Take it offline
A lot of times, we look at the browser to see what's possible in the digital world. But as a marketer, you have to realize that your audience might not always be connected to your site -- and also that they might want to take a piece of your site with them when they leave or access its functionality when they're far from a PC. An important thing to understand is that applications written in AIR don't need to be web-centric. In fact, they might never need to access the web at all, even though the tools used to build the app are based on the interactive world.
Consider scheduling tools. A desktop application is all well and good, but what about an app that lives at the conference room itself? To book a meeting, people could consult a touch-screen monitor at the door, find an open slot in a branded interface and sign up then and there. This is technology that lives in the digital world, with roots in the web, but not being used in a web way.
In a sense, this is a new way of thinking about "sticky:" It used to mean keeping people within your online brand experience. Now, it means keeping the brand experience with people -- even when they're offline.
Become indispensable
As the possibilities expand, digital marketing agencies now have the freedom and flexibility to look beyond capabilities and start with pure concept. Look at daily life, think about things that would be helpful to be able to do and assume you'll find ways to make it possible.
Equinox had a problem: Hour-long lines for popular spinning classes made for a dismal brand experience. Organic built an app for them that can be pulled into a mobile phone or onto the desktop to manage the user's entire brand experience: review the gym's schedule of classes; keep track of appointments for personal training; pull up account details and book reservations for a bike, then get a text alert back to confirm. It even syncs with Outlook. It's the kind of thing gym-goers dream of, and they'll use it every day -- all within a richly branded environment.
As you begin to explore and exploit the many possibilities of apps on steroids, it's also important to think about how you'll explain and sell your ideas to the client. Prototyping now plays a central role for us in communicating today's more complex digital concepts. Rather than trying to paint a picture -- or a movie --with words and static images, we put a functional version of the app itself into the client's hands. This is especially useful for helping the client socialize our proposal internally when we're not around to explain. Prototyping has been seen in the past as a costly extravagance, but today's more powerful tools and expanded skill sets -- combined with the sophistication of the concepts we now propose -- make it a practical and essential part of daily work for any digital marketing agency.
You might think there's a lot involved in getting this capability up and running within an agency, but developers don't need to acquire new skills; it's all the same as doing things on the web. Even better, in fact, because they are freed from constraints like load time and screen resolution that only matter online. On the other hand, the greatest pitfall with any exciting new tool is the temptation to find a way to use it. The concept must drive the technology -- not the other way around.
Above all, heed Organic's mantra: Empathy leads to Exceptional Experience. It's all about understanding the customer's world: how they use technology, what's useful to them, how they like to work and how they like to play. Look at how people live in the physical world and bring it back into digital. And make the brand a seamlessly integrated, valuable part of their daily life.
Max Zabramny is leader of the interface engineering group at Organic.