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Video As an Engaging Content Marketing Tool

If you are an Internet marketer, blogger, webmaster, and online retailer, you must be turning the Web inside out looking for a strategy to keep your website visitors a few seconds longer on your page. There are a million and one advises or suggestions you can try, but you can save yourself from much trouble by grabbing what seems to be a current trend: video content marketing strategy.

What is video content marketing?

Video content marketing makes use of the video as the heart of the content marketing strategy with the social media being used to support and promote the video content. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube and embedding videos in blog posts offer the most engaging way to share video message to the target audience.

A message that informs, entertains or is useful can foster maximized engagement, spread and conversion by using the content as the message. This can best be achieved by seamlessly integrating the message with the look, feel and flavor of the video. You know you have done well when your message is talked about in forums, discussion boards, and even mainstream media channels.

The use of videos may not really be a new idea. What is novel is the recognition that it can be a very effective vehicle of information and a powerful strategy that prompts immediate action. You have heard about YouTube ranking as the second largest search engine in the Internet and passing the 1 billion monthly users mark. This is equivalent to over 4 billion hours of video viewing each month. With these explosive statistics, it is not surprising to see how it is gaining strength as a source of content marketing.

Will online video be just another over hyped and soon-will-fade craze?

Based on current researches and surveys, it seems unlikely. For instance, consider the data from B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey for 2012 entitled Percentage of Marketers Using Each Content or Offer (survey compiled by Eloqua, CMO.com and Software Advice).

What makes video a crown jewel of content marketing?

Video communication is an effective strategy of reaching target market as it pools the pluses of “classic” TV advertising and the Internet’s interactivity. Powerful and compelling videos can more likely motivate viewers to buy on impulse than those who merely read text ads. In a way, it seems like it is irresistible having a “biological” or “human” factor about it. This may be attributed to the fact that videos can simultaneously affect several senses. If you want to understand the science behind web trending towards video, the explanation of Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D. in Forbes’ article Why Online Video Is Vital For Your 2013 Content Marketing Objectives says it all.

According to Dr. Weinschek, there are four major reasons why people are drawn to videos: the fusiform facial area or the face easily catches and holds attention; the voice can effectively convey rich information and meaningful content; the emotions and the body language are pleasing to watch and infectious; and movements grab attention due to the human’s innate power of peripheral motion. For online marketers looking for a way to engage their visitors, the question is: How must you leverage this 100% human connection to video? The answer lies in what innovative option you will use to make a simple, but impactful video.

If video is not a passing fancy among content creators, then how will it affect future content marketing?

In Kissmetrics’ article The Future of Content Marketing Revealed, some ways to get ahead of competing pack are emphasized. There are three major points made; the content becoming big (long blog posts, giving away of free eBooks, and offering multiple lead magnets) and two stressed the importance of visual content such as use of infographics and videos.

In ReelSEO’s 2012 Online Video Marketing Survey Report, 81% of the respondents/online marketers said they used online video in their marketing efforts. Over two thirds of them (67%) use these videos to social networking sites, and about half (52%) used video in email marketing.

Moreover, approximately 64% of these marketers indicated they intend to spend more money in the coming years intended for technologies, platforms and services allied to the use of video for business marketing programs.

There are of course other statistics that may say otherwise, but for now it seems that content marketing is going beyond text.

Where is video content now?

“Video gives us the opportunity to wow our customers and this in turn delivers results. We have tested and proven that when someone watches our video reviews they’re 120.5% more likely to buy, spend 157.2% longer on the site and spend 9.1% more per order… ” (Matt Lawson, Head of Conversion at Appliances Online).

With all these stats, YouTube’s sensational rise to fame and the cheap video technologies, how can you not use it as a marketing tool? Many think that video is still an underused marketing tool at the moment, but not so in the coming days. Those into it are starting to enjoy improved SEO rankings, site engagement and customer conversion. Maybe you just found a way for your visitors to stay little bit longer on your site.

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BBA: How Can a Degree in Marketing Help in Your Career?

Bachelors of Business Administration is a very common choice among people who are interesting in management. There are various kinds of BBA courses, some people opt to do a generic or a specialised course. If you are interested in marketing management, analysis of the market and advertising, you can do a specialised course of BBA in Marketing. The course helps develop communication skills along with quantitative analysis. There are standard subjects of management but the core focus is on marketing and advertising. Marketing is an important social process for any company as it helps them target the right and intended audience. It doesn’t mean selling but instead consists of economic activities like production of goods, merchandising function, physical distribution of goods, and many other supportive functions. It prepares a firm to act in times of distress and the individual is trained in how to undertake crucial tasks such as competitor analysis.What does the course teach?Marketing management deals with applying principles of management and business principles to promote and sell products or services. The evolved form of marketing management course also includes digital marketing along with the traditional forms. Managing the marketing is very important for any business. Every aspect including financial services like loans and banking require marketing. Through BBA students learn business processes and practices and understand how economics works in the world marketplace. It benefits the students by giving practical training in management which can help them to adjust and work in big or small organizations. The course is also very rewarding in terms of the perks, incentives and salary package and is therefore a preferred choice of career.Some of the subjects that the course teaches are:Organizational behaviourPrinciples of ManagementBusiness CommunicationMarketing ManagementMarketing ProcessMarketing EnvironmentTargeting and PositioningProduct ManagementBrand ManagementHR managementFinance managementPricingDistribution ManagementMarketing Information systemsConsumer BehaviourMarketing ResearchCustomer Relationship ManagementInternational Marketing ManagementThe course equips you in skills like decision making and management. The advantage of doing a BBA course is that you can get a job in any industry ranging from media to automotive or fashion. You can also opt for a job in private or public sector as everything requires marketing. Marketing also teaches you how to understand consumer behavior according to which the company changes their strategy.What is the scope of BBA Marketing in India?Students who have graduated with a marketing degree, they can make a career in sales as an executive or go into research analysis. The course usually requires students to write a thesis or a dissertation which can help in higher studies. You can opt for a generic or a specialised Masters in Business administration. Marketing is also offered as a specialised subject in masters. After pursuing your masters, you can work as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or Chief Operating Officer (COO). The most important thing is that any marketing manager needs to be use new business strategies and strategic tools, technology and processes and adapt to new situations.The research that you do in your bachelors can also helpful market analysis and studying the fluctuating market and making a strategy according to it. After their bachelors in business administration, some common careers may include the following:Sales managerPromotions managerPublic relations managerAdvertising managerMarketing managerMarketing strategistBrand managerPR specialistMarketing managerAdvertising professionalMarket analystSource by Stratford University

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Money for Nothing

There was a time, not too many years ago, when relationship articles were the hot topic. They still are, but they’re not the hottest topic anymore. In its place is now money and security.

One of my publishers, whose opinions I greatly respect, was talking to me about the kinds of articles that most people are reading these days and we thought that with people so concerned about wanting to meet and marry their soul mate, that they were the articles most people gravitate toward. We were wrong.

I was looking over the stats of the articles that I’ve written over the last four years (over 900 articles) and what I discovered is that relationships, which used to be the prime focus of people, has been steadily losing ground to articles about money.

People are now more concerned about financial security than meeting their soul mate. There is more of a here today, gone tomorrow, way of looking at their lives. And business articles, which used to be a big drawing card, don’t seem to have the same impact that they used to.

Today’s hot topics center around getting money for nothing. People have always been attracted to articles about getting a lot of money without having to work for it, but lately, it’s been almost a mania, as evidenced by all the people who set up gofundme websites. This concept is now called crowdsourcing. I call it panhandling or standing there with a begging bowl in your hands asking strangers for money.

I had heard a story about a lazy, spoiled, twenty-one-year-old girl, who is in excellent health, setting up a gofundme website asking people to donate money so that she can go to Japan on a two-week vacation. The hands out, begging bowl concept, annoyed me so much that I wrote an article about it. And, wouldn’t you know it, but the number of people who read that one article climbed much higher and much faster than most of my other articles.

People take a look at Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and all they can see is the billions of dollars they have and they want to have what those two men have. They don’t see all the hard work that went into accumulating that wealth, nor do they see the kind of hard work they do to sustain their wealth. They just see a lot of money and they think they are entitled to the same riches.

Sad to say, but we’re living in a lazy, selfish, society these days and we’ve lost our moral compass along the way. We need to get back to the things that are really important before our whole society comes crumbling down around us.

Connie H. Deutsch is an internationally known business consultant and personal advisor who has a keen understanding of human nature and is a natural problem-solver.