Toronto Star, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal, The St. Petersburg Times, Japan’s NHK network, and many others. He has worked with 8 Fortune 500 companies and hundreds of smaller businesses and organizations.

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Some of our clients come to us as seasoned veterans of dealing with creative firms. Some come to us as babes in the woods. Most fall somewhere in between. That’s OK. I’ve always felt that a big part of our job is to help educate our clients on how to best use our talents and skills, from the beginning to launch.

That’s right- this one’s about how to get the best project bidding process, so you end up choosing the right company for your project.

First, almost all RFPs suck. I don’t blame the RFP writer- more on that, later. But I’ve yet to find an RFP in its initial form that allowed a client to truly compare apples-to-apples, and make an informed and educated decision.

It’s often even worse when there’s not even an RFP to go on. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I was asked to prep a bid for a promotional video for a company. The sum total of information they gave me was “I’d like it to sort of look like this competitor video”. How lazy! How lame! No project description, creative brief, script, or storyboards. Just “tell me a price”. That’s like showing up at an auction and being told to yell out random numbers, bidding for items you can’t even see (kudos to Kathi for that analogy).

When we get an RFP or bid request that doesn’t show a lot of forethought from the client, my first inclination is to toss it in the garbage. And it’s not just me who thinks like this- most good agencies do.

There’s got to be a better way, right?

I’ve found one of the best ways to up the quality of the bids you get is to work with us, or someone like us, from the beginning- someone in your pool of agencies under consideration. You’re an expert at what you do. You’re the point person for your organization. But unless you’re very, very uniquely special you do not have the technical or creative chops to adequately explain and flesh out the nuts and bolts of what you’re looking for.

Think about it- a house built on a weak foundation cannot stand. But by working with an emissary from the pool of agencies you’re considering from the start, you’ll get a solid foundation and a much better experience all around. You’ll be able to speak our language from the start. And you’ll notice the quality of responses you’ll get will go through the roof.

What’s more, by doing a “test run” with an agency you’re considering, you’ll get a good feel for what the working relationship will be like, should you hire them to do “the big project”. Yeah, paying someone like us to work on your brief/RFP/script will cost money. But it’s an investment that will result in a much better end product for you.

In the end, you want bids that generally match in scope and quality, and which give you a solid estimate on pricing. You want your project to succeed wildly and impress the heck out of your peers and customers. We want the same thing. And we, like you, want a relationship- not a one night stand. By working together from the start in a cooperative way, we can make you look amazing.

We were one of the first companies to get into Twitter as a marketing tool and way to stay in touch with clients and colleagues. But lately, something hasn’t been sitting right with us about Twitter. For us, it’s time to completely change how we use Twitter… and a big part of that is a massive reduction in the amount of time we’ll be spending on the service.

Quitting Twitter has become a bit of a fashion lately, with high-profile celebrities abandoning it for charity or personal/business reasons. For us, our decision’s been more of a pragmatic one: there’s just too much noise on Twitter to make it useful for us. Even when we had a fulltime person culling through our followers, setting up lists, etc., the signal-to-noise ratio made Twitter something that rapidly went from semi-useful to useless for us. Twitter’s become much less of a conversation, which is a shame. It’s more like a very noisy broadcasting and self-promoting medium, and that’s no fun.

We’ll still check our Twitter feed now and then. But we won’t be tweeting much, anymore. Sure, when something big and cool happens we may let loose a tweet. But I don’t see the point in adding to the noise, or culling through it looking for the good stuff, anymore.

That’s the thing about social media. It’s constantly changing. I completely understand that many businesses have done well with Twitter. And I know legions of self-described ’social media experts’ will scream that Twitter’s awesome. But its time has passed, for us.

Subject to change, of course.

If you create things, it’s pretty cool to keep the Wabi Sabi aesthetic in mind.