If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, then an effective direct marketing sales conversion video can be worth 10,000. Online Video Marketing Deep Dive shows how fusing direct marketing with video marketing delivers sales. As technology has driven fundamental changes in direct marketing, Gary Hennerberg has successfully transferred traditional direct marketing principles to emerging new media. An author, speaker, strategist, copywriter, and analytics pro, he founded marketing consultancy Hennerberg Group, Inc., in 1992. Email him below or follow Gary on LinkedIn.
Co-authoring this blog is Perry Alexander of Success Messenger Group. Alexander’s passion is conveying information clearly and compellingly. He is a veteran marketing strategist, copy editor, design pro and video producer. Hennerberg and Alexander have worked together since 1996. They integrate direct marketing methodology with online video and other marketing applications for end-to-end, strategy-to-roll-out initiatives. Follow Perry on LinkedIn.
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We've achieved success by telling a story, in increments over time, using online video as the central messaging delivery vehicle.
Think of reading a book. The story is divided into chapters to help the reader know where one part of the story begins and ends, and each part leads to the next. Once all consumed, the entire story comes together with the sum being greater than the parts.
(If the video isn't just above this line, click here to view it.)
In our last blog post, we introduced the concept of giving purpose to email, social media and other channels. We shared a marketing make-over that resulted in a sales increase of 20 percent. If you missed part one where we explain the importance of purpose, we encourage you to watch it now.
The three elements of the strategy we talk about in today's video include:
Successful direct marketing should have purpose every time you reach out to connect with your installed base of customers or followers. Your email, social media and other channels can be transformed from a screaming "Buy me now! Here's a discount! We can change your life!" campaign to "you'll learn more about how the product is made" or "we'd like to earn your trust so get to know us better" or "take a behind-the-scenes look" or other transformational marketing messages.
Softer? Yes. And in our culture today, we've seen, firsthand, that it's more effective.
A campaign that has purpose gives you permission for frequency.
A word about frequency: Like many of you, I've been in direct marketing for a long time. Whenever I'd hear that the secret sauce to making radio and television advertising a success was frequency, I'd roll my eyes.
You may look at the frequency pitch as just an excuse for radio and TV folks to sell more time and run up your cost. As direct marketers, we believe that if we mail an offer once, we'll get most of the response in that first effort. Rarely does a second mailing produce more than the first mailing.
But we've learned the online space is different. When your message has purpose, with a story built through the use of video, it generates a reason for your touch points to become more frequent.
In the case history that we describe in today's video blog, you'll learn that we were fearful that frequency might result in email open and click-through declining. But the opposite happened. Once hooked, people looked forward to the next email or social media post to hear the continuation of the story. In fact, open and click-through rates increased substantially over what had been done in the past and those levels were maintained throughout the campaign.
Social media engagement soared because frequent posts meant friends shared the video with their friends. The Facebook metrics and reports that are available are a direct marketer's dream. We were able to measure the viral effect of our video beyond our core group of fans.
With email and social media costs being relatively low, it means that with frequency your installed base of customers or followers spread your message on your behalf. And if you don't have a large number of customers or followers, you can build that list faster with video.
The third key concept is a paradigm shift for those of us who are classically trained direct marketers. Over the years, we've always known that an offer of "free with purchase," would increase response. Today we challenge you to shift "free with purchase," to simply "free." You may have heard it referred to as "content marketing." Giving content away invites a prospective customer to build trust in you. Videos can tell the story of how your product is developed or you can interview real customers telling their real stories and testimonials.
In today's video, we explain how giving away a 99 cent value item in exchange for a $56 average order increased sales by 20 percent.
With online tools and technology, you can create stories that are delivered on video. You'll give purpose to email, social media and other vehicles. You will have permission from your installed base of customers and followers to contact them frequently. And when you give away something of value, you build trust and allow them to be more confident in their decision to purchase. When you combine purpose, frequency and free, it can transform and turnaround marketing approaches that are fatiguing or in a rut.
Also in today's video, we share with you several ideas about topics you can use to create your own series of videos. If you're struggling with ideas of how you'd use video using these three principles, tell us about your product or service in the comments below, or contact us directly. And for our loyal followers, we'll freely share our ideas via email or a conference call of how a video series could make sense for you to engage your customers, donors or prospects.
In our next blog post, we'll explain how to build your story, chapter-by-chapter so you can maximize the purpose/frequency/free content strategy.
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