Why Produce a Corporate Video?
November 14, 2011
This is a guest post from David Seay, who has over 25 years experience of producing videos, commercials and television programming, and is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. He has produced hundreds of corporate videos, training videos and a full complement of videos for business.
Over to you, David…
———
Why Produce a Corporate Video?
My sales are good. Our customer feedback is positive. We’re getting new clients. Why on earth should I spend money on a corporate video?
At first glance you might not think a video is right for you, but it probably is. In 25 years of working with corporate marketing departments, I have yet to see a company who has not benefited from using video.
Video has always been the best vehicle to define image, demonstrate your products, and give voice to satisfied customers. Today we live in a hyper-connected world. Youtube, Vimeo, Facebook, LinkedIn, and countless others are words we never knew five years ago. Now they are essential everyday tools marketers use to connect with customers and prospects, and they all leverage video.
If you had to sum up this brave new world of marketing and inter-connectedness in a single word, that word would be: MESSAGING. That messaging comes from all sources: customers, and competitors, independent reviewers, you yourself. It is essential that you control the messaging about your company, or someone else probably will. Video persuades, motivates, and brands better than any other medium. Since the majority of people prefer to watch video rather than reading pages, it is more important than ever to leverage your messaging with video content.
When you decide to use video, use a professional producer; this is absolutely NOT a do-it-yourself project. So many homespun videos just reek of unprofessionalism and unless you are an experienced producer/director (10 to 15 productions minimum), leave it to someone who is. Don’t worry, you will still be very involved with the production.
Producing a marketing, sales or training video for your company may seem overwhelming. Here are a few things you’ll need to think about in advance:
- the message you want to communicate
- who your audience is
- where they’ll be watching the video (on the web? On a DVD? At a live event?)
- quality: what level of production values you need
- your budget and deadlines
- an outline for the content of the video
- approval for use of graphics, products, logos
- legal clearances
- and location options if shooting will take place at your office
Make sure you choose an experienced production company; specialist corporate producers will know about using video for business, branding and social media. Agree a production schedule with them to cover the major phases of production (pre-production, scripting, location shooting, video editing, sound sweetening, DVD authoring, duplication, and delivery).
Cost: A simple Internet video of about a minute or so in length can be as little as 1,500 USD. It may sound like a lot, but it takes time, and what you are really buying is experience. A producer who knows what they are doing can maximize a budget to get you the most bang for the buck—and do it quickly.
Once shooting is complete, the video editor will combine the video, audio and graphics to create a rough cut; you’ll review the rough cut and agree any changes needed before it goes into final production.
And you’ll then be able to add video to your suite of tools to help promote your corporate messages.
Video works. Use it.
———
Thanks, David!
David and Kathryn Seay are video producers in the Dallas Fort Worth area
www.davidseayproductions.com
Why Most Companies Look and Sound the Same
September 9, 2011
A guest post today by Roderic Michelson discussing how to distinguish your company from others. What is your USP?
Everyone is saying the same thing – and no one is listening.
That’s the reality in most industries. Everyone is copying from everyone else until everyone looks, from the customers’ perspective, exactly the same.
When this happens the only way to choose is on price or by whatever you have seen last on TV.
In this situation it’s tempting to throw money at marketing in the hopes of differentiating yourself. But if you’re not saying anything different – then no one will notice.
And this applies whether you’re spending £40 a month on promoting yourself at a networking meeting, or £4million a month on cross media marketing campaigns. The same is true for corporate communications. I have written corporate copy and by the time it is reviewed by 10 other people “just to make sure,” plus the legal team, the message becomes bland, unremarkable and faceless. Unless you have a distinctive voice you won’t be remembered and your customers will have no reason to choose you over the competition.
It sounds simple – and obvious. So why do most companies fail to stand out? Why do you forget an advert moments after you’ve seen it, or forget a person minutes after you’ve met them? It’s because they aren’t distinctive.
What can we learn from the companies that have managed to stand out from the crowd – those companies that would immediately spring to mind for a certain product or service?
The one thing they all have in common is a unique voice.
Essentially they present themselves in a distinctive way and in a manner that ticks all the boxes for a particular audience or niche in the market. This is important whether you are talking face-to-face with a prospect or buying ad space in the mass media.
To have a unique voice you must position yourself as the best choice for a particular segment of the market through a Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. This is a succinct phrase that relates the most desired outcome your prospective client wants.
For example if everyone else is pushing how lightweight their product is, then make yours stand out on styling, or if they are all selling style then highlight how yours can be personalised. Choose something that’s different. But beware – if that difference doesn’t speak to your customers then you still won’t stand out!
It will significantly improve the marketability of your product or service by addressing a recognised need or pain point for the prospect. This achieves two goals with the same effort: it builds both sales and your long-term reputation. It infuses with meaning every single marketing vehicle – internet collateral, telephone scripts, business cards, ads, the annual report, etc. A USP helps you pre-open customers’ and investors’ wallets.
Let’s look at some examples:
- The inexorable rise of Kiton, the Naples-based Italian menswear brand is simply amazing. What is the secret of its success? A persistent, well-thought out campaign emphasising the company’s values which are embodied in its USP: attention to detail, specially designed raw materials, the best cut, artisanal craft. And the USP is present in some form and shape in every piece of communication/material from the company.
- With a loyal following at home, built over 300 years, Twinings is one of the quintessentially British brands. It keeps growing abroad and it’s now sold in over 100 countries. What makes people in non-tea drinking countries choose Twinnings when they want tea? Their USP: Proper tea steeped in tradition, a little taste of Britain.
- What are the first three names that comes to mind when you think of consulting? One of them will surely be Accenture. Starting from a white sheet after its split from parent Andersen, the company experienced impressive growth in a very tough market riding on a simple formula: delivering high performance to its clients. The USP: Innovation, current business improvement, delivery focus, leapfrog the competition.
- The need for fast, timely and secure delivery of important documents grew together with globalisation and international trade. Enter Federal Express, a courier company with appetite for growth and an outstanding USP: When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. The rest is history.
- Finding a consistently good blend of coffee especially for espresso-based drinks is not an easy task. But there is a solution. Illy Coffee is well on its way to become the first global brand coffee in the world. Their marketing is based around: outstanding taste, authentic Italian experience in every cup, the choice of connoisseurs and coffee lovers.
Your USP is the distilled essence of what you are offering and what your company is about. Your USP should be so compelling that it can be written on a board in front of your shop, if you had one, and can be quoted when meeting potential customers.
How to create a USP? Follow me step by step as we create a USP for a slimming herbal tea.
Step 1: Write down the list of benefits that your product/service offers
They could be centred around your price, technical excellence, taste, specialism, exclusivity.
Think about the end result your customer wants from such a product. The best way is to pair each feature of your product with the benefit it brings. So let’s illustrate…
The new Slim Pam is a great tasting product. Is that enough? No. Let’s dig deeper.
It is 100% natural, organic, acts fast, one has to eat reasonably but no dieting is required while taking the product, has a nice taste, uses roses from the famous Valley of the Roses, it is easy to use as it is offered as a tea and it has a long-lasting effect. Which three of these will you choose? Stay with me for the answer below.
Step 2: Quick market research
Sit down at your computer and find out who your most prominent competitors are. What are they saying on their web sites, in their marketing materials, in their ads? Which benefits do they emphasise? What are their messages?
Again, try to match product features to their stated benefits. Once you compare your own notes to competitor messages it will be easy to fine tune your own positioning so you have a unique voice against the rest of the market.
Step 3: Look at areas of underperformance or customer needs/pain points in your industry
Which of these are addressed by your product? Make sure your USP ties in with a market need. In our example, most people who want to lose weight, go through different diets and exercising routines. Very often, after the diet is over, they regain weight. And most people don’t have the self-discipline to stick to the diet or go to the gym regularly. So Slim Pam offers a more effortless way to lose weight and has longer effect.
Step 4: Strengthen your claims, if you can
Do you have some proof, testimonials, research results to overcome the apathy and scepticism of today’s over-marketed consumer? In our example, Slim Pam was developed by a medical doctor doing research and has been used since the early 1970s in Europe.
Step 5: Synthesise your USP into one to two sentences
Write down and rework versions until it sounds right. Don’t assume you will do it in one sitting. The USP should answer the customer’s question “why should I choose your product?”
One possible version of Slim Pam’s USP could then be: Fast-acting and easy to prepare slimming tea with long-lasting effect.
These are the mechanics illustrated with a simple example and they will help you define the USP but let’s continue looking for more ideas.
If your company is more than 20 years old there must be interesting angles in its history. How was it started? Who started it? What was their thinking and philosophy? Any memorable dates? Any past or current celebrity or famous person using/used the your products in the past? If you are a multibrand company, and you are managing/supporting one of them, where did the brand originate? What was the original vision? Why did the brand succeed?
As an illustration, look through the Jim Beam European campaigns of the last five years. They are a brilliant example of weaving a USP into a heritage theme.
Or for a comprehensive example of a USP used throughout all types of corporate materials, go to www.accenture.com and look at the materials aimed at different internal and external audiences.
Your USP is not a simple slogan or tagline. It is the mainstay, the common thread of all your communications and no message should go out from your business without your USP in it, or emphasising one of the elements of your USP.
Your USP will spark interest and single you out as the best choice in the eyes of your investors, customers and employees.
About the Author
Roderic Michelson is a growth expert for Aralex Consulting Ltd. Roderic’s expertise is in being able to assess quickly a company’s growth potential, as well as areas for improvement. Working closely with his clients, he helps them prepare and implement a project plan to position them for sustained growth.
Roderic holds an MBA from London Business School. He is author of “The Recession-Fighting Guide” and publishes the Business Growth Blog. Roderic is also frequent speaker to professional groups across London.
Roderic can be contacted at: rm@aralex.co.uk / www.aralex.co.uk.
7 Tips for Hiring the Right Social Media Manager
August 1, 2011
Decided you need a social media manager? Jeff Herbst has some pointers for how to hire the right person…
With Facebook valued at around $100 billion, Twitter and LinkedIn valued at around $8 billion a piece, and Google jumping into the social game, it is official: Social media is exploding.
It is no longer possible to ignore or deny the value that social media can have for your company or brand. It allows you to connect and interact with consumers in a genuine way that was never before possible.
It is real, and if you haven’t yet incorporated social media into your marketing strategy, you had better start soon. But you can’t simply jump on Twitter and start tweeting. It takes a comprehensive strategy to make social media work for your company.
Hiring a qualified social media manager is a great place to start. Here are seven tips for making sure you hire the right social media manager to handle your company’s social strategy:
1. Check their previous work
The right social media manager will be able to prove they can walk the walk. Like any other branch of your marketing strategy, social media has some well established success metrics. Facebook Insights provides daily feedback for the performance and growth of your brand’s reach. Facebook’s ad platform comes complete with a robust reporting system that calculates conversions and ROI. Twitter tracks followers, retweets and mentions.
A worthwhile social media manager will be able to point to previous work and illustrate how they were able to accomplish company ROI goals with a comprehensive social media strategy. Ask to see all of their work and the relevant metrics to prove that they have done more then set up a fan page and post the occasional tweet.
2. Ensure they have broad experience
The right social media manager must have broad and varied competencies. Managing social media will be a combination of advertising, community management, customer support, PR, crisis management, reporting and analytics. For this reason, you will want a jack-of-all-trades in the marketing sense. He or she must be able to handle it all, and all at once.
3. Look for traditional marketing experience
You may be looking for a social media manager, but you still want somebody who has a traditional marketing background. In order for them to understand your corporate goals and how social media fits your existing strategy, they should have experience that clues them in to the intricacies of managing a brand outside of social media. In other words, your social media manager must be more than a youngster who spends an obscene amount of time on Facebook.
4. Make sure they have social influence
Perhaps the most important success indicator is social influence. It takes more than regular posts to really develop social reach and engagement. You need a professional who has taken a company or brand and helped it establish real social influence.
Do a Klout check to see what they are made of. If the candidate’s past experience, or better yet their personal social brand, does not show a good influence ranking, they are probably not somebody you should entrust with your social strategy.
5. Are they versatile and current?
As good as a candidate’s previous strategies were, they might not be appropriate for your brand. Social media is, above all else, a dynamic and rapidly evolving industry. The right candidate will demonstrate adaptability and a love for unleashing the next great tactic. When interviewing, ask the candidate what his or her favorite new innovation is and how they would use it with your brand. Ask them about a recent Facebook platform change and what they think of it. Make sure they have a passion for being on the cutting edge and in the know.
6. Are they connected?
Another simple, yet great indicator that a candidate is right for your company is whom they are connected to in the social media world. You will want somebody that rubs elbows with other social media experts and stays in close contact with other innovators in the industry. Peruse their social network profiles and see who they have been talking and working with. As the old adage says, tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.
7. Look for social grace
Last but not least, make sure your social media manager is in fact social. At its core, social media is marketing socially. A manger will be interacting with customers daily. Does the candidate come across as friendly and outgoing, or shy and hesitant? Chances are, a candidate blessed with social grace will be a more successful social media manager. After doing your own research, trust your instincts on this one.
Thanks, Jeff!
Jeff Herbst is a marketing strategist for MBA@UNC, the University of North Carolina, which allows students to receive an MBA online from a Businessweek top twenty ranked program. Outside of work he is an avid reader and kayaker.
Localization, Communication and the Corporate Website
July 19, 2011
I invited Emma Bartouche, from Applied Language Solutions, to write a post for us about some of the issues involved in creating multilingual websites.
How Well Does Your Website Travel?
When a leading entrepreneur contacted Applied Language Solutions about website translation, it probably came as a complete surprise to him that his content management system (CMS) didn’t support multilingual content.
Sometimes it is the blatantly obvious details that get overlooked, or it could well be that online marketing is not your forte. But for whatever reason, this is a classic example of this all too common mistake of website localization being an afterthought of the business.
Most businesses worth their salt realize that if your website is to compete with its peers internationally, website translation and SEO are a crucial part of your online strategy. Whether tackling it in-house or enlisting the help of an agency, if you are looking to introduce your website to foreign markets you need to be sure that the money you invest stands you in good stead to compete against the existing competition. Just because one set of keywords performs well in one country doesn’t mean the same words translated into the target language will perform so well. For example a producer of homemade jam might want to use the word jelly in the U.S.
Once you have ensured the CMS and back-end functionality will stand up to the demands of multiple languages and different scripts, the focus needs to be drawn to what’s on the page. As former German Chancellor, Willy Brandt once said:
“if I’m selling to you, I speak your language – If I’m buying, ‘dann muessen Sie Deutsch sprechen’ then you must speak German.”
I could quote a string of high profile case studies where literal translation of a brand’s corporate motto or product name has caused several red faces, but rather than make light of other companies misfortunes I’d rather draw your attention to the issues that need to be considered when emerging into new markets.
You may remember several years ago HSBC commissioned a number of TV ads which showed social faux pas and cultural differences abroad. The examples were humorous, but seemingly innocent mistakes can result in long lasting brand damage, leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of your target market.
To get off on the right foot it is essential you get your on page copy translated by a professional linguist who understands the genre of your brand and/or products; mainly because some markets require specialist understanding of the subject matter. Not to name names but when a popular IT company released its new tablet laptop in to the French market, the last thing the company wanted to be associated with was headache tablets!
To summarize, whether your online knowledge is in the know or just a ‘no’, here is a list of key considerations when branching out:
- Will the CMS support multilingual and ‘right to left’ content?
- Is the on-page copy optimized for the correct keywords in the target market?
- Could the on-page copy cause offence in any way?
- Is the website complying with cultural norms?
Thanks Emma!
Emma Bertouche is a Online Marketing Executive who takes a keen interest in social media, SEO, blogging and other online related topics. She currently works in the language translations market and writes for several websites and blogs. For more information or to enquire about getting your on and off line content translated visit www.appliedlanguage.com
How should CEOs Engage with Social Media
June 16, 2011
A guest post today from Jerry Burrows: if you have a CEO who is keen to embrace social media, how would you advise them?
How Should CEOs Engage With Social Media?
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
Source
Forbes’ article, ‘Yes, CEOs should Facebook and Twitter’, provides a sound argument for why CEOs should abandon their traditional prejudices toward social media and hop on the bandwagon.
The idea certainly has the support of “Web 2.0 evangelists [who] argue that social software can be used to boost productivity. They say it can facilitate an open-ended corporate culture that values transparency, collaboration and innovation. Most important, it can be an effective way to build a customer-centric organization that not only communicates authentically but also listens to customers and learns from that interaction.”
Blogs and social media can facilitate that genuine conversation between CEOs and customers–and encourage those customers to become brand evangelists.
If you need one example of how company CEOs can use social media to their advantage, look no further than Tony Hsieh, founder and CEO of online shoe and clothing retailer Zappos. Hsieh’s Twitter following is massive. He has just under 2 million followers–clearly, the man tweets hard. And Zappos is a more than successful enterprise for the 37-year-old entrepreneur: it sells about a billion dollars worth of shoes and accessories a year. (And Tony’s not the only one who tweets; at least 440 other employees do, too.) There’s even a dedicated microsite. So how can you replicate his success? How is it done?
Be Careful
Yes, the goal is transparency, affability, and authenticity. But there are limits to that kind of sharing, too. Be casual, but if your personal life is especially tumultuous, you may want to leave the details out. The golden rule? Don’t speak ill of anyone. No, not your competitors, either. Recall the social PR disaster that occurred in 2007 when Whole Foods CEO John Mackey made comments on various finance forums under a pseudonym attacking rival company Wild Oats Markets, and predicting that it would fall into bankruptcy. The result was a permanent tarnish on the Whole Foods brand image.
Don’t Spam
In an interview with Kevin Morris for Wikinomics, Zappos’s Recruiting Manager, Christa Foley, writes:
“It wouldn’t be in our culture to be salesy/pushy so we’re not using Twitter to promote Zappos just for the sake of promoting Zappos. We’re using it for what I think it was intended, which is a social network that we all enjoy.”
If you want to follow in the successful footsteps of Zappos, make your interactions on Twitter and Facebook as genuine as possible by avoiding spammy language. Use your microblogging platform to post useful links about topics that relate to your industry, reply to questions from inquisitive customers (or direct them to the appropriate source), handle customer service requests, etc. Transparency is key; other potential customers that come across your social media profile will be able to view and appraise your customer service dealings without the traditional barrier of secrecy.
Show Leadership
As the CEO, you’re the face of your company. Remember that you’re also setting an example for the rest of your employees. That means that you should use your social networks to remedy problems and address widely-held customer concerns. No, it’s not the same as indiscriminately airing out your dirty laundry; but it helps to keep your brand’s image fresh and timely. Moreover, don’t be afraid to link to blogs and press releases that quote you as an authority. Encourage others to take actions on a social issue that is important to you.
Celebrate Your Fans
The Zappos brand likes to give their fans recognition for their loyalty. Hold contests and competitions for your followers (maybe something to the tune of how many followers can you get to follow you), call out loyal retweeters, etc. It’ll make them more appreciative, and know that they’re the center of your brand. Ask them for their input and they’ll feel appreciated–turning them into even more passionate advocates in the end.
About the Author: Jerry Burrows is a freelance writer for Tektronix. Tektronix is a leading supplier of test and measurement equipment like a digital multimeter or a pulse generator.
Get our updates
 |