One video ad can be re purposed on many different websites

I spent a greater portion of my business career in the photography industry. In my letters and marketing materials I repeated the time worn phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Now that we are living in a video world, the common person has nearly as many ways to capture the moments of their lives as Jim Carrey’s Truman Bank character in The Truman Show. Today, a video is worth 10,000 words.

Online video advertising is giving marketers another opportunity to reach targeted audiences with their messages. According to Borrell Associates, streaming audio and video ads now account for 19 percent of local online revenue and will rise to 59% by 2013.

Most marketers are having hard time thinking about adding video to their marketing tool chest for one reason: because in their mind, it’s still a very expensive and time-consuming marketing tool. They also have little to no experience with it, so they avoid it.

Video Advertising is as easy as 1,2,3

However, the Internet is changing all of that. Not only can anyone with a webcam, video cell phone, or simple video camera create a video and upload it to a Web site, it can be done within a matter of an hour without a budget! Sure, you can spend a great deal more time and energy at it, but I’m trying to break down some walls here and get you thinking about keeping it simple stupid! (…More…)

Market your business using social media tools like podcasting

It really wasn’t that long ago when you got all of your news and information through a few selected channels.  The majority of the news and information we got came from the broadcast, print or word of mouth channels.

And then the Internet happened and new channels opened up.

As an example, in the past the New York Times and Architectural Digest might have been among the top ten sources for information on architecture.  However, today thanks to the Internet, dozens of knowledgeable enthusiasts who started blogging about architecture created a credible source of news and information for other souls that shared their passion.  And unlike the previous channels of information, bloggers did not have to hire pressmen, cameramen, paper boys or engineers to deliver the news to you.   All the blogger had to do is post their blog and let search engines bring people to it!

Most of us are still trying to catch on to that concept as we’ve lived for decades PUSHING information to people in order to instill an interest and desire in whatever we wanted to sell to them.   But in today’s Internet world all one has to do is - write and let the world find you!

LEARN how podcaster Anna Farmery became as popular as Bloomsberg, Deloitte and The Economist! (…More…)

About 6 years ago I sent an overnight letter to Starbucks headquarters suggesting they consider offering their customers a private, password protected online community to continue to build their brand, engage customers and gather more data about their customers.

At the time my firm provided online communities to groups and organizations in the higher education space and we were looking for a way to leverage our product in the commercial market.  The company executive I sent my letter to was preoccupied with other issues at the time and my subsequent follow up phone call was met with a response,  well - similar to what you’ve heard from time to time in your  career – don’t call us, we’ll call you!

Fast forward to 2008 and we see Starbucks coming out with what they call their new customer online community called Mystarbucksidea.com.   The community offers customers an opportunity to help direct where the company is going and is modeled after a number of successful examples including Dell’s  Community Forum and Salesforce’s Ideastorm.   (…More…)