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Digital Marketing

5 Live Video Marketing Tips

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January 15, 2019

- Digital Marketing

In the last few years, live-stream video apps have emerged as the shiny new toy in the marketing toy box. First it was Periscope and now we have Facebook Live and many other apps. It's the same idea behind them, enabling anyone with a mobile device to broadcast and share life’s experiences live. As with any new medium, marketers are quick to get on the action so they're marketing where their customers are. 

 

They will also puff out their chests as early adopters. There is nothing wrong with brands or agencies recognizing the possibilities of these apps and wanting to be quick to reach their customers, but we would like to preach caution. Substance is important. Strategy is important.

 

Don’t just add to the fire hose of live content, add substance to it. Create content opportunities that separate yourself from your competitors. Make sure the content is relevant to your brand and creates exciting ways for your customers to engage.

 

Below is a short list of live-stream video marketing tips that can help brands engage with customers in ways that, until recently, were not possible.

 

Tod Meisner

 

Product Demos 

Live streaming of product demos is an extraordinarily effective method for boosting conversions. These apps offer the possibility to change the way webinars are consumed by allowing users to save and view the videos on demand, specifically with Periscope. Customers in the consideration stage may want to view your product several times before moving to the decision stage. While services such as EasyWebinar also allow you to save webinars and videos for a later date, they come with an annual fee that you may not want to pay.

 

Hosting Interviews 

Conducting interviews can go a long way in building your brand image. If you are interacting positively with other experts in your field or even customers, your brand will be looked upon more favorably. Tap into these sources and give customers an opportunity to hold a dialogue with your brand.

 

Q&A Sessions

Piggybacking off the last tip, Q&A sessions are another way to communicate directly with your customers. These sessions are a great way to clarify any points of confusion that may be negatively weighing on your brand and is another sign of brand transparency. Live-stream apps also allow for a more organized Q&A session than say a Twitter chat or forum, which have character limits and timing inconsistencies. For these sessions, brands can again choose subject matter experts that will deliver clear and educated messages to your customers.

 

 

Behind-The-Scenes Access

Exclusive, behind-the-scenes content is one of the most significant ways these apps can give brands an edge. Trade shows are still a major player for many brands. Live-stream video apps can give customers around the world an up-close and personal view of major trade shows where your brand is featured. You can also feature “how it’s made” type videos. These will show customers the ins and outs of your product from a point of view that may have otherwise been hard to showcase.

 

Improve Transparency

Lack of trust has traditionally been a problem that brands face when trying to market to customers online. The trend appears to be shifting as brands engage better with customers over social media. Companies must still work hard to earn their customers’ trust. Using live video can help with transparency. You will be seeing the face of and speaking directly to brand representatives. This will help build customer trust. I can't stress enough that adding substance is critically important when considering how to integrate live-video content.

 

Brands today should think strategically about whether live-streaming adds any benefit to their marketing efforts. I've help craft ways to help brands seamlessly integrate the power of this new medium with traditional forms of media and advertisement that has produced great results. If you want to learn more, drop me a line!

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Digital Marketing

Content Strategy is the New Creative

By on

March 11, 2018

- Digital Marketing

My posts routinely talk about the shifts occurring in the marketing world. We often discuss how companies are shifting from traditional marketing to inbound marketing, or how an Inbound Marketing Agency can help you integrate the two. We also discuss how we’ve modeled our teams differently than most to handle these ever changing demands.

 

In fact, if you look at our blog roll for the past 18 months, many of the posts discuss practical ways businesses and brands can implement inbound marketing or pieces of the inbound methodology into their marketing plans. That said, what’s the one constant theme in these blogs…content. And what makes your content stand out and help you win new business and meet your marketing goals? A killer content strategy.

 

Tod Meisner

 

Strategy Is Key

We’ve never come right out and said it, but we are today. Content, and more importantly a great content strategy, is the new creative. We help our clients differentiate themselves from their competitors by producing effective content and applying inbound practices to their traditional methods to help fuel a monster marketing plan.

 

We’ve seen it work for ourselves as we’ve built Verge Pipe Media using these principles and we preach it to our clients consistently. Those who deliver valuable, relevant information in compelling, engaging and even entertaining ways make their prospects smarter and help them make meaningful connections and win the day.

 

The Numbers Don’t Lie

In a recent report by Custom Content Council, the number of CMOs who believe that content marketing is the future of their world has nearly doubled in the last five years. Moreover, their research showed that decision makers increasingly prefer customized educational content from a company in a series of articles over a creative advertisement.

 

If corporate buyers have become hungrier for relevant information in making important purchase decisions, is it any surprise that they are looking for ways to bypass irrelevant, interruption-based marketing to get to the heart of what really matters to them?

 

We Don’t Do That, We Do This

We often tell prospects, if you want to kill trees for glossy print ads, brochures, and pamphlets, or buy time on radio or TV, we’re not the agency for you. What we can do for you is leverage those content pieces in a strategic and synchronized content marketing strategy that can help guide your customers during the buyer’s journey.

 

We’re leading the way in East Alabama and West Georgia with our content strategy and inbound methodology. Our retained clients all know the importance of content to their marketing strategy and will tell you how valuable our ideas have been. In fact, they now “drink the kool-aid” and often speak in inbound terms and also provide us with testimonials on how our tactics have worked for them.

 

Tod Meisner

 

What’s This Content Look Like

We’ve been talking about the importance for content and a content strategy, and you may now want to know what this content looks like. Or rather, what forms in which it is delivered. We’re glad you asked because it is really quite simple. We produce content for ourselves and for clients in the form of:

eNewsletters

Blogs

Case Studies

Events

White Papers

Videos

Webinars

Surveys

 

 

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

The best part about creating killer content and implementing a killer content strategy is it then becomes that gift that keeps on giving. It can be re-purposed across many media platforms. A whitepaper can become a webinar, an article or a video. Blogs and eNewsletters can be shared and featured on social media. Each idea can be transformed into many different types of content so that you can leverage all audiences.

 

They’ll keep hearing from us that boring, dull information will go over about as well as Tony Bennett opening for Kanye West. So, they will have to embrace the fact that engaging, entertaining and sharable content is what will attract the right customers.

 

Trust Me

It’s time for marketers to stop worrying about their next campaign and look to leverage an overall content strategy to impact their brand. If they publish compelling and timely insights in all the right places, synchronized for maximum impact, it will become part of their brand, establish them as thought leaders in their industry and ultimately help to drive business. 

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Career Growth

5 Reasons To Start Blogging Today

By on

August 16, 2017

- Career Growth

You have all these great ideas floating around in your head don’t you? Oftentimes so many of those ideas wake you up during the night, so you jot them down in your phone or on a notepad. Raise your hand if this has happened to you. Have you thought about blogging?

 

How many of you spend your time commenting on stories or having discussions on Twitter? Don’t you wish you had a more long-form outlet to formulate your thoughts? Have you thought about blogging? Well, start a blog!

 

“What a great idea,” you say, right? Followed by “how the heck do I get started?” Or you may say, “nobody will read what I have to say.”

 

There’s so much information out there on the web and so many opinions being posted each day. How will I stand out? Who will listen to me? How do I even get started? I don’t really even have the time to blog. Blah, blah, blah.

 

Don’t let all these questions or doubts hold hold you back. I have a good friend who is battling this right now (you know who I’m talking about Brett!) In trying to figure out a way to kick his ass in gear, I decided to write this blog in the hopes it spurs him into action.

 

If along the way I turn on the green light for someone else, well that will be a bonus. I’ve been blogging for slightly over two years and I didn’t know much about doing it when I began. But I needed an outlet, so I simply set up a WordPress site and off I went. I promise that blogging can be simple and relatively easy. It can also be very rewarding.

 

Below are my five reasons to start blogging today.

 

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Setup is Easy

Choosing where you want to build a blog is the first step you have to take and shouldn’t be a deterrent. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’ve heard of WordPress.

 

This is where I host my blog and I suggest that you do as well. WordPress is one of the biggest platforms in the world with more than 82 million active users. The platform is simple to use with countless plug-ins and add-ons. It offers tons of themes and layouts, plus there’s a massive support forum if you ever get stuck. Your blog will look sleek and functional, it will allow people to interact with you easily and your content can be shared, commented on, and so on.

 

Medium is also a very popular content platform, as you should know by now if you follow Front Office Sports. The platform allows anyone to publish pretty much anything and it works hard to guarantee that visitors only see good stuff. Medium is built to reward content for its quality and even if you decide to build a blog on WordPress, it’s worth also posting your blogs on Medium to help with exposure.

 

Connections/Networking

If you’ve been reading my recent blog posts, you should by now know the importance of networking. Working to connect with people and learning from their experiences and friendships is vital to your career development. It also is an important factor when blogging.

 

Blogging about your thoughts and ideas allows you to share these thoughts with others in your network. It helps to strengthen existing bonds and expose you to new opportunities.

 

You should always look to nurture and expand your network and there’s no better way than to do it through blog writing. As you begin to blog more often and have more discussions with your network, you won’t ever have to worry about running out of topics. There should always be topics and ideas percolating in your head that make for perfect blog content.

 

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Research/Learning

Another positive aspect of blogging is very often you need to do extra research on a topic or topics before you begin to write about them. I’ve stressed this before, but continuing to learn throughout your life is a must. You can never let yourself feel like you know it all. Trust me, you don’t.

 

Reading, researching and learning should be constants as you get older. Exposing yourself to new ideas, stats and ways of thinking will only make you smarter. It can also help you meet new people and expand your network. Consider joining a book club or exchange. This kills two birds with one stone and allows you to read and meet new people.

 

It will most likely expose you to new ways of thinking and options which at first may be different from yours currently, but will change your perspective and open your eyes to new idea. Then you can apply what you’ve learning into a new series of blog topics.

 

Share Your Expertise

Blogging is an excellent outlet for sharing your expertise on various topics and getting those swirling thoughts out of your head. Do you often feel like you want to contribute to a topic but don’t have the platform? Do you feel like your comments are getting swallowed up on other platforms?

 

Starting a blog gives you that place to tell your story and give your side. Don’t worry about if anyone will read it, or if you show up in search or even if someone else has written about the topic 100 times. If it is an outlet for you to write and write about things you feel passionate about, do it. You won’t regret sharing your expertise through your blog.

 

IMG_0541

 

Writing Is Good

Writing reduces stress. Getting those thoughts out of your head is a good thing. Writing these things down helps to shrink them to a point where they are life-sized and manageable. Writing also is empowering in that way.

 

When we can manage our thoughts, ideas and other items into well-written blog, it can make navigating life much easier. There is research out there that believes blogging might trigger the release of dopamine in the brain, similar to stimulants generated by activities like running, listening to music or playing video games.

 

Having a platform to express yourself, as well as the ability to connect with other individuals experiencing similar circumstances, is not only therapeutic but allows for an added sense of community and empathy. Whether it is reducing stress, changing your state of happiness or making you more self-aware, writing ultimately changes your mind. Which in turn can change your life!

 

If nothing else, writing a blog will remind you that no one else is the author of your story. So get off your ass and set up that blog today. Tell the story you were born to tell.

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