Video: The Most Cost Effective Marketing Tool In The World.
Whatever you’re selling, video is an excellent way to navigate the process of marketing and advertising it right onto the waiting plate of your consumer. Video ‘shows’ more, ‘tells’ less and accomplishes most. It’s simple really; the use of narrative video production, leaves room for the prospect viewing the video to engage into a conversation ( or conversion ) that signals the impulse to buy your service or product. In other words, (sticking to our cuisine metaphor) – preparing & serving food, the appetite is first stimulated, satisfied, so that lovely, stress free conversation can occur while its being consumed. Technically, there is a bit of pleasant stress that should happen between the seller and the buyer. A gentle, pleasant experience of being coerced, knowing you are but enjoying it anyway!
Good video production will always do the heavy lifting for you if you put it first into the process of locating your demographic (the domain of solid SEO as well as appropriate content, rich and easily accessed), discovering what they’re hungry for, getting it on the menu and to their plate. Bon appetite & Voila’ all in one stroke! That’s what makes video magical. It does so much more than it seems to be doing.
Video: The Most Cost Effective Marketing Tool In The World.
The chemistry involved in good cuisine is kindred to the chemistry that happens when good film is produced. Its about the mix of good story telling with the narrative of a single point well-illustrated… it’s about effective chemistry, when the mixing of the spices & ingredients combine to produce more than the sum of the parts; its a conversation with the viewer, a relationship, an interactive exchange that encourages engagement, ‘conversion’ and in the case of videos that are produced to sell products and services, then that conversion rate is higher and more likely to result in a sell! Success! Mission accomplished. More than ‘dinner is served’, much more, here… we dine! Think of it, you ‘eat lunch, sometimes alone’ but everyone should ‘dine for dinner’ & with good company.
So this video was produced with the idea that the viewer would get the salient point, that the ingredients need to be layered into the pot…timed, and when this happens a happy marriage occurs, blending deliciously into an irresistible idea, that should inform while it entertains. The buyer should be lured with both the ‘eye candy’ and be given something to chew on. Something to savour…. a little something that lingers on the palate and lives long as a rewarding aftertaste. So maybe my would be prospect is not in the market and video production is not quite on the menu (budget or preference) at the moment – but if I’ve done my job, this video production will stand apart from the pack and hopefully, when you are in the market for a video sales tool to advertise your business, this slightly edgy video production will bring me to mind! Can’t blame a girl for some self-promotion, can you..?! LOL Tell you what: if you can get yourself over here, I’ll even cook something up for you while I pitch you on hiring me!
Video: The Most Cost Effective Marketing Tool In The World.
Now, the real deal, or should I say reel deal, (sorry) is that, as stated in this mini-flick, you cannot produce a ‘Chicken Valentino’ from a pork chop and you shouldn’t be expected too! This is one of the main issues that comes up during the discovery process that precedes the actual video production. Questions will be:
- what’s for sale?
- who’s buying it?
- why are they buying it? and
- where do they find it.
Those are the raw ingredients that need to get into the pot, and put there in order – not just thrown in…LOL
These questions must be simply answered and if these questions give rise to more questions in the mind of the viewing prospect, then they need to be ones that the would be customer wants to ask…. and you need to be able to answer them with what they want to hear. No small order. Put simply, they have a problem and you have the solution. The reason I spelled it out in such detail is to further underscore the unconscious process that takes place when someone is shopping and the sales tool is video. It’s a concert in production. It plays their tune, but that’s another subject! LOL
This process can sometimes be a less than elegant and here are a few of the reasons why; a small business owner has an idea in his or her mind of what the video should look like that’s to represent their product or service. You could say this is a ‘good thing,’ right? I’d agree with this were it not for the fact that most of us have far more sweat equity mingled in our decision making process than is good for our marketing purposes.
Video: The Most Cost Effective Marketing Tool In The World.
Add to this, most of us are too focused on what we do than we are on what the client does and how we can help supply their needs & solve some of their problems. We sell to ourselves over and over again and what the buyer sees, needs to know, and wants is sometimes minimized. If I could count up for you the money that’s been spent by the small, medium and large business concerns, in producing video for themselves I could retire in considerable style! The weight of the research needs to be put to the side of the would be client, what do they think they need and what to they really need.
Going back to interview clients who have hired us to produce video is a very sobering experience; I’ve often found that though they clung to their ideas that they wanted to frame out their video production, and passionately in love with them, when asked how often they viewed the final production, they usually say only a few times…meaning, on closer examination, 1-3 times! So then you get a bit of sweat on the brow, hold your breath and ask, ‘do you like the video?‘ and they exclaim, ‘yes, we do’! Deal is, most of those corporate styled videos are way out of vogue and positively boring to most of us.
It motors straight ahead, like a walking base in a jazz band…always a delight when there’s something significant riding over it…a solo here or there, a song bird who can sing the lyrics and sell them to you…instead we don’t even get a talking base, just walking in time.
A few videos (at least a library of 3) produced with just one idea each, and delivered in an entertaining & informative manner would have justified the thousands they spend. After all, isn’t the big idea to please the palate of the consumer?! By the way, yes you can conjure a 7 course meal and all of it represent just one selling idea.
Video: The Most Cost Effective Marketing Tool In The World.
Buyers don’t want to be in the ‘kitchen’ while you’re cooking anymore than the diners who patronize their favourite upgrade restaurant want to join you at the cooker. The discovery process is a fine balance between getting the business owner to view their offering thru the eyes, of not only the consumer, but the industry standard that’s been established for that product or service within the current market trends and expectations.
I am very fond of the commercial that is so minimalist, it’s often reduced to a single, simple statement..sometimes one word or well-crafted sentence, stated in text or well timed and executed voice over. In essence, the understatement that says it all by leaving the most important statement unspoken, that way its heard loudly in the mind of the viewer.
Think here – good acting. If you can see it, it doesn’t need to be said. Video delivers by virtue of well-chosen imagery…. narration sometimes, but not always works here, but it always delivers over the radio! LOL
That is, in my opinion the most successful marketing & advertising tactic ever. THEN, if that magical formula is fueled with the steroids that good, solid, well-researched, SEO can surely provide…well, let’s just say, we’re talking 10 Star, Cordon Bleu Cuisine in the hottest dinning spot uptown. Up-city in cyberspace. We can do that too! SEO on Steroids, guaranteed! (will soon be doing some blogs on that – that’s where the Cyber-Action is.
Video: The Most Cost Effective Marketing Tool In The World.
So,…if you’re still wondering – ‘what’s with the food metaphor?’ then you may not know that the biggest percentage of the sales process is accomplished with the eyes. Call it ‘curb appeal’. Its not unheard of that those selling property can add thousands to the value by putting in flowers..lots of them. Eye Candy curb appeal. Food, displayed and well- plated, somehow tastes so much better than slopped onto the plate for the kitchen crew.
Of course when someone is buying a service..then the pictures that good text and narrative summon to conscious mind, are more universal in nature. Marketing & advertising is an art form; its very subtle. Its as sophisticated as you want to make it providing you cling to the one salient reason someone will want to buy what you’re selling. It sometimes surprises a person that the one reason is nearly always hung on an emotion of some sort. The customer must be moved with the sales pitch towards the sale.
The idea of freedom, wealth, health and happiness to take a broad sweep of these universally shared desires. Its a ‘set-up a promise’ & a ‘delivery’ on that promise commonly called, supply & demand. And the savvy business owner, especially the struggling small business owner, knows that the internet is the shopping mall of our time (lovely – one market, online, all day, all night, & everywhere) and in that arena, ‘content is king’ and ‘king of content is video.’
In my next blog entry you will find a good bullet pointed list of what to do to prepare for the process of video production, be it one you intend to accomplish yourself or a concept for a video production that you want to hire someone to produce for you.
bon appetite! whatever you have on your plate.
Video: The Most Cost Effective Marketing Tool In The World.