12 Ways to Use Videos for Growing Your Business

Here are 12 ways you can drive awareness, influence and engagement through the use of video. In fact, you may even see an uptick in revenues because videos have proven to be very good for business.

Vlogging: There is a growing shift from blogging (written) to vlogging (video) because of the domination of YouTube as the number one video content sharing platform. It is also very easy to get started, as you only need a video camera, YouTube account and great content to potentially become a world-renowned video star. Helpful Resource: Vlogging vs Blogging: The Complete Run Down Plus Pros & Cons
Video Podcasts: Podcasting popularity continues to rise with 57 million Americans listening every month. Podcasters have seen a steady climb in audiences over the past 10 years because of better technology, discoverability and sheer volumes of content in this format. Video now helps podcasters differentiate themselves, grow emotional engagement with their audience, increase sharing and deliver content with a longer shelf-life.
Training and How To’s: Two of the top three uses for videos are ‘explainers’ and ‘how-to’ videos. Audiences prefer easy to follow video instruction over references that are in writing or audio only. This content is easily shared on internal portals, websites and social channels to reach the broadest audience. In a 2017 video use survey found 62% of businesses have an explainer video and of those 97% said that their explainer video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service. Additionally, 81% said that their explainer video has helped their business increase sales. (Source)
Commercials and Advertising: In ‘Marketing Charts Usage Trends’ report it is noted that in the past two years, video advertising has the highest usage growth rate for B2B marketers. Source Digital advertising has higher performance ratings over out-of-home (OOH) and traditional network media channels.
Product Demos: Animoto reports that four times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. According to Wyzowl’s The State of Video Marketing 2017 survey, 84% of consumers have been convinced to make a purchase after watching a brand’s video. Experience and testimonials effectively sell products and services. Video is best at capturing the consumer experience. (Source)
DIY Videos and Product Placements: There is a growing use of product placements on YouTube and other social media platforms because of the relationships their easily defined demographic audiences have with content creators and celebrity endorsers. Celebrity vloggers provide a perception of authenticity by reaching out to their loyal followers and sharing product information.
Edutainment: Educational entertainment videos are utilized to increase engagement and retention for learners through the use of game-based learning experiences and various types of digital entertainment. It is often used to create video content series, character-based programs and simulations.
Thought Leadership: Thought leadership videos are the 5th most popular video content type for businesses as they help to share expertise with a global audience. TED is a perfect example how videos can be effectively used to share complex, thought provoking and cultural ideas. TED is a non-profit global community that hosts online TED Talk and Conference videos of experts and thought leaders on hundreds of science, business and global topics, in more than 100 languages .
Branding: Video empowers brands share experiences by reaching and influencing a targeted audience through engaging digital stories and visual interests. Video is the most powerful format for storytelling, helping businesses captivate buyers, build trust and create loyal followers. Why video matters in branding, YouTube reaches more 18-34 and 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the US. Generation Z, made up of 84.7 million kids born between 1996 and 2010, yield the future spending power so it is essential businesses connect through digital channels. Where are your buyers? Online, watching videos!
Corporate Marketing: Approximately 78% of businesses use video on their website or product site, and 72% use it on social. Small Biz Trends reports businesses using video on their websites get 41% more traffic and see a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines. The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video. Corporate communications are utilizing video to showcase their cultures and work experiences. They are also valuable in ensuring content visually expresses the brand identity, leadership principles and core values of the company.
Sales and Ecommerce: Wyzowl reports 84% of consumers have been convinced to make a purchase after watching a brand’s video. Video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80% or more. Red Stag Fulfillment reports using product videos on ecommerce sites can increase product purchases by 144%, with video driving more ecommerce conversions than social media. Buyers research products and services online before they buy and most are looking for video content. Video is also viewed as innovative for sales presentations and pitches. Don’t be afraid of taking a boring presentation and making it an more engaging with a visual video representation that directly addresses the needs of your buyer.
Shareable Marketing Content: Social Media Examiner reports that 74% of social media marketers use visual assets in their social media marketing. (Source) 92% of mobile video consumers share videos. If the content is available online, it’s likely to be shared with others.

Zenith’s Online Video Forecasts 2017 report estimates that consumers will spend an average of 47.4 minutes a day viewing online video this year. Mobile video viewing will increase by 35% to 28.8 minutes per day in 2017, and will rise by 25% in 2018 and 29% in 2019.

The most important consideration for business leaders are that videos are treated as an investment to create an asset. Be strategic and methodical in your video production, focusing on quality and consistency to get the greatest ROI.

Click here to read more about the value of video for growing your business.

Jamie Glass, CMO + Founder of Artful Thinkers, a sales and marketing consulting company.

BONUS: Check out this helpful visual guide for building a YouTube channel.

Courtesy of: We Are Top 10

May 24, 2017May 25, 2017

Jamie Glass on The Worldly Marketer Podcast

Why It Pays to Hire the Right Experts When You’re Going Global

Listen here

Favorite Quotes and Shared Insights

EXPERIENCE

TIP: Based on 20 years experience, what works best is when you are a trusted advisor and that comes from really listening, learning and understanding what a business needs and where they want to go.

“My vision is to always work with the CEO, because sitting at the table I’m able to understand what their vision and mission is and then statically advise them on the best way to accomplish that.”

MARKETING

TIP: A good marketer needs to understand all touch point strategies and how communications are being used in representing the brand experience.

“Now marketing goes much further in the process of sales engagement. And that is because there are so many touch points that occur through technology and there are so many channels to use your voice.”

TIP: Digital is changing the world and it’s a global economy so you need to be prepared to have all the conversations, all at the same time, without losing representation of who you are and what you deliver.

“Meet the customer where they expect you to meet them, and this along their journey”

LOCALIZATION

TIP: On the topic of localization, the unsung heroes are translators, project managers and internal localization team members that empower organizations to go global.

“Going global really requires working with people that are creative, strategic, have access to talent, get to know what processes work, align with your technology in the most efficient ways .”

“It is the talent and resources that makes the language services industry so amazing.”

GOING GLOBAL

TIP: Most common pitfall for businesses is they don’t think about being global from the beginning.

“Having to go back and retrofit your products, services, content, communications and strategy is a lot harder than if you had thought it about in the beginning. You can’t assume you are not going to be global.”

“You’ve got to rely on experience to go global.”

TIP: Think and plan your global market strategy with the same precision of how you orchestrate a great campaign.

“Everything that you do in your source language applies as well in a foreign market.”

TIP: Use in-country resources to test your products and services or the competition will eat your lunch!

“The risks are too high. For what you shortcut in your investment to get it right by preparing and planning in advance or relying on the expertise to do it, whatever you shortcut there will shortcut your returns exponentially.”

“Taking shortcuts is the wrong way to get into the c-suite. It is the wrong way to get the attention of the CEO. Don’t make that mistake.”

INNOVATION

TIP: We are in a nano-second world! Speed and agility are critical in marketing success.

TIP: Science, data and technology run the world! Marketers need to be aware and know how to use it to seize the opportunities that are global.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

“The dialogue is the same for the past 20 years, you need to meet the customer at their door. But they way in which we are doing that and the way in which we ensure our services and solutions match their journey and the way we tell our story and where we tell it is changing all the time.”

Podcast

The Worldly Marketer Podcast is the show that brings you valuable insider perspectives on what it takes to grow your business in today’s global marketplace.

Go here to access the series: https://www.verbaccino.com/the-worldly-marketer-podcast/

June 10, 2015June 13, 2017

Impacting Your Global Communications Strategy

Every organization that reaches across their borders through words to educate, explain, engage or encourage others to consume their content requires a well-defined global communications strategy.

What are the important considerations for defining an effective multilingual communications strategy?

1. Return on Content (ROC). First and foremost to every global communications strategy is how does it align to corporate business goals? Alignment to outcomes related to market reach, revenue and event profit margins should drive the top line global communication planning to effectively demonstrate meaningful ROI. We call this impact. Global communications is more than a marketing approach; it is a roadmap to achieving success in your organization.

2. Defining Your Target Audience. One content type does not fit all. Along with demographic definitions and assigned attributes, there are requirements to understand socio-graphic and behavioral traits. These can amount to hundreds and imagine defining these across multiple geographies. It requires time, market experience and research to match target to content. Culturally, there are differences in approach, positioning and key market messages that without proper definition can offend or create irreparable harm to your brand or organization.

3. Logistics and Statistics. Global communication strategy requires an understanding of how information is consumed by your target audience, where and through which medium. Mediums for delivery are not universal. We can all cite the growing number of mobile devices; however, there are places in the world where certain types of content are not effective for a mobile consumer. There may also be times where content will be primarily delivered via mobile, impacting a buying experience if the content is not easily consumed and understood. Common Sense Advisory* research indicated, “…billions of people don’t read English at all or well enough to make buying decisions, so they’re increasing information in other languages to reach many more prospects.” Data matters and the experience can impact your overall ROI simply by not following through the entire customer communication experience.

4. Language Trends. In the language services business, we encourage people every day to translate their content into every language. There may be exceptions. Certain languages may find a specific content media acceptable in the source language. This requires analysis, testing and research; however, what has highest value should always be considered when evaluating opportunities, budgets, timing and impact of language requirements. Equally important is the need to understand demand on a global scale of languages that have the greatest opportunity. What are the trends in emerging market?

5. Rate and Regularity. Understanding frequency and timing of your communications can also help dictate tactics for global reach. Language tools and automation can assist in getting translation done faster and more cost-effectively when the driver is close to real-time frequency. As an example, building machine translation programs, terminology technology and content source analysis can assist in meeting growing demands for fast translation user-generated content (UGC). Every communication type will have a demand requirement that can be matched to your supply for “global” reach. Public relations may have an immediate need; whereas, software updates may have a planned communications strategy over several months.

6. Your Brand. There are times when brand overrides all decisions related to speed and time-to-market. For example, transcreation of content may be less frequent and require a much higher devotion to ensuring there is absolute brand-alignment and adherence to your global brand standards.

Global communications strategy requires a customer-focused and data-driven methodology to maximize reach and impact with your audience, both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C). Welocalize language services help global brands evaluate, plan and execute their strategic communication initiatives to produce the best ROC results.

What has the biggest impact on your global communications strategy?

*Report: Can’t Read, Won’t Buy by Common Sense Advisory

Jamie Glass

First published on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140507160656-149124-impacting-your-global-communications-strategy

June 25, 2012

Market to Your Strengths

Recently at an entrepreneur camp for high school students, I worked with several teams in preparing a 3 minute pitch to sell their inventions and innovations to a panel of professionals. My focus was to help these young entrepreneurs identify their business and product strengths so they could convincingly sell us on their idea in a very short amount of time — much like the real world.

I shared my experience in managing sales teams and evaluating investor presentations about what works and what does not work in pitching. I let them know that even the most seasoned professionals can mistakenly focus on the “hot” features without direct alignment to what makes you stand out against your competition.

My lesson, you must compete for mind share before you get market share. Whether selling your idea, your services, your business or just you, always use your valuable marketing resources to promote what makes you better than the rest — your strengths!

Have you identified your market strengths? Recently? And once you found your strengths, have you effectively managed and built them up in your marketing?

The easiest tool to define your strengths is the simple risk assessment that every marketing plan must include — SWOT Analysis. No matter the size of your business, you must know your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

If you have already completed a SWOT analysis on your company, product or service, dust it off and review it today. Is it still accurate? Hopefully you have evolved! Your strengths are not set in stone. They are dynamic based on competition, economics, innovation, market growth or decline and shifting attitudes toward your business and products from consumers and employees.

If you have not completed a SWOT Analysis, take out a piece of paper now. Draw four boxes and label them: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In each box, list out what you currently say, believe or understand as your strengths and your weaknesses, the opportunities you see where you can grow and threats in your business to achieving your goals.

This initial SWOT Analysis is meant to be quick; however, a thorough strategic marketing plan will take more time and resources for a complete evaluation. You will ultimately want an assessment that has multiple inputs including employees, executives, vendors, partners and current, potential and lost customers.

A SWOT analysis is useful to make sure you are current with messaging on how you are perceived and understood in the market place. It is a business planning tool that should be evaluated quarterly to make sure market opportunities are seized and threats are assessed and mitigated.

The next step is to audit your current marketing programs and communications to see how effective you are in defining your strengths. Are you placing all your strengths on the first page, first paragraph, above the fold and in your elevator pitch? Review your marketing tactics to see how well you represent your strengths. Start your assessment with:

1. Branding – Do you clearly communicate and represent your strengths in the essence of your brand and your identity?

2. Communications – Do you detail your strengths in all your marketing communications, including sales presentations, collateral and on your web site?

3. Sales – Can your sales representatives and customer-facing employees recite your top five strengths? Where are they detailed in your standard sales presentation?

4. Public and Analyst Relations – Does your boiler “About Us” include your marketing strengths? Are you able to weave your strengths into every new release?

5. Social Media – How often do you remind your fans and followers about your strengths? Are they listed in your social profiles? How many weekly posts include mention of your strengths?

In order to create demand and achieve anticipated growth, you need to market to your strengths. Make sure you are consistent, clear and current in your messaging and get the word out why you are better than all the rest.

May 13, 2012May 31, 2017

What Does the Brand of YOU Represent?

Winning in the Branding of YOU

Branding is an art and science for marketers. They blend the key attributes of a product, service or company and position them to appeal to a consumer.

Using scientific research, data and analytics, the brand marketer artfully crafts visual and written communications targeting emotions and logic of the intended audience. The ultimate goal is to drive to an action, such as buy or like me.

How does this relate to the branding of YOU? We are all a brand.

Seth Godin defines a brand as “…the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”

It is how we present ourselves, talk about ourselves and how we are remembered by others. Branding applies to all aspects of life, professional and personal. It is the first and last impression of YOU.

If every encounter in life was a personal moment for YOU to brand yourself, what are the words and actions that repeatedly represent YOU? More importantly, would you want everyone to repeat them over and over again? Will you be remembered as “Have it your way” (Burger King) or “I’m lovin’ it” (McDonalds) or “Avoid the Noid” (Domino’s Pizza)?

Professional branding is critical for your career. The words that others use to describe you, are your brand. You own it. It may be a definition that comes from a collection of interactions or a single opportunity you had to gain respect and credibility in a brief encounter.

There are several ways for you to represent the brand of YOU.

1. Introduction. This is your 90 seconds at a shot of fame. Whatever comes out of your mouth or you share in an email, is your opportunity to make your brand pitch. It is the firm handshake opportunity. Face-to-face, you have an opportunity to say with confidence who you are, what you do and what you represent. It is the YOU moment. In email, it is your invitation to draw someone in to know and learn more. It should be short, to the point and always conclude with a call to action. Think of it as your 140 character tweet about YOU.

2. Social Media. What you post on the Internet is your brand. And, it does live forever. It is how you are represented on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, blogs, and so on. In other words, the brand of YOU is everywhere you put a comment, post or uploaded something to the world wide web! Before you hit send or enter, think how it represents YOU.

3. Your CV. A curriculum vitae (CV) provides a summary of YOU by experience and skills. It is your brand summary. Your CV should clearly articulate your strengths. It is the summary on your LinkedIn profile.

4. The YOU Meme. The one way to control your brand is to have a practiced “meme”.

“A meme is an idea that behaves like a virus–that moves through a population, taking hold in each person it infects.” – Malcolm Gladwell.

Your branding meme is what others take with them and tell others, over and over again. It is your “viral” message. A meme should delivered in 60-90 seconds and cover all the unique characteristics that you want others to remember about YOU.

The creation, care and management of the brand of YOU is very important. It has tremendous monetary value. You are your best brand PR agent, you are the one to spread the word about YOU. The impression you make in the marketplace will confirm YOU are a good “buy” or confirm why people have no interest in buying what you are selling! How others talk about YOU will affirm what YOU represent.

Take time to think about the qualities of YOU and what YOU represent, then how YOU can position this to others to create actions or get results. Rehearse your meme.

Like the Brand of YOU

You can always improve on your brand; however, reputation management is a costly proposition if you have a damaged brand. Even a lot of money can’t always repair a brand. We all like brands that represent qualities that are good and positive. Be authentic, truthful and confident. Make sure that your brand represents the real YOU.