February 7, 2013•
no comments
Report: B2B Marketing Priorities and Spending Forecast Revealed
As marketers, we’re pretty excited about all the buzz surrounding the latest social media giant Pinterest. In just two short years since its beta launch, Pinterest has catapulted to become the third most popular social media platform on the Internet. And it’s still growing at a remarkable pace. In January 2012 comScore reported the site had 11.7 million unique users, making it the fastest site in history to break through the 10 million unique visitor mark.
The social photo pinboard has an average of 1.36 million users daily, the majority of whom are female mothers, and Mashable reports that 28 percent of them have an annual household income of over $100K. These are very often the decision makers marketers are aiming to reach – and they’re fully engaged. According to a recent Shopify survey, Pinterest sends as much traffic to Shopify stores as Twitter does, and shoppers coming from Pinterest are 10 percent more likely to make a purchase compared to those coming from other social media sites. Oh, and they’re spending twice as much as shoppers coming from Facebook.
So why is Pinterest so popular?
As an avid Pinner, I can speak first hand on this. While Facebook is a tool for catching up with old friends, wasting time, and flat out being a voyeur, Pinterest is actually useful. In only 15 minutes on Pinterest, I can find a fabulous pair of shoes to wear to a party this weekend, read tips on how to get my 4-year-old to stop interrupting my adult conversations, discover which perennials are best to plant in NY in the month of May, pull down a great baked cod recipe for tonight’s dinner, and see the best way to clean my glass cooktop stove. Now that’s the kind of multi-tasking any working mother can get down with!
We already know that consumers prefer short, “snackable” forms of content, and Pinterest provides them with just that. Because it is visually driven, users can scroll down a page and quickly “repin” whichever items appeal to them, whether it’s a photo of a mouth-watering meal, beautiful dress, must-see travel destination, tips on how to improve their golf game, or any number of things that can be depicted in a photo, video, or infographic. The best “pins” are accompanied by short but detailed descriptions, and users can pin them to boards they create themselves based on their own interests. They can either take action immediately by clicking through to the website the pin hyperlinks to, or they can pin it to their board and visit later when they are ready to make the purchase, book the vacation, prepare the meal, etc.
How it applies to your business
We recently introduced Pinterest to a residential moving company client who had never heard of the site. We explained to them how they could use Pinterest to build a relationship with consumers early on in the buying process. A photo of someone packing items in a box with a tagline “7 Tips on How to Pack China” could go far on Pinterest. Someone who is planning a move within the next year would very likely be searching for this, or they may just stumble upon it and pin it for later. We told the client that if they started a blog and posted information such as this, they could begin to establish a relationship with prospects that’s based on trust, which would obviously give the company an advantage over its competitors when it came time for a prospect to hire a mover.
This type of strategy carries over to a vast array of B2C industries. Retailers with e-commerce sites have the luxury of pinning photos of items for Pinterest users to click on and purchase. And the best part is it doesn’t cost anything but time. You could easily have someone within your organization or your marketing agency start turning your attractive goods, compelling blog posts or informative videos into useful Pinterest pins.
But why take our word for it?
The best way to realize the value of Pinterest is to join the site and start to understand how it works. We’re fairly certain you’ll not only be personally hooked, but you’ll soon find a way to incorporate it into your business marketing mix.
What’s the one marketing tactic that can simultaneously capture the attention of your audience, provide viewers with an interactive experience, contribute to your SEO initiatives, and go viral very quickly in connection with social media? The one that not only allows marketers to easily and accurately track response rates, but also routinely generates the highest response rates of any marketing medium? You guessed it: video.
It works for B2C and B2B
One of the reasons we love video so much is that it performs well for B2B and B2C clients across a multitude of industries. We all know that the majority of consumers turn to the Web for information, and most of them start with YouTube. And according a recent survey by Forbes Insights, given the choice between a text document or video on a topic, nearly two-thirds of business executives preferred video. Furthermore, the survey found that 65% of U.S. corporate executives visit a vendor’s website after viewing an online video.
Some rules to follow
Considering the cost effectiveness with which video allows you to provide audiences with content that’s easy to digest and easy to share, it’s no wonder this medium has become such a hot topic in marketing. In fact, companies plan to spend about 35% more on video this year over last year. Here are six useful tips I picked up from the MarketingProfs Video Best Practices Guide for Marketers:
1. Be brief! Promotional videos should be kept under a minute. Video demos, webinars, and instructional pieces can be much longer.
2. Keep your focus. Every word, image, and sound bite should contribute to your key message.
3. Make it authentic. Keep the marketing speak to a minimum, and create a message that is substantive, authentic, helpful, and valuable to the viewer.
4. Utilize existing content. Take inventory of all the content you have, and see if any of it can be repurposed for video.
5. Consider hiring a professional. Your subject should be well lit, your audio should be clear, your speaker should be compelling, and your videographer should have a steady hand and a good angle.
6. Multiply your media. Video is multimedia, so incorporate still images, slides, text, sound, or even some animation to create a richer experience that engages your viewer even more.
A case study on video
Video is very search-engine friendly, which is one of the initial reasons one of our clients, HOP Energy, recently decided to incorporate it into their marketing mix. This brief case study on HOP is a perfect example of how video’s flexibility allows you to accomplish a great deal on a limited budget.
Challenge
HOP Energy wanted to create a general corporate video for their website, investor relations and trade show applications. The video would need to be such that it could be utilized by HOP’s corporate office as well as its 13 local distributors – none of whom were operating under the HOP brand umbrella. So they essentially needed 14 different videos, but only had the budget for one.
Solution
Scott Cooper Associates created a single video that was easily and cost effectively personalized for each distributor. We did this by creating a master script for HOP Corporate, followed by creating “inserts” that would alter different segments of the core video, allowing the audio and on-screen visual to be customized with each distributor’s logo and contact info. We created the strategy, wrote the script, scouted the talent, directed the shoot and performed all production as well as developed post-production effects and graphics.
See for yourself
Click here to view the brand new video live on the HOP Energy site. You can view any of the local distributor videos by clicking on their logos on the home page of HOP’s site. If you’re not already using video in your marketing mix, now is the time to get started. Outline your strategy today and you’ll soon find out firsthand just how invaluable this tool can be.
Scott Cooper Associates is an award-winning branding, advertising and marketing services agency.
