Category Archives: online marketing

Using Big Data to Enhance Internet Marketing Campaigns

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Marketing strategy based on actionable intelligence from big dataBig data is a hot topic right now, and for good reason. Today’s business intelligence tools make mining massive databases for information a fairly simple process for end-users. In fact, business intelligence can be integrated into lead generation forms and used to standardize and clean the data – all in the blink of an eye. It gets even better. The leads can be segmented based on data and performance measured, monitored, and analyzed. As a big data-based Internet marketing campaign continues, it becomes possible to score leads based on quality and conversions. Thus, future leads can be prioritized or ignored based on reliable, performance-based metrics.

Using big data in Internet marketing campaigns begins at the lead capture point of the process. With traditional online lead generation strategies, marketers require leads to fill out a form and provide specific information in order to receive a free report, white paper, eBook, or other incentive. While most Internet users are accustomed to filling out basic forms with their names and email addresses, they balk at longer, more intrusive forms.

If you’re targeting business leads, you may want detailed data from each prospect such as the prospect’s job role (and, thus, the likelihood of being a decision maker), the size of the firm, number of employees, annual revenues, and other information. This information is helpful in determining if the firm is a good fit for your product or service. Using detailed information allows you to segment leads based on the company’s size, the prospect’s job role, the type of information requested, and so on.

However, a CEO searching for information contained in your white paper, online video series, newsletter, or other downloadable product may feel the effort isn’t worth the informational incentive. By integrating big data at the lead capture point, you can tap into external databases that match user supplied information with larger databases containing additional details.

For example, your lead capture form might require the individual’s name and job role as well as the company’s name. Technology exists that can cross-reference the company’s name to business databases that contain the firmographic data you require. Your prospects no longer need to fill out long forms, and you receive valuable data that you can use to segment and prioritize leads based on company data retrieved from external databases.

These big data technologies can also deliver standardized data as well as verify contact information. For example, individuals may be inclined to enter fake phone numbers in an attempt to avoid phone calls. Others may inadvertently transpose numbers in an address. Database service providers use technologies that can detect and correct errors like these using a process known as data “hygiene.”

Scoring leads is another benefit of using big data and business intelligence in your marketing campaigns. For example, analytical tools and reports can reveal which types and categories of leads actually convert. Depending on how far you want to take it, you can also include cost per lead, revenue per lead, and other metrics and compare results by segment. Using business intelligence, analytics, and input from your sales team allows you to rank leads based on quality. You can scorecards to identify the hottest leads for your sales team as well as discard leads that are likely to lead to nowhere or cost too much to pursue based on historical information.

By tapping into big data at the point of lead generation online, you can get the information you need without overly imposing on your prospects. Business intelligence tools allow you to clean, standardize, segment, and prioritize leads based on scorecards.

Online Video Marketing: Success Factors

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Online Video Marketing SuccessWhen it comes to Internet video marketing, there’s more involved than opening a YouTube account and posting the occasional promotional video. In order for your online video marketing efforts to pay off, you need a strategy that incorporates the following success factors:

Online Video Marketing Success Factor #1: Know Your Audience

It’s tempting to create a promotional video that appeals to you. However, will it appeal to your target audience? Before you begin any Internet video marketing campaign, you absolutely need to know who your audience is. It helps to imagine a single individual and then craft the promotional video to engage this individual. For example, an auto insurance company targeting older drivers might imagine an audience member named “Harold.” Once you know who will be watching your promotional video, you can write an engaging script.

Online Video Marketing Success Factor #2: Creativity

Many business professionals want their online video marketing campaigns to “go viral” and produce creative videos they hope others will share. Going viral may or may not be your ultimate goal. However, creativity is a definite success factor. This doesn’t mean producing a wacky video or going overboard with special effects. It means developing an interesting Internet video marketing campaign that your audience members will want to watch. People online don’t have long attention spans, nor do they have time to spare to watch irrelevant or boring videos. Use your creativity to create an online video marketing campaign that presents your information in a fresh, but appropriate for your company, manner.

Online Video Marketing Success Factor#3: Benefits

Remember Harold, the older driver mentioned earlier? As you write your script, think about what’s in it for Harold. How will your offer make Harold’s life easier or better? Will your offer save him money on his car insurance? Will his driving skills improve? Will he experience peace of mind knowing that roadside assistance is available? These are all benefits. Focus on benefits and you’ll make a positive impression on viewers like Harold.

Online Video Marketing Success Factor #4: Length

Because your audience has little time to spare, it’s crucial that your online video marketing efforts respect that. It’s tough enough to prompt viewers to watch a promotional video and few will watch a lengthy one. Keep your videos short and make every second count. In general, each promotional video should be between 30 and 90 seconds in length. If you have more to say, consider creating an Internet video marketing series with each video focusing on one key topic.

Online Video Marketing Success Factor #5: Video Distribution

How will you use your promotional video once it’s produced? Will you post it on your website and optimize it for the search engines or will you upload the video to various video-sharing sites like YouTube – or both? Make sure you understand how you will use the video before you produce it.

Online Video Marketing Success Factor #6: Call to Action

No matter how creative, benefits-focused, concise, or properly distributed your Internet video marketing campaign may be, if you forget the call to action, it won’t reach its full potential. Ideally, you’ll know exactly what action you want your viewers to take before you write the script. Identify this action in advance and use your script to guide your promotional video viewers into taking that action at the end. A call to action doesn’t need to be overly complicated, but it does need to be in place.

As you plan your next online video marketing campaign, incorporate these success factors into each promotional video you produce. By doing so, your video will be more likely to: resonate with your target audience, communicate the benefits of your offer, and compel viewers to take the next step.

What do you think about these online video marketing success factors? Did we miss any? Share your experiences in the comments section below:

B2B Video Marketing Myths

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Video marketing mythsIf you think that B2B video marketing is too expensive and for large companies with big budgets or that in order to be effective a business video must go viral, you may be falling for common myths surrounding corporate video. Learn the reality behind the myths and take a confident stance as you plan your B2B marketing efforts for 2012.

B2B Video Marketing Myth #1: B2B Marketing Videos Must Go Viral

If you’re producing a video destined for the Web, you may feel the pressure to make sure that your business video gets lots of hits. While it would be nice to have millions of viewers watching and sharing your corporate video, it’s more important that the video reach a targeted audience. For example, if your target audience consists of high level executives but your video goes viral among low level workers, your B2B video marketing efforts will be ineffective despite millions of views.

Focus your B2B marketing and video production efforts on your target audience and never lose sight of who your corporate video is intended to reach.

B2B Video Marketing Myth #2: Corporate Video Production Is Expensive

While you certainly could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a business video, you don’t have to. As with most industries, there are numerous B2B marketing and video production companies that offer affordable business video production services. You can also slash your B2B video marketing costs by being proactive and prepared. For example, if you’ll be appearing in the corporate video, rehearse your lines at home or the office and arrive at the studio fully prepared. This will reduce the number of takes, reduce the amount of studio and crew time required, and make editing the final business video much easier.

B2B Video Marketing Myth #3: Video and B2B Marketing is for Big Companies

Whether you run a two-person shop or a large corporation, B2B video marketing is an effective way to communicate your offer to other businesses. Business video is ideal for a number of situations including:

  • Selling products and services
  • Attracting investors
  • Demonstrating capabilities
  • Sharing customer testimonials
  • Building credibility, trust, and relationships

If you’re part of a small company, a corporate video could help you compete with larger ones while larger companies can use B2B video marketing to appear more personable.

B2B Video Marketing Myth #4: Each Business Video Must Be 90 Seconds or Less

In general, online B2B marketing messages should be short and 90 seconds or less is a good rule of thumb. However, this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule. Depending where your prospects are in the video-to-lead funnel, you may have earned the opportunity to present longer corporate video messages.

For example, if your B2B marketing efforts have previously engaged and converted prospects, these leads now trust you and are hungry for more information about your products, services, or philosophy. If you plan on presenting a longer corporate video to viewers later in the sales funnel, make sure to tell them in advance what to expect. For example, if you want leads to watch a 10-minute business video, let them know that the video will only take ten minutes of their time and will solve their concerns about X, Y, and Z.

B2B Video Marketing Myth #5: It’s Impossible to Embed Business Video into Email Campaigns

Hesitant to use B2B video marketing in your current email campaigns because there’s no universal video player for email clients? While the technology may not be where you’d like it to be, creative B2B marketing techniques exist. Simply include a screenshot of your corporate video and link it to your website where subscribers can instantly watch the business video. As an added bonus, your B2B marketing prospects will be back on your website where you have additional opportunities to get your message across and make the sale.

Which B2B video marketing myths have stopped you from producing a business video? Share your thoughts in the comments section below:

Online Video Marketing: Strategies for Getting Seen

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watching online videoOnline video marketing is a complex process involving far more than the actual production of the promotional video. Not only must you plan, produce, and polish your video, you need solid Internet video marketing strategies to ensure that your message is seen, heard, and ready to deliver results. Put the following two strategies to work and make sure your promotional video finds its audience.

Online Video Marketing Strategy #1 – Optimize
One of the reasons that Internet video marketing has become increasingly popular is because an optimized promotional video can rank well on Google for competitive keywords. While a page loaded with informative content may struggle to rank well due to extreme competition, a page featuring a promotional video could appear on the first page of Google in the video listings section because there’s less competition.

However, this doesn’t happen by accident. On-page online video marketing requires that you “optimize” certain elements so that Google can understand that your promotional video is relevant for a given keyword phrase. Just as you use keywords and alt tags in traditional Internet marketing pages, you need to do the same with Internet video marketing pages. Optimizations steps include:

  • Giving your promotional video file a descriptive filename containing your keyword phrase
  • Giving your video a keyword-rich title
  • Using alt text to describe the promotional video, again using your keyword phrase
  • Including supporting text on the page, optimized with the same keyword phrase

Online Video Marketing Strategy #2 – Socialize
Social media has changed the way many people use the Internet, and successful Internet video marketing campaigns address this. In the past, searchers came to your website after conducting a search, following a link, or entering your URL; Today’s users are spending more time on Facebook and other social media sites interacting with a stream of content that they’ve previously subscribed to. Your promotional video has the potential to be pushed to users – if you get social with your online video marketing efforts.

With a subtle push, your Internet video marketing campaign could get in front of a much larger audience than if you simply posted your promotional video on your site and waited for users to find you.

How does social online video marketing work? It starts by encouraging sharing. Even if you don’t have a Facebook account, an important Internet video marketing step to take involves putting a “like” button alongside your promotional video. Below are several easy steps that encourage sharing:

  • Include a “Like” button next to your promotional video. Facebook has a special “developers” section where you can grab the code to generate this button.
  • Include other social sharing buttons – Numerous plugins are available that automatically place a variety of social bookmarking buttons below your posts.
  • Make sure that your video has an embed code so users can embed it on their own sites and blogs.

While including sharing buttons and embed codes is good, your Internet video marketing should go further. For example, did you know that if a Facebook user likes, shares, or comments on a video, that original Facebook user’s friends can see the conversation? If a Facebook user watches your promotional video and makes a comment about it via Facebook, then that user’s friends will see the comment and may be inspired to watch the video. By encouraging comments, your online video marketing campaign can reach vast networks and sub-networks of viewers.

Optimize and socialize and your next online video marketing campaign is sure to find its audience! What do you think? Which online video marketing strategies work well for you? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

B2B Video Marketing: Using Video to Reach Other Businesses

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With decision makers relying on the Internet and social media as top information sources, B2B marketing online is bringing new opportunities. From articles and press releases to online B2B video marketing, the Internet delivers multiple ways to reach business customers. Thanks to improvements in online video technology, it’s no longer necessary to send a customer a corporate video on DVD in the mail. Instead, post your videos online and extend your reach.

B2B Video Marketing vs. Consumer Video Marketing

Just as B2B marketing is different than consumer marketing, B2B video marketing has its differences, and similarities, from consumer-oriented videos. For example, your corporate video for a B2B marketing campaign will be geared toward business customers rather than consumers. However, no matter who your business video is targeting, it is targeting a real person. In the case of a B2B marketing video, that person is likely a decision maker.

When planning your corporate video, try to visualize your target audience. Ask yourself: What’s important to the decision maker? What does that person need in order to make a decision? How does your product or service make that person’s job easier? How does it solve problems? By understanding your business customers’ needs and problems, you can produce an effective business video to match.

Leveraging Business Video Channels

Video sharing sites like YouTube provide businesses with a platform for B2B video marketing. In fact, you can create an entire “channel” focused on your company, products, and brand. Once your channel is established, consider embedding your videos into other B2B marketing materials such as email campaigns, press releases, and articles.

Using corporate video in your email campaigns adds another dimension to your B2B marketing efforts and can build trust and credibility. Depending on your email campaign management software, support for B2B video marketing may or may not be available. However, there’s a way around this: Insert an image of your corporate video and hyperlink it to your business video hosted elsewhere.

Many press release distribution sites support B2B video marketing, making it easy to include corporate video in the body of your press release. If you’re using a press release site that does not support video, providing a link to your business video where appropriate can yield results.

If your B2B marketing plan includes distributing articles, consider adding complementary video segments to your article. From useful tips to testimonial videos, short video clips can enhance your articles and influence decision makers.

In addition to using video sharing sites and incorporating business video clips into other B2B marketing channels, it’s not a bad idea to create a corporate video channel on your website. Depending on your goals, you could embed your existing YouTube videos on your site or host each business video on your own servers. If you’re attempting a viral B2B video marketing campaign, it’s smart to choose an embeddable video format so that users can easily share your business video.

B2B Video Marketing as a Search Engine Strategy

Not only can your business video be shared using YouTube, email campaigns, press releases, and articles, corporate video can also play an important role in terms of driving search engine traffic to your site. Many decision makers use search engines specifically to find business video clips. If you do not have a B2B video marketing presence, you won’t be found by this segment of searchers! In addition, a keyword-optimized corporate video clip could show up significantly higher in the search engine results than a standard article or webpage optimized for the same phrase due to a lighter focus on B2B video marketing.

These are but a few highlights of B2B video marketing. How are you using business video in your B2B marketing efforts? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.