Simplify your message and STOP SHOVING WATERMELONS THROUGH KEYHOLES.

Simplify your message and STOP SHOVING WATERMELONS THROUGH KEYHOLES.

by | Jun 20, 2018 | Creative Marketing, Emotional Connection, Story Telling, Video Marketing, Writing a Script

Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz…

You’re singing it now, aren’t you?

THAT, my friends, is the power and charm of simplified marketing.

2 words and your mind has been hijacked by a catchy jingle, an image of two bubbly tablets dropping into a glass of crystal clear H20 and possibly a pale faced, indigestion-plagued person sitting next to their half eaten deep dish pizza… about to toss their simmering seltzer salvation down their gullet.

Just 2 words and without thinking, you’ve recalled a problem that can be solved by the product. BRILLIANT.

So let’s take it wayyyyy back to marketing meetings of yesteryear.

It’s probable that at some point the indigestion big-wigs of this company met with the advertising crew and gave an hour long in-depth display of why these dissolvable tablets work. Charts, product testing, scientific results and guarantees were no doubt tossed around during a monumental data-packed discussion that would surely convince even the most discriminating consumer of its usefulness… so why didn’t Alka-Seltzer go with:

“Sodium bicarbonate can be used to treat heartburn, indigestion and acid reflux by reacting with and neutralizing excess stomach acid through effervescent tablets that contain three active ingredients, aspirin, sodium hydrogen carbonate and citric acid. Also, aspirin belongs to a group of medicines called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). It works by blocking the action of an enzyme in the body called cyclo-oxygenase and oh what a relief it is!” as their jingle???

Because they understood that ENTERTAINMENT can be more valuable than the over-stimulation of EDUCATING your audience to death.

Though this product is complex and scientifically proven, the message is simple.

Bottom line… if your stomach hurts, plop-fizz your way to relief.

Problem. Solution. That’s all they need to know.

Close your eyes… (wait, actually don’t because I still need you to read my words)
IMAGINE that you’re taking your target-audience out on a blind date.

You put on your best suit, douse yourself with high-end cologne and drive to that fancy corner steakhouse, eager to meet your new muse.

Do you sit across the table from this beautiful stranger, rub your sweaty palms together and then begin reciting every mundane moment of your life so that she can fully appreciate each and every morsel of the man that you have been, currently are and ever hope to be???

(Good luck getting second date.)

But what if you tried courting your audience instead?

What does she need? Why did she agree to this date?

Dinner, companionship and connection… not the details of last week’s wart removal… so take a deep breath and give her just enough of what she needs to get her to agree to date #2.

So what’s the equivalent of a 2nd date in the world of marketing?

Google searches. Leads. Phone calls. Emails. Consultations.

You’ve gotta spark enough interest to get some action from your call to action and that’s done by making sure your message is simple, memorable and easily absorbed into the viewer’s mind.

The more you can narrow in on the meat & potatoes of your message or the sweet & simple essence of your service and stop trying to push your beloved information watermelons through human attention span-keyholes…

The more you’ll start seeing your efforts convert into genuine, profitable results.

Like these campaigns:

Got Milk?
(Totally makes you thirsty.)

Maybe She’s Born With It?
(Fake your natural beauty.)

Give Me A Break.
(Who in their right mind would refuse a chocolate break or a piece of broken chocolate?)

The Breakfast of Champions.
(Cereal box heroes.)

The Best A Man Can Get.
(Smooth, manly jawlines.)

Melts In Your Mouth Not In Your Hand.
(This is a lie, but I still buy/eat them.)

I Want My BabyBack-BabyBack-BabyBack-BabyBack.
(You just sang, again… didn’t ya?)

Double The Pleasure, Double The Fun.
(Hot twins. Who cares what they’re selling.)

Dilly Dilly.
(Nothing to do with beer. Sometimes simple & stupid = memorable.)

When done right, marketing with simple, clever videos can be powerful enough to make your message last a lifetime (just ask the plop-plop peeps)… and Ydraw can help you do just that, oh what relief it is!

 

 

Why Advertising Doesn’t Really Work

Why Advertising Doesn’t Really Work

by | Aug 12, 2013 | Creative Marketing, Marketing

Why Advertising Doesn’t Really Work

 

Ha! That’s hilarious. Advertising does work. In fact, it works so well that every single person in the entire world – minus the aborigines, the lost tribes and the Gods Must Be Crazy kind of families – has been influenced by some kind of advertising.

If during a moment of weakness while you were cleaning out your inbox, and you happened to read one of the mass emails you so often receive from your dear old granny, you recognize this short story:

A man wakes up in the morning after sleeping on an advertised bed, in advertised pajamas. He will bathe in an advertised tub, wash with advertised soap, shave with an advertised shaver and have advertised juice, cereal and toasted bagel (toasted in an advertised toaster) for breakfast. He’ll then put on advertised clothing and glance at his advertised watch.

He will ride to work in advertised car, call in to let his office know he’s running late from his advertised cell phone, and sit down in an advertised desk chair when he gets to the office. He’ll work at his advertised computer, and write with an advertised pen.

Yet this man hesitates to advertise (or market his business), saying that marketing and advertising don’t work. Finally, when his unadvertised business goes under, he will advertise it for sale.

 

It’s a funny little story, but it packs a lot of truth – and without further adieu, here are three huge reasons your small business needs to advertise:

 

Inform Consumers

In a way, advertising saves you money by eliminating sales lost simply because the consumer didn’t have enough knowledge of your product or service. You can use advertising to educate potential buyers so they can comparison shop early. If they come to you having been educated – you know they are there to buy.

 

Existence by Awareness

If people don’t know about you, then your company is just as profitable as it was when it was only a glimmer of an idea in your eye. Consumers are aware of the companies with the most aggressive advertising campaign. Sure, these companies might get a reputation of being annoying, but at least people will think of them if they ever have a need for car insurance.

 

Brand Recognition

Aside from Harley Davidson and Starbucks, none of these logos tell you what they represent – yet you already know. Why?

Advertising can seem expensive, especially if you’re in a very competitive market and are scrounging for ways to keep your prices down – however, without advertising, your consumer base will be limited to a few locals, faithful friends, and super supportive relatives. But the truth is that your return on your investment will make having an advertising campaign more than worth it. If you’re not sure where to start, maybe Granny can send out a few mass emails about your company for you? Heaven knows her reach is endless.

+Jessica Anderson

Understanding Your Audience | 3 Things to Remember

Understanding Your Audience | 3 Things to Remember

by | Jun 18, 2013 | Creative Marketing, Customer Service, Marketing, Video Marketing, video online marketing, website design

Understanding Your Audience | 3 things to remember when getting to know your consumers.

 

Getting the most out of your video marketing campaign can be as simple as understanding your audience. Maybe it doesn’t actually sound so simple – and here’s the thing – it’s not. If you want to broaden your marketing horizons you must use social media. Social media has become so much more than just glorified chat rooms and photo boards. Sites like Facebook have become a community in and of itself where people interact, make new friends, create their own awareness campaigns, and much more. And even if you’re on board with social media for your business, creating a website, Facebook, and Twitter pages will not ensure that people will come to you. You need to act and interact, post often and respond to your follower’s questions and comments. Get your business out there! Developing a solid marketing strategy to use with social media will allow you to reap the maximum benefits from your efforts.

But to do that you have to know a few things: Who exactly are you trying to reach? Who is your target audience? What appeals to them? Trying to understand who your audience is can be daunting, but here are a few key ways to get to know the people who will be buying your product:

 

1. Research

This is perhaps the most important and direct way to get to know your audience. Input gathered from real live people can help to design your marketing campaigns to be the most effective. A few ways to gather information from your audience includes:

–          Conduct surveys and/or take polls throughout your current following to find out what they like, don’t like, how they watch online video, what they feel they would add, and what is important to them. Asking questions is the easiest and sometimes most efficient way to interact with your visitors.

–          Using web analytics is another popular way for businesses to see what kinds of people are visiting their site. Google Analytics is the preferred analytical tool – easy set up and completely free!

–          There are sites such as Rapleaf that makes sure everyone using the internet has a great experience. To use these sites, a business sends a list of all user emails. The site then searches its database for those specific email addresses and provides you with information about the person using that email address, such as age, gender and location.

 

2. Know the Social Media Types

There are three distinct categories of consumers who spend their time online. First, there is the silent majority. These are the observers, they don’t usually post often, share often, or respond often. It may seem fruitless to chase after this group, but they are the largest group and are always watching. Second is the vocal minority. These are the people who share posts, videos, links, etc… They are always commenting on things others have shared and are anxiously interacting with others. These are the consumers who will spread the word about your business to their silent majority friends. Cater to them. The third and smallest group is the social authorities. These are the trailblazers – the ones with great online influence who have successful blogs or sites of their own. If you can get in good with these guys, you’re about set.

 

3. Ask Questions

Conducting surveys is an excellent way to gather information, but if you really want to go deep, you need to do a little digging yourself. There are three specific questions you should always ask when trying to get to know your audience:

–          What are the customer’s preferences for content?

–          How do they discover, consume and share content?

–          What do they talk about on social media sites?

 

Once you have in mind who your target audience is, there are a few things you should do to keep them coming back. These include tailoring your future marketing campaigns to appeal to them. Make sure the aesthetics of your site, images and videos appeal to them. For example, if your business is trying to appeal to an older generation, use mostly muted colors, a clean design, conservative graphics and a classic font. If you’re marketing toward teens or young adults, use eye-catching graphics, creative design features and bold, popping colors.

 

Remember, social media and your audience’s behavior is always changing. Stay on top of any changes by pursuing an active role across all the social media platforms. Be a part of the action; listen to what your audience wants. Do what you can to make sure your business will never be left behind.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

See a related post HERE.

+Jessica Anderson

The Key to Eliminating Video Abandonment

The Key to Eliminating Video Abandonment

by | Apr 25, 2013 | Infographic

The Key to Eliminating Video Abandonment

We live in a virtual world where a new video is just a click away. Sites like YouTube have become experts in funneling users to videos that appeal to their interests. Let’s face it, we can’t help but click on those adorable kitten videos YouTube keeps suggesting to us. This virtual environment has made it increasingly difficult to engage an audience through video. If you plan on leveraging video to boost sales and grow your business, you must be aware of video abandonment. Internet users’ attention spans have become decreasingly worse.  How often do you start watching a video and only make it half way through?  Maybe only a quarter of the way through?  How many people get sent a video and don’t even watch it?  We’re all guilty of doing it aren’t we?  I personally, have had a friend send me the same video three different times this week because I click on it to watch later, and then I end up closing out of the video.  So what’s the secret to keeping the attention span of your audience? Whiteboard animation! Whiteboard animation is proven to be the most interactive form of online advertising.

I’m sure by now, you’re aware of just how much we here at Ydraw love infographics.  So I decided to include one that talks about video abandonment and how whiteboard animation videos can keep your audience around a lot longer.

 

Video Scribing Video Ydraw

Thanks for checking out our statistics on video abandonment and how whiteboard animation videos can keep your audience not only around longer, but also engaged and entertained the whole time.

Go ahead and steal our infographic.  I dare ya!

Embed this infographic on Your Site: Copy and Paste the Code Below

<a href=”http://ydraw.com/video/key-to-eliminating-video-abandonmen”><img alt=”The Key to Eliminating Video Abandonment” src=”http://ydraw.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/video-abandonment-549×1024.jpg” width=”549px” border=”0″ /></a>

 

+Wesley Bledsoe

Video Scribing: The Importance of Relevant Images

Video Scribing: The Importance of Relevant Images

by | Oct 17, 2011 | Video Scribing

Video Scribing Images – Why You Need Ydraw

How can we convey any type of concept or strategy that can really stand out to individuals? People create all types of different tips and apply their theories in different forms of advertising. On television or over the World wide web we can see messages  being delivered in different ways. But there’s another kind of method that is starting to emerge out of the depths of advertisement.   It is referred to as Video Scribing and it is shaping the way we provide facts to individuals in the most detailed way that is very engaging.

The possibility of Video Scribing to the advertising industry is truly flexible. This method may be used to implement ideas in promotion, training, public consciousness, demonstration, you name it and Video Scribing can do the job for you. But you may ask, what makes this form of communication unique from the rest? The uniqueness is the way this method tackles the issue from a persuasion point of view.  Video scribing, other wise known as whiteboard animation, uses pattern interruptions and a couple other key tactics to convert viewers into customers.  You might want to refer to our article about influence and persuasion.  It will explain a bit more.

How does it function? The presenter is  dedicated to deliver particular information to numbers of viewers, giving constant stream of phrases and information in sync with imVideo Scribingages being drawn in front of a camera to provide the information exactly what the attendees wanted to see and hear. Through this continual balance between images and phrases, you have continuous flow of facts and images that engage the minds.

In the hands of a well skilled artist you can easily understand the reason for the eye catching display.  Simply sit back, watch the show and see how it can make you motivated and inspired to take actions. Plus they actually are pretty cool and just look good.

It may look simple from the audiences vantage point and say, “Hey! I can do that too.

A little more information about Video.

Do you know what is the best internet marketing video?

Best Videos For Internet Marketing and Conversion


Have you ever wondered what videos produce the highest conversions or Opt-in .  Let me tell you! Obviously you are on my Ydraw site therefore I am going to tell you that Video Scribing and whiteboard animation videos have some of the highest conversions.  Here are a couple of reasons:

1.  They are engaging

2. They create buzz

3. They use pattern interrupting techniques.

4.  There are all kinds of subconscious factors involved in Videos Scribing which I have written about in earlier posts

Now you do not have to take my word for it.  Take a look at what some of the Top internet marketing gurus are using for their videos.  Russel Brunson has a whiteboard animation video and it is converting at 57%.  Others include  7 Figure Empire speaking, Tony Robbins, Scott Boulch etc.

Videos scribing videos really do produce the highest op-tin conversion for any video.