Posts Tagged ‘branding’

Considering Using Video to Promote Your Business? Here Are a Few Things to Consider First

Marketing, Online Video, Uncategorized | Posted by Larry Greenberg
Feb 03 2012
Matt Lagle, Boonedog Video

Matt Lagle, Boonedog Video

Video is a powerful tool for promoting businesses, said Matt Lagle, founder of Boonedog Video, at February’s Westchester Web Presence meeting,  but it had better be part of a broader communications strategy.
Formerly a director on the long-running CBS daytime drama, “The Guiding Light,” Matt described how small to mid-sized businesses can succeed – or miss the boat – when creating promotional spots.

 

  • Businesses sometimes opt for the least expensive option at their own peril.  Some local cable stations, for example, will shoot a video advertisement for free in exchange for an ad buy. Typically, however, stations won’t media training and script-writing in that package.  If the business owner chooses to be the on air spokesperson and isn’t properly coached, the results can undermine both the message and the credibility of the brand.

 

  • Businesses need to make video part of a broader web presence.  If a company is prepared to invest thousands of dollars in making a video and securing air time, it should also have a professional looking website and active social media accounts where customers can go to learn more and interact.  If you’re going to ask consumers to take a next step with a TV ad, enable them to take that next step online.

 

  • Don’t forget the SEO benefit.  Online video, whether embedded into a website or hosted on a YouTube channel, can help position a business higher in search engine rankings.

 

  • A professional video producer should provide a business owner with objective, experienced counsel. This includes recommending how best to present the company’s story through compelling images and narrative, as well as collaborating with other members of a business’ marketing team to ensure consistent branding.

 

  • Video producers must also media train business owners and employees for their video appearances – or be frank enough to dissuade them from serving as on-air spokespeople if doing so would ultimately undercut the video’s intended message.

 

If you’re interested in learning more about Matt Lagle, visit Boonedogvideo.com.

If you’d like to hear about future Westchester Web Presence events, visit Westchester Web Presence.

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More Small Businesses See Value of Websites

Audience Engagement, Branding, Internet, Marketing, Public Relations | Posted by Larry Greenberg
Oct 06 2010

Small businesses are finally beginning to appreciate the value of having a website, if recent surveys are any indication.

In late 2009, Ad-ology, a marketing and advertising research firm, conducted a survey that found that 46 percent of small businesses did not have a website.

Only six months later, another report sponsored by Network Solutions and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, indicated that about 67 percent of small businesses plan to have a website by mid 2012. That same report said small businesses don’t plan to abandon their website in favor of a social media-only approach.  Instead, 30 percent of those who use social media said social media is the reason they intend to spend more on their websites.

Another study by American City Business Journals (ACBJ) of over 1700 small and medium businesses (SMB) found that those whose owners are more involved with the Internet overall enjoy a greater market share than their less web-engaged owners.

Search engines have become the ultimate business reference desk.  People seeking information about an important product or service purchase will conduct an online search, hoping to learn more about their subject, as well as available providers and, if possible, those providers’ credibility.  Businesses that don’t have websites risk being defined by others – or worse, not found at all.  The days of letting your fingers do the walking through the yellow pages or dialing 4-1-1 are over.

Websites enable small businesses to do the following:

  • Describe concisely what the business does, its intended customers, and the problems and needs it solves
  • Build credibility by presenting information that underscores its expertise and conveys its integrity
  • Showcase a unique brand, helping to convey the company’s personality, and the set of attributes that set it apart from the competition
  • Establish a direct communications channel that allows prospects to contact the business directly, while those prospects are in the process of making a purchasing decision;  it’s also a platform for facilitating customer care
So what are the first steps for business owners who may be undertaking the creation of a website?  That will be the topic of the next post.

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Internet Marketing: Assuming the Mindset of a Media Company

Audience Engagement, Branding, Internet, Marketing, Public Relations | Posted by Larry Greenberg
Sep 27 2010

“Every company is a media company,” says Tom Foremski, the former Financial Times journalist.

Foremski is the force behind The Silicon Valley Watcher, which follows the business of technology and media. He also has a new website called, suitably enough, Every Company is a Media Company.  Foremski writes regularly about how the Internet, social networks and other types of digital media have radically changed the way we communicate – consumer to consumer, business to consumer, business to business.

Regardless of an organization’s size and structure – e.g., S-Corp., local service provider, or a multi-divisional international corporation – having a credible web presence has become essential to marketing and sales.   As I recently told a group of small business owners at the Mount Vernon Business Expo, a company’s strategy need not be extravagant.  In developing a strategy, however, businesses can benefit by assuming a mindset that is similar to that of a media company:  How can I be of use to my visitors?  What kind of information do they want and need?   By acting as a media company would, brands can build credibility and good will with target audiences and increase the frequency with which it engages prospects and customers.  Behaving like a media company means also abandoning the hard-sell and offering one’s expert advice without the expectation of a reciprocal sale.  The paradox, of course, is that the goal of such selflessness will lead to more sales in the future.

The financial barriers to web marketing are typically pretty low.  The time barriers – the amount of time that must be continually invested for a successful program – can be high.   Posts in the weeks to come will be written for the online marketing novice – the business owner or organization director seeking to understand the basics of creating a web presence and what type of investments, monetary and otherwise, are required.  I hope others who have already initiated Internet marketing programs will share their thoughts as well.

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Appealing to the Youngest Common Denominator

Audience Demographics, Branding, Film, Internet, Marketing, Media, Online Video, Television | Posted by Larry Greenberg
Aug 11 2009

New York Times film reviewer A.O. Scott recently lamented Hollywood’s reliance on formulaic juvenility.  Just look at this summer’s crop of sequels, comic-book based adventures and bawdy comedies. For Scott, the issue wasn’t whether they were financially successful – many were – but whether box office success means movie-goers actually liked what they saw.

Cinemas continue to attract audiences, despite countless other entertainment options. It could be that unlike professional movie critics,  ticket buyers, both young and old, enjoy what the studios are offering. It could also be that going to a movie theater is still a relatively inexpensive (if you forgo the super combo at the concession stand), immersive and social experience. It’s a good excuse to get out of the house. For many, it would take a record string of stinkers to break their movie-going habit.

Scott’s wish that Hollywood give more original, mature and complex films a chance to find an audience has been echoed by many.  I share the sentiment. I would probably go to the theater more often if only there were more interesting choices.  But the studio statisticians aren’t about to ignore numbers like these: According to a 2007 MPAA Movie Attendance Study, “although 12-24 year-olds represent 22% of the total population in the United States, they represent 27% of all moviegoers and 41% of all frequent moviegoers.”   No surprise that the teenager perspective totally rules.

Scott is not the only one to recently express unhappiness with Hollywood’s long-accepted youth marketing strategy. Late night talk show host Craig Ferguson recently railed in his monologue against television advertisers, their obsession with the young adult demo, and how this is the reason why many shows tend to be sophomoric or, as he puts it, “why everything sucks.”

You can view Craig Ferguson’s monologue here:

The conventional wisdom, established by the television advertising industry some time back in the 1950s, is that young audiences are most valued because they represent an opportunity to build a lifetime brand relationship. Television programming executives, therefore, must design shows to reel them in; to do otherwise would be innovative, but possibly career-ending, risk-taking.

Can we expect studios and networks to continue to cater to the tastes of a young audience at the expense of the older demographic?  Or will the emerging economics of the online world enable new opportunities for producers to serve the diverse tastes of a chronologically broader audience?

Decades after U.S. homes began being wired, cable networks finally began to deliver programming with the sophistication, interwoven plotting and nuanced character development of a great novel.  Premium networks like HBO broke the mold with The Sopranos and Six Feet Under, and now the basic cable networks have followed suit with such series as Mad Men and Breaking Bad.

Online “television,” which is associated typically with user-generated content, is often accused of celebrating juvenility.  As the technology grows up, it’ll develop into a platform that better serves a broader demographic. And then, who knows? If the quality of the content is good enough, some people might be willing to pay for it.

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MySpace and Facebook: The Ups and Downs of Social Media Companies

Branding, Internet, Social Media | Posted by Larry Greenberg
Jun 12 2009

In 2005, Rupert Murdoch was regarded as a genius for scooping up MySpace for $580 million, besting media rival Sumner Redstone in the process.  Murdoch is now being second-guessed. This week the social media giant announced plans to cut about 420 employees – about 30% – of its U.S. staff and 450 employees – about two-thirds – of its international force.  There is speculation about the possibility that Redstone can now step in and purchase MySpace at what is now considered a relative bargain for the site — $1 billion.

According to eMarketer, in May 2009 Facebook topped MySpace as the most popular social networking site in the United States. And although as of April 2009 MySpace still led with almost 47 percent of the social networking advertising space, a Crain’s article refers to an eMarketer prediction that MySpace’s ad revenue will decline 15% this year to $495 million, while Facebook will see a 10% ad revenue increase to $230 million.

So for the moment, anyway, Facebook has overtaken MySpace as social media’s BMOC. Who will claim that title four years from now? Twitter? Or a yet-to-be identified company now incubating in some Silicon Valley garage or Silicon Alley loft? Or MySpace, once again?

Popular tastes can be fickle, after all, so how can a brand or company achieve a relatively permanent dominance in the social media space?

San Jose Mercury News’ Scott Duke Harris wrote an excellent piece last week discussing Facebook’s future, “Planet Facebook: Is social networking site a phenomenon or fad?” He cites the company’s purported vision to make the terms “social connecting” and “Facebook” synonyms, just as Google became the verb for search.  More than 10,000 websites are now compatible with Facebook Connect, he notes, an easy way to sign on and provide chat feeds, videos, photos and other items to participating web sites.  The Twitter-Facebook connection is a fine example of the benefits that such interactivity adds to the online experience.

In addition to interactivity and ease-of-use, communications platforms rely on the network effect; the more users in the network, the more value that is provided to each customer in that network.  Verizon Wireless and countless other mobile phone companies hammer this point through their advertising.

But phone companies are able to lock consumers into costly contracts because they control the means of distribution; social networking brands don’t.  People can join, quit or ignore MySpace and Facebook at will.  Survival also depends not necessarily on the number of users, but the quality and value of those users to each other – something that LinkedIn does reasonably well for business professionals.

As MySpace restructures and, possibly, rebrands, perhaps it will focus its energies on what it already does best: being one of the best independently-produced music, film and comedy destinations on the web.

It’s tough being all things to all people.

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