“Hello, my name is Mr. Important the CEO of Important Products… but the true important person is you!”
Uh wrong… Can you believe this guy?
He has officially lost us within the first line.
Code #282: If you want your audience to believe your product is important… focus on them and their needs, not on yourself.
This code is very important when creating successful content.
Don’t be Mr. Important.
Teddy Roosevelt has been quoted many a time, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” And this goes especially for Marketing to Your Audience!
You see, you CAN begin your marketing by sharing your giant Pedigree* of Success, your giant Rolodex* of clients that come at your every beck and call, and your impressive collection of Vintage Star Wars action figures, boxed in mint condition. BUT THEY DON’T CARE!
Okay…maybe the Star Wars figures, I mean especially if they have that one Rare Boba Fett*…
My point being, don’t make your first impression with your audience ABOUT YOU. In fact, you may consider, minimizing the mention of “you” to the smallest amount possible. Your marketing NEEDS to be about THEM.
FOR INSTANCE!
The Mom who is exhausted carrying around a giant purse that contains everything known on the periodic table of elements. She wants to know that you care about her and her plight, when you sell her your amazing, mega-organizational handbag.
Spend the time in your marketing, connecting with her. Show empathy for how hard it is to carry that overgrown purse. Use humor to help her have a chuckle about it because she knows how impossible it is to find that lip gloss when her chapped lips are screaming for moisture, and the kids are clawing their way to find a granola bar in there too. She will totally think to herself, “Been there done that!”
By doing this, you will establish a relationship with your audience, in this case the Moms of the world. Now, they’ll care to listen to YOU! You have their attention because you relate to each other, on an emotional level. You are selling a relationship BEFORE you sell a product or service. So now, proceed to show some of the cool features of this “Heavenly Handbag” and again relate those features to them.
On a side note, keep your features explanation brief. They don’t need to know the process of “cutting and stitching every nuanced detail” that you researched; they just want the HIGH LEVEL facts that relate to them. This will keep them EMOTIONALLY engaged in your marketing.
In the case that you do spend time talking about YOU, make sure it’s to show how you relate to them. The purpose of sharing this piece of you is to connect with them, and not to gloat about you or in any way make you seem superior. If you don’t connect with them, be on their level, share their emotions, they will see right through you and go elsewhere for a solution to their need.
So…QUICK 5 POINT RECAP
NOW, get your groove on and practice that Electric Slide together! It’s all about the relationship, and your audience will respond to you once they know that you care about them.
*Pedigree – Pretty sure it’s some type of dog food.
*Rolodex – The Stone Age variety of a contact list on your smart phone. Geesh, writing all those cards sucked.
*Rare Boba Fett – A Boba Fett figure that was designed exclusively as a cereal box mail-in item in 1979. It was advertised with a Rocket firing backpack, but the actual production firing rocket was made stationary, as it was deemed a “choking hazard.” This figure is still highly sought after by collectors and has fetched upwards of 20K at auction.
Today businesses are struggling to raise brand awareness and achieve monthly sales. Without an online presence those goals are not easily reached, if they are reached at all. 90% of online shoppers said they found a video helped in making and buying decisions, 80% of internet users recall watching a video ad on a website in the past 30 days and 64% are more likely to make a purchase.
But why?
There are many other statistics on video content and it’s effectiveness online and they further prove this point; an online presence is critical in today’s market, but that presence needs something to push and prod the consumer towards your company. Utilizing video to quickly explain to and easily share with consumers can dramatically increase the draw to your company and allow you to grow. Don’t be left behind as the online market changes the way consumers pay attention to companies and their products. Change with the market and get ahead of your competitors.
Sources:
http://www.videobrewery.com/blog/18-video-marketing-statistics
http://www.livescience.com/42666-human-brain-sees-images-record-speed.html
http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/a/memory_retrival.htm
http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-video-watch-time-grew-60-2015-7
http://digiday.com/brands/celtra-15-must-know-stats-for-online-video/
http://www.videobrewery.com/blog/18-video-marketing-statistics
When you sit down to begin writing the script for your online marketing video, you want to keep three little words in your mind: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. These are the modes of persuasion. When trying to persuade somebody to do something – say, buy your product – you need to make sure we sound credible, appeal to the emotions, and prove certain truths about our company and product. If you’re a good marketer, you’ve obviously lived by the E.P.L mantra, but with whiteboard animation things can be a little different. Here’s some information on how using ethos, pathos and logos in a whiteboard video can work for you:
Ethos is the integrity of the presenter. It is how qualified the presenter appears to be to the audience. When writing a script for a marketing video such as a whiteboard animation video, you have to rely more heavily on everything other than body language or presence to get your message across. If you’re trying to sell something, have an image of the CEO telling viewers all about the company. Write a part with some testimonials. Whoever your main character is, make sure they look the part, and that the audience can tell they are a notable figure and have vested interest in the company or product.
Pathos is triggering emotions. In your whiteboard video, throw in a metaphor or simile, or deliver your message powerfully and passionately. Make the audience feel something, whether it is sadness for the characters who don’t have your product, joy for the characters who do, or excitement at the prospect of purchasing your product themselves. Pathos may also be used to provoke fear in order to sway viewers – but it is always better for whiteboard videos to focus on the fun, positive aspects. Try to play on viewers’ hopes and dreams by describing how their life could be when they follow the call to action.
Logos is the logical appeal used when describing facts and figures that support your cause. Logos and ethos are sort of related – in the sense that using logos can strengthen your ethos by making you look even more knowledgeable on the subject. However, be tasteful in your use of logos when making a whiteboard video – you want your audience to retain information with ease. If you use charts and figures, make sure to incorporate it into the theme of the video, and don’t throw so many statistics at them that they can’t remember why they clicked play.
These are what you need to keep in mind when writing. Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Thanks Aristotle.
Mnemonic is another word for memory tool. Mnemonics are techniques for remembering information. The whole idea behind using mnemonics is to using unique ways to encode information so that it is easy to recall when needed. The best way to accomplish this task is to be creative, use vivid mental images, use video scribing, or involve other senses.
Mnemonics make the information more meaningful to a person by using associations or creating a pattern. Often times, if the information is a list, the first letter of each item on the list will be attributed to a word that is then put into a sentence. An example of this would be the planets in the solar system:
Or, for example, take the colors, where you take the first letter of the word and create a name instead of a sentence.
Mnemonics help to organize the information in a way that is easier for your brain to retrieve it. The best kind of mnemonics are ones that create a visualization of what you’re trying to remember. Visual stimuli are much easier to retrieve than abstract words. The more vivid or abstract the image is, the easier it will be to recall.
Here are a couple of steps that will help when you are marketing or advertising.
1. Use positive images and not negative ones. With so much negativity in the world today our brains tend to hold positive information better.
2. Use vivid color and graphics. Involve as many senses as possible.
3. Exaggerate the important parts of your message.
4. Use humor. People like to laugh and smile.
When creating a video scribe or a presentation use these steps. Be creative and your message will be remembered. Let us know if you have any questions about how to create mnemonic devices or how they can be useful to your marketing approach.
Video Scribing
How often do you forget where you put your keys or walk into a room and immediately forget why you entered it? Happens quite a bit doesn’t it? So why do we forget things? It’s actually not a loss in your long term memory but really a failure in memory retrieval. No information is actually lost, it’s still available in your long term memory, but for some reason you are just unable to retrieve it at that point in time.
In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus did an experiment on memory where he had subjects memorize a list of meaningless three letter words and tracked how quickly his subjects forgot the words. As you can see from the graph below, known as the Ebbinghaus curve, our learners will rapidly forget information. This is also information that was memorized. After 31 days the retention was less then 25%. In the case of meaningless information, only 20 minutes after they only remember 58% of the information. Now image what the retention rate is if there was no initial memorization. It might not even hit 2%!
We spend so much time creating a master presentation or article to have our audience forget within an hour. What can we do? Video Scribing is a perfect mnemonic device. A mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids memory. Commonly met mnemonics are often verbal, something such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something, particularly lists, but may be visual, kinesthetic or auditory. Mnemonics rely on associations between easy-to-remember constructs which can be related back to the data that is to be remembered. The best mnemonic technique is imagery. By using videos, pictures, and other images you can recall things years later it is much better to use pictures in our everyday business activities.
Contact us with any questions about how a video scribe can help add retention to your brand.
Check out this new whiteboard video we created