Using Video to Promote Unique Products - Part 1

Video communications transform the way you communicate with your customers and prospects - they are underused digital marketing tools that are ideal for product showcases and customer testimonials. Furthermore, as the proliferation of video content continues across the Internet, consumers have become accustomed to viewing video to learn more about companies and products.

At first glance, producing a video may seem like a time-consuming, expensive marketing initiative. Not the case. New video capture tools and self-serve video platforms are changing the way businesses tell their stories.

In this multi-part blog series, I'll describe my personal experience with video; identify what has/hasn't worked; and provide links to useful resources to support your own video production.

Video Type: "Moving Pictures"

This is probably the easiest, quickest way to add some pizzaz to your Web site and email communications. I use an online service called Animoto. This Web-based service allows you to upload pictures into a pre-designed theme, add text highlights, pick a music track, and produce. Animoto takes care of the rest - your still images are presented to the viewer in a 'video-like' way. Check out this example that Fisher Marketing created for a local bakery:




Animoto periodically runs 30-day trials. Enjoy.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where I will cover screen capture software and easy editing.

Marketing Summit - Social media and video convergence

MarketingSherpa Summit in Waltham, MA

Last week, I attended MarketingSherpa's Marketing Summit in Waltham, MA. I originally marked this Summit on my calendar for the networking opportunities and educational sessions on social media trends and lead nurturing...And the fact that the Summit took place in Waltham didn't hurt, either.

Overall, I found the Summit to be well attended by mid-level and executive-level marketing folks from a range of industries. I definitely took away new marketing ideas for lead generation 'programs' using a combination of social media and video. More on that later... 

Yahoo! Organic Search Results are now MSFT Bing-Powered

In today's online marketing news, Yahoo! search executives announced that U.S. and Canadian organic search results are now powered by Microsoft Bing. What does the Yahoo! / Bing relationship mean for small- and medium-sized businesses?

First, let's take a look at some numbers. As recently as June 2010, Yahoo! held a 7% market share in overall search volume. While Google remained in the 65% range for all search volume, Microsoft Bing's overall search market share before the Yahoo! announcement was just under 12%.

The bottom-line increase in overall search is relatively negligible, when compared to Google's daunting search presence. However, this deal underscores the fact that it will take an extremely focused and long-term effort to crack into Google's core business efforts. Have to start somewhere.

From a business perspective, this deal could provide additional leverage to obtain similar search-generated traffic using less costly approaches. For example, Bing's search results are categorized for specific topics -- be sure to write enough content to appear in Bing's secondary categorized results for major terms already 'owned' by large enterprises.

Second, using a $150 Kodak camera and basic editing software (please contact me if you want ideas), anyone can generate simple videos to introduce a product, promote an event, or even generate leads using video downloads. In my opinion, Bing serves up much more relevant videos in their search results than Google. In fact, Yahoo! will benefit from Bing's video search expertise, while Bing will benefit from Yahoo!'s image search and slideshow search functionality, which proved to be a market share driver for Yahoo! during the first half of 2010. So, if you have slides or images as part of your content, be sure to tag the images appropriately to increase the chance of driving prospects to your site organically.

I'll cover video marketing in an upcoming segment.

Comments about the Yahoo! / Bing deal? Let me know!

The use of colors in online and print advertising

"The use of [the color] orange in online ads is definitely increasing..."

I recently attended a design conference centered around the use of Adobe InDesign and Flash for print and online advertisement creation. During one conversation, an Adobe representative made the statement above, implying the increasing use of the color orange within online advertising. I figured I would investigate this assertion as well...

In the early 2000s, we just didn't see too many online advertisements using vibrant bold colors such as orange and red. Was this due to the fact that many companies outsourced design to agencies where the colors orange and red were just too bold to use in advertising concepts? Perhaps it is not such a stretch to consider, given the wide adoption of easy-to-use graphic design programs. Nowadays, practically anyone can interlace / layer several images and color tones together to create a rich, deep design template.

How can you use orange in your marketing materials? The color orange is synonymous with autumn, however brighter orange colors is commonly associated with summer sunsets. Use orange shades for seasonal marketing materials; as an accent color, border color, or design element. Use orange with a royal blue for a deep contrast; orange transitioned with red or yellow makes a natural combination.

Here are some samples:

Twitter Posts = College Credits?

In a local story of interest, the University of New Hampshire (UNH) now offers an undergraduate marketing course focusing on social media strategies and best practices.

As local business owners continue to embrace the "micro-communications" that social media provides, I'm sure we'll see more of these types of educational courses pop-up throughout our communities. As with any College course such as this, I am sure UNH will/has reached out to local business owners for real-life case studies. It may be worth a call.

UNH Facebook Page

UNH Blog

So, how are they doing? Judge for yourself -- check out these two UNH social sites above.

Newmarket Properties chooses Fisher Marketing to help promote low energy, eco-savvy Boston-area home renovations

Yesterday, Newmarket Properties chose to work with Fisher Marketing to help promote their low energy, eco-savvy Boston-area properties. The company specializes in multi-family renovations to create energy efficient homes in the Boston/Cambridge/Somerville area. For those not familiar with these neighborhoods, most of these properties were built in the early 1900's and updated periodically using less-than-desirable materials from today's green standards: urea-formaldehyde foam insulation (UFFI), lead paint, asbestos insulation/shingles, etc.

Newmarket Properties safely removes toxic materials and replaces them with eco-friendly ultra-efficient materials. Each renovation project is designed to qualify for LEED Silver certification under the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), by using recycled materials (Forest Stewardship Certified wood), focusing on indoor air quality, and implementing innovative design principles.

Fisher Marketing is proud to support Newmarket Properties in the company's quest to promote environmental responsibility and sustainability.

Online advertising - Average click through rates by ad size

I noticed this interesting chart from Marketing Sherpa this morning that highlights average click-through rates for online ads, as determined by ad size (pixels). There were not references made to the quality of the ad, animation, or call-to-action, so I take this with a grain of salt. However, this does provide a good baseline from which to start comparisons for your own online marketing campaigns.