MAD Perspectives Blog

A month ago, we asked if you were ready to embrace video marketing. As often happens, additional facts, figures and reports have appeared that reinforce our belief that video must be a strategic element of your overall marketing strategy.  Here are some tidbits that we found interesting:

1. Social Media Examiner's "Social Media Marketing Industry Repot 2012":

       "For the second year in a row - a significant 76% of marketers plan on increasing their YouTube and/or   video marketing.  This is slightly down from 2011 (77%).  Business with 26-999 employees indicated this is a key growth area, with 80% responding affirmatively.  Younger marketers (77% of those aged 20-49) are also more likely to increase their video production than older marketers (68% of those aged 60+)."

     2.  ComScore indicates that consumption of online video will continue to rise.  In the U.S.: 

          - In 2012, 192 million viewers will watch an average of 29.4 hours of online video per viewer    

    3.  Adap.tv and Digiday, Q1 2012State of the Video Industry Report

        "Industry optimism is healthy.  96% of video buyers we surveyed estimate that their 2012       video ad budgets will increase by at least 23%."

    4.  Other tidbits:  

       - HD will become the standard

       - content will increasingly be consumed on wireless devices such as tablets and smartphones

       - people are becoming more savvy, creating demand for quality and originality

Video will continue to challenge and intrigue us as we seek the best methods to engage our customers. Planning will address issues such as good storytelling, tagging to ensure search engine optimization and click-thrus to your website and marketing strategy integration (including social media!). Your goal is simple - to get the highest possible return on your video marketing investment. So, we'll ask again - are you ready to embrace video marketing?

What's your perspective?

There is an ongoing debate about the use of social media by business-to-business (B2B) companies. However, according to B2B Magazine, 93% of B2B marketing are using some form of social media marketing. As expected, Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter are the most popular. However, tactics, resources and metrics are key challenges. These challenges are connected and reinforce the need for a comprehensive strategy, integrating your social media efforts with your overall marketing plan. However, it is first important to understand how you can best utilize each of these social networks.

Here are a few thoughts:

     - LinkedIn:  create a group for your brand, create a company page and promote products, encourage employees to provide links within their profile to the company webpage(s), share company presentations and videos, integrate twitter feeds and corporate blogs, recruit employees

     - Facebook:  share news and videos, , promote and share pictures and comments from events, highlight expert knowledge from both employees and customers, create community through customized product pages (invite Likes, discussion, links to more information on company website), recruit employees

     - Twitter:  listen to what others (customers, competitors, influencers) are saying, share content (provide links to articles, re-tweet influencer content, invite input from your followers to validate strategy

For additional insights and tips on using social media for B2B marketing check out Social Media B2B, Marketo, Hubspot, business.com.

Identify your goals. Consider how these platforms, or others, may augment your marketing, customer service, product development or sales efforts. Be brave and be patient.  Social media is a broadcast channel enabling you to reach a very wide audience.  It takes time to build a valuable following and to learn how to interact effectively with them.

What's your perspective?

I've been talking with colleagues about successful communications versus unsuccessful messaging.  Its funny how many companies, even with the rampant use of social media, still define a message and push it across all platforms regardless of relevance or context.  There is a lot of online discussion about the voice of the customer.  Imagine - the customer has a voice!  The customer has interests, questions, concerns and opininions that he would like to have addressed by vendors.

Does your company invest in research to understand its customers needs?  I'm sure it does. Does your marketing reflect those insights?  It should.  However, many times marketers get caught up in supporting a corporate message that doesn't actually resonate with their customers.  They deliver this message across every communications channel, regardless the kind of information the customer may really want to consume.

For example, should a blog consistently reiterate feature and functionality of a companies products?  Or would it be more interesting to discuss market trends that influence product functionality?  Instead of only tweeting links to product information, it might be interesting to debate industry announcements. The goal is to align the right content to the right channel to the customers using that channel.

The social web provides tools and platforms to gain insight to what your customers, competitors and industry influencers are saying and where they are saying it.  The most robust tools can be expensive and they don't necessarily make it easy to interpret all the data gathered, but they can provide  insight into trending topics which should be addressed by your content marketing.  Don't forget social media is supposed to be about authenticity and transparency.  Simple reinforcement of existing marketing messages isn't enough to drive increased customer interaction which can lead to leads and ultimately to customer acquisition.

Take the time to listen to your customers' online interactions.  Then take more time and think about the context of what they are saying and how they are saying it.  I bet you will gain some valuable insights that may surprise you!

What's your perspective?