8 top tips and examples of producing great low cost video from scratch
If you are new to marketing with video, starting simple could be the key.
Throughout the process of creating less expensive and less challenging video content, you will learn the ropes and be inspired to build upon the basics.
The learning process will generate ideas that will contribute to developing a more thought-through video marketing strategy; putting you in the position of being able to justify bigger budgets in the future.
Examples of successful video using a bootstrapping approach
Here are some great examples showing just how effective low cost videos can be.......
This example shows screencasting in action - as well as showing you how to use Screenflow as a tool for yourself!:
The production of this video animation was definitely not inexpensive. However, it shows how mobile phones can produce great results:
Finally, this video…
Making the case for a winning localisation strategy
In my experience, many companies give localisation very little thought until growth begins to stagnate and they are forced to look at additional revenue from international markets. So what happens when you have exhausted the potential in your domestic market? Organisations are generally faced with two choices:
1. Develop new products or services to get more traction in your own back yard
2. Sell your existing products or services on a global scale
Since developing innovative products and services can be an expensive, high-risk strategy, it is not surprising that companies will opt to tap into international markets as a preference. What may surprise you, however, is that very few have any sort of strategy around their localisation programs and so they eventually lose out to savvy competitors who were quicker at adapting to selling to a global audience.
Making the business case for localisation
Convincing Finance Directors…
This infographic shows why Wordpress wins "hands down"
I'm often asked this question by marketers taking their first steps into blogging as an individual or for their companies. These days I always answer without hesitation "Wordpress"!
My justification is based around the experience you can create (Wordpress has great themes or is readily tailored); ease-of-use (as easy as Word or Pages); extensibility (plug-ins?); scalability (can it grow with us?); support (many agencies and freelance developers support it) and cost (it's open source, you only have hosting costs).
This infographic provides a more qualitative assessment to support these arguments. The market share figures really show how Wordpress dominates. The average day sees an average 500,000 new posts on Wordpress.com, not to mention the many sites, like Smart Insights that run a bespoke hosted version for their blog or full content management system.
If you're a…
Setting the right goals and KPIs for using internal company networks to support social business
Social networking has altered the way companies engage with their customers, changing their approach to areas such as customer service and brand management. Leading organisations have been taking the concepts of social networking and using them to transform the way they engage with their employees and partners, in areas as diverse as Sales, R&D, Communications and Marketing. Organisations are now adopting company or enterprise social networks on a much larger scale and company-wide initiatives are increasingly common. This results in a corresponding demand for provable success and measurable benefits. In line with this, the approach for measurement of business value of company social networks has also matured, comparable to how measures related to the web channel evolved from simply tracking the number of visitors to showing how those visits were turning into revenue. …
New social media benchmark research reveals which social media tactics are working best for businesses
The Social Media Benchmark is a rolling six-monthly study exploring how marketers are adapting to, investing in and getting value from social media.
We first reported on Wave 1 in February 2012 when the results from an Autumn 2011 study were published. Wave 2, the first survey for 2012 was published in June 2012. I have updated our summary below, showing the changes between Wave 1 and 2.
Purpose and methodology
This is a major, ongoing initiative from The Chartered Institute of Marketing which is supported by Ipsos ASI and Bloomberg. You can see from the names behind this research is not just, a poll, instead it's a major research programme.
It's intended to help companies understand how they can get value from social media marketing through publishing regular waves to benchmark against. The first wave of 1500 marketers…
An example of aligning the Tesco.com digital marketing strategy with retail growth strategy
I was recently speaking at the Internet Retailing Expo and when attending, I noticed Tesco announcing their online marketplace. This has now quietly soft launched in the UK.
This interested me as yet another sign of Tesco responding to online opportunities, in this case by opening a marketplace to sell products from other retailers as part of its Tesco Direct offering. Currently marketplace sellers aren’t explicitly featured as in Amazon product listings, instead, it’s folded into search results for some products:
It looks as if Tesco are testing how to best integrate the marketplace approach now, as part of a soft-launch.
Tesco marketing strategy - 7 core principles for growth
I was also interested that at the show Tesco talked about how the marketplace supported…
Or is it simply a case that we've now no excuse, fellow marketers?
I've seen this graphic (below) appear a few times now and the general consensus appears to be:
"wow - how insanely complicated is social media"
see an example here.
I really disagree that this is in any way negative, so much so that I'm eventually compelled to post on the topic.
Update 15th June 2012: A new diagram has also been released this week by SMI which shows that it's not so complex in reality. We like the attempt to simplify!
But, back to my main point, I feel some people are missing the gilt-edged opportunity…
It's nowhere near as complicated as it looks. Why? As marketers we should be using a process to focus on our own consumers/personas and not get obsessed with the vast array of channels and tactics, you'll quickly shorten…
Why global marketing theory often differs from reality
On paper, global marketing is undoubtedly a great concept. The idea of leveraging a marketing strategy across multiple markets seems to be nothing but beneficial. It saves effort and resources, and ensures a high degree of consistency between all in-market branding and activities.
However, the question of whether global marketing works is a frequent conversation topic amongst marketers, and the concept of globally-led marketing resources can be subject to much scepticism.
So, how do you make global marketing work?
Stop the swinging pendulum
Marketing departments, particularly those in larger companies, seem to follow similar pendulum movements. Sometimes central teams are set up to oversee all territories; at other times these same teams are fragmented into regional or local components, each focusing on their specific market(s).
Yet, there are ways to stabilise the pendulum…
Using segmentation to make your social media marketing relevant
We've mentioned the value of Forrester's technographics ladder before. It's a useful tool. Aimia, a Canadian company who specialise in loyalty management, have created a segmentation model that analyses the behavioral drivers of trust and control to identify six social media persona types – these are no shows, newcomers, onlookers, cliquers, mix-n-minglers and sparks. It's the behaviour angle which makes this worth a proper look.
“Today’s approach to social media measurement – racing to rack up the most ‘likes,’ retweets, followers and recommendations – is the wrong approach. Marketers must define success not by social media activity, but rather by customer value and engagement,” Doug Rozen, Aimia senior VP, lead author of the report
Naturally, Aimia argues that there's single social media channel can deliver a complete picture of customer behaviour, specific social media personas are identifiable which, if engaged directly, can reap benefits for…
Alert: June 13th 2012 ICANN gTLD announcement gives new creative opportunities or scope for more trademark infringements?
Value/Importance: [rating=2] (It won’t be an option used by most companies)
Recommended link: ICANN announcement and FAQ
Our summary of the domain name changes
Over the years we’re used to the periodic release of new top-level domains such as .info or .name.
This new approach is more significant, ICANN, the domain authority describes it as
“The new gTLD program is one the most substantive changes to the Domain Name System (DNS) in the Internet’s history”.
Today, the first names applications were revealed on June 13th. They have been kept secret, but the examples above have all been applied for. Some that caught my eye are:
.baby .life .design .Paris .degree .dell .hotel .coupon .gripe
This ICANN video gives a good introduction to the reasons behind the changes and the…
