By Maria Arnone, Vice President Media Development

The U.S. comScore Video Metrix stats for February 2012 show that 179 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 38 billion videos of online video content during that month. Other interesting findings from February 2012 include:

• 83.8 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.

• The duration of the average online content video was 6.2 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.

• Video ads accounted for 16.6 percent of all videos viewed and 1.3 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

Were you among that 83.8 percent watching online video? If you were, so were your members. And now might be the right time to assess your video communications plan — or lack thereof.

Perhaps you have been dabbling with a flip camera assigned to one of your team members at your latest meeting. Did the resulting YouTube video inspire your membership and executive management?

We’ve been expanding our clients’ daily news video efforts here at Ascend over the last few months, and I thought it would be interesting to share some of our lessons. We mounted a full-blown news product at a large retail show last month. This client was deeply grounded in an Ascend-produced print daily news vehicle, but we had added innovative online extensions in eNewsletters and an event site with an online exhibitor guide over the years that kept their outreaches to their contingency fresh.

We collectively knew the product at this retail show was just made for video. The show floor’s color, size, sounds and fun is pretty legendary. We worked with our expert video partner to execute, but brought all of our deep knowledge of the client’s objectives and challenges to the script writing and production. The result was an exciting and successful first effort on-site, in the post-show communication — and pre-show promotion for the next event. Here were some of our lessons:

• We worked across the convention team and communication team to collaborate and get the pieces that would make each of their departments shine.

• We engaged a talent who seemed to — right off the bat — embody the corporate brand and give an injection of fun and life to the narration of their event.

• We used powerful sound bites from executives, mixed with candid reactions from pleased attendees to show the direction of the company and demonstrate why non-attendees need to consider attending the next event.

We included the videos in our daily eBlasts. One eBlast prominently featuring the video garnered a 54 percent open rate with a 14 percent click-through. We’re currently using some of the footage to develop a great promotion piece for the next event. The client is very pleased and we’re working on getting the underwriting for the next, expanded production already.

Have you been navigating the video world? What are some of your stories?
 

By Evan Palmer, Media Sales Consultant 

When I first started at Ascend, I was told my primary focus was going to be in dealing with listing enhancements and options we, at Ascend, can create for the potential advertiser. At first glance, highlighted listings can seem mundane and possibly even inferior to larger advertising options, which certainly give advertisers great potential visibility.

When looking to create buzz about your product or company, there is something about a full-page print advertisement that still has great value in the various industries we serve. Not only does a full-page (or even half-page) give you ample space to create an eye-popping advertisement, it leaves you with options. Would the advertiser like to speak more to their brand, or a product they might be highlighting at their booth during the show? What different goals do you hope to accomplish with the ad?

One of the basic realities of the marketing world is that many companies do not have the advertising budgets for a larger ad. This is one thing Ascend understands. We create options for companies that can fulfill all types of budgets. One of those basic advertisements that make perfect sense, on a number of levels, is the highlighted listing with logo. Typically ranging in price from about $150 to $250, the highlighted listing with logo gives companies the opportunity to stand out within the A–Z section of a directory, by adding a company logo to a pre-existing, mostly meager listing.

After working with many smaller advertisers, one thing one thing I know true is that companies that purchase highlighted listings get their return on investment. Think about it — if one new customer comes by your booth because they noticed your listing, while browsing through a multitude of companies in the directory, your advertisement will have immediately paid for itself.

When I look back on a project, I often wonder why more exhibitors were not interested in this simple, yet very effective advertisement. It just makes sense that if a company has paid that much money for booth space, why not spend a little bit more to stand out?

I was having a conversation with one of my sales colleagues the other day, and she told me a story about how pleased an advertiser of hers was with the highlighted listing she had purchased a few months prior. With more and more companies exhibiting, inexpensively standing out from your competitors can go a long way towards having a successful tradeshow.  

By Darren Sextro, Vice President, Sales

1. If you’re not speaking to your current and — sometimes more importantly — future customers, you can bet someone else is. Maybe you or your company’s financial holders don’t believe in the marketing spend. The ominous truth is that at least a couple of your competitors don’t share that same philosophy, and they now control the conversation in your marketplace.

2. Consumer sentiment is on the upswing. (See the most recent numbers here.) As the economy improves, a robust marketing presence lets buyers know that you’re strong and you’re in business.

3. You spend all of that money on raw exhibit space, the furnishings and branding expenses for that exhibit space, the personnel to man that exhibit space … And you don’t spend a dime to drive traffic to that exhibit space? Really?

4. Marketing is a revenue-generator, not merely an expense. Marketing builds awareness and generates sales leads. Successful companies market to make money.

5. Roll your eyes all you want at the concept of “branding.” At a time when every mega-celebrity is a “brand,” it’s certainly an overused word. But that’s because it’s an effective concept. Buyers respond to brands that have self-awareness and communicate with consistent messaging. So take care not to mock what works. “A strong brand” may be a tired phrase, but it’s still a better result than “lack of awareness.”

6. Even in a down economy (and things are indeed improving according to the Federal Reserve’s recent economic snapshot.), you need to demonstrate that you haven’t thrown in the towel. Can’t afford to talk about your products and services in your marketplace? You need to figure out a way to change that, because the only message you’re sending is that you have nothing to talk about.

7. A corollary to No. 6: Buyers want to develop long-term relationships with strong companies. Common sense dictates that the silent wallflower is going to have a tough time competing with the company that speaks consistently to the marketplace. Tough economy? Sure, but you’re not going to survive by retreating.

8. “I don’t know who you are…I don’t know your company…what was it you wanted to sell me?” Beware this old guy. 

9. You joined your industry’s association to network and, ultimately you hoped, to sell something to its members. And the association delivered on that promise by creating multiple ways throughout the year for you to speak to that membership, both literally and through marketing platforms. Understand this: People who join associations have made an active decision to engage with others in the industry, including suppliers to that industry. Have you fully explored those relationships?

10. Call yourself a “word-of-mouth” success if you want, but unless I ask a whole bunch of people in your industry who you are and they answer with informed clarity, that’s the weakest of fallback positions. Everyone needs to market. Even Starbucks eventually started advertising!

11. Marketing is more than something to do “when we have the money for it.” Marketing is a necessary part of your business. If you don’t market, you’ll never “have the money for it.”

12. What’s YOUR 12th reason to market in 2012? Share your own “tough talk,” the very thing you’d like to say to the people in your organization who control the marketing purse strings.
 

By Darren Sextro, Vice President, Sales

Sometimes we can get so caught up in the inherent excitement of “marketing” that we lose sight of its very purpose.

This reminds me of something an old journalism teacher of mine once called the “Brenda Starr School of Reporting.” (By the way, the journalism teacher was probably about my age when I first heard him say this, but that was so long ago that he is most certainly old now.) Mr. Dillon would ask us, “Why are newspapers in business?” And classmates would say things like, “To report the truth!” or “To inform an uninformed public!” or “To connect communities!” And Mr. Dillon would shake his head at our overwhelming innocence.

“Newspapers are in business to make money,” he said, stating what should have been obvious. “You’re all victims of the Brenda Starr School of Reporting,” he added, referencing the comic-strip reporter hell-bent on righting mankind’s wrongs through good journalism (and high fashion).

Why do we market? Right here, I’m speaking to a much more experienced audience than that journalism class of mine, but it’s worth a reminder. At the most basic level, we market to make money. We don’t market to “build a brand” or to “demonstrate that we’re viable even in a down economy” or even “because our competitors spend a lot on marketing.” Those are only paths to the ultimate purpose of marketing: to make money.

And what a novel concept that is. Yes, marketing is a revenue-generator, not merely an expense. So why does upper-management slash the marketing budget in tough economic moments like this (and sometimes even in the best of economic times)? 

Because — back to that “Brenda Starr School of Reporting” concept — marketing professionals spend a lot of time glamorizing the more sexy aspects of marketing: design aesthetics, branding principles, relationships with media purveyors, social media, travel and hip content. Actually, these are all valid and important parts of effective marketing — but they also are mere paths to the ultimate goal: to make money.

Marketing is about connecting your products and services to audiences that buy. Boiling things down to something that basic may seem less exciting, but it also establishes marketing as a most necessary part of your business.

How does your company market its products and services on a limited budget?

By Darren Sextro, Vice President, Sales

Right now, who can blame a business owner for looking at economic indicators and reacting by padlocking the marketing budget? The rollercoaster of irregularity that is the stock market. The stubbornly static national unemployment rate. The dramatic price increase of capital expenditures and non-negotiable costs of doing business. What’s a person in charge of the finances to do but retreat into a dark and quiet place, shut the door, stay as quiet as possible and hope things get better by the time she needs to venture out to eat?

While recent months have been a particular struggle for everyone in the business of connecting products and services to audiences that buy, these slash-the-marketing-budget trends make no strategic sense even though they seem to make logical sense. The role of advertising in a recession has been discussed as if it were a new concept every time the economy heads south. Twenty-five years ago, McGraw-Hill published a study showing that companies that maintained or increased their advertising during the 1981–1982 recession averaged higher sales growth in the immediate years following the recession.

Strategy: Advertising during a down economy can tip market share in your favor.

Less than a decade later, another study, conducted by Coopers & Lybrand and Business Science International, followed another recession (one that plagued 1989–’91) and reported results that also seemed counter-intuitive for someone with very real and daily worries about the idea of spending when top-line revenues are struggling. If you’re significantly slowed by the economy, marketing actions are most effective in coping with recessionary effects, the study reported. Does this make sense? Times are tough so … spend?

Strategy: Advertising when others are not can make a company appear more stable than competitors.

A look backward often can give guidance for the future. Another research firm of old, Meldrum & Fewsmith (I’m not making that name up), conducted six studies analyzing the role of marketing during post-World War II recessions. (For those who think that we’re dealing with something that is oh-so-2007-to-now, there were also major economic woes in 1949, 1954, 1958, 1961, 1970 and 1974–75. What is unique about our current economy is that the pain has dragged on for so long.) “Advertising aggressively during recessions not only increases sales, but also increases profits,” reports Meldrum & Fewsmith.

Strategy: “When times are good, you should advertise. When times are bad, you must advertise.”

That quote is frequently attributed to “one major advertiser,” so apologies to you if you coined the phrase and no one is giving you proper credit. Maybe you’re part of the Bud Light marketing team, which increased advertising during that 1989–’91 recession while other beer companies decreased spends. The reward? A 16 percent jump in Bud Light market share … And a beer toast to the oddly sensible logic of advertising in a recession.

Have you increased advertising during this recession? Why or why not? 

By: Kate Crockett, Marketing and Social Media Director

I have a motto, since I first started in marketing over 15 years ago and it goes something like this: Marketing is an investment, not a purchase. Following this motto has aided me in many ways over the years and has been an easy way for me to educate those in management and business ownership about the patience required to build a solid marketing program. Social media is no exception.

As a business-marketing tactic, it takes time to understand a new medium, find your place and then build your audience. You can’t spend two minutes on any social media page without tripping over the next Twitter marketing guru or Facebook marketing expert. It’s debatable whether these people are indeed experts or gurus of anything other than self-promotion, but what the truly successful social media marketers have in common is patience to invest. To get a big return on your monetary investments, you have to be patient and choose wisely; marketing is no different.

Social media as part of any marketing plan has to follow this philosophy as well. It’s what is called a “pull-tactic,” not a “push-tactic.” Conventional marketing avenues like print ads, radio ads, direct mail, trade shows, promotional flyers or, for that matter, even the old town crier, are all “push-tactics.” Their purpose is to “push” out your marketing message repeatedly, which makes a brand impression and eventually (sooner rather than later) causes a shift in habit, purchase or opinion.

Social media is different. It is a “pull-tactic,” and its purpose is to provide content that is of interest to your intended audience.

Over time, your content will generate interest among those you wish to reach, thereby creating a following of people who will engage with you, learning through repeated interactions that you are the provider of the content they need. Overtime this creates a trust between you and your audience, and when the time arrives that the audience you have created is in need of services or products that you provide, they have a trusted resource from which to purchase that service or product. The key is being a voice in the marketplace that your audience can trust. 

You have to be respectful of the fragile relationship that you have with a social media audience. If, for one second, they feel that you haven’t been truthful, forthright or that you haven’t put all your cards on the table, they’ll drop you and move onto someone else who provides what you do and is someone they trust. But as with any relationship, building trust takes two things — time and effort. You have to be willing, capable and able to do both of those things before spending time on social media as a marketing tactic.

What ways are you building trust with your audience?

By: Kate Crockett, Marketing and Social Media Director

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

These are all things we learned as children, and they still have meaning today, though the thought that you shouldn’t say anything disrespectful is a broad-brush view. Criticism — even constructive criticism — sometimes doesn’t seem “nice.” But thinking before you speak has always been a hallmark of business communication, and today this means that you also should think before hitting “publish,” “send” or “print.”

In a haste to get content out into the social space, many organizations are not taking the time to read what they write through the eyes of others before sending it out for mass consumption. This is a huge mistake. Etiquette is as important in social media as it is at a business meeting — maybe even more so. At a business meeting you have the added luxury of voice intonation and inflection, which provides the audience with the context for your sarcasm or light-hearted joking. These things don’t always translate well in a 140-character post, and most times fall flat or even backfire in such a limited space.

Social media communication is like any other form of communication. It is not what you say or your intent that matters. What matters is how your audience interprets your message. The saying goes that there are three sides to every story — my side, your side and the truth — and the only side that matters is your side. Remember that on the other end of that “post” button are flesh-and-blood humans, and they have their own frame of reference through which they are digesting your words. Every number on your friend or follower list corresponds to a human being, with his or her own narrative and set of feelings. Remember to take that into consideration when posting.

The use of the cocktail party analogy for social media has been used many times in books published on the subject, and it's a good analogy to keep in mind. Before you click “post,” ask yourself this question: “If I were standing in a room with all those on my friend/follower list, would I say this out loud to them?” If you wouldn't, or if you would really have to think about it, then you shouldn’t post it online.

This is not to say that you should censor yourself or not inject your personality into what you post. Instead, I’m suggesting that you be smart and considerate — talk about others the way you’d want people to talk about you. It’s just pure common sense, and it seems to be lacking in some areas of social media these days.

If you are just venturing into social media, you might want to keep these 10 commandments of social media handy, the article is not all inclusive of what you need to know but it is a great start.

Do you agree or disagree that we’ve lost some of our manners in social media?