Check Out This Video: Put Your Dongle Away

Technology has changed the meaning of many words over time. When we picture a Tablet, we no longer think of the great stone slabs that the ten commandments were written on, for example. Trolls aren’t multi-coloured dolls with frizzy hair, but rather angry people on the internet. But technology has also given us its share of words — and few are funnier than the word dongle.

The etymology of “dongle” is actually largely unknown. The Atlantic posited 7 theories ranging from adaptations of poetry to, literally, someone making it up. Regardless of its origins, the word is a common part of our tech lexicon. It’s also very funny if, like myself, you are blessed with the sense of humor of a small child. Say it aloud. Dongle. Accentuate the ‘o’. Doooongle.

It’s a funny word.

But, as Zoom would like to point out, it’s also a word that is slowly being forced out of our lexicon by wireless products usurping the need for dongles. Dongles, at their core, connect two pieces of technology together. Wireless is changing that. And Zoom contacted the hilarious Tripp and Tyler to point this out:

Why I Love This Video

To me, this video is a work of art. I’m always a big fan of companies that can cram as much tastefully presented innuendo into one video as possible, and Tripp and Tyler hit a homerun. To me, the real star of this video is the poor guy at home on a conference call, trying to understand what’s going on, and why everyone keeps talking about their dongles. The confusion-to-disgust pathway on his face before he quietly hangs up the phone is perfectly executed.

Tripp and Tyler have a long history of parodying office culture, especially remote working, as their more popular viral video A Conference Call in Real Life shows:

This video currently has just under 14 million views, and I know I’ve personally seen it five or six times.

Know Your Audience – And Who They Laugh At

For many people who work in offices, the dreaded “do I have the right connection to make this projector work” issue comes up almost daily. Doubly so if you tend to speak at a lot of conferences, or travel often. Projectors always seem to require the connection you didn’t remember to pack, and I can speak from my own experience that many a frantic trip to the nearest Staples or Apple store has been made mere hours before a big talk to a packed house. It’s no fun, and Zoom is working to solve that by making connecting to TVs and projectors easier.

But how do you get this point across in an industry crowded with solutions to everyday office woes? Look at who your audience is already laughing at. Tripp and Tyler have a loyal following among office grunts like myself. The Conference Call video is basically an accurate representation of 20% of my week, and their other videos, like Email in Real Life (a clever advertisement for Workfront) are all spot-on office jokes that are easy to relate to. For Zoom to get their point across, partnering with Tripp and Tyler was an easy win. Take recognizable faces that produce a very specific type of humor for a very specific audience, and get them to use that humor to talk about your pain point.

The dongle jokes are hilarious, but the underlying joke in the video is simple — people hate trying to find the right connector to connect to every device in their life, and for presentations, Zoom makes that easy. Simple, effective, and no dongle needed.

Earlier this month, our own Katie Nielson confessed to a deep love of Key & Peele – any internet comedians that keep you coming back for more? Tell us in the comments!

The post Check Out This Video: Put Your Dongle Away appeared first on Vidyard.

source http://www.vidyard.com/blog/check-video-put-dongle-away/

The Most Popular Types Of Videos On YouTube [Infographic]

YouTube now has more than 1 billion users and thousands of high-reach content creators to partner with, making the Google-owned social media video platform and network  one of the largest sites in the world and a goldmine for socially-savvy digital marketers.

Simply producing and publishing engaging videos, however, doesn’t always guarantee that a branded or brand-sponsored YouTube video will be viewed, liked, and shared. So how can marketers ensure that audiences will be receptive to their YouTube videos?

Which Types of YouTube Videos are the Most Popular?

YouTube has become increasingly inundated with content. Its users watch millions of hours and generate billions of views each day with an average viewing session at 40 minutes on mobile. So today’s most successful brand marketers must know which type of YouTube videos are most popular with audiences and understand how to develop highly-shareable “viral” campaigns around these ever-evolving viewer trends.

To determine the most popular types of YouTube videos, Mediakix first identified the top 300 YouTube influencer channels, then analyzed each content creator’s videos from the first half of 2015 to ascertain which videos received the highest number of views and social engagements. Based on these findings, we distilled the most popular YouTube videos down into the following 13 categories:

An Important Note For Marketers:

While taking advantage of these findings and trends can offer an advantage over competitors, marketers should keep in mind that providing genuine value—either through entertainment or information—is key to developing impactful YouTube videos and YouTube video campaigns.

 

What type of video do you (or, okay, your audience) view most on YouTube? Share with us in the comments!

The post The Most Popular Types Of Videos On YouTube [Infographic] appeared first on Vidyard.

source http://www.vidyard.com/blog/popular-types-videos-youtube-infographic/

Why Video Is The Answer To Employee Communications Teams’ Prayers

What’s on your list of “Wants”? Other than a unicorn or a nice ice cream sandwich. Is video on that list?

Wait, that’s probably a silly question. EVERYONE wants video. So let me rephrase: If you’re part of an employee communications team, is video on your “Needs” list? If it’s not, check your forehead – that ice cream sandwich might have given you permanent brain freeze.  

Did you know that even as far back as 2012, 93% of internal communication professionals believed that video was becoming essential to internal communications? And that sentiment is only growing stronger year after year: video is no longer a nice-to-have for internal communications teams. It’s a must-have.

Video solves an abundant number of challenges that internal communicators face every day. It’s why communicators who are in-the-know make sure to fold their hands and pray for video every night before getting in bed, or wish upon the first star they see, or use the wishbone during the holidays to try to make their video dreams come true. Sound over the top? Let me tell you all the ways video will make your communications more powerful:

It fixes engagement problems.

Brace yourself—this might scare you: 70% of US employees have admitted they aren’t engaged at work, according to one study. While you may not have known the exact number, and it may fluctuate, you’re probably not all that surprised. One of the biggest challenges communicators face is how to reach employees who are too busy, too bored, or too uninterested in what their company has to say.

That’s where video can help. Think of all the video you watch; we enjoy it so much that we watch 4 billion videos on YouTube per day, and we spend 6 billion hours watching video on YouTube per month. Nothing speaks to us the way video does; it’s personal, it’s relatable, it feels human in a way that text never can. It’s why people watch how-to videos on YouTube instead of reading a big manual. Simply, video is the next best thing to being there in person. There’s a lot of science that explains why, and if you’re interested, check out this blog post.

Our love of video means that we demand it in our workplace, too. A recent stat showed that 59% of executives would rather watch video than read text. You can bet that number is comparable for your whole employee base.  So why stick with the traditional tools? Lengthy emails just aren’t cutting it anymore, and your important messages are likely just getting deleted. Even text-based Intranet pages may not be enough: In a survey from only a few years ago, only 13% of employees said they used their company’s intranet daily, while 31% said they never do. If you’re relying on email and Intranet, you need to strengthen your strategies with video. Give employees what they crave, and you’ll find that employee engagement strengthens.

Video can be offered on any channel or device, anywhere, for a unifying and engaging experience.

Have you stayed away from video because you’re afraid to put confidential information on YouTube? Don’t let security concerns scare you away from video. All you need is a video platform for your business. Instead of residing on YouTube, you can embed your videos right into your Intranet pages, or offer your videos on “sharing pages” that seamlessly fit into your Intranet or website for a clean, distraction-free experience.

You can even add a video experience into your emails, which has been shown to increase email open rates and engagement (especially if you include the word “Video” in the subject line of your email). You don’t have to worry about whether it will be too big to send or if it will appear properly for everyone. All you need to do is add a thumbnail image, or “splash screen” of your video (along with the play button to indicate it’s a video) into the body of your email. Then when your audience clicks on it, it can open up on an Intranet page of your choosing, or a clean and distraction-free “sharing page” like this one that we created for one of our event videos.

You can even create a Video Hub, which acts like a video library on your website or Intranet (which can be locked down for employees only). A Video Hub is can be organized into topics, creator, video styles, or anything else you like, and it’s searchable so if you or your employees are trying to find past content, it’s all there right when you need it. Probably sounds a lot more tempting than what you’re using now, right? Here’s an example of what a section of our own Video Hubs looks like, or explore the full hub for yourself.

The bonus? Employees can access them on any device, and from any location. So if some employees are based in regions where access to YouTube is banned or limited, they can still get all the vital information they need.

Video gives you unmatched data that you can act on for better results.

What are you doing now to determine if your employees are really engaging with your messages? Are you checking whether your emails are being opened, or how much traffic you’re getting on certain Intranet pages? Those are all well and good, but they’re a starting point. Just because an employee opens your email, how do you know she read it? If someone lands on a certain Intranet page, did the page just sit on their screen while they did something else?

Video on the other hand, gives you what you need to know about your employees and your content. Get aggregate data on each video, like where your audience dropped off. Did they stop watching after 10 seconds? Or did they watch 80% of a 5-minute video? Were there any parts they skipped or rewatched? All this data tells you what kind of content is working and what isn’t, so you know what your employees are interested in, which messages to strengthen, and which ones don’t resonate. This “digital body language” of your viewers gives you a true indication of their engagement – perhaps even truer than asking them, since “body language” doesn’t lie.

You can also find out what individuals are watching, and even see a history of their viewing behavior. Why is this helpful? Well, imagine you created a video or series of videos that every employee needed to watch to the end in order to meet compliance needs. This data will tell you exactly what you need to know.

With true information on how audiences and individuals are responding, you’re better equipped to strengthen your content and employee engagement in the future.

You can get employees engaged in a two-way conversation.

Gone are the days when employees will accept getting messages, goals, and company values relayed to them in a one-way “communication”. Employees want to feel like they’re a part of something, that their work matters, and they are valued and heard. That’s how they become more engaged with a company, work harder, and feel more satisfied and connected.

Video can help you create exactly the experience your employees are searching for, because with video, you can offer a two-way conversation in ways that other mediums don’t allow. What do I mean? If you’re using a video platform, you can add calls-to-action onto your videos to get employees to take an action you want them to take, like visiting a page, watching another video, and more. Or you can include a form in a video to ask your employees their feedback and opinions. (If you like the sounds of that and want to see what else you could do, you might want to check this out.)

These kinds of two-way interactive elements in your videos can help you strengthen your relationships with employees so that your communications feel more like conversations and less like trickled-down mandates. Try it for yourself. You’ll see what it can do you for your company –  you might even notice a 20-25% jump in productivity by employees who now feel more connected.

Video is more efficient—and helps your employees be more efficient.

Imagine if you could share vital company information more quickly than ever, and have it be remembered. Well here’s an interesting fact: 65% of people are visual learners. And another one:

one minute of video is the equivalent of 1.8 million words. Which means your employees can absorb a lot more vital information in one minute through video than they could in any other medium. And they’ll not only enjoy it, they’ll remember it, too.

This is just the beginning of how video can help your company become more efficient. Think about Town Hall meetings and company updates with the executive team. Instead of getting everyone together in another location, setting everything up, and trying to get through all the technical delays or other hiccups of these kinds of events, you could offer key messages in video form, whether it’s live or on-demand where employees could digest them at their leisure.

Or, think of complex material you need to educate your employees on. Communicators know the golden rule of “show, don’t tell”, and video is perfect for that. Suddenly employees can see for themselves how something is supposed to work, instead of having to read and puzzle through tons of text. For example, show them where the fire exits are in case of an emergency, instead of having to create and email maps that some struggle to follow or remember. Show them through a screen-share video how to complete a benefits enrollment form, and suddenly the benefits team, and the employees filling out the forms, will breathe a sigh of relief. And these are just a taste of the ways video can help.

Video can help you create brand awareness and loyalty.

In a previous blog post, I talked about how images that elicit emotional responses cause our brains to release a chemical called oxytocin. This chemical helps us form empathy, leading to emotional connections, and even helps to build trust in a product or brand. What does this mean in terms of video? Well, it’s full of images that elicit emotional responses! When we see people on camera, we imagine that they are conversing with us. We see their body language and non-verbal cues, and we relate to them in ways that words on a page can’t re-create. We start to feel emotionally connected in their story…which helps build awareness, trust, and other positive emotions.

What does all that lead to? When employees feel positive emotions toward their company, they feel more loyal. They’re willing to work harder, think more positively, and connect in ways they wouldn’t otherwise. These engaged, happy employees create better, more innovative work.

Beyond emotional connection, when you offer your videos in a branded sharing page, Video Hub, or in a video player that is branded with your company’s logo and colours, you’re highlighting again and again who these communications are from, and creating a sense of unity for your employees – you’re all working toward the same goals, sharing the same values, and upholding a strong culture together. That’s a pretty powerful message.  

Video can help prove the ROI of communications and comms teams.

Did you know that, according to IABC, 60% of internal communicators are still not measuring internal communication? It’s probably not a big surprise – the effect of communications has always been hard to nail down and measure. There are no sales numbers, no quantities to hit, no closed deals that you can definitively say occurred because of employee communications.

But with video, you have some effective tools to helping you prove the return on investment of your work and your team. With the data that is provided by a video platform, you have clarity on how much employees are engaged, and how that engagement strengthens over time. You can illustrate that you are creating better and better content that resounds with employees, helping your team and other employees achieve greater productivity and efficiency, and strengthening employee loyalty with your brand. Video offers you the opportunity to start qualifying and quantifying things that once seemed impossible to do so, so you can not only prove your worth, but feel your worth.

All of this—and it’s cheaper than you might think.

You don’t need to get tons of fancy cameras and lights and equipment and green screens and a production teams…your videos can be as simple and inexpensive (or as fancy!) as you want or need. You could get one great camera and clean out a meeting room to create your video shoots, or you can even use your own phone! Our own CEO sent out a company-wide video that he shot on his own phone as he was walking down the street, and sent it through email. When we clicked on it, it opened in a sharing page, and we were brought right into the experience. We felt like we were part of of the action, matching stride-for-stride with our CEO, hearing his thoughts and feeling his excitement. While I can’t show you the video (being an internal message, it’s confidential, after all!), it was a pretty powerful experience (much more so than a boring old text-based email would be!)

So go ahead! Don’t just wish for video—ask for it! Your prayers may just be answered, especially considering at least 87% of executives believe video has a great impact on an organization!

Do you use video now at your organization? How has it helped you connect with your employees and strengthen your results?

The post Why Video Is The Answer To Employee Communications Teams’ Prayers appeared first on Vidyard.

source http://www.vidyard.com/blog/why-video-is-the-answer-to-employee-communications-teams-prayers/

New Vidyard Interactive Player Makes Videos More Engaging

Going beyond email gates and surveys, Vidyard enables dynamic in-video content such as real-time pricing, social media updates and choose-your-own-adventure demos

KITCHENER, Ontario – September 28, 2016 – Vidyard, the video platform for business, today launched its new interactive video player, giving marketers, sales teams and others users powerful tools to improve viewer engagement.

Organizations that aren’t using Vidyard’s new player for their B2B video campaigns are limited to annotating videos with small text boxes in a corner of their video. With Vidyard’s advanced annotations powered by HTML and JavaScript, the possibilities become nearly endless. Users can add real-time pricing to videos so that it’s always up-to-date, integrate other services such as help desk ticketing software into video, overlay lead capture forms and surveys, or insert a “buy now” button directly in the player to convert customers while their full attention is on the product or service.

“Video in and of itself is already more engaging than other media, but when you add interactive features, the experience becomes that much richer,” said Michael Litt, CEO and co-founder of Vidyard. “Like personalization, interactivity pulls the viewer in to the content and makes them part of the story while providing deeper insights into what they want.”

Powerful capabilities with Vidyard’s new interactive player include:

• Choose Your Own Adventure: Guide customers on their own unique viewing journey by allowing them to choose which videos they would like to see next or directing them to additional resources like content assets and webpages.
• Lead Capture: Add a fully customizable form to any part of your video, and the information entered and detailed analytics about the viewer’s engagement will be pushed directly into your Marketing Automation Platform.
• Calls to Action: Turn a regular video into a powerful lead generation tool with call-to-action events. Pop-out CTAs capitalize on the value of an engaged viewer, and Final CTAs for post video actions such as signing up for an event. Setting these up are easy with our WYSIWYG editor.

With its new advanced annotations and interactive video capabilities, Vidyard continues its record of innovation in the video marketing industry. Vidyard is the only video platform provider to offer advanced interactive video, video personalization and audience engagement insights fully integrated with leading marketing automation, CRM and business analytics solutions.  

Check out this example of the new interactivity features:

About Vidyard

Vidyard (Twitter: @Vidyard) is the video intelligence platform that helps businesses drive more revenue through the use of online video. Going beyond video hosting and management, Vidyard helps businesses drive greater engagement in their video content, track the viewing activities of each individual viewer, and turn those views into action. Global leaders such as Honeywell, McKesson, Lenovo, LinkedIn, Cision, TD Ameritrade, Citibank, MongoDB and Sharp rely on Vidyard to power their video content strategies and turn viewer into customers.

Media Contact:
Brad Hem
Phone: (281) 543-0669
press@vidyard.com

The post New Vidyard Interactive Player Makes Videos More Engaging appeared first on Vidyard.

source http://www.vidyard.com/press-releases/new-vidyard-interactive-player-makes-videos-engaging/

Announcing Vidyard’s New Interactive Video Player

Last week I snuck into our R&D lab on the second floor of our awesome new office and saw a few TOP SECRET things that I probably shouldn’t have, one of which was something labeled “New Vidyard Interactive Player”. And then I got busted by our VP of Engineering, Tyler Campaigne.

I was in trouble. He knew I had seen too much. So we made a deal: I keep my mouth shut until this new product is released, and he’ll let me be the first to break the news to everyone.

Finally that day is here! Meet Vidyard’s New Interactive Player, a monster upgrade to our already-awesome HTML5 video player!

Check out our video on your desktop to get the full experience: 

The New Interactive Player: The Evolution of Engagement

You already know that keeping your customers engaged is everything. It’s why you’re using video for sales and marketing and why you’re more concerned about tracking value rather than views.

Our previous HTML5 player was at the top of its game, but at Vidyard we don’t stop innovating. Whether it’s personalized video, calls-to-action, or our powerful analytics, we make sure you have all the tools you could imagine to guide your customers on a journey, and keep them engaged every step of the way.

And that’s where our new Interactive Player comes in. It takes engagement beyond what you thought was possible by enabling your viewers to interact with your videos in new, powerful ways…essentially creating a two-way conversation. Pretty incredible, right?

We’re so passionate about this stuff that we could talk about it forever. But we know you have a lot of work to do (and maybe even some playing around with the new player yourself, hmm?) so we’ll break it down to the gist by sharing the main ingredients of the player with you:

If you’ve spent any time on YouTube, you’ve probably seen annotations before. They tend to be either small links that pop up in the corner of the video, or big obtrusive boxes that overlay on the entire video. Either way, if you’re anything like me, you’re pretty quick to click the x and dismiss them. We’ve improved upon the annotations you know by keeping the usefulness, but upping the experience. We’ve added an entire interactive layer on top of your videos. These aren’t your father’s annotations. These are Advanced Annotations. More on that in a minute.

We’ve also made it even easier to gather the information you want from your viewers. Simply add a fully-customizable form to any part of your video. The information the viewer enters, as well as detailed analytics about the viewer’s engagement levels and behaviours, will be pushed directly into your Marketing Automation Platform.

And, you can also turn a regular video into a powerful lead generation tool with our “Calls-To-Action” tool, which comes in two varieties: Pop-out CTAs to snag the attention of an engaged viewer, and Final CTAs to encourage post-video actions such as signing up for an event. Setting these up are easy with our WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) editor.

What can I do with the New Vidyard Interactive Player?

The better question is, “What can’t I do?”

Note: That sounds like hyperbole. So much, in fact, that our Brand and Creative Manager told me I had to take that line out. But when I showed her what the New Interactive Player can do, she said I could keep it in. Thanks Em!

Seriously. This puppy can do almost anything. Whether you want to drop in a traditional text-based annotation, we’ve got you covered with a number of pre-built options and a WYSIWYG builder to make it easy to get started.

Or if you’re feeling creative, spice things up a bit with CSS and Javascript! Think of our new interactive player as a platform on top of which you can build anything you want. With a little bit of HTML knowledge you’ll be creating engaging content in minutes.

Oh, you want to know how you can use it? Here’s how:

 

It’s for Marketing teams

Marketers will love the ability to get the right content in front of the right people at the right time. Toss a downloadable document or a link to register for a webinar right on top of the video, encouraging prospects to take action right then and there, while they are most engaged.

 

It’s for Sales teams

Salespeople will find all kinds of benefits. You can guide specific viewers on their own unique journey by offering up links to other videos from within videos. True choose-your-own-adventure videos are now possible, keeping viewers engaged like crazy (and of course you’ll be able to track the journey they took, and send that data back to your CRM).

 

And Support groups, too

Yes, the new Interactive Player is also built for Support teams! Add ticket management capabilities right into a video. Already sending your customers how-to videos? Give your customer the ability to close the ticket and provide feedback directly in the video.

Nice! How do I get started?

Well, this is going to be a lot of work…

Ha! That’s not how we work at Vidyard! You don’t need to do anything. If you’re a Vidyard customer your account has already been upgraded. At no cost! Simply add an event to your timeline and be amazed.

I’m looking forward to seeing what you create! Oh and Tyler, if you’re reading this, can I tell them about that other new thing?

 

The post Announcing Vidyard’s New Interactive Video Player appeared first on Vidyard.

source http://www.vidyard.com/blog/announcing-vidyards-new-interactive-video-player/

Meet the Vidyard Team, Video Style: Katie Nielsen

Meet the Team is our monthly chance to introduce you to the fabulous, quirky, talented people that work at Vidyard, using our favorite medium — video! For this episode, we caught up with Katie Nielsen, Technical Writer here at Vidyard. Discover why her dad is the biggest influence on her professional life, and see the funniest dog impression we’ve ever caught on camera:

What Didn’t Make the Cut

Katie had lots more to say than just doing the bow-wow-wow, so here are a few other fun facts about her:

What brought you to Vidyard?
I heard about the job at Vidyard from my dad. He sent me the listing. I think he knew Vidyard’s reputation, and thought “this is your crew.” So I looked around the website and got a really strong sense of the community and the vibe of Vidyard, so I applied. When I came in for the interview, the culture of the place shone through, and I thought “this is a magical place. I want to be here for a long time.”

That’s what attracted me to the job, and it’s also a place with a lot of flexibility, and creativity, which is something that is not always easy to find in technical writing.

What is your favorite video on the internet?
It’s difficult to choose just one favorite video on the internet, as there are many of them. However, the one video series that never disappoints me is anything by Key & Peele. I will sit for hours and watch their clips on YouTube and have lost several weekends to their entertainment. I like using funny videos to relax, so I’ll put on a video on my laptop while I’m folding laundry or doing dishes or something mundane. It just makes the chores a little more bearable, so thank you Key & Peele you have made me laugh!

What is your favorite place to eat in Kitchener, and what do you love to eat there?
My go-to hangout spot in Kitchener is The Bent Elbow. It’s up on Weber st. And I love it because when you first look at it, it’s just in some plaza next to a dispensary and a tax service, so you don’t think anything of it. But when you go inside it’s this famous local place! All the food is made by hand, they have like 37 or so beers on tap, and the best thing about it is they have so many beers on tap that you can try something new every time. Even if you’re really into craft beer they will always have something you have never heard of, so there’s always an opportunity try something new and interesting. The food is fantastic because they make it all in house, and I would recommend their beer ketchup and fries because it’s delicious!

And as a bonus, here’s some pictures of Katie’s adorable dog, Toady:

The post Meet the Vidyard Team, Video Style: Katie Nielsen appeared first on Vidyard.

source http://www.vidyard.com/blog/meet-vidyard-team-video-style-katie-nielsen/

How Top Sales Reps Leverage Video to Crush Their Monthly Numbers

What if you could make your sales job easier by using video intelligence to help determine exactly when to follow up with a prospect and what message to deliver?

How would it feel to see your name at the top of the leader board month after month?

Competition Requires Intelligence

From the CIA to the NFL, everyone is looking for an edge to stay out in front ahead of their competitor or foe. Better intelligence equals better endgame results.

Years ago the salesperson was taught to ‘spray and pray’ to prospect — blindly taking pages from a phone book and calling or walking into building after building aimlessly on the basis of numbers equals results. Not anymore!

Which is where video intelligence comes in – to help salespeople stay ahead of the game and crush their numbers. When you use video to engage prospects, you have tools at your fingertips to see what videos engage, when the prospect is most likely to open and view the video, and what stage they are at. All that data means you can skip unnecessary steps in your follow-up, and speed up the sales process. As an added bonus, you’ll avoid annoying your prospects by pitching something they don’t need or have any interest in.

When you have intelligence gathered from video that tells you what the client is interested in, and the best time to engage with them, it’s like you’re starting on 3^rd base with no outs. You have a leg up on the competition and you have a solution in hand that increases the probability of closing an engaged prospect.

Because of this intel, the salesperson also knows who not to engage with. Video helps weed out low probability prospects, but don’t forget to keep them in your database and nurture them until they do become a higher probability.

When you have better targeted leads that have a higher probability of closing, the salesperson can not only build up a solid, sizeable funnel, and the intel helps you close quicker. Sales turnaround time lets the salesperson make more quality approaches to qualified and interested prospects which helps create more sales.

Video Helps You Convey Your Value

When a prospect can see you, they have a better chance of knowing, liking, and trusting you because they can put a name to a face. You can leverage your personality to win clients over, show yourself an authority in your space, and make your intangibles tangible by presenting that in your video.

Make a video where you tell a story about a client you helped, lay out what the challenge was, the multiple solutions you came up with, and why you chose the solution that ultimately helped your client. This helps your prospect identify with the problem, see the value you provided and think of you as an authority. More authority means more conversions!

Sales Reps will scramble to find a solution that puts highly probable closes in front of them. High percentage prospects that come with analytics to help the sales rep know when and what to focus on as they make the follow up call/approach.

Becoming a Master Video Salesperson

Would you rather smile and dial, or have competitive intel in your hands to help crush your numbers? When you customize your video to your targeted prospects, the conversion ratio increases.

In a study by Forrester Research, video in email engages prospects by increasing click-through rates by over 200% compared to traditional email or article posting.

It doesn’t matter what type of sales you are in, face time with the decision maker counts. Video gives you face time, and gives you the analytics to know when to best follow up and what to follow up with. That kind of data helps you close more business, generate more commission and stay atop the leader board

So how do master video salespeople do it? Simple:

• They target their market
• They send emails with headers that get prospects to open the email
• They leverage their CRM on the proper timing of videos sent
• They include a video targeted to their audience
• They tell a story that the prospect can identify with
• They show their personality — don’t be a stiff!
• They show their value by providing solutions
• They show how they applied those solutions and what the end result was
• They end with a strong call-to-action that makes it easy for the prospect to contact them because they now see the salesman as an advisor with authority.
• They send follow up emails with a new video

Learn how to leverage video like a pro and be the number one salesperson in your company!

The post How Top Sales Reps Leverage Video to Crush Their Monthly Numbers appeared first on Vidyard.

source http://www.vidyard.com/blog/top-sales-reps-leverage-video-crush-monthly-numbers/

Personalized Video Helps Businesses Drive Event Attendance, Recruit Students, Increase Email Open Rates by 1000%

Influitive, Marketo, Reltio and the University of Waterloo use personalization to stand out, connect with audiences and get big results

KITCHENER, Ontario – September 20, 2016 – Today’s marketer knows that no matter how important their message may be, the biggest challenge is getting their audience’s attention and keeping them engaged once they have it. In this age of jam-packed inboxes, a simple video featuring the recipient’s name can make all the difference.

Organizations including Influitive, Marketo, Reltio and the University of Waterloo have experienced direct results using Vidyard’s Personalized Video capabilities to convert more leads, increase attendance at important events and even recruit more students. For example:

1. Influitive saw a click-through rate on its outbound email campaign that was 8 times higher than similar campaigns.
2. Personalized video drove awareness of Marketo’s 2016 Marketing Nation® Summit and increased event registrations.
3. Reltio experienced an open rate on its awareness-building email campaign that was 10 times higher than the company’s average.
4. The University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Applied Health Sciences more than tripled its click-to-open rate for emails to prospective students – and even brought tears to the eyes of one new student’s father.

Influitive

Advocate marketing software leader Influitive wanted to triple attendance for its second annual customer experience, engagement and advocacy conference, Advocamp. To help it stand out from all the other marketing conferences that promise to be exciting and different, Influitive created a series of videos about Buck, a wacky camp counselor character. This year, Influitive personalized one of the videos to feature the viewer’s name on merit badge sashes to convey the “summer camp for marketers” experience they would have at Advocamp.

Example of video personalized for recipient named Katie Watson

Personalization made a huge difference in the results. For previous Advocamp promotions, Influitive had a 16.1% open rate, 0.7% click-through rate and 4.5% click-to-open rate. The personalized video campaign crushed those numbers with a 29% open rate, a 5.5% click-through rate and 18.7% click-to-open rate. The click-through rate was 8 times higher and the click-to-open rate 4 times higher than their other campaigns.

“Everyone says their conference is the best, the most interesting, the most important to attend, but anyone who’s attended these events knows that’s not always true,” said Jim Williams, vice president of marketing at Influitive. “We wanted to show our audience that we were planning something really special and worth their time to attend. Advocamp 2016 was our biggest yet, and we give a lot of the credit to the personalized video campaign for capturing the attention and interest of target attendees.”

Now Influitive is planning to do at least three more personalized videos over the next year, including as part of its account-based marketing strategy.

Marketo

Marketo also invests heavily in its annual industry conference, the Marketing Nation Summit, and personalized video helped draw more people to its 2016 event. In fact, Marketo’s video was directly responsible for more than 50 registrations worth more than $70,000 in direct revenue.

Example of video personalized for recipient named Katie Watson

“Getting your audience’s attention is harder than ever in today’s world of crowded inboxes,” said Heidi Bullock, Group Vice President, Marketing at Marketo. “Personalized video is an amazing – and effective – tool for helping today’s marketers make sure their messages stand out, get noticed and ultimately produce results.”

Reltio

Reltio, a data management platform that delivers reliable data, relevant insights and recommended actions, sent its first personalized video campaign to more than 10,000 contacts to build awareness and drive interest in its flagship product offering. The personalized thumbnail showing the viewer’s name on a mug led to open rates 10 times higher than the company’s average. Nearly 30 percent of the people who opened the emails actually viewed their videos and engaged with the campaign.

Example of video personalized for recipient named Katie Watson at company Keyboardly

“We were blown away by the performance of our personalized video campaign and how well it worked to engage both warm and cold prospects,” said Ramon Chen, Chief Marketing Officer at Reltio. “But it didn’t end there, we correlated the viewing data with the master profiles managed in our own Reltio Cloud platform for a 360-degree omni-channel view. Then we used Vidyard’s A/B split testing on thumbnails, and relaunched the campaign with even better results. If you want to do personalized video, you first need accurate, reliable personal data, then you need Vidyard.”

Reltio views Vidyard’s personalized video as a groundbreaking competitive advantage, but they aren’t stopping there. Reltio, who committed to four videos, is readying its next installment that will further push the envelope of what’s possible. Their next video will be a spy-action thriller to be used with account-based marketing campaigns with hyper-personalized messaging. Reltio also does not limit the use of personalized video to just customers, prospects and partners. Other audiences that have received personalized videos and have resulted in significant impressions and awareness include media, analysts and partners.

University of Waterloo

With roughly 100 universities in Canada and thousands more in the United States, University of Waterloo has a lot of competition. Prospective students value the school’s academics, but when it comes to choosing a university, they also want to know what it would really be like to attend. To attract the highest quality students and get them to convert from applicants to enrolled students, the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences created a personalized video that would put the viewer in the shoes of a student being dropped off on the first day. It was designed to appeal to both potential students and their parents.

Example of video personalized for recipient named Katie Watson

“Video is such an important medium to convey an emotional response. I wanted to capture a range of emotions,” said Sal Aziz, head of marketing and recruitment at the university. “I wanted the decision to come from the left brain, not the right brain. I wanted it to become emotional, not logical. One student told me his father cried after watching the video.”

The click-to-open rate for the video was 70.7%, a massive increase over their average of 20% for other recruitment emails.

“The beauty of personalized video is that it brings viewers right into the story in a creative and relevant way, making them want to engage further with your message,” said Michael Litt, CEO and co-founder of Vidyard. “For marketers, it’s an amazing way to stand out from the crowd while connecting with buyers on an emotional level to create a memorable experience. That doesn’t happen with an email.”

To view more examples of successful personalized videos, visit Vidyard’s Personalized Video Hub: http://personalizedvideo.hubs.vidyard.com/

Or sign up to have your own personalized video sent directly to your inbox: https://www.vidyard.com/platform/personalized-video/

About Vidyard
Vidyard (Twitter: @Vidyard) is the video intelligence platform that helps businesses drive more revenue through the use of online video. Going beyond video hosting and management, Vidyard helps businesses drive greater engagement in their video content, track the viewing activities of each individual viewer, and turn those views into action. Global leaders such as Honeywell, McKesson, Lenovo, LinkedIn, Cision, TD Ameritrade, Citibank, MongoDB and Sharp rely on Vidyard to power their video content strategies and turn viewer into customers.

Media Contact:
Brad Hem
Phone: (281) 543-0669
press@vidyard.com

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5 Examples of Visual Elements Your Email Marketing Needs

Designing emails isn’t just about coding and making sure they look good on different devices. Emails have to capture attention, build interest, and motivate readers to click through to your website or perform another action.

Sound like a tough job to accomplish with a single message? It sure is! But these 5 examples prove that it’s possible if you use the right visual elements.

1. Beautiful photography

Your emails don’t have to be very complex to capture your readers’ attention. Sometimes all it takes is a beautiful image in the header section that connects well with other key elements – the subject line, preheader, main offer, and the call to action.

A brand called United By Blue does this exceptionally well. As you can see in the message below, their season sale is just a few hours away, just as is the sunrise in the photo they used. If the readers don’t want to miss this special occasion, they better set an alarm and start working on their wishlist straight away.

Another important aspect about this photo is the fact that it ties well with the products the brand offers. It mainly sells clothing and accessories for outdoor activities like camping. Using relevant imagery such as the one presented can have a big effect on how well emails will be able to convince customers to shop on a site.

2. Animated video

You’ve probably all read Jon’s blog post on adding videos to your email campaigns. It’s true that embedding video into your messages is risky. In most cases it just won’t work, as it’s not widely supported by different email clients.

But when it does work, it can make your jaw drop. That’s what Litmus wanted to prove in the email invitation for their Email Design Conference in 2014.

As you can see in the image below, and can read more about in this article, there’s a hidden video background in the message (which runs more smoothly than presented in this GIF). Without making the subscribers click on any links they’ve managed to show:

• what the email is about
• what the conference is like
• what more one can do with email design

You can imagine this campaign generated quite a buzz and proved that the Litmus Team knows about coding and email design. And all it took is a cleverly animated video.

3. Animated GIFs

If you don’t want to add video to an email, you can try using GIFs instead and show some simple animations.

The GIF format is very popular and it’s widely supported by various email clients. In the past few years it’s become a common practice to use them to capture readers’ attention or show your product in action. This is exactly what GetResponse did when it launched one of its new features and wanted to quickly show it to their subscribers.

In this short animated GIF, you can see how easy it is to edit your pop-up form by simply dragging and dropping individual elements onto your workspace. Just as with the previous example, they managed to show the key benefits of their new solution without making their users click on any links or buttons.

4. Call-to-action buttons

Calls-to-action buttons, almost by definition, should be visible. But what if you could make it almost jump off the page? Sometimes there’s a way.

The Cards Against Humanity game is known for its particular, often inappropriate, sense of humor. Their whole communication style suggests they don’t care about the traditional standards or best practices written by the experts. And that’s probably why their email asking for $5 donations with a large CTA worked so well.

As you can learn from the message below, their premise was simple: they’re closing down the store for the Black Friday holiday, and if you give them $5, they’ll give you nothing in return. As crazy as this idea sounds, the Cards Against Humanity Team got $71,145 from this campaign, keeping all the money to themselves.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should make your call-to-action buttons the same size as theirs. It does mean you should play around with the copy, button placement, and design to find the best way to catch your own subscribers’ attention.

5. User-generated content

Let’s be honest. Most stock photos don’t look real. Some of them have been used by different brands so often that users no longer pay attention to them. That’s why if you want to your users to react to your emails, ads, or landing pages, you’ll want to use unique photographs.

Finding the right images, especially ones that haven’t been over-used, may sound difficult at first. But it doesn’t have to be, especially if you use content created by your customers and fans.

Many brands, such as Me Undies, are great at sourcing new content from their users. They run online contests, promote using hashtags to show how customers use their products, and ask them for reviews. And guess what? You can do that too, and use the resulting user-generated content in your email marketing campaigns.

The great thing about this content is that it shows your products are used by real customers. Consequentially, other viewers can more easily imagine themselves using them. On top of that, these photos also tend to be more trusted than the ones created by Marketing Team.

The same goes for reviews, tweets, or emails. They can work just as well in your email marketing campaigns or in your ads, or as a part of your website. One word of caution though: be sure that you’re allowed to use them. If you’re unsure whether you have the right to do so, this article provides a good overview of when it’s appropriate to use social media content provided by your fans for your own campaigns.

A word of advice

There are a number of ways to make your emails stand out and attract your audiences’ attention. Before you get into optimizing your use of photos and videos, make sure that your emails are delivered well so that they reach your subscribers’ inbox.

At the same time, you should look at the elements that are seen before the message gets opened, i.e. the “From” name, address, subject line, and the preheader. All of these elements have to build trust and remind your audience about the value you’ve delivered to them in the past.

Once you get to coding your email, don’t just trust your gut feeling. Get scientific and if you’re not sure whether you’re using the right header image, just run a test. You’ll learn a lot from your subscribers, including what they like best in your emails.

What successes have you had using visual elements in your email marketing?

 

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Video Marketing How-To: A Year of Videos

Hello and welcome to a special episode of Video Marketing How-To! It’s been just over a year since I started putting these things together, so today I want to look at whether this video series was actually successful, or if my mom is the only person who really watches these How-Tos!

First off is the big question – is anyone actually watching all these videos? Thankfully, the answer is yes! By analyzing the last nine videos I published, I can see big spikes on the days they launched, and sadly, diminishing returns in the days after. So the content is popular, but our promotion strategy needs some work. The most popular video was Filming Outside the Studio – which, coincidentally, was also the most fun one to film!

Next, I took a look at a few individual videos to see how well things are going. Here we can see that our drop-off rate is around 50% by the end of the videos. That’s actually pretty good, but I’d like to strive for 60% or higher. It looks like 60% drop-off happens around a minute and ten seconds into the videos, so from now on I will strive to keep these around that long.

Then, I took a look at whether the blog posts themselves are performing well. As we can see from Google Analytics, Filming Outside the Studio yet again topped the list, and had a really high average time-on-site as well. Getting the Most From Your Video Production Agency also ranked pretty highly, so these are excellent topics to explore for future posts. One thing that is important to note is that Performing a YouTube Channel Audit is still in the top five, and that was the first video I published. That’s content with longevity!

Now, the big lessons I take away from this are, you fantastic viewers are looking for more actionable tips and shorter videos. So, with that, I invite you to tune in next month for a quick explanation on how I create fancy transparent overlays. See you then!

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The Perfect List of Marketing Technology for Small Businesses [Infographic]

You’re busy doing this, that, and the other thing. And the truth is, you know there’s probably marketing technology out there that could make your job (and life!) way more efficient. But the process of finding the right marketing tech is not efficient.

We know efficiency is key for your small business and we’ve got you covered.

Whether you’re looking for support with content and social media, website publishing and management, digital advertising, creation or design of graphics or videos, collaboration and project management, marketing program automation and email, contact management, or analytics, we’ve created a shortlist on the best technologies for these purposes in a small business.

Wanna share this infographic? Go for it! Just right click, save the image, and share away!

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How to Protect Your Website Against Google Penalties

How to Avoid Google Penalties

Google constantly updates which websites appear in its results, and penalises sites which don’t meet its increasingly high standards. Google penalties are bad news if you’re running an online business, but fortunately, there’s plenty you can do to protect your website.

Penalties are handed out for various reasons, from duplicate content to poor-quality links. They can cause your ranking and traffic to plummet, so it’s important to bear them in mind and act quickly if your site is handed a penalty.

Websites are penalised for malicious backlink campaigns which their competitors have created to reduce their ranking, and links to websites which Google considers suspicious. Scraped content, bad coding and broken links can also result in a penalty.

Google is uncompromising when deciding which websites appear in its results. Powerful algorithms are regularly run to identify websites that aren’t up to scratch. The search engine’s Panda hands out penalties for bad content, Penguin for bad links and Hummingbird for sites considered unnatural. Google penalties are generated by algorithm updates or manual reviews. They reduce targeted sites’ SEO ranking for a specific page, the entire website or one or more keywords.  Google’s assessment is so far-reaching that protecting your website against penalties has become a challenge, but you can boost your site’s immunity with a few simple steps:

Make Sure Your Content is Up to Scratch

Google penalises for poor-quality or duplicate content, so it’s not worth cutting corners when it comes to the information on your website. Make sure your content is original, well-researched and error-free. Content which has been ‘spun’ by software is vulnerable to Panda, so taking the time to produce new, manually produced content for every section of your site is a smart move.  It’s important to include keywords in your content, but don’t overdo it. Google can react badly to too much of a good thing.

Pay Close Attention to the Quality of Your Links

Links are important if you want to attract visitors to your website, but don’t make the mistake of using poor-quality links. Buying lots of links could leave you particularly vulnerable to Google penalties, and sharing too many links may be seen as an attempt to manipulate results. Make sure your links are clearly visible to your visitors. Hidden links are more likely to be viewed as suspicious. Take the time to monitor your outbound links and remove any which are out-of-date. Broken links worsen users’ experience and increase the likelihood of penalties.

Act Fast to Repair Your Website

Don’t panic if your site is penalised. Most damage caused by Google penalties can be repaired. By addressing problematic links and other flaws on your site, it’s usually possible to restore a penalised site’s ranking, although the damage is sometimes so severe that starting from scratch is the best option. If you’re losing sales because a Google penalty has caused a sudden fall in ranking, Google penalty recovery services could be your best option. An SEO agency with Google penalty repair experience will assess the damage and take fast action to restore your ranking, while protecting your site against further penalties.

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Forrester Shows Marketing Needs to be More Helpful, Handy and Human

Is your marketing truly helping customers and prospects, or simply yelling about features?

We’re all guilty of falling into this trap. You’ve launched something new and exciting, and you want to share all the bells and whistles in your emails, sales briefings, and press releases. But here’s the problem – customers don’t care about bells and whistles. They care about results!

Today’s buyers want companies that can demonstrate empathy to their business challenges, and be responsive to their ever-evolving needs. And nobody understands this better than Forrester.

Get the Report

Turn B2B Marketing into a Customer-Obsessed Organization

Get the Report

In their latest report, Forrester breaks down why B2B brands need to move from channel-centric to customer-centric marketing, and focus on customer outcomes, not on feature stories. Peter O’Neill and Lori Wizdo put it best:

“As B2B buyers demonstrate that they are willing to buy increasingly complex and costly products online, B2B marketers must step up to create a digital experience that attracts, educates, persuades, and sometimes, closes these digitally empowered customers.”

Sounds like a lot of work, right? Not necessarily. It’s just a shift in mindset.

Making Marketing More Customer-Obsessed

Forrester argues that when you move away from focusing on channels and features, and move towards focusing on customers and business outcomes, you create content that builds relationships rather than simply transactional customers. And this shift is powerful.

To help marketers understand how to approach this shift in mindset, Forrester has created a Playbook, with four easy steps to guide you towards becoming a customer-obsessed marketing team. Want to get the full story? Download Turn B2B Marketing Into a Customer-Obsessed Organization and learn:

• How to adopt customer-obsession as a mindset, and spread it through your organization
• Direction on making your marketing more handy, helpful, and human
• Four steps to developing a roadmap to customer-obsessed marketing
• How technology can help you think like your customers
• And more!

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Nominations Are Now Open for the Video Marketing Awards 2016!

You’ve been working so hard all year on creating countless marketing assets, perfecting campaigns, nurturing leads, measuring ROI…really, it’s amazing you can accomplish so much in a year. You deserve a cookie. Actually, you deserve much more, and that’s why we may have something shiny and gold with your name on it…drum roll, please…

The Video Marketing Awards are coming soon! Held in November during the Video Marketing Summit (which is themed “Viewtopia” this year), the VMAs honor the best and brightest marketers who have created innovative, engaging, and results-driven video marketing campaigns.

Why are the VMAs so great? Marketers get so busy racking our brains coming up with ideas, strengthening strategies, and planning and executing campaigns, that sometimes we forget to sit back and admire what we’ve done, as well as learn from other marketers who are excelling (because face it, not everything we do is gold, and sometimes we need a little inspiration to get back on track). So take this moment to reflect on everything you’ve achieved this year, and consider nominating your team for your very own golden, statuesque Video Marketing Award.

What could you win a Video Marketing Award for?

With ten categories to choose from, marketers will have a great selection of awards to submit nominations for:
 

Video Marketing Campaign of the Year

Have you delivered an impactful digital marketing campaign in 2016 using video as the primary content medium for the campaign? This award could be yours!
 

Best Personalized Video Campaign

Have you been using Personalized Video as part of your video marketing strategy? More than just an attention-grabber, Personalized Video delivers real results, so this award will be granted to the marketing team who has been using it in a creative way to crush their targets and generate significant ROI.
 

Best Use of Live Video, Webinars, or Virtual Events

This VMA will be awarded to the marketing team that has used live video broadcasts, online webinars, or virtual events to achieve great results. Is it you?
 

Best Use of Video for Sales Prospecting

Organizations are catching on fast to the fact that video is generating results not only in terms of marketing leads, but in sales as well. That’s why a VMA will be awarded to the organization that is making the best use of video as part of their outbound sales prospecting programs. Nominate your business if you’re using marketing-produced videos, custom recorded video messages by sales reps, personalized videos, or more to strengthen your sales strategy.

For inspiration, take a look at a VMA winner from last year: Zuora won a VMA for Marketing and Sales Alignment. Watch the video:

 

Best Online Video Presence for a B2B Brand

Are you using video across multiple channels to elevate your brand and increase overall audience engagement? Then this award could be yours!
 

Video Marketing Tech Stack Award

A number of complementary marketing and sales technologies can greatly amplify the success of video marketing programs, so this VMA will be granted to the organization that is taking full advantage of what video can do when it’s integrated into a marketing tech stack. Let us know what you’re using and how, and you can walk away with your own golden statue.
 

Breakout Video Marketer of the Year

You don’t have to be a long-term veteran of the video marketing world; even newcomers (are you one?) can achieve incredible things. This award will be given to the marketing team who has demonstrated the most progress in establishing or improving their video marketing strategy in 2016.
 

Small Business, Big Bang

Does your business have less than 100 employees? Are you using video strategically to generate big results and punch above your weight class? Then submit your nomination for this award!
 

Video Marketing Impact Award

Are you using video to make an incredible impact on your business? This VMA could be yours if you can demonstrate the most dramatic ROI and impact on lead generation, pipeline, and closed revenue as a result of video marketing programs.

For inspiration, here’s one of the winning videos from Hootsuite, last year’s winner of the Video Marketing Impact Award:

 

Video Marketing Trailblazer

Here’s an award that will be granted not to a whole organization or team, but to one trailblazing marketer. Are you (or a coworker) a visionary marketer who has championed video marketing within your organization, and developed a video marketing strategy that has generated significant results and ROI for the business? Then you know what to do!

Tell us why you should win by September 30!

Pick your category (or categories!), tell us your story, and submit your nomination by September 30, 2016. Remember, it takes more than one great video – we’re looking for some really impressive videos, strategies, and results!

Want to see more of the winners from last year? Check out our 2015 VMAs blog post to watch more videos and get great insight on why the winners were chosen.

Now stop reading and get going on your nomination now!

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10 Ways Small Businesses Should Be Using Video (with Examples!)

In my last post, I dove into the 17 reasons why small businesses need video and promised that I would share the how, or the best ways small businesses could incorporate video into their marketing plan. Here it is!

There isn’t much more preamble needed, really (if you’ve read the previous post, that is). So let’s dive in.

1. Introduce Yourself

The combination of both audio and visual stimulation in video makes describing complex concepts much easier and more importantly, easier to understand.

Try using a video on your homepage that outlines what you do and what problem you solve for your customer in less than 90 seconds. You’ll find this is a lot more effective than trying to cram these same explanations into the first headline and paragraph of your home page … all above the fold.

A great example of an explainer video that speaks to a problem and how the company solves it is this original one from PadMapper:

And no, it doesn’t have to be an animated explainer video. But this is definitely a good and affordable (most of the time) place to start.

For a non-animated version, recall the ultra-famous Dollar Shave Club video:

2. Share the Details of What You Do

While one overview video on your website home page or Facebook page (or both!) is a great way to introduce people to your company and what you do, you’ll often need a little more description to win your audience over. A few, more detailed videos that explain the details of your product’s features or the different services you offer is a great way to provide more information and help your audience decide to buy.

3. Give Third-Party Proof (a.k.a. Customer Testimonials)

Get other people who love your product, service, or company on camera and do it now! It’s so much more effective than hearing you tout your own winning characteristics. And let me tell you: video testimonials are way, way, way more believable than:

“I couldn’t believe what ABC company did for my wedding!” – Sally, NYC

Know what I mean?

4. Empower Your Leaders to Educate Your Audience

One of the most effective ways to show your company as a leader in your space — and knowledgeable as heck — is for your leader to share their own knowledge and educate your audience. Think Moz’s whiteboard Fridays, which Rand Fishkin started a long time ago when the company was just starting out.

Maybe you’re not a technology company, but don’t think this can’t still apply to you. You might share how to arrange flowers, or how to save money on your taxes, etc. There are endless educational topics in your space that your audience will find useful. Plus, this will help them build respect for and knowledge of your brand, which never hurts!

5. Show Off Your Culture

You’ve probably heard about “culture content” before. But what is culture content? It’s content that shows who you are as a business. And yes, before you ask … yes, buyers care. Especially for small businesses, buyers want to like who they’re buying from, even if this is a subconscious desire.

So show off who you are. Maybe you’ll have quick chats with people on your team, or show a time lapse video of your office for the day, for example.

6. Share Your Creation Story

This is a particularly relevant one for small businesses, even more so than larger corporations. Just like I mentioned in culture content, people are often very interested in how the small business they buy from was founded. Oh and also … people love stories. It’s in our DNA.  

The Founders Brewing Company has a great example of this, especially because they really found the perfect balance between telling their story, sharing where they came from, and making it relevant to their customers and employees.

7. Blog in the Medium Your Audience Craves

It’s amazing how many people love to watch video content. Like really … it’s the medium buyers crave. And they’ll click on that little triangular play button any chance they get.

So why not add more of the content they like to your blog to get them coming back for more? Video blogs don’t have to be Hollywood-style production value. Record a video blog by using your webcam while sitting in your office or a meeting room. Or even use your iPhone to record some thoughts while you’re walking down the street!

8. Thank Your Customers

Loyalty is critical to the sustainability of your business. Keep your customers around by making them feel loved and send them a reminder every so often that you’re thankful for them and their support!

This type of video definitely doesn’t have to be super high production value either (although, no one’s going to penalize you if it is!).

Check out Janet Wakeland’s video from remARKably Created as an example:

9. Show Your “Production” Process

Did I mention that your audience cares about who you are as a business? Showing “behind-the-scenes” is another way to give them a real picture of who you are and where their purchase is coming from.

Here’s a great example from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams making their decadent, drool-worthy ice cream sandwiches:

While at first, this may seem to apply only to companies selling physical products, you could certainly adapt this video type for a service-based or software company by showing a timelapse of your developers working all day (and having nerf-dart fights, of course!), for example.

10. Interview Experts and Spread the Reach

The last video type, at least for today, is to interview partners or influencers in your industry for thought leadership content to again, educate your audience.

Our Wise Words series, is an example of this, where we chat with other marketers about how they’re using video in their own business!

Which video types have you tried? Share with us or link to them in the comments!

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DAS – Domain Authority Stacking, 2 layer strategy

This is a funny post in a way, because I’m making this as the initial post in a dual layer DAS (domain authority stacking) strategy. Most SEO’s know the power of a DAS strategy using big authority sites such as Twitter, Facebook, etc and then syndicating content out from your blog to those assets, however I have that also doing DAS on your DAS assets to really turbo charge the power and trust you get from this strategy.

Using a mash up of additional content on your 2nd layer DAS’s also keeps everything natural and messy, to ensure this is something that gives long term benefits.

The post DAS – Domain Authority Stacking, 2 layer strategy appeared first on Scott SEO & PPC Services.

from Blog – Scott SEO & PPC Services https://www.scott.services/das-domain-authority-stacking-2-layer-strategy/

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