My thoughts exactly... on
VIDEO AND AUDIO MARKETING
SONOS Win & Lose
It's okay - even big brands don't always get it right.
But what can we learn from them?
Those sound dudes at SONOS have a new product.
SO, how did SONOS win and lose in launching it?
Well. I got a nice email.
I bought a SONOS product (or two) last year and they cleverly get your email address when you set up their gear.
I'm a prime target.
SO - a win for customer data collection.
What would have been nice is putting a thumbnail with a 'Play' icon on it in the image so that I was tempted to play their video.
Email with a 'play' thumbnails get higher click throughs.
And since, erm, this is a TV product, showing a play icon on a TV would have been a no brainer.
SO - I go to their site and there's a nice big image enticing me to watch the video.
Nicely done. 'See why'... a great piece of copy to pull me in.
It's a nice video! WIN.
What I like is they show the insane detail that goes into creating a product like this.
It shows the care. The science. (The justification for the price tag.)
Because after all... I already know how easy SONOS is to use.
I know how good the sound is.
I don't need those selling points.
This cements a feeling inside me that these guys care and that I'm buying into the brand.
BUT just as I'm having this feeling of 'need' for the product wash over me...
They embedded using YouTube.
And didn't turn off the 'watch this next' button. So I end up with this screen...
Argh! Suddenly I'm snapped out of the reverie of the product and I just want to click things.
I'm lost in the YouTube rabbit hole and not returning to their product's landing page. Crazy!
I've written about this before - it's so easy to avoid.
Like I did when I embedded it at the top of this post.
And if they used a business orientated site like Vimeo or Wistia they could have requested my email at the end if I'm interested... or a button to click ' buy' etc.
This is part of a sales funnel isn't it?
That said, YouTube is still a good place to have it out in the world..
But they LOSE here too with a killer careless mistake.
If I watched this video on YouTube to the end and I'm impressed by the product what will I want to do next?
... Yep. Click a link to find out more about it?
Yet the link in the notes below the video doesn't work!
MAJOR fail.
Especially as a couple of people had flagged this up in the comments and SONOS had ignored it (whilst replying to others).
Neither had they made use of the YouTube 'cards' system of having clickable buttons direct on the video that could have linked to their product page.
Do you want to sell this thing or not?!
Plus, they didn't use any of the video on Twitter...
OR on Facebook (not uploaded natively or posted from YouTube).
SO.. SOrry SONOS.
The video itself is good marketing wise.
But how you put it to use in the world... is another thing.
Sound judgement?
What can you take from this for your business?
Don't get so excited about the video and the 'launch' that you forget about the detail.
That you forget the strategy.
How are you releasing your video into the wild?
How will you turn viewers into buyers?
How will your video play its part within your landing page?
What additional tools in social and on your page can you use to cause people to take action?
As they say in the video 'making simple things is never simple'.
But when it comes to video marketing and sales you don't have to make it harder for yourself either.
SO - what will you do?
(PS. I also learnt today that I've been saying 'SONOS' wrong all along...)
Twitter Product Gifs
Using video doesn't have to be complicated. Here I put my hands together for Datum and their clever use of gifs on Twitter.
I love the way Datum are using gifs to promote their product range.
Simple. So, so simple.
These 'videos' jump out of my noisy Twitter feed.
Using their 'need a hand?' motif from their site they quickly grab attention.
You may have to hit 'play' on these below, but the way they auto-play on Twitter works a dream.
Why I love them
- Bright colours jump out of the Twitter feed
- Auto-play
- Work without sound
- Cut to the action - before you can scroll past
- Our eyes notice the change, if it were a still image we'd probably scroll on past
- Our attention grabbed we then move to the text call-to-action
- Even if we don't click through... this tactic when repeated again and again seeps into our consciousness; a range of products tied together visually
- Totally on brand with their site - using the colours and 'need a hand' motif
- No wifi? (gasp) Even on 3G these gifs load quickly so they won't get missed
- These kind of gifs would also work really well in email - yep they're the gif that keeps on giving
Let's put our hands together for Datum.
Sure, you might argue that these aren't videos. But they are.
They're short sequences of moving images right? The file type just happens to be a gif.
But why are you even arguing the toss when you could be out there creating short engaging content like this for your business?
As I've written about before, product videos matter - turns out, the file type doesn't.
Sadlers Wells Video Email Tactic
Love the way Sadlers Wells are using video combined with email marketing to sell their shows. Get your videos to perform for you!
I received an email from Sadlers Wells, the dance theatre folk today. And was immediately struck by how heavily that email used video to help sell the shows. 5 out of the 7 listed.
Clearly dance is a very visual product and video can do so much more than a description, static photo and theatre critic quote. It can move you. And hopefully move you to click 'buy'.
Check out how they go about this and how you could do this with your business (whatever it may be!). Combining video and email is well worth making a song and a dance about.
Above: the sequence from my inbox to the box office
What's great, is if you click 'Read More' on the email, it takes you to the web page where the video is a still image that says 'play clip' or 'buy tickets'. BUT if you click 'Video' from the email, then when the web page opens it autoplays the video. Nice.
AUTOPLAY
The auto play click through, means the transition feels seemless. It removes the chance of us getting distracted by something else, we're drawn straight in.
SHORT & PUNCHY
The videos are quick, to the point and visually enthralling. The original trailer for the Motionhouse show 'Broken' that I've featured here actually has a YouTube trailer of 2m33. But Sadlers Wells (who could easily have just embedded that) has a shorter, punchy edit of just 49 seconds. If I'm reading their email on my lunchbreak, I can watch the trailers for 3 shows from their email in the time it'd take to watch just one long one. Makes total sense.
EASY TO CONVERT
Remember that a video can only do so much. You need a good landing page to convert people. It's easy on the Sadler's Wells site to see how we can buy tickets with the big red button next to the player.
EASY TO SHARE
On completion of the video we see a series of 'share' buttons so we're prompted to share and given easy ways to do so. Again, this makes it easy for us to continue our purchasing journey. I could share this video with friends/family I might like to ask to come with me, or give myself cultural cudos by tweeting 'how cool does this show look?!' or, well, by using it in a blog post...
HOW CAN THIS WORK FOR YOU?
Clearly if you have a visual, emotional product: show, seminar, band, conference to promote then it's clear. But frankly, if you have products, the benefit of having product videos (click that link - I've banged on about it before) is really powerful, combine that with an effective email strategy and it's even stronger.
EMAIL AND VIDEO TOGETHER
Any business should recognise the power of nurturing leads using their own (growing) email database. Using video is a big tool in your armoury. Putting obvious thumbnails for people to click on is key. Autoplay when the site loads - briliant.
SALES METRICS
By using the likes of Wistia or Vidyard for your business video hosting you're able to benefit from amazing metrics. Unlike YouTube or Vimeo, these hosts tie into your email marketing platform (Mailchimp for example) and even Marketing Automation Software and CRMs. This means you can see exactly who from your email list has watched your video, how long for, maybe with repeat viewings... ie how hot a lead are they? And for that matter, you can see which videos/products/email thumbnails are working best so you're not just doing it on a hunch.
Making a video is only the beginning: it's the overture; it's how you put that video centre stage and let it perform for you that matters.
Personalised Videos - Interview With Idomoo
Video interview with Dotan Ginsbourg from Idomoo about the power, possibilities, logistics and future of personalised videos for brands.
Tesco, o2, Barclays, Lloyds, BT, Vodafone, Sky, Exxon Mobil.
When brands like that are using personalised videos you know it's worth taking note.
And who are they making them with? Idomoo.
I caught up with Dotan Ginsbourg from Idomoo UK to talk about the possibilities, logistics and future of this growing marketing trend. And found out how a big brand tactic like this can be used by SME's.
Watch our chat and also take a read below for a summary and some of my thoughts.
For transparency: Idomoo have not paid me for this post.
Not even sent me cake.
Here's a summary of our conversation.
What's the essence of what Idomoo can do? Well, as Dotan told me, they "can take almost any creative and data personalisation and combine it together".
Agnostic to delivery
"We're agnostic as to where the data is coming from and agnostic as to the distribution" - so email, in an app, IPTV."
How? Because the personalized video is stored and in some cases even rendered live in the cloud.
3 levels of personalisation
"We can take basically 3 levels of personalisation. One is voiceover, the second is text and the third is scene selection. Meaning your video is a combination of different scenes, text and voiceover combined together according to pre-defined logic. So based on your profile, based on your behaviour, the brand can grab your attention, hold your attention, give you valuable information and then give you personalised click-to-actions. These campaigns are extremely effective in terms of engagement, conversion and customer retention."
the brand can grab your attention, hold your attention, give you valuable information and then give you personalised click-to-actions
4 steps of customer life cycle
"The 4 steps in a customer life cycle: acquisiition, welcome, in-life and retention and we're doing projects around those four steps".
The acquisition might come via your own CRM or data you've purchased.
Welcome? Well, for example Barclays are doing all of their onboarding with new customers through personalised video.
In-life? That's things like up-grading. Whatever your product: be it your phone, your insurance...
Retention: the brand can approach you in a friendly, emotional, personalised way.
I'd go further. What about the fifth step in the customer life cycle? Advocacy.
Engaing in such a personalised way is more likely to make a customer a cheer leader for your brand. If a video really catches their attention, they're likely to talk about it with someone and spread your brand's name and message.
Results are everything
Results are everything. Because it's digital it's very easy for the brands to track and measure the effectiveness of the campaigns, be it open, click through, voucher redemption, sign up, downloads, etc.
"Less people are interested in either generic communication or something that's not digital. So we can do digital, video and relevant to you. And this is where it's very powerful."
Cost?
There's one crucial ingredient to personalised video that influences the cost of course. THE VIDEO. Any production company will tell you it's the 'how long is a piece of string' scenario. Clearly if you're filming or animating something there is cost involved. If you're including actors, even celebrities, the cost is going up further. Idomoo don't actually produce the videos. They're not marketers, they're not storytellers, they're technological wizards.
So there's the cost of your creative agency, the video production cost and finally Idomoo's.
As Dotan says, if you compared their element to other forms of marketing, then they'd be more expensive than sending an email, less expensive than sending a letter. LESS EXPENSIVE THAN SENDING A LETTER.
"We're creating an opportunity for the brand to convey a message to its customers. Because this is a major challenge. Less people are interested in either generic communication or something that's not digital. So we can do digital, video and relevant to you. And this is where it's very powerful."
How smaller brands can use Idomoo
"We work in two ways. One is working with big brands with agencies... but we also work in a 'self-service mode"
So after filming "you'd upload your scenes to the platform... you can then integrate data according to placeholders that you're defining with Adobe After Effects. And then through the platform you basically generate the videos, that creates a personalised url and then you can distribute it: integrate it into an email campaign".
"Agencies can do personalised videos in a manual way, but the downside to that is that it's very expensive. It's not in scale. So they can do one thousand; we can do ten million. And because it's manual and not automatic, there's always the risk of error. Because we give them a platform, an engine, technology, this gives creative agencies and brands a very interesting opportunity".
"This should be... part of an omni-channel communication plan.
We have enough results to support that."
The future?
Dotan, as you'd expect, believes personalisation will expand further and even spread to TV.
"You know, I don't want to watch an ad that's not relevant to me, so that's an area that will grow."
Also some sectors simply aren't doing this yet, so there's catch up to be had: "We're doing our first project with a big travel brand, but the rest aren't doing that."
Dotan certainly sounds confident, "I'm now in my second year. First year: we've tried to define this as an innovative approach. Now, we're not innovation, this should be 'business as usual', part of an omni-channel communication plan. We have enough results to support that."
Want to try this?
Not gonna lie. I'm excited to try this. Want to work together?
One of my clients are already thinking about what they can do. They should be the first in their sector. It's going to make them stand out from the crowd for sure.
Don't let yourself play catch up in years to come. Why not look at what you can do to personalise your videos? To offer something that's not generic, that's relevant, that's going to make a difference to your customers and therefore to your business. If you've not done so already, check out my original post where I give some food for thought as to how SME's can personalise videos.
This isn't the only way to make video, far from it, but this is a fresh way to cut through the noise of direct marketing, be it post or email to really connect with your customers.
PS. (In case you missed it earlier)
Idomoo have not paid me for this post.
Personalised Video from Tesco
How do Tesco make their personalised videos?!
How can you get more personal too?
Okay. Let me share with you my latest Clubcard statement.
No, wait! Really. Watch this.
Hell yeah! 9 coupons. Living the dream.
The fact is I have numerous 'loyalty' cards. I get sent numerous postal statements and emails from them... and do I really read them? Here, Tesco have found a way to bring a stale, all-too-regular communication back to life. They're reminding me what I can do with all their perks and for that matter what their store looks like (minus the screaming kids).
How did Tesco do it?
Okay, so from a technical point you might be saying 'Hello Stephen! How have Tesco made their Personalised Clubcard Statement video?'
They're using Idomoo - a video marketing service that can mix video with a company's CRM data to create incredibly personalised videos in real time.
What does that mean? There's various versions of this technique where coding meets video, but basically Tesco filmed a live action video and put in it some 'placeholders' for text to be generated from data in their Clubcard CRM. One of the placeholders is even audio so the man says my name (although no one calls me Stephen unless I'm being told off so I thought the man was going to rebuke me for using more than 5 items in the quick-checkout).
It really could get even more personal that it has done. After all they know my eating habits and because it's done in real-time they know what the weather's like where I am (they know exactly where I am)... so they could have made a video where the man subtly walked past a load of Ben & Jerry's on offer or said 'on a day like today, we thought you might fancy our freshly baked mince pies and hot chocolate, come on fatty!' etc
What does THIS MEAN for your business?
The key thing to take away here is this:
Online video is NOT a TV advert. It's not a billboard. It doesn't need to be generic to a mass audience. It's being watched by one person on one device.
A PERSON... so talk to them.
There's no reason why you can't be more 'Personalised' in your approach to making videos. You might not think you have the resources to do what Tesco have done with Idomoo but that doesn't mean you can't get personal with your videos just by making different edits combined with targeted email marketing.
This will definitely set you apart from your competition. Not that many brands are doing it.
So think about it.
No really. Think about it. What do you offer? What do you know about your customers?
Depending on your CRM, I bet there's a lot you can do.
Let's say you're a car dealership. You know I bought an estate car 2 years ago. Instead of bombarding me with texts and emails and post telling me there's a Sale event on... why not send me a video saying you hope I'm still enjoying my estate... but have I considered upgrading to this 4x4 and SHOWING me a family enjoying it, followed by a link to easily book a test drive?!
Okay - what about an optician? You know I bought a pair of glasses 3 years ago. You know they were a desinger brand. How about showing me a video of men (yep, not women) wearing cool designer brand glasses that are new in store? Quick link to book an appointment.
I work with a big B2B corporate who have the vision to make individual videos for use in their pitches. So they appeal directly to that particular client they're trying to win. It's a lot of effort, but it works for them and the value in return is huge.
I could go on. But really, use your imagination because I've got a 9 coupon spending spree to be getting on with.
Of course if you'd like to bounce ideas off each other over cake and/or ice cream, please do get in touch! Call me Steve though, not Stephen.
Apple Watch Proves The Power Of Video Marketing
When it comes to marketing, the folk at Apple know what they're doing.
And with the launch of Apple Watch they put a whole lot of love into a video marketing strategy, take a look:
Check out the Apple Watch videos for yourself.
Like I say, you can do this too. Pair up a strong strategic email campaign with video and you're on to a winner. Want to chat about it? Get in touch.
PS. Notice how they remade the Aluminium one with the UK spelling and voiceover? They're good.
