The Web is full of information, articles, videos, white papers, e-books and all matter of research and information. Some of it is very, very good, and some of it is misleading and irrelevant. Somewhere in the middle, falling squarely in the category of spectacularly mediocre, is the vast majority of the rest of it.
If you’re like me, always trying to improve, learn, and grow your business, then you’ve probably been frustrated in your search for truly useful information that you can actually use to improve your marketing, branding and sales efforts.
There seems to be a wide choice of articles dedicated to surefire courses on do-it-yourself marketing that will make you a Web-Media-Mogul overnight (usually available for a mere three payments of twenty-nine, ninety-five) and of course, there’s always lots of stuff on how you just got to get onboard with the next big social networking fad. Excuse me while I delete another email about an absolutely fabulous linking strategy I just can’t live without.
It’s all too familiar and for the most part, a waste of time. If this nonsense were really the answer to growing your business, then you’d already be rich, sitting on some Bora Bora beach sipping pina coladas, and not hunched over your computer trying to find something useful that will actually help.
In One Word Or Less
When it comes to marketing, it really doesn’t matter what venue, method, or media you employ; marketing is simply a matter of effective ‘communication,’ easy to say, not so easy to do.
Your ability to communicate is the key to marketing success, or conversely, your inability to communicate effectively is what is holding you back. So the time has come to grapple with the real problem, and that is how do you communicate your marketing message in the most effective manner to your audience; how do you tell your brand story so people pay attention, and care.
The first thing to understand about marketing communication is that text messaging, Twitter and all other limited, one dimensional solutions, stifle the very thing that’s necessary to implement effective marketing communication: the nuance, depth of understanding and emotional value inherent in what you offer – the very thing your audience needs to know about what you sell. The key being ‘why they need what you offer’ not ‘what’.
Communication Is A Complex Process
The second thing to understand about marketing communication is that it involves five critical elements in order to be effective: the Message, the Method, the Messenger, the Audience, and the Venue.
Ask yourself, why are you on the Web at all? If it’s because everyone else is on the Web, then you’re never going to have the marketing breakthrough you crave; but if it’s because you have something to say, a story to tell, a reason for people to say, “I need some of that!” then it’s time to get serious about developing the right message, delivered by the right messenger, sent to the right audience, employing the Web venue’s best method of multidimensional communication – Video.
This is nothing new. Web Video is now accepted as the most effective communication tool available to Web businesses, so what is the difference between Web Videos that are an utter waste of time, and worse, counter productive, and Web Videos that turn companies into marketing phenoms?
Unlike one-dimensional forms of communication, Web Video delivers your message by accessing multiple senses using visual and auditory techniques. Just by adding a human being as presenter goes a long way to making an impact.
Because video communicates by accessing multiple senses on both a subliminal and direct level, it demands knowledge and expertise in concept creation, writing, casting, graphic and motion design, video production and editing, audio, music and sound design, as well as the ability to get it all to work together in an effective presentation delivered on time and for an affordable investment.
But all of this expertise and skill can be wasted if your video campaign lacks an identifiable emotionally relevant conceptual design. One of the hardest marketing concepts for bottom-line oriented business executives to accept is that the value of their offering is found in the emotional satisfaction their product or service provides. Telling people what a company does alone is not marketing, telling them why they need what you do is. Companies that focus on the ‘what’ turn their products and services into commodities, products that are indistinguishable from the competition, but companies that focus on the emotional value they provide, deliver the answer to the question, why people buy from one company and not from an other.
Effective Marketing Communication is Concept Based
All good marketing is based on an emotionally based concept. This is especially true on the Web, where content and attention span go hand-in-hand. If your Web marketing is not interesting, informative, and entertaining, it will never be memorable; it will never have the lasting impact you need to meet your sales and marketing objectives. Effective marketing communication starts with an emotionally charged concept, one that can be spun-out into a long-term presentation strategy, a concept with legs.
Coming up with an appropriate concept that will work for your product or service takes a bit of creative thinking, but it really isn’t as hard as you think. One caveat that often escapes clients, when they come to us with their ideas is that the concept must be executable for the available budget. Anybody can come up with fantastic ideas that are impossible to implement or are cost prohibitive. The trick is to develop a concept that can be implemented on time and on budget.
Executable Brand Video Campaign Concepts
One method we use to develop affordable brand video campaign concepts for clients is to combine the emotional value proposition the client offers with a recognizable presentation trope.
Tropes are metaphorical expressions, or in this case, storytelling-scenarios that audiences recognize and accept in terms of their implied expectations and implications. Used properly within the context of a Web Video presentation, tropes can simplify and shorten a complex message, and provide cover for what would otherwise be a boring, blatant sales pitch, or desperate plea for business.
Human beings are all programmed for pattern recognition, it is a basic skill needed for survival, and it’s been hardwired into our DNA. Our very survival as a species is dependent on our ability to recognize danger and opportunity. Business and marketing is no different. And that is what makes communication tropes effective. This intrinsic aspect of our nature allows professional video marketing experts to tap into the motivational triggers that govern our subliminal decision-making responses, the kind of responses that get people to buy what you sell.