Why Videos Are the Best Tools in Your Inbound Marketing Strategy

Why Videos Are the Best Tools in Your Inbound Marketing Strategy

Did you know that consumers prefer videos over text when discovering more about brands and products? In fact, four times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than to read about it (Source: Hubspot).

Marketers have noticed a surge in engagement, conversions, brand loyalty, and customer experience when leveraging videos in their inbound marketing strategy. Videos have a fantastic way of capturing attention and drawing your audience into your message. It’s one of the best tools to humanizing your brand and getting people to take action.

Let’s review what video and inbound marketing are and why it’s essential today

What is Video and Inbound Marketing?

Let’s begin with inbound marketing. This strategy focuses on attracting ideal prospects and customers to your brand through valuable content that solves problems, educates and informs. Rather than using traditional outbound marketing like cold calling, buying email lists (spam), and ads, inbound embraces sharing content that your audience will find useful and relevant.

As a result, you’ll be viewed as an expert and valuable resource. In a digital era where a search is a top source for finding information, inbound marketing positions you to show up when your audience is looking for you. Therefore, you’re utilizing platforms like your business blog, social media pages, video and podcast channels to share your expertise and give value.

This is a much better approach than chasing prospects…you’re drawing them in, making them more qualified and receptive to your content.

Now, video marketing is a part of your content marketing strategy which is a subset of inbound marketing. You see, your content includes blog articles, images, infographics, email messages, eBooks, checklists, videos and much more. A video is a tool leveraged with the intention of either increasing brand awareness, capturing leads, or generating sales.

Why Videos Are More Effective in an Inbound Marketing Strategy

The benefits of using videos in your inbound marketing strategy abound when you consider the impact and influence it has on moving viewers to action. Videos give your audience a chance to experience your brand’s culture, making you relatable and trustworthy. It significantly bolsters the know, like and trust factor which are key ingredients to getting people to do business with you.

Here are several top reasons why videos are incredibly useful in an inbound marketing strategy:

  • It dramatically improves lead conversions. Including one on a landing page can improve opt-ins by a whopping 80% (Source: Hubspot)
  • Creates more opportunities for customers to find you on Google and YouTube, boosting brand visibility
  • 62% of B2B marketers rated videos as an effective content marketing tactic in 2016
  • Adding video to an email accelerates engagement, leading to a 200-300% increase in click-throughs
  • Allows you to build genuine relationships with your social followers, email list, and potential customers
  • Video appeals to mobile users, a significant benefit since more people use their smartphones than desktops
  • Videos can help explain everything. Whether you’re launching a new product or idea, attempting to explain a difficult concept or need to dive deep into a topic, you can be as creative as you want to help viewers understand

How to Implement Videos in Your Inbound Marketing

With a clear understanding of what video marketing is and how it can positively impact your numbers, the following provides a step-by-step blueprint on how to incorporate it into your inbound marketing strategy:

#1 Be Clear On Your Audience

Having clarity on your target audience and knowing their pains, problems and challenges is the prerequisite to a solid content marketing strategy. One of the best ways to understanding your market is by developing buyer personas. This process will help you to create winning topic ideas that you can share in your videos that appeal to your audience.

#2 Brainstorm Content that Aligns with the Buyer’s Journey

Your viewers will each be at different junctures in the buyer’s journey. This is important to recognize as you want to create videos that target each stage to increase your reach. These include the Awareness, Consideration, and the Decision stage. Think of video content ideas for each stage to have a well-rounded video marketing approach.

#3 Use an Editorial Calendar

Plan, organize and schedule your video content by utilizing an editorial calendar for consistency. By mapping out your topics, you’ll get a holistic view of when your content will publish, so you’re constantly feeding your audience with quality-rich content. Google Calendar is an excellent tool to schedule your videos.

#4 Create and Publish Your Videos

Videos can take on many forms such as YouTube videos, webinars, social videos, and live-streaming video. Decide on the types of videos you will use for your topics and begin publishing.

To create stunning videos that capture attention and exudes your brand personality, leverage a team of experts that can help you stand out in the crowd!

#5 Promote Your Videos

Get more eyeballs on your content by promoting your videos. Synchronize them in your social media, email and blogging strategy for maximum impact. Effectively promoting your videos improves its viewership, SEO ranking (if on YouTube) and brings more significant exposure to your brand.

Conclusion

Videos are one of the best tools you can implement in your inbound marketing strategy. Adding them today can catapult your business goals, increasing brand awareness and generating engagement from your audience. Given the way people consume content online, amplifying your video marketing will position you to reach more of your audience.


Why You Need An Inbound Marketing Agency

 

With inbound marketing being the most effective strategy for growing your brand online, it is crucial that your business is focusing on and adequately executing each of the incoming components to achieve optimal results. They must be fully operating to reap the rewards of generating quality traffic, leads, and sales for your business.

However, this can prove challenging for some brands. Not having the time to create ongoing content, overwhelmed by all the different strategies and how to manage them, and unsure where to begin in online marketing are all common obstacles that some businesses face with implementing inbound marketing. If any of these hurdles hit home, hiring an inbound marketing agency is your solution.

In fact, check out these four reasons why your brand should strongly consider an inbound marketing agency to help improve your online strategy:

Leverage the Experts

Online marketing techniques are always changing. What works today in SEO, for example, may not work tomorrow. Instead of trying to keep up with the trends, leverage the expertise of an inbound agency that knows of the latest marketing techniques. They know what’s working in online marketing and what’s not. Use their knowledge to your advantage so you can focus on what you do best in your business.

Enhance Your Content Strategy

The key to a solid content marketing strategy is aligning your content with your ultimate business goals. If you consistently find your team struggling with content ideas an inbound marketing agency will help you get a clear picture of the brand's goals and target audience so that you’ll never run out of ideas of what content to share.

Eliminate Paralysis by Analysis

Because there are so much information and plenty of internet marketing strategies you can implement, some companies get stuck in trying to decide which techniques to use, what to do next, or what tools to deploy and so forth. Your inbound marketing agency will know which online tactics and marketing automation tools that are best for your unique business goals and objectives.

Bottom Line, Get Results!

You've spent a lot of money on your websites, yet your pages are not generating any traffic or leads. You're not even showing up on the organic searches in Google! It’s simply time for you to get results. Every day that you wait in trying to figure it out, you miss opportunities for leads, sales, and new customers. Contact us today for a consultation on how you can get to your next level and create the results you deserve!


13 Facts About Video Marketing You May Not Know

Camera Capturing a Man for Video Marketing

There’s an old but true axiom in the marketing world: consumers justify their purchases based on logic, but they buy based on emotion. Your neighbor will tell you he bought that shiny, new convertible in his driveway because it gets great gas mileage, or performed well in crash tests, or its great resale value. The truth is he probably bought it because it’s sexy and tells you he’s climbing up the social ladder.

Creating that emotional connection with customers sells your products and services. And the best medium to sell with emotion is video. Video brings your company to life and shows rather than tells customers who you are, what you value, and why you’re better than your competitors. Study after study shows that consumers prefer a compelling video about a product or service to a comparable print description.

How Do You Sell Wearable Cameras? Rescue a Kitten

GoPro sells wearable action cameras, high-definition gadgets for outdoor sports enthusiasts who want to capture their thrill of victory moments skiing, surfing, and skateboarding. In 2013, firefighter Cory Kalanick got the call to rescue an unconscious kitten in Fresno, California. He was wearing a GoPro camera. That video, heart-breaking and hopeful, made its way to YouTube where it caught the attention of 1.5 million viewers in its first few weeks. GoPro saw an opportunity, edited the raw footage, added its logo, and re-released the result (“Fireman Saves Kitten”) on its own YouTube channel. The video went viral, capturing 5 million views in its first week.

Founded in 2004, GoPro racked up $150,000 in sales in its first year. By 2013, annual sales had shot up to more than $985,000. In 2014, that number jumped to almost $1.4 million, taking the company to an IPO valuation just shy of $3 billion. It would be hard to argue that a kitten put GoPro on the map, but it sure didn’t hurt.

Video Sparks Emotion and Emotion Boosts Sales

GoPro isn’t alone in boosting sales and company image by tugging at the heartstrings. For example, Chipotle’s video (and mobile game), “The Scarecrow,” brought awareness to its sustainable farming campaign with images of animal confinement and toxic pesticides. More than 17 million consumers have viewed the video on YouTube.

And then there’s HelloFlo, which sells feminine hygiene products. The company scored big with a video using humor and heart, “The Camp Gyno,” featuring a young girl who gets her first “red badge of courage,” then helps other girls at summer camp. The video cost about $6,000 to shoot, got 6 million views in its first week and was named ad of the week by Adweek.

By the Numbers

The numbers tell the story: video marketing works because it’s what consumers want. Here are 13 facts about video marketing you may not have known:

  1. Four times as many consumers want to view a product video instead of reading about it
  2. Half of internet surfers want to see a product video before entering a store
  3. Consumers who see a video are about twice as likely to buy a product or use a service
  4. More than half of internet users watch videos all the way through
  5. Half of consumers say they want to see more company videos
  6. Companies which use video grow revenues twice as fast
  7. 52% of marketers say video content has the best return on investment
  8. Two of three consumers want videos of 60 seconds or less
  9. More than 100 billion people are active users of YouTube
  10. Half of all marketers plan to add YouTube to their marketing strategy in the next year
  11. Two of five marketers plan to add Facebook video in the next year
  12. Almost half of consumers watch an hour or more of Facebook and YouTube videos each week
  13. 80% of consumers say video demos help them make purchases

What now?

Video is an essential component of an integrated, inbound marketing strategy. To learn more about the ways you can generate leads and drive sales by engaging marketing content, contact us today.


What Should You Look For in a Digital Marketing Agency

2 Men with laptop facing each other in marketing agency

You've tried juggling your marketing. Either you're doing what you do best—focusing on your core business needs—or you're losing hours on social media and trying to figure out why your website won't work right on mobile. Let's face it. You need a digital marketing agency.

A quick web search gives you plenty of company names. But how do you pick one? How do you differentiate between sizzle and substance? High bills and high conversion?

Here are a few things to look for when selecting the digital marketing agency that's right for you.

Social Media Experts

Content is king. You want a digital marketing agency that has tapped into where your audience gets their media. They should be able to formulate a strategy to put your company on the lips of your target audience. Engagement is key to social media. Will the agency craft a plan that tells your brand story in a way that relates to the audience? Look at how they handle their presence? Has their blog been updated recently? Marketing is ever-evolving. If there hasn't been a blog update in months or if their Twitter feed is empty, it's not the marketing company you should hire.

Adaptable and Innovative

You can't afford to be a step behind. You need to keep up with the competition, or better yet, stay a step ahead. Marketing is always changing. Radio was big. Television was huge. Now, social media is the current forefront of marketing, and the most consumed content is video. Social media platforms are adapting to the content their users want, and that means video. It will be the next cornerstone of inbound marketing.

Strong Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing means motivated customers come to you and want you to market to them. Rather than inundating people with expensive hit-or-miss ads, you generate content and capture an audience. They follow you because you talk to them, you interest them, you engage them. This is less intrusive, often less expensive, and establishes more than leads; it creates repeat conversions.

Flexible and Scalable

Would you wear a one-size-fits-all suit to a meeting with your biggest client? What would you think if a vendor came to meet with you? When choosing a digital marketing agency, why would you choose one that wants to sell your company cookie-cutter solutions? Look for a digital marketing agency that will tailor their services to your business needs. They should respect your firm as the unique entity you've worked so hard to create.

Real Data Analytics

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Data tells you about your buyers and how they are interacting with your company. They can tell you how you're perceived, what campaigns are generating leads, and, more importantly, what strategies are converting leads. Without sufficient data, an agency is fumbling in the dark. Sure, they might have an occasional hit, but they won't know why or how to duplicate their former.

Take your time and evaluate your options. At HARNESS, we tailor our services towards your company's needs to give you the best results. Whether you need us to complement your existing traditional marketing efforts or we're your first foray into working with an agency, our focus is you.

Contact us to harness the power of inbound digital marketing.


5-Step Guide to Video Content Marketing

taking video of man skateboarding for video content marketing

Video marketing is the newer, shinier version of content marketing. By developing a solid message with quality video to portray your message and share it with others, you're creating the most powerful marketing strategy. Follow this 5-step guide to video marketing to create a strategic inbound marketing methodology.

1. Know Yourself and Your Customers

What is it about your brand that sets you apart? Why is your brand valuable? Think about your ideal customer and then study that population. People are like schools of fish; similar ones swim together.

Seek out this information by conducting surveys, gathering data and organizing that data to make it applicable to your strategy. If you find out what makes the customers tick, you can use that information to draw more people in. A strong message backed by attention to customer service is what improves your brand image and increases leads/sales.

2. Care About It

Why did women in the 1950s need to have those Tupperware containers? It was because Tupperware knew how to create messaging that appealed to women at that time—freedom and family. Owning a set of Tupperware showed women how they can have financial freedom while still espousing the happy American family way of life.

If you don't care about your message, nobody else will. What is it about your story that would make others care about it? How can you make your customers valued?

3. Know your Competition

It is most likely you're not the only one in your specific market. That is why it is essential to know your competition. If you have already video marketing content, review the material and identify if it addresses trends. Sift through your content and highlight areas that need to be changed or cut. Try finding weak parts could be improved.

Compare your history with the history of others within the same market. What are their gaps? Look at what all the other people are doing, brainstorm how it could be better and go for it.

4. Position Yourself Accordingly

Be reasonable with where you are in the market. Have you been in the industry for one year or fifty years? How long has your competition been providing the same products/services?

After doing all the research, plot out your growth. Where have were you years ago? Where are you now? Where do you desire to go?

Those three questions stated above, along with the information you gathered in steps 1-3 will lay the blueprint for your successful outcome.

5. Create

After you've done all the steps, you can now create a video marketing strategy that will take people's unfamiliarity of your brand to interest to emotional investment.

You lead people through this journey in one short film. Make sure your material addresses everything you learned in your research.

Set the goal to create video content that will stick. Think about the videos that have stuck with you, what was it about those videos that attracted you? There is a lot of factors involved but knowing your audience will make these easy to identify.

If implementing a video marketing strategy seems like a daunting task, contact us for help. All of your research is only worth it if you're able to produce a robust piece and execute your marketing strategy.


inbound marketing strategy

Key Elements to a Winning Inbound Marketing Strategy

inbound marketing strategyInbound marketing is the best way to promote your business online. Leveraging this strategy significantly increases brand exposure, boosts follower engagement, drives traffic to your blog and lead pages, and improves lead and sales conversions. If you want internet marketing success for your company, embracing the inbound methodology is the way to do it.

There are four essential actions in the inbound marketing strategy. Each element must be actively working to achieve the best outcomes in your marketing efforts. Here are the major components, with examples of techniques and tools, you can use to create a winning strategy:

#1 Attract Visitors

The first action is driving traffic to your site…but not just any traffic. The goal is targeted to quality visitors that are interested in your message. Having clarity of your target market is vital to creating content that solves their problems. Once you have established your buyer personas, you can align your entire content marketing strategy including social media, email messages, SEO, blogging content and videos to their interests.

#2 Convert

B2B Companies that blog only 1-2 times per month generate up to 70% more leads than those that don’t (Source: Hubspot). This stat illustrates the power behind the inbound strategy and how it dramatically impacts lead conversions. Convert website visitors into leads by using tools like landing pages, web forms, and lead offers. The key is ensuring your lead magnet is enticing and valuable enough for viewers to give their contact information in exchange.

#3 Close

The third element of an inbound marketing strategy that works is closing your leads into buying customers. It is in the nurturing process where you are grooming prospects to move them closer to a purchasing decision. Email marketing and marketing automation are excellent tools to fostering relationships with your leads that build trust. Thus, wanting to do business with you.

#4 Delight

You’ve earned a new customer…good work! But it doesn’t end there. This final step to inbound marketing is where you build loyal, raving fans who proudly promote you to their networks. How do you make this transition? By continuing to feed valuable content that resonates with your audience. Tools such as surveys and social monitoring are ways to gain feedback to improve your customer initiatives and create amazing experiences.

Ensuring that these four ingredients are working in your inbound strategy is imperative to achieving online marketing success. When executed correctly, you will maintain a steady flow of traffic, leads, sales and returning clients to your business.

For help on creating an inbound marketing strategy that increases your brand exposure and improves online conversions, contact us here for a schedule consultation. We are ready to help get you to your next level.


What Does “Video Marketing” Mean?

Video Marketing is one of those things that all of us are aware of, but we do not think about what it is. With so many different forms, and cutting edge digital camouflage, the line between content and marketing has grown thinner and thinner over the years. In some places, it is impossible to tell the two apart.

If you are thinking about turning to video to fulfill your marketing needs, though, it is important for you to know what you are getting into before jumping in with both feet.

What Does “Video Marketing” Mean?

Before we go any further, it is important for everyone to be on the same page regarding what video marketing is, and what it is not. According to the Internet Marketing Dictionary, video marketing is when a company uses short videos to promote their products or services.

That is it. If you are a lawn maintenance company, who makes videos showing your employees in action to entice potential customers to hire you, that is video marketing. If you are a cafe showing your audience how to make the perfect cup of coffee on camera, then that is also video marketing. In short, if a company is making a video whose purpose is to hook an audience to promote themselves, that is video marketing.

Content Marketing, and Changing Perspectives

When most people think of video marketing, they think of commercials. Moreover, while there are certainly plenty of companies who are using the wider reach of the Internet to get more eyes on the sort of videos that look like television commercials, that is not the only kind of video marketing going on. There's also something called content marketing, which has had great success with video.

What Is Content marketing?

According to Content Marketing Institute, it is when someone makes valuable content and offers it for free as a way to build an audience. The hope is that the more people who follow the content, the more people the creator will be able to mobilize to use their products or services.

Let's put that in perspective. If a gardening supply store made a video about how great its products and customer service was, that would be a commercial. You would be trying to hook customers into coming in right away to make a sale. If that same store made a series of videos offering gardening tips, it would not sell any products right away. It is not meant to. However, the series would gain an audience and buy that audience's good will. Later on, when the audience is given a call to action to come to the store and buy their products, they are much more likely to do so.

Put simply, content marketing is a long game, and it is meant to build a following organically.

Why All The Buzz About Video?

There are all kinds of ways you can market yourself, your services, and your products, but why has video risen to the top of the heap? Several reasons, according to the Huffington Post.

First and foremost, video is engaging in ways that print, and still media are not. A picture is worth a thousand words, but video is worth even more regarding traffic and views. The sound, the motion, and the human faces also engage the brain, making people pay attention.

Video requires less effort for those watching, which makes it more likely to be engaging. Video has a better chance to go viral, it makes consumers trust the creator more, and it can be accessed from practically anywhere in our technology-driven world. So, is it any wonder more people than ever before are trying to get into video marketing?

If you need help with your video marketing efforts, simply contact us today!


Inbound Marketing & Why It’s Essential In Your Strategy

Wouldn’t you agree that it is better to attract qualified, ideal prospects to your sales funnel rather than attempt to promote your business to everyone, creating “hit and miss” results? Alternatively, that it is advantageous to embrace an inbound marketing strategy that connects with, engages your audience, and builds long-term customer relationships versus just focusing on getting the sale?

Absolutely! You see, there is an entire methodology that not only brings potential customers to you but keeps them coming back for more! This approach has resolved multiple issues for businesses like time wasted on unqualified leads, little website traffic, and low lead conversions. The more efficient way to promoting your business is through inbound marketing!

This strategy has shown to be the best way to do business online. 3 out of 4 marketers across the globe prioritize an inbound approach to marketing (Source: Hubspot). Studies consistently reveal that inbound marketing successfully increases traffic, lead generation, sales and repeat business for brands who leverage this tactic.

What Exactly is Inbound Marketing?

The inbound marketing concept centers around creating and sharing valuable content that solves problems and answers questions for your ideal customer (or buyer persona). It naturally draws prospects in through education. Because of this noninvasive, selfless approach, prospects are instantly attracted to your brand and see you as the expert in your niche.

There are four key components to a powerful inbound marketing strategy. It includes:

  • Attract: Driving quality traffic to your content via blog posts, social media, SEO strategies, video marketing, etc.
  • Convert: Turning website visitors into leads through your lead offers; you giving visitors something valuable in exchange for their contact information
  • Close: Transforming leads into customers by using closing tools like email marketing and marketing automation to help seal the deal
  • Delight: Creating happy customers and loyal, raving fans of your brand, converting into repeat business. The major benefit to inbound marketing is the process of nurturing a “stranger” into an eventual promoter of your business.

Why It is Essential in Your Marketing Strategy

Inbound marketing, when done right, positions your business for long-term success. Consumers are fed up with overwhelming advertisements, yet they are always online seeking solutions to their problems. Search is the #1 source for content traffic generation, and it is the preferred choice for looking up information. Inbound marketing positions you to be found by your target audience when they are searching for you, making it essential for your business in 2016!

If your business is ready to start leveraging inbound marketing tactics to begin attracting qualified prospects into your sales funnel, contact us to request a free consultation. We are certified to help!

3 steps to creating great marketing content


Why Inbound Marketing

This blog will walk you through you to the culture of inbound, and provide you with a big picture view of everything you need for a successful inbound strategy. So what of the first question that you may be asking yourself is why INBOUND?

To put things into perspective let’s look at traditional marketing and what it offers for a business:

In traditional marketing, companies focus on finding customers: Generally, they use techniques that are interruptive. These techniques could be anything from cold-calling, print advertising, TV commercials, and junk mail.

Technology is making these techniques less effective, impossible to track conversion,  and more expensive. Caller ID blocks cold calls, DVR makes TV advertising less effective, and spam filters block mass emails. It's still possible to get a message out using these channels, but it costs a lot more. So, Traditional marketing is interruptive and marketer-centric. The traditional way of doing things is convenient for the marketer because they can push content in people’s faces whenever they want, and even when those potential customers don’t want it. But it’s not an ideal experience for the user – the potential customer. Inbound marketing is the mirror version that. How? Keep on reading.

Traditional vs Inbound

Inbound is a fundamental shift in the way we do marketing. An inbound methodology is not an interruption- based message where the marketer or salesperson had all the control, instead it’s about EMPOWERING potential customers.  

The way it works:

  • Instead of interrupting people day with television ads, they might create videos that potential customers want to see.  Remember that one time you were looking for a quick solution to a problem like how to remove a stain from a brand new silk shirt? Or how to replace the battery in your mac yourself? Well, the inbound strategy will help you get placed on top search based on those queries.
  • Instead of buying display ads in print publications, they could create a business blog that people would look forward to reading.
  • instead of cold calling, they create useful content so that prospects can contact them when they want more information.

Inbound marketing focuses on placing you as the expert in your field, where the customer can find you when they need advice or information.  It’s like having an expert by your side and you call them when you need them.