Article: Multimedia Marketing

Multimedia Marketing

OK so you've got a business and skills you're proud of and want to be even more successful with. You've heard about Social Marketing, Facebook and Twitter and are tweeting away and you've got a website, right? Well I'm hoping you have, but more importantIy I hope that you understand what each part is for.

You see the reality is that many businesses, small and large, may be doing these things without really understanding why. How do we know this? well we've been building marketing websites for many years and have a range of clients including many well know therapists in the UK and abroad. We also deal with larger businesses and organisations, and it's often the same story there too. Over 80% of our clients came to us having previously had less than pleasing IT experiences and so we've been able to see how people can have all the right ingredients and yet still get things wrong. The good news is we help them get it right and we're going to share some of these insights with you now.

The First Question We Ask

Whoever the client is, whether they are starting from scratch or evolving an existing website, we always ask the same question: "What is the purpose of your website?". You may be surprised how many people are stumped by this question. Most people assume the purpose of a website is to "get more clients", isn't it? Well that may be one of the goals but they often miss out on other benefits:

Your Website Could Free Up Your Time

If you find that you are repeating the same answers to the same questions on the phone as you negotiate with every client then plugging in an FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) section to your site would free up your valuable time.

Gather Marketing Information

Google analytics, Facebook advertising and YouTube video analytics are a great way of finding out really important marketing information. And they are free too! You could find out: what are people really searching for?; what age groups, geographic locations and genders split are watching my videos? and which links on my site are people following? This is marketing gold dust because it gives you real feedback from your website.

Convince Potential Clients to Become Real Clients

Testimonials, case-studies, videos, blogs and the overall professional look and feel of your website are really powerful in convincing someone that they should use your services. One of our clients, a well known therapist and coach, has a strategy centred on their website which means that they have over 90% success at converting first contact into paying clients! Imagine what that would do for your business.

Sell Something

In the workshops I run I'll ask people to put their hands up if they are selling something on their website. Sadly only a few put their hands up. Then I explain that "everyone is selling something". You are selling "you", your brand, your ideas, your services, your products.

There are other benefits and I'll leave you to consider how your website could be doing more for your business? Once we see our website for what it is, the hub of our marketing process then things really start to move.

Do First Impressions Matter?

I mentioned "the professional look and feel" earlier and I've got to say that many businesses really let themselves down here. Classic mistakes are "site under construction", out of date content, broken links and no contact details. Even then your website says a lot about you well before your prospective client has even read a single word. Remember the golden rule: you only have one chance to make a first impression. Your potential client is never more than one click away from leaving your site. Luckily NLPers understand all about VAK (Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic) - that there are many aspects to getting and holding your prospective clients attention.

But I hear you say "a website is only visual". Well that's not strictly true. Later we'll find a way of being totally VAK easily. Also consider that how the page is laid out, the use of space, the font styles and colours also create an emotional Kinesthetic response. We regularly conduct website testing sessions and you'd be amazed how emotionally descriptive people are. "This website feels busy". "It's nice and open". "It feels friendly" etc.

So what about the auditory side of things? I wouldn't recommend having music playing on your homepage as it's more likely going to put people off and irritate people. But as I hinted there is a very easy way of bringing the visual, auditory and kinesthetic aspects of your sites together in an extremely powerful way.

Online Videos

Let me tell you a little story. Once upon a time there was a little known online fashion shop called ASOS and one day someone there said let's put videos of the clothes on the website. Their sales went up by over 90% and then the big stores like M&S had to follow and try and catch them up. The good news is that this isn't a fairy tale this is real! The same principals can really help you too. So have you figured out why these online videos work yet?

Well people like to see how something moves and sounds so when people could watch models walking in the dresses then they knew more about the fabric, the way it flowed and importantly felt more compelled to purchase it.

"But we're not selling dresses!" That's right! what you are selling is even more special and unique... you're selling YOU!. So Here's the reason online videos really help people who work directly with other people, just like you, to win customers over.

People want to like, trust and feel comfortable with someone in order to want to give them money and spend time with them. Imagine this, they visit your site and on the home page they find a professional video of you. So they click on it. Why did they click on it? well fundamentally people are lazy and the majority of people would rather watch a video than read pages of text to get the same information. So your prospective client is watching a video of you talking about what you do. Being smart about marketing you're naturally including information about what makes you unique and why they should see you and all this content is what I refer to as surface content. The really cool stuff is happening at a much deeper level. The whole time they are watching and listening to you, your prospective client is finding out how you move, look, sound and they're forming a relationship with you!

Imagine two identical websites except one has a video of the person on it introducing themselves and their services. Which one do you think would be more successful? that's right, the one with the video. The familiarity that video creates helps prospective clients get over the "fear of the unknown", that natural resistance to pick up the phone because they don't know what to expect when they do. But once they've watched your video they already feel like they “know” you and how you'll sound and so they're much more likely to call. It's also a massive convincer because, yet again, they are becoming familiar with you as a brand, so compared to your competition who don't have videos, they've built a stronger relationship to you.

Online Videos - getting you moving on the web

As if helping convert website visitors into clients and strengthening your brand to client relationship wasn't enough here are 4 key reasons why any business really needs to be using online videos:

• 1. YouTube which is owned by Google is the second most used search engine globally. This means that a massive share of searches are actually for videos. People want sensory rich information and many would rather watch a video than read a document. If you've not got a video you're simply missing out on being discovered by a large proportion of your potential market.
• 2. Because Google owns YouTube then YouTube videos are also included in search results which means that your videos will actually be found on the two largest search engines!
• 3. Being sensory rich (think VAK) video is a great way of getting people's attention. And remember ultimately sales are driven by how people feel and videos are the most powerful medium for evoking emotional responses. Someone once said a picture tells a thousand words, and I say "a video tells a million words".
• 4. You're using Twitter, Facebook and Blogging, right? Well video gives you something that can really be shared. In the last year people are spending on average 40% more time on Facebook than last year, mainly due to more people sharing videos. That could be your video that people are watching!

We've really just touched the surface of how online videos and your website can be used to really boost your business. Many of the strategies for Social Networking and classic marketing ultimately drive traffic to your website so having a strong website with the right content for todays market has never been more important. In the coming issues we'll be looking into more detail on the right way to use videos and how to improve your website so that it really starts to work for you. Sometimes it's the smallest changes that have the greatest impact and you'll be pleased to know that getting it right and producing proper videos is a real option that is available to any business.

Rapport Magazine Sept 2011, Mark Zaretti