Understanding Your Audience | 3 Things to Remember

Understanding Your Audience | 3 Things to Remember

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.

 

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See a related post HERE.

+Jessica Anderson

What the 2013 Finals are Teaching Us about Marketing

What the 2013 Finals are Teaching Us about Marketing

What the 2013 Finals are Teaching Us about Marketing

In the season finale of Game of Thrones we learned a crown doesn’t give you power, but an army does. “King James” has played a sizable chunk of these playoffs with a supporting cast that seems disinterested or overwhelmed at times. Dwayne Wade’s fragile knees and Chris Bosh’s determination to shoot threes are poison to the Heat. It didn’t take long for the Spurs to discover that the moment they cage Lebron, the Heat run out of options quickly. If game 5 taught us anything, it’s that if Spurs solid core play well, a boost from the role players will overwhelm the opposition. The Heat rely on James being impossible to stop, while the Spurs have consistent producers they can count on every night. So what has this exciting series taught us about marketing? We have watched two very different teams take turns blowing each other out every other game. It’s time to decide whether your marketing strategy is better off with a flashy Lebron strategy or the old school San Antonio approach.

Let’s break down San Antonio’s strategy. This strategy is great for those companies struggling to keep consistent traffic on their site. Ask yourself – What is the core of your marketing strategy? Are you relying on marketing that lacks consistency? Let’s take a look at the building blocks of the San Antonio Spurs.

Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, and Manu Ginobili make up the core of the Spurs. Their new pieces, Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green, are new additions they’ve added to their strategy. What is your core strategy—this is what brings you consistent conversions. Once you’ve established your core, you can begin adding pieces to your strategy. Although new additions to your strategy can include risk, you can strike gold with these new techniques (Danny Green now holds the title for the most three’s made in a final series) or your risk won’t pay off; that’s okay, because you know your core is coming through.

Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan

What should be the core of your marketing?

1. Organic Search (SEO) – It’s hard to beat being in the right place at the right time. No one likes to be sold, but everyone likes to discover something great. Google has created an amazing platform for this. You need to be the gold your target audience finds at the end of their Google search.

2. Paid Search – If done right, PPC can generate traffic instantly. If done wrong, you are better off simply flushing your money down the toilet. Building a great campaign is essential to your success.  Get your quality score up and pay attention to it. You need to know exactly where your money is going.

3. Email Marketing- Don’t spam; unless, of course, you are trying to lose your audience as quickly as possible. Learn from the best, Wistia is a great example of a company that sends emails that have personality and include useful information. You will keep your audience if you can provide useful information on a regular basis.

This next technique can be a great tool for companies who are looking to add to their core marketing. This is the Danny Green of your marketing strategy. This is the piece that adds to your core and lifts you above the competition. Video should be a part of every marketing budget. One reason Wistia’s email marketing is so successful is because they include a video in almost every email. The following strategy helps boost your SEO efforts.

Leverage Video for SEO- I never realized the backlink opportunities I was missing out on by posting my videos on YouTube and Vimeo. By posting your video on these sites you do two things: you lose traffic to the next suggested video and eliminate any opportunity for a potential backlink. We discovered a new technique for leveraging video for backlinks. By hosting our videos on Wistia, we give viewers the option to embed the video onto their site. This option is also available on YouTube and Vimeo, but when those videos are embedded the link points back to your profile on those sites. This is beneficial for YouTube, but not you. With some tinkering you can add a backlink into the code of Wistia videos. Every time your video is embedded you will receive a backlink. We’ve had a lot of success stricking deals with customers.

At Ydraw we’ve created Fast and Easy Videos. This new product was built around the idea that companies benefit from producing quality videos to consistently communicate with their audience. Fast and Easy Videos come at a quarter of the price of our other videos and are done in hours, not days.

A detailed post on Leveraging Video for SEO is coming Friday. We’ll give you the step by step guide.

Okay, we have our core; now let’s swing for the fences – Let’s take a Lebron approach – where can we take some risks?

This is a unique way to approach marketing but it can be a perfect approach for certain companies—if a Lebron James is willing to take his talents to your beach.

Partner with Bloggers- in Neil Patel’s latest blog post, he described how he landed 25 thousand hits on a SEO guide he created by linking to Moz (this became his Lebron James). Moz responded with a write up on the guide and the traffic flew in. Patel hit a home run; he now partners with other blogs when he launches new guides. This isn’t a marketing technique that qualifies for the core because it’s hit or miss. A blog has to be willing to advertise your company. You can’t rely on blogs partnering with you every week—they don’t like to give away traffic. However, when you spend the time and money on great content (Neil Patel spent six months on his guide) it can drive traffic for both you and a partnered blog and it can be a massive boost to your company. Then your task becomes giving them a reason to come back.

So, let’s look at the Lebron strategy in a little more detail.

Convincing bloggers to cover your product or service can be a huge boost for your company. In Ryan Holiday’s book, Trust Me, I’m Lying, he breaks down how to leverage bloggers for your marketing efforts. He begins by explaining how bloggers make their money. Some are paid per post and others are paid for traffic. This means a blogger makes the big bucks by constantly producing high quality content that appeals to his/her audience. It also means that an audience won’t stick with a blogger if they feel like they are being sold a product. So, how do you get covered by a popular blogger while keeping their integrity in tact? First things first, keep in mind that they make the big bucks by constantly producing content, so typically they aren’t opposed to a little help if it is going to benefit their readers. Toyota got creative and gave a car to a popular vehicle blogger and told him to write about the car, good or bad. Some companies will naturally draw bloggers to covering them because of new technology or innovation. Other companies may need to nudge a blogger a bit. The first step is to identify popular bloggers in your field. Then approach them with a simple pitch that explains why your message would benefit their readers. If you can pitch your message in the right way and provide enough information that their blog is nearly written for them, they’d be crazy not to consider it.

Discover what approach works best for your company. Are you better off with the slow, methodical San Antonio Spurs approach or will you benefit more from a Lebron James boost. Better yet, find a way to use both.

Tune in next week for a detailed post on leveraging blogs for marketing.

+Wesley Bledsoe

An Insignificantly Significant Testimonial

An Insignificantly Significant Testimonial

An Insignificantly Significant Testimonial

TRUE STORY: The other day I was at my mom’s house and she was watching TV. During the commercial break, there was an ad for the Les Olson Company that was made using whiteboard animation. My mom (who doesn’t know a whole lot about what I do) was watching with wonder when she exclaimed “I’ve seen those kind of videos, but none of them have ever been like that!” Of course, she was referring to how well done and professionally made the whiteboard video ad was, and after I told her that it was a Ydraw video, she remained amazed. Apparently she didn’t realize she had ties to such a fantastic company with such outstanding products – it was a lot to handle, as you can imagine.  So there you have it, even a civilian can see the difference.

There’s a reason that Ydraw is at the top of whiteboard animation companies.  With the great writing, fantastic art, and incredible editors that compile it all together, we truly make a video worth watching and yes, being amazed by.  Don’t just take one mom’s insignificantly significant testimonial though, check out the Les Olson video for yourself.  We bet your mom would love it too.

You can see the difference too – watch it. Les Olson Whiteboard Video

 

Don’t you think Ydraw ought to be doing your whiteboard ad?  Contact us today to find out more information on whiteboard animation videos, video scribing videos, explainer videos, cutout videos, 2D and 3D videos, and the list goes on and on.

We have no shortage of options for you and your company or product, and we would love to help you market it better.  We care about you, our customer, and want to make sure you have the best advertising available to use towards your advantage.

+Jessica Anderson

What is Video Scribing?

What is Video Scribing?

What is Video Scribing? What does Video Scribing Mean?

 

Video Scribing – Let’s break it down:

So what does Video Scribing even mean? It’s actually pretty simple: it’s the term used to define someone acting as a scribe to the narration while being videoed.  Simple enough, right? Video scribing is the Chef’s Surprise of an artist’s style mixed with videography, sound engineering, animation and stop motion photography – but this time the results are delicious and you want more.

Video scribing is one of the most engaging forms of visual story telling. With the dwindling attention span of the average consumer, it’s important to create something that your viewers will watch all the way through. Video scribing is an exciting, multi-sensory experience, using audio, video and third party interaction all in one package – It’s video based story telling.

Video scribing is like whiteboard animation or illustration. The video starts with a story, captured in a steady stream for easy editing, and the end product is flexible and easy to modify if needs be. The video is edited to speed up the movement with special video production software, leaving a crisp, clean video that is almost always less expensive than any other video type.

Ydraw creates the best video scribing videos around.  We’ve had a lot of practice doing this, and have learned through trial and error the best way to create a video scribing video that holds the audiences attention.  People are fascinated by video scribing videos, it’s like a storybook that has been brought to life.  Who doesn’t wanna watch that?

No matter how you spin it, in the end, video scribing is an experience. There’s no time for becoming bored – just when you’re tempted to fast forward something new happens and you’re hooked again. You’ve been scribitized!

scribitized

Contact Ydraw with any questions or additional information that you may have.

Ydraw creates video scribing videos

Demographic Reach of Online Video Marketing

Demographic Reach of Online Video Marketing

Demographic reach of video – almost everyone views, but who views most?

Video marketing is great for everyone, but it is especially appealing to the young adult (under 35) demographic. Roughly 70% of consumers aged 18-30 are regular online video viewers. That’s a large percentage, and here are three reasons why this stat is totes good news for your business, brah:

 

 

1. Fantastic Plastic

Young people usually don’t have a lot of money, but they also don’t have anyone to tell them how or how not to spend it – and even if they did, they don’t really have to listen, do they? This means you’ve got a better shot at coaxing them to give you their money than you do an elderly senior who has scrimped and saved his or her whole life just for a comfortable retirement.

 

2.  Full-On Addiction

While some seniors are having conniptions over how to work them darn smart telephones and computer boxes, young people have them permanently embedded into their palms. Young adults are so passionate about technology that they’ll wear it as eyeglasses – they can watch your marketing video as they walk right into a streetlamp pole.

 

3. In a Way, Ingenuitive

Young people are lazy (wait a minute now, hold your britches); they’re also smart. If, while browsing YouTube at the office, they find there is a product out there that will make their lives easier – they’ll usually buy it – freeing up more time to watch more video work on meeting that deadline.

 

This post may over-glamorize the gullibility of young adults and their eagerness to spend – but the main points are these: this demographic watches video, and they watch it often. If they have money, they’re usually looking to spend it. They’re basically carrying around a mobile advertising device everywhere they go. If you don’t have a marketing video yet – dude, what’s your deal? YOLO (your onlookers live online)!

 

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Hold on… don’t go dismissing the middle-aged and the old-timers, there is research that suggests they make up a pretty significant chunk in Youtube views, too. Stay tuned – more on that subject to come.

 

+Jessica Anderson would like you to know she does not use the terms “totes,” “brah,” and “yolo” on a regular basis.