Recently I was with a group of business owners who were talking about different “marketing tools” they were using for their businesses.  There seemed to be a rabid desire among them to learn about some “Holy Grail” new tactic or technique they could use. But as I started asking them how they would use one particular tool or another, their answers started sounding more like the feature lists these tools use to market themselves.

• “It lets me add all my contacts and manage discussions in one place.”
• “I can see results from my email campaign in real time!”
• “I can post to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, all from the same program.”

Not to belabor the point, but these stated reasons for using a tool aren’t reasons at all. They don’t identify the one crucial element every marketing activity must possess: The Goal.

So what is the goal of any marketing effort, digital or otherwise? It’s simple: To increase revenue and profit.

Any tool, tactic or strategy must be able to demonstrate how it will help you hit this goal, or it’s nothing but a waste of time, money and resources.

Lately, it seems like many respected tools and tactics cannot seem to quantify any bottom line objective.  I guess that’s what makes us different from other creative digital agencies. We genuinely think that if a service can’t justify it’s price, then neither can we.

Are you asking the tough question about your marketing efforts? Or are you wasting precious resources without a strategy that moves you closer to your revenue or profit goal? Either way, you should know and be able to quantify how each new tool or tactic moves you closer or farther away from revenue and profit. To riff on an old axiom, “Experiment, but verify.”

As a storyteller, I love language. I know I offend my more precise and articulate content-creator peers with my pedestrian and oftentimes overly-colloquial story style, but to me, language is a rich and glorious palette, and I want to use every color to tell my stories. If I couldn’t mine the more colorful, historic, rustic and regional parts of speech to get something said, I’m not sure I would enjoy language that much at all.

As it is, everything that has come to me in this life has come as a direct result of my ability to communicate. Not born of wealth and privilege, I’ve had to convince the world that I knew something, and that based on merit alone I deserved a place at the table. I quickly found that if I sounded like I was “one of the group”, it didn’t take much to get the invitation.

I’m a bit of a chameleon when speaking to various types of people. Getting a read on the person or group of people I am talking with quickly shapes and informs the way I speak to them. With an older farmer or rancher, I might slow down a bit and say less, like I am chewing my cud. When I do speak, I try to adopt a very organic and natural cadence, full of rich metaphors drawn from the natural world. On the other hand, talking with a senior C-level executive of a Fortune 500 company, I am likely to be quick to my point, direct and authoritative. The purpose in either case is quite simple: I want to get my point across. I want to be persuasive, to have influence. I want to be seen and trusted as someone of a like mind, who then has the ability to mold and shape their ideas about things, and in so doing, gain their cooperation in my own plans.

Isn’t that the ultimate goal of marketing? Think about your company’s storytelling, or “content strategy”. Is it perceived as authentic? Have you failed to use the language of your customers to reach them and connect more efficiently? How could you change your approach to better “speak to the room”?

So in an attempt to cram it into a nutshell for my upcoming audience, I was comparing and contrasting the ways in which the two networks build connections. The starting point for a connection can often be quite revealing about what sorts of conversations will be able to emerge as mutual participation and engagement ensues. If I meet someone in the context of  being “a friend of the family”, I am likely to explore radically different topics of discussion than if I met the same person in the context of “having the same interests”.

Facebook’s primary connection mode seems designed to bring together people who already know each other, or are very likely to know one another in an existing relational context, whether past or present. A slightly secondary mode is the locale-centric one, in which Facebook seeks to center activity and connections based on the reported location of its members. Both modes suppose an existing geographic or sociographic connection in order for the system to perform well in suggesting friends. And indeed, many if not most of the prompts and activities around which Facebook revolves suppose that the connections occurring within networks have some real-world mirror or context.  Nowhere is this more clear than in the memes and recurring quizzes, etc. that get passed around. Without already knowing something of the individuals participating in these activites, the answers and the exercises themselves would be of little interest, consequence or value to the group.

Twitter, on the other hand, with fewer guided activity options (and subsequently a LOT of general confusion about what Twitter really is) can be much like Facebook, in terms of mirroring confined and pre-existing real-world social connection graphs, but it isn’t designed to limit or promote only those social spheres. In fact, Twitter seems to be harder to use in that way than Facebook, because of the lack of recommendations and six-degrees-of-separation sort of ready-made connections. To find people to follow on Twitter, or to find followers, one would typically start with an interest or subject matter that mattered in their world. With little in the way of formal introduction or pre-existing awareness of an individual, connections can be made, based on little else than a mutual appreciation of a topic, interest or body of knowledge. In this way, Twitter tolerates more anonymity during interactions in the network, and thus can be an appealing place to be a genuine and transparent brand with a valuable voice in the conversations already occurring there. One does not have to know much about someone before choosing to follow them, because the value of the connection is not based on felt associations, but rather based upon a knowledge transaction.

In other words, Facebook networks are based upon WHO you know, and Twitter networks are based upon WHAT you know.

I am thrilled to have finally come up with a “10 words or less” comparison/explanation of the two services. But probably no more thrilled than my audience will be.

Dave clearly gets what the value of his blog is to his business: It proves his expertise to his market with every post.

I have talked before about how online content models are notoriously poor performers if the goal is to make money directly from the content via advertising or selling premium content. There are exceptions, sure, but on the whole, unless your blog is grabbing 2,000 sets of eyeballs a day or better (fraction of % of all blog sites on the web, by the way), advertising really isn’t going to make you rich.

But if you blog to prove your expertise, to provide value to your intended audience, to extend your brand and increase your visibility, then even a modest few hundred monthly visitors can turn into a valuable increase in your business.

Content proves expertise. Use your blog to engage your market and demonstrate what you know, and you’ll stay flush with paid work.

(NOTE: I was asked by a friend how I could afford to give away so much knowledge on my blog for free, if I hoped that people would pay me for my expertise? My answer is simple: General expertise is free. Applied expertise isn’t.)

Internet 101 time… The reason people get online is to find things. In a word, content. Whether it’s Google or YouTube or blogs or traditional media outlets, the web serves up content. Content is KING.

So. We all consume it. But how many of us produce or provide it?

Being a content provider is really about adding value. Participating in the information economy is the first step toward proving your expertise in your market. It’s also the most viral way of telling others about what you know and what you do.

Where are you on this ladder? Have you added a blog comment or a review lately? Have you started blogging or podcasting yet?

The ones at the top of this ladder know something you might not know yet: Content isn’t as hard to produce as you think, and the rewards are often quite large.

In our experience, here are a few tips for getting the most our of your web video strategy.

• Keep it short and free of too much visual filler. I regularly read blog post comments about the intolerance people feel toward long, meaningless stretches of content that isn’t relevant to them. “Short” is a relative term, by the way. A 30-second video on the intricacies of the impact of government involvement in free market dynamics is too short.  Keeping  the content only as long as it needs to be is a good rule of thumb, whether the medium is text or video. Complex, information-dense subjects can still be kept brief, as highlighted by this video we recently produced for a client:

• Be considerate. Provide player controls in a Flash player. YouTube has a good player, albeit not the best quality picture in the video space.  At the very minimum, use a Flash player with a clearly identifiable play/pause control, and a scrubbable timeline (to be able to scan through lengthy content). A volume control is less of a concern if you are being considerate with your volume levels during production and editing. Full-screen toggle control is nice but not essential at all.
• Take time to visually conceive the video before production begins. Is there a clear story or thought progression?  What is the best way to visually convey the ideas being expressed? If the content is candid, captured in the wild, and less than 90 seconds, it should contain one main point and get right to it.
• Do a DIY or How-To video. How-To Videos are wildly successful, and can quite easily get you and your brand on the radar in your market.  Think about what content you could freely offer your customers.  Think of the video content as bait without a hard hook; free without strings, yet clearly demonstrating expertise and brand value.
• Include a full transcript of videos that contain audio dialogue or narration. Post it on the page in close proximity to the video, so that Google can see and index it, and visitors can scan it to see if the video is worth their time. If the video has no spoken word component, compose a detailed paragraph or two that hightlights the value of the content a viewer could expect to see if they click “play”.
• Know your customer profile. Are they entertainment seekers? Busy people with little patience for fluff or filler? Engaged community members? Info seekers on a mission? Answering this question will greatly inform your choice of video style and length.
• Get the production right. More and more, web video is being seen as a primary informational source, and in some cases, is preferable to text only.  Production values count more these days, whereas just two years ago, they didn’t.  Just don’t confuse quality production with over-slick, fluff content that is meaningless to a viewer.  30 second animated logo sequences rarely have a determinative impact on customers.

Web video productions, used well and in conjunction with other informational mediums, can be a great and profitable way to relate relevant and valuable information to customers and prospective clients.

As a small business person, opportunity has always been found in the places where there is real need. In our case, those needs have centered on companies who are branding and creating marketing messages in various digital forms. We are so proud to have worked with such a great client roster during the past year, and hopefully met some pressing needs in web design, print design motion graphics design and video production. Thank you all for making last year such a fun one for us!

As a feeble thank you, here are 9 Low Cost Opportunities for Your Business in 2009.

1. Determine the stress points of your customers, and develop legitimate marketing that positions your product or service as the immediate relief they seek. Acute economic stress can become a great motivator to solve a nagging problem.  Do you know what your product or service addresses in today’s buying climate?
2. Down time during the first quarter? There is no better time to revisit your web site strategy and make sure it is really working for you. Some of our clients saw exponential growth occur in their business, simply by optimizing a few pages of text for search engines, or adding intelligent, descriptive video!
3. Take advantage of the holes in your market left by competitors who couldn’t weather the recession. Many competitors are thankful when a business offers to step up and take over a client roster, to support their orphans instead of leaving them in a lurch.
4. Position yourself as an expert in your market. Write articles. Take speaking engagements. BLOG! Much of the “getting to know and trust you” phase of new client development can be taken care of in this way.
5. Twitter. Share valuable links to solid, relevant information aimed at people in your marketplace.
6. Organize a small social event for people  in your client list who need to know each other.  Ask them to invite some of their best customers as well.
7. Revamp your business card. It’s an inexpensive move that can have a transformative effect on your first impressions.
8. Start a podcast to cover industry news, or tips and tricks, Q & A, how-to.  Offer the audio in a player on your site as well as a downloadable, and get your feed listed in a dozen or more podcast directories where people often look for information related to your area of expertise.
9. Has the economic news spooked your customers and made them overly price sensitive?  Find ways to redefine your value in terms that make sense to them in this light.  An example: KFC started a video commercial campaign that more or less dared people to try to cook a 7 piece dinner with two sides for less than could be had in their stores.  No one was paying attention to the fact that it used to be an 8 peice deal for the same price, because the focus became the value of the deal they were offering, compared to the time and expense of making it yourself.

Well, from the team at Harkins Creative, we sincerely wish you a prosperous New Year full of ripe opportunities! Let us know how we can help.

I disputed a college professor once, who said that broadcast media is all about distributing content. It never has been. It has always been about advertising, and the content exists just to get enough eyeballs or eardrums assembled together to justify the high ad rates.

In the broadcast industry there has always been a distinction and separation between content and advertising, between content producers and advertisers. Podcasting, at least insofar as a valid business model goes, is quite different. Podcasting has been able to successfully fuse the two. Content creators are now their own advertisers.

Professionals and brands are regularly creating valuable content aimed specifically at their target markets, and using that content as the “bait” to introduce them to their product or service. The content-as-advertising model is not new, and certainly has existed in broadcast media as well over the years. But podcasting represents the first time that smaller businesses and individuals have been able to access a wide distribution platform to deliver their targeted messaging.

What’s working:

• Tutorials that highlight specific needs and introduce specific solutions
• Interviews with highly regarded industry leaders
• Q&A shows based on frequently asked questions from existing customers
• Idea Casts – Practical inspirations aimed at your customer’s most urgent and felt needs
• Shows that build a like-minded community through a blog or forum
• Shows that link to good information regularly

What’s not working:

• Sponsored shows – Using revenue sharing ad platforms or ad insertion services
• Shows that are too broadly focused, such as news coverage of multiple industries
• Unprofessional production values AND commercially over-produced shows
• Blatant Podcast-as-Commercial tactics
• Shows with little relevant or valuable information
• Shows with little organizational thought or direction

The Most Important Part
If you are thinking about beginning a podcast to promote your product or service, be sure you are able to commit the time to generating regular content. Blogging takes time. Podcasting takes MORE time, even with the help of a creative services or production company.

If you have a lot to say, have a friendly manner, a pleasant voice and aren’t afraid to speak or be recorded, then podcasting represents an excellent way to reach people with your expertise and provide value to them on a regular basis.

Most of the time, having a show that delivers solid information from your area of expertise, coupled with a well-designed and directed blog and/or forum, all linked back to your business site and web presence, is all that is required to benefit from using podcasting as a way to build your brand, qualify better prospects, and cement your place among the experts in your market.

It has been our observation that a video production does an amazing job of converting visitors, and getting them to sit still on a site, engaged in a brand message for much longer than they normally would be inclined (as much as 70% click rate!). But the fact that search engines seem to actually be looking for pages with video makes this content strategy all the more appealing.