5 Strategies to Entice Consumers to Binge-Watch Your Product Videos

Continue watching.

These two words are infamous in the world of video streaming. When consumers are hooked, they want more to watch.

“Content marketers should consider the binging trend a sort of case study. All of the elements that make us binge are lessons,” says Kari Matthews, a content writer for technology companies.

“We can do what these [television] shows do, in our own way, in our own industries, to make the most of our content and build our brands.”

Work with your team to engage customers with binge-worthy product videos. Get them excited about your brand and ecommerce services.

Try these five strategies below to entice your consumers.

1. Cater to Diverse Audiences

Normally, experts suggest creating content to serve a select group of people. But when it comes to product videos, you may want to take a different approach.

You want your content to be shareable. So, it must serve several different audiences. And that includes people who will never purchase your product.

“Remember that not everybody who buys, buys today, not everybody who consumes content shares it, and not everybody who shares content buys,” states Scott Allan, chief marketing officer at AddThis.

“Instead of focusing on capturing leads, create memorable content that customers will draw on when they or their friends are ready to make a purchase.”

So, produce content that people can share with their family and friends. Focus on moments that everyone can relate to, like laughing with friends, hosting a summer barbeque, or attending a college football game.

Below is the noteworthy Dollar Shave Club product video. Not everyone who shared this content bought the shavers, but it did go viral and reached their target audience.

If your company wants avoid vulgar language, think of your product video like a PG-rated film. For instance, most Disney movies are meant for kids to enjoy, but they have enough common themes to engage the parent.

Don’t be afraid to serve more people with your videos. The goal is to spread the word.

2. Develop A Backstory

For product videos to gain your audience’s attention, the content must discuss more than the product. Yes, content must go beyond talking about your company.

In other words: Tell a story that emotionally attaches people. It’s all about showing your audience a new perspective. And giving them a different insight that humanizes your brand.

Studies show that “Americans alone consume over 100,000 digital words every single day, but 92% say they want brands to tell stories amongst all those words.”

The same holds true in the world of video. A written product description isn’t good enough. And a video regurgitating similar information is just awful.

According to For Dummies, a “backstory refers to everything that occurred in your story’s past. A character’s backstory may include family background, job history, psychological condition, and any memories you create for that person from childhood on.”

Instead, bring your videos to life with characters and a plot. Give the actors names and set up an environment where the product is being used, not displayed.

That’s what Amazon did when they introduced its Echo. Rather than giving consumers a run down of the product features, the eCommerce giant showcased the product’s value in a simulated setting.

Get creative. Show, don’t just tell consumers about your products.

3. Create Episodic Content

According to Netflix, the network’s 83 million members watch more than 125 million hours of TV shows and movies every day. That’s a lot of time in front of a screen.

But what keeps viewers coming back for more?

One reason is access to uninterrupted content. Consumers don’t need to worry about commercials. Advertisement don’t get in the way of their favorite shows. Therefore, they can focus on viewing what they love the most.

Another reason is the addicting show plots. A great television show contains episodes that leave the audience wanting more. People are constantly wanting to know what’s going to happen next.

Will the main character finally locate the killer? Or will the antagonist prevail and destroy his enemies?

Image Source

Episodic content has people on the edge of their seats. And that’s how your team should set up product videos.

Shoot multiple videos with cliffhangers. Get consumers intrigued about your brand culture and latest product benefits.

“Episodic content enhances the credibility of your brand as people become more and more familiar with you and what you are about. This builds trust and value with your target audience,” says Kerri Ponder, a writer at Crowd Content.

One product video is fine. But a bunch can get customers hooked on your ecommerce brand.

4. Notify Customers of Updates

Your customers are busy. They have to manage both their work and home schedules.

So, sometimes certain things get forgotten. And that’s perfectly fine.

That’s where are your team steps in. Remind your customers of your new product videos.

There’s an old marketing adage: The Rule of Seven. It says that a “prospect needs to see or hear your marketing message at least seven times before they take action and buy from you.”

Create a special website pop-up telling them about new videos. Keep customers informed by sending notification emails leading up to the launch.

Your business already sends updates about new terms and conditions. Mimic the technique for product videos.

“Getting people excited about content that is perhaps not yet fully done whets their appetite and keeps them talking about you and your brand, days ahead of when your campaign or content actually is released,” writes Shanna Cook, senior social media manager at Nokia.

Like any marketing tactic, don’t over do it. Reminders can become nuisances if they are sent every single day. Take a look at your internal data and set times best suited for your target audience.

Ask customers to sign up for your email list for product video announcements. There’s power in notifications.

5. Offer an Instant Reward

Everyone enjoys special gifts for their efforts. Reward customers for taking the time to watch or share your video.

Customers want to be delighted. They desire instant rewards that help them today, not tomorrow. So, stay away from mail-in rebates or points that can’t be redeemed today.

For example, at the end of a product video, offer a 10% promo code. And think beyond discounts. Giveaway exclusive access to a webinar or a free ebook.

Christian Karasiewicz, a social media marketing professional, suggests the following:

“Develop a video to showcase your expertise or further educate your viewers, then include a YouTube card that leads your audience to related material. This can be a transcription, checklist, infographic, SlideShare or downloadable PDF…”

YouTube cards are notifications that appear in your video. It’s a small rectangular box at the top right corner. It give your viewers a preview of the message. Check out the video below on how to add cards to YouTube videos.

Analyze which rewards consumers like the most. Then, start offering instant rewards for watching your product videos.

Binge-Worthy Content

On-demand video is attracting consumers to brands. The best ones hold the audience’s attention and keep them engaged.

Aim to create product videos for a diverse audience. Give your videos a backstory. And notify customers of new releases.

Produce captivating product videos. Let consumers continue watching.

About the Author: Shayla Price lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology and social responsibility. Connect with her on Twitter @shaylaprice.

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Check Out This Video: Even an Asshole Can Save a Life

Videos that could be described as “obscene” or “offensive” aren’t particularly hard to find on the internet. Or even on YouTube in general. If they were, parents wouldn’t need to install specialized software on their computers to keep their kids from watching them, and offices wouldn’t monitor and block web traffic to keep employees from browsing something they shouldn’t be on company time.

In essence, no one would describe the internet as PG-13.

That said, one does not expect to find these words applied to a video from a non-profit. Especially one promoting organ donation. Most of the time we think of heart-breaking stories of loss, punctuated by the hope and emotional power of knowing that in death, organ donors have saved the life of someone else. Maybe a few cameos of people living new and re-exhilarated lives having received new organs.

This video I found this week definitely has those. But it also has Coleman Sweeney — the World’s Biggest Asshole:

Why I Love This Video

I love seeing non-profits, charities, and government programs go out of their way to create something special. Most videos I see, especially from non-profits, are a bit formulaic. They either share stats around their cause to appeal to the more numerically minded viewers:

Or they tug at the heartstrings to appeal to more emotional viewers:

And with good reason — these video formats work. They have been successful on television since commercials have been telling us that for less than the price of a cup of coffee per day, we can help X save Y.

But what I love about the Coleman Sweeney video is that it’s different. Donate Life America skipped the usual emotional angle and decided to play with shock and humor as ways of drawing in attention, and took it one step further by offering us an uncensored look into the life of the World’s Biggest Asshole. As Forbes breaks it down, Donate Life America has created something that appeals to a notoriously difficult group of people to engage with — millennials. And how they accomplished this goal isn’t difficult to see.

Talk to Your Audience The Way They Talk to Each Other

The real crux of why this video is so successful is because it speaks the right language. Rather than starting the video with flowery language around saving lives, the video takes a page from Dollar Shave Club’s marketing:

From the rubber testicles hanging from Coleman’s truck, to the underwear theft at the laundromat, Coleman is not your typical organ donor, and this is not your typical marketing material for a nationally-recognized non-profit organization. The video is raw, unrelenting, and to the point. Coleman Sweeney is an asshole. But even an asshole can save a life if they’re an organ donor.

Simple. Powerful. Hilarious.

While this video is an excellent example of thinking outside of the box when it comes to raising awareness about a cause, Donate Life America isn’t the first use of unexpected humor we’ve encountered in the video marketing world. While less obscene than Coleman’s story, Metro Trains commissioned Dumb Ways to Die as a method of promoting railway safety:

And in the process created a viral hit with over 137 million views, and a mobile game with millions of downloads. All in the service of keeping people from getting hit by trains. Which, you would think is a pretty simple mission. It’s a dumb way to die. See what they did there?

The World’s Biggest Asshole has created a memorable piece of content by applying the same thinking that Metro Trains used in their campaign. They spoke to younger viewers in a language that they can relate to, laugh along with, and feel connected to.

And you don’t have to be an asshole to see the value in that.

Now, normally we would end off a post asking for examples of your favorite video that relates to today’s topic. But something tells me that asking for your favorite example of “offensive and hilarious” content used in marketing will quickly have an adverse affect on our comments section. So in light of that, I would love to hear if you’ve found any other non-profits trying something different with their video marketing — swearing optional!

The post Check Out This Video: Even an Asshole Can Save a Life appeared first on Vidyard Video Intelligence Platform.

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17 Reasons Why Small Businesses Need (More) Video

Remember when you were in school and you took every opportunity to get free food? (Okay, maybe you still do this, I won’t judge). But at the family potluck, you’d pile your plate so high, your aunts and uncles might’ve questioned whether or not you’d eaten for the past 3 weeks.

And when you came back home for the holidays, your hands were always in the cookie jar.

Chances are, if you’re in marketing at a small business, you’ve got your hands in all sorts of jars. From product marketing to content creation, social posts to event presence, you name it: it’s on you.

So why would you want to try and video to your plate, too?

There are 17 good reasons why. But do keep in mind that if your plate is already full, adding more to it isn’t necessarily going to make for a better dinner. You’ll probably just end up with rogue mushrooms rolling around on the dining room floor.

In other words, you’ll have to learn to prioritize.

Pick things to focus your time on that are going to generate awareness, educate your customers to prime them for your offering, build demand, create shorter sales cycles, promote a free trial, etc.

Once you’ve prioritized, then it’s time to shift some things out and add video in. Why? For the following 17 reasons.

1. Get on the second largest search engine in the world

If you didn’t know, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. So you better be there when your potential buyers are searching. The greatest opportunity here is educational-style videos, especially since “how-to” searches are up 70% year over year in 2016.

2. Rank higher in search

While YouTube is the second largest search engine, Google is the first. Adding video to your website can increase your search rankings on Google (and others like Bing and Yahoo) significantly. The truth is, adding a video to your website actually makes a first page Google result 50x more likely.

3. Increase the understanding of your product

Sometimes products can be complex, especially when you try and describe what your product or service does in only a few sentences on your home page. Lucky for you, viewers’ understanding of a company’s product tends to increase by 74% when they watch video instead of read text.

If you don’t have one yet, a product overview video of what your offering is and the problem it solves is near the top of our list for recommended videos to start with, so you should create one of those!

4. Offer your consumers the medium they want

Today’s consumers spend more time consuming digital video than on social media: 1 hour and 55 minutes per day versus 1 hour and 44 minutes. On top of that, 4 times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it, according to eMarketer.

Without a doubt, video is your audience’s medium of choice.

5. Boost email click-throughs

Including the word “video” in the subject lines of your emails can increase open rates by 7-13%. Plus, including the video splash screen in the actual email itself can increase click-through rates by 2x.

I feel it’s important to note here that including video in email is normally more about placing the splash screen in the email body as an image and not embedding the actual video. This is because most email clients don’t actually support inline playing of the video.

Instead, use the image that looks like a splashscreen and link out to the player on a separate page. You can even set the player to autoplay for the fewest clicks!

6. Build stronger brand affiliation and connection

Watching a video provides both audio and visual stimulation. The mere activation of both of these areas of the brain means that viewers are more engaged and therefore naturally develop stronger affiliation and interest in the content they’re consuming. As a small business striving for that brand recognition and so dependent on loyal customers that keep coming back for more, this is crucial.

7. Capitalize on the low barrier to entry

I know, I know. You probably thought that the barriers were high, not low for video marketing. A lot of small businesses (or businesses in general, actually) think that there are high costs associated with video and a long list of equipment that just makes getting into the video marketing space so tricky. I’m here to tell you that that’s a myth. Chances are, you have a 1080px camera in your pocket or on your desk right now. Or maybe you’re even reading this post on it. All you really need to get started is this camera and some basic editing software … even something like iMovie can be all the muscle you need to get started. So play with the big kids — you’re already all set up to do so!

8. Show up more in social feeds

Social feeds (Facebook and Instagram, specifically) do a great job of showing only content that people want to see. And it’s getting harder and harder to show up there as a business. But that’s also why more and more video posts are showing up in people’s newsfeeds and why, if you create video for social, you’ll be more likely to end up there, too.

9. Create more low-touch education options

You don’t have a big team … even outside of marketing. So the more you can encourage your audience to educate themselves and help themselves throughout the purchase journey, the better — and the more efficient your sales process will be.

Video can help with this.

If you don’t have a sales team and your transaction happens online, then the faster that will happen, too!

10. Tell a stronger story

There is no better way to share your story than with video. And there’s no better way to reel buyers in than with a compelling story.

Just think of any successful Kickstarter campaign (like the two below) and consider that the videos were the starting point that boosted them to fame. But the story was the starting point even before that.

11. Increase conversions

4.8% is the average conversion rates for website using video, whereas those that don’t use video see only an average of 2.9% conversion rate.

Your website is dying for a play button.

12. Get more purchases

40% of consumers state that video increases the chance that they’ll purchase a product on their mobile device. And website visitors are 64% more likely to purchase on an online retail site after watching a video. Need we say more?

13. Track potential buyer consumption patterns

Videos linear nature means you can track how long people are watching for. You can see areas of you video that viewers re-watched or skipped. And what’s even better is if you’re using a video platform that’s integrated with your marketing platform, like Hubspot, you can see this info for each potential buyer you’re working with. Meaning you can create more targeted follow-ups or have better information on who’s interested and more likely to buy.

14. Easily create a multi-purpose asset

You can create one video for multiple different uses pretty easily. Film the first and then cut it up in different ways for different platforms or distribution mediums. Shorter for Instagram or maybe mash clips together for Facebook to create a teaser-style video.

You can cut it pretty easily in iMovie or other simple editing software.

15. Make friends with authentic video footage

While you may think that high-budget, Hollywood-style videos are the ultimate goal, they may actually not be. And your smaller budget might actually pay off.

Today, buyers want to connect with brands and livestreamed or real, barely edited video can start to build that relationship. Without the red tape and legal restrictions behind your small business, you are one step ahead of large corporations in being able to satisfy this need.

Get your CEO behind the camera and get going!

16. Create great content in a short amount of time

All the video agencies want to tie my hands behind my back to get me to stop typing right now! But hey, not every video needs to be a masterpiece and according to point #15, those that aren’t can be phenomenally successful. The time it takes you to set up your camera, press record (or even just press record on your phone), and give the footage a quick edit is less time than it’d take you to write a short blog post. And plus, you’ll get all that extra data afterwards that you wouldn’t get from a blog post! (ahem … see #13)

Sure, there’s definitely ample opportunity for high-production value video. But it doesn’t all have to live up there.

17. Get more “bang for your buck”

Companies that use video are growing revenue 49% faster than those who don’t. That’s a compounding of a lot of the other 16 factors I listed here, but whew, is that a significant amount! Why would you want to miss out on that?

Now that you know the 17 reasons why small businesses need (more) video, just remember that it’s not only using the medium that will see you rising to stardom … it’s how you use it. Tune in next week to see the 10 ways every small business should be using video.

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The post 17 Reasons Why Small Businesses Need (More) Video appeared first on Vidyard Video Intelligence Platform.

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7 Reasons Your Site Isn’t Ready for A/B Testing

You’ve invested a lot of time and effort into perfecting your website and you want to get the maximum return from that investment. To achieve that goal, you’ve studied dozens of blogs on conversion optimization techniques. You’ve poured over countless CRO case studies, and you have a few tools to help you run A/B tests.

Before you start split testing to get those conversion gains, pause for a second. I don’t think you’re quite ready yet.

There are plenty of free tools to help you test your optimization – not to mention paid options from Optimizely to OptinMonster that’ll help you explore different facets of your site’s performance – so just about anyone can run A/B tests. But it’s not a matter of simply understanding how to do it.

The problem is that your site just isn’t there yet. A/B testing isn’t for everyone, and if it’s not done at the right time with the right conditions, you might end up accumulating a lot of false data that does more harm than good. Before you invest anything in testing and extensive optimization, consider these seven points:

1. The Traffic Volume Isn’t There

If this is what your traffic numbers look like, don’t bother A/B testing

There’s no doubt that A/B testing can be highly useful for businesses that want to improve their conversion rates. Having said that however, a lot of businesses shouldn’t bother with A/B testing.

Small businesses that are trying to grow, startups, e-commerce businesses in their early years and other micro businesses simply don’t have the traffic and transactions to accurately perform A/B tests. It takes a significant amount of traffic to provide accurate, measurable results.

In a post from Peep Laja of ConversionXL, he provided an example using a sample size calculator from Evan Miller, where the baseline conversion rate is entered. He then entered the desired lift.

Image Source

You can see from this image that in order to detect a 10% lift, the tool recommends at least 51,486 visitors per variation.

If the traffic isn’t there yet, you can still optimize your site based on audience data you’ve gathered, but A/B tests won’t be helpful for a while and they might produce false information.

2. You Don’t Have Anything to Test

A lot of websites function as a general brochure for a company with minimal conversion points. If you run a B2B site or you have a freshly-created site with little more than a contact form and an opt-in, then it’s too early in the game to start running concurrent A/B tests.

If your site is content-lite then it’s probably too soon to start running tests.

Even if the volume of traffic is adequate to run accurate tests, you may not see a significant lift from a general opt-in or estimate request form. For most businesses, the amount of effort and cost that would go into designing variations for the tests just to get a small lift around micro conversions isn’t worth it.

The same applies to newer e-commerce stores.

Your time would be better spent with your analytics, where you can set up goal tracking, creating marketing campaigns, and developing your content offers and resources. The A/B testing can come later once you have more to offer and traffic has grown substantially.

3. You’re Not Sure What Matters

Do you know what the choke points, leaks, and sticking points are in your funnel? I’m referring to the places where you’re losing prospective customers, as well as where you’re gaining the most.

Before you can run any kind of tests, you have to understand what matters, because some elements are more important than others.

For example: a marketing agency is driving visitors to their estimate request page. They spend a significant amount of time optimizing that page with A/B testing variations and micro changes. After extensive testing, they find that their efforts made very little difference with virtually no impact on their conversions.

Instead, they should have looked for mistakes in their funnel leading up to that page. Maybe the content that led the visitor to that point was where the changes needed to be made. Maybe the search intent of the customer didn’t match the content they found.

Another example: a brand selling shoes online puts a great deal of effort into optimizing and testing product pages, only to realize that the lift in conversion was insignificant. Instead, they could find ways to improve the average order value or review their funnel in Kissmetrics to find the biggest leaks where customers are dropping off and fix those problems instead.

Don’t know where to test? Find where you’re losing customers (and money) with the Kissmetrics Funnel Report.

If you randomly try to test what you think matters, then you’ll only be wasting time.

One study from Forrester showed that 60% of firms surveyed saw improvements in their website when they used a data-driven approach to design. It’s important to take the time to research what really matters to your business so you know what to optimize and where to make changes.

4. You’re Copying Content

While a competitor site (or any site for that matter) might look like an attractive design that your customers will probably engage with, you can’t waste time testing if you’ve played copycat.

Any tests you run after replicating their design and content will only be wasted. If the solution was as simple as copying what we thought worked well for our competitors (or even conversion case studies) then every e-commerce website would function exactly like Amazon.

The fact is, websites are highly contextual and they should relate to both the audience and what you’re promoting. Wal-Mart and Whole Foods are in the same business of selling food products, but they cater to completely different audiences and sell vastly different products.

If I stacked up my own services against another marketing agency offering identical services, there would still be contextual differences in how we market, how we service customers, the channels we use to engage them, and how we direct traffic to our sites.

You need to make sure your website is designed specifically for you, your channels, your audience, etc. before investing in testing.

5. The Data Isn’t There

The more capable you are with analytics tools like Kissmetrics or Google Analytics, the better off you’ll be. But, if the extent of your knowledge consists of checking traffic quantities, referral sources, time on page and bounce rates, then you’re only scraping the surface.

If you don’t know what data you need to monitor while A/B testing, then testing is a waste of time.

You have to approach your testing and analytics with a problem so you can find an answer in the data. That way, you can identify issues and confirm what aspects you need to change.

Learning a bit more about your analytics can tune you into:

• How site elements or offers are performing
• How your content is performing and whether it is keeping people engaged
• What people are doing on your site and the routes they typically take
• Where people are landing, as well as where they’re leaving
• Where your funnel is losing money

The data won’t specifically tell you how to fix problems; it’s just a starting point where you can discover actionable insights. Without that data, and without the ability to interpret it, A/B testing is pointless.

6. Your Site Has Usability Issues

When was the last time you tested your website in a browser other than the one you typically use? Have you tried going through your entire site on a mobile device?

Have you ever performed a full usability test with a variety of browsers and devices?

This is something a lot of marketers don’t consider when they start A/B tests. Ignoring usability issues, tech problems, and bugs is a huge mistake, though. Even minor bugs and slow load times can dramatically impact your conversion rates.

Just a one second delay in load time can drop conversion rates by as much as 7%.

You won’t get accurate results from A/B testing if segments of your audience are bailing due to usability issues. Some of your audience may never make it to your conversion point, and even if they do, their progress could be hindered by bugs or load times that will ultimately skew your results.

This misinterpretation could lead to changes and further variations of elements that are actually part of your winning, optimized design.

7. You Don’t Know Your Audience

Audience research should be one of the first steps of any marketing strategy. If your goal is to drive lots of traffic to your site with content marketing and paid advertising, I would hope you’ve done some measure of audience research.

Without it, you’re shooting blindly into the darkness and hoping to score a bullseye.

Researching and defining your target audience gives you in-depth information about who you’re targeting, such as their pain points, interests, behaviors, demographics info, and more. That information helps you craft compelling copy, winning headlines, and attention-grabbing offers.

How well do you know your target market?

Without it, you’ll resort to guessing what to change about your copy, headlines, offers, and calls-to-action. Every variation you test will be just as random as the one before it, and you likely won’t see any significant change in performance.

Know who you’re marketing to before you make a large investment in A/B testing.

Testing isn’t for Everyone

While there’s a wealth of articles and advice online telling you test everything you do and to A/B test every variation, you don’t have to. For many statups and growing online businesses there just isn’t enough traffic early on to create an accurate sampling with measurable results.

Focus on growing your business for now. As you grow traffic levels, learn more about your customers, and targeted traffic increases you can start testing variations to go after those micro wins.

Do you use A/B testing on your site or landing pages right now? Have you found issues with the quality of your results? Share your thoughts with me in the comments below.

About the Author: Aaron Agius is an experienced search, content and social marketer. He has worked with some of the world’s largest and most recognized brands to build their online presence. See more from Aaron at Louder Online, their Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

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Leaking Leads? Here’s How to Plug Your Analytics Gaps

Full funnel attribution is the dream.

A pipe dream.

In most cases.

Because a majority of the time, you’re nowhere close.

Campaigns are tagged. Sometimes.

You track incoming calls. Like 5% of the time.

You’ve got lead reports. Which go up-and-to-the-right at least.

It ain’t your fault. Our tools are limited. Cross-department assistance tricky. And marketing channels are exploding.

So here’s a simple process to help you take back control, hopefully eliminating all of those little gaps where leads commonly leak out of your funnel and mess up your reporting efforts.

The Great Analytics Gap: Where Exactly are Your Paying Customers Coming From?

How many leads did you get this month from Twitter?

How about email?

Most likely, those numbers are wrong.

Not because you made a mistake. But because your analytics platform did.

See, most basic analytics programs like Google Analytics are good. But not smart. (They’re also free, so we can’t complain too much.)

For example, your Email and Social leads this month are probably understated (only getting credit for a fraction of their overall performance), while your Direct ones are overstated (getting more credit than they really deserve).

Sometimes the swing can be 60%!

If campaigns aren’t tagged properly (and let’s be honest, who tags Tweets with any regularity), analytics programs will have a tough time picking up the referral source. Especially if these visits originate from desktop programs like Tweetdeck (does that still exist?) or Outlook (which you’re probably forced against your will to use).

These are tiny examples, but the problem persists.

Even when you’re tracking conversions, with monthly reports going to bosses and clients highlighting Goals with the sources that drove them, you might only be seeing a tiny slice of the overall pie.

Just recently, I’ve seen multiple clients spending tens of thousands of dollars on ads each month, going off of surface level information.

The phone rings, which is great. But why those calls are coming in is anyone’s guess. And nobody has a clue how many paying customers or revenue is tied back to the initial spending efforts.

Think about that. Organizations spending a majority of their marketing budgets on a single channel with tracking… kinda, sorta, setup. But not really.

Couple this with the fact that most smaller organizations use ‘niche, industry’ tools like legacy proprietary CRM’s that offer ZERO API’s and absolutely no integration possibilities.

So they’re forced to cobble this stuff together, manually.

If this stuff was being tracked properly, you’d almost instantly be able to:

1. Save money on the losing campaigns that aren’t performing.
2. Increase revenue by spending more on those that are.

And then you get a promotion. Or a raise, at least.

Fortunately there are a few techniques you can use to help shed more transparency and accuracy into your analytics. They’re not all encompassing, but they’re relatively easy adjustments to set up to help you practically solve this problem once and for all.

Click Tracking: The Basics of Campaign (or UTM) Tagging

I already know what you’re thinking.

UTM codes blah blah blah. Use any number of builders like the Google URL Builder to drop your URL in and idiot-proof your results.

Obvious.

But here’s the thing.

Many times UTM codes aren’t used properly. Or aren’t used holistically as a way to measure channel performance for conversions.

So let’s look at it more practically, organizing campaigns properly to make sure we’re tracking almost every single possible use case that might not get picked up by our analytics programs.

The easiest way to accomplish this campaign-wide approach is through inbound traffic segmentation. Which is shorthand* for, “Create a ton of landing page versions & funnels for each traffic source so you’re able to clearly see how and where click-conversions are coming from, thereby making analytics and reporting simple”. (*Not really.)

And while there are no shortage of tools to do this stuff for you, we still like to manage client campaigns in a simple, collaborative Google doc so everyone can quickly edit and update.

You can also do the same thing for social channels too, breaking it down even further into the primary ones you choose to plan your campaign’s content and messaging strategy ahead of time.

All of this time-consuming, upfront work will eventually pay dividends by making funnel analysis a breeze.

(Brilliant segue coming…) You know what also makes funnel analysis a breeze?

Kissmetrics does this with a visualized funnel reporting tool that can help you analyze all of this raw data and make faster (not to mention, more accurate) marketing decisions.

Call Tracking: Gain Insight into Inbound Lead Sessions

Any lead-based company will tell you that good, old fashioned inbound phone calls are still the best.

Invoca analyzed more than 30 million phone calls and found that they have 30-50% conversion rates (compared to only 1-2% for clicks).

That same study found that 70% of calls are coming from digital channels. And yet, we don’t know where.

Or why. As in, what did you do to drive those people to call in the first place? (So you can easily do more of it and take home a nice bonus this year.)

Setting up unique phone numbers on each advertisement or sales collateral is an obvious first step. Duh – your AdWords campaigns are undoubtedly already using phone call tracking.

But…

What happens when those people click to your website instead of calling right away?

Especially if we’re talking any type of consultative sale, they’re going to click around your site for a bit. Maybe even leave, and come back, several times before pulling the proverbial trigger on someone to work with.

The first step towards limiting the amount of information you don’t know is to setup dynamic call tracking that focuses on individual customers.

This way, your accounting for the multi-device, multi-event, and multi-channel journey (that already happens over half the time).

CallRail is one of my new favorites to do this. You’re able to create a pool of phone numbers based on the average amount of real-time website visitors you get.

These dynamic phone numbers will substitute the primary one already on your website pages, and automatically stick with one website visitor while they browse around all of your pages.

Not only can you then see a complete web session history, but also start tracking multiple sessions over time from the same customers.

That extra insight gets you one tiny step closer to being able to close out the big black hole that is your offline phone conversions.

There’s also a CallRail and Kissmetrics integration to help you better understand how offline phone calls fit into the customer’s website and app activity, email engagement and more. You’ll also be able to analyze how phone calls play a broader role in lifetime value of a customer (comparing with those who don’t call) and see which specific activities they complete immediately before or just after each call.

But before we can run off to implement, there’s still one last thing to figure out.

How to match all of this stuff up with your lead and customer data to see where buyers (not leads) are coming from.

Lead Tracking: Determining Which Leads Are Converting

It’s time to bring it home.

You’ve got basic campaign tagging properly organized, to limit the number of sessions that slip through your analytics cracks. And you’ve set-up dynamic call tracking to monitor people who may visit your site or call your offices multiple times prior to purchase.

Now we need to line that data up with your lead database.

My completely biased opinion is that HubSpot is one of the best solutions for this problem. Which is no surprise, given my company is a HubSpot partner who receives a nice bonus check every time we sign you up. :)

But what if you didn’t appreciate the blatant, selfish sales pitch? Or have the extra budget available? Or you just use some other CRM?

Another (albeit, more manual) solution is to use the excellent (and free) LeadIn to begin turning form submissions into actual people.

Once setup, you can integrate this with a few basic email marketing services to go freaking nuts on hacking your marketing stack.

You can also begin exporting this data (I know, who the F-exports manual data anymore) and matching it up with whatever lead-based CRM you use – no matter whether they provide integrations or not.

Ideally, you need to know that John Smith just signed up with your company for $X. And John Smith came from a phone call, through AdWords, targeting the term Y.

In aggregate, a tool like Kissmetrics (surprise!) can then connect all of these dots, finally aligning paying customers (and revenue) back to the marketing channels (and decisions) which generated each.

Conclusion

Most of us are making decisions based on incomplete information.

That’s life.

The analytics gap problem is only made worse when companies commonly have their own legacy tools that don’t play nice with whatever marketing ones you’re using.

But when clients and bosses are putting LOTS of money on the line, it’s up to us to make bold decisions on how or where to best spend it.

That becomes exponentially easier once you set up proper click tracking for the common online channels people are using once they see, hear or read about your latest campaign. And buttoning-up offline conversions like phone calls can help you finally see how many of those leads you’re collecting are transforming into paying customers.

The tips here might not be a perfect solution.

But they can get you significantly closer than where you probably are now.

About the Author: Brad Smith is a founding partner at Codeless Interactive, a digital agency specializing in creating personalized customer experiences. Brad’s blog also features more marketing thoughts, opinions and the occasional insight.

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Three Tools to Turn Your Brand Story into an Interactive Visual

The story of your business is one of your most valuable assets. People remember stories and eagerly connect to them. Stories spread and get cited. Stories build loyalty and trust. Make sure you make your business story known to the world.

One of the most memorable ways to tell your business story is the visual one because media make content easy to understand and remember.

Here are three tools to turn your business story into an interactive visual. Use the tools to create brand assets that add social media context to your brand and build trust and awareness.

1. FireUp

Example of the interactive visual story.

FireUp is a newer tool that turns brand news into an interactive timeline. To create a timeline, you add your company URL, logo and URL. Then you add events manually. FireUp explains itself as the way to organize and publicize company’s “micro moments”:

Every company creates a lot of micro news on a daily basis. News such as a new product launch or expanding into a new city or making a key hire. This News is extremely important in the life of the company but is not recorded anywhere.

FireUp supports images and animated GIFs. I couldn’t find the way to add a video to my timeline.

2. ThingLink

Example of the interactive visual story.

Interactive content will engage your audience and we give you the tools to analyze your KPIs and the value added through interactive media.

ThingLink is the way to add clickable links to any image. You can visualize your brand story, then upload it to ThingLink and make parts of the infographics clickable. You can then embed your interactive infographic to your page.

Here’s the full range of media you can add to your ThingLink infographic. ThingLink creations make great Facebook updates too! Here’s one example to play with.

ThingLink supports video links and it will play videos right within the interactive infographic.

3. Dipity

Example of the interactive visual story.

Dipity is a timeline creator.

You can add images, links and videos to your timeline.

You can invite your team members (or brand ambassadors) to collaborate with you on your brand timeline and add events to it.

Are there any other similar tools that allow you to visualize your brand story and tell it in an interactive way? Please share in the comments!

The post Three Tools to Turn Your Brand Story into an Interactive Visual appeared first on Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog.

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From Campaigns to Conversions – How to Make Sense of the Data You’re Presented With

It’s the question on every marketer’s mind – “How do we turn these impressions, clicks and conversions into something that drives results for our company?”

The fact is, you have a lot on your plate. From new product launches to generating interest to reaching new markets and paying attention to customer sentiment, there’s a lot to juggle. Being able to not just make sense of the data you’re gathering, but also turn that information into actionable insights is a must-have skill in today’s competitive markets.

The good news is, it can be learned – easily.

The Problem with Reach

When everything is measured in terms of reach and impressions, we start creating goals that don’t really measure the results we want

In many cases, campaigns are founded with the wrong goal in mind. Everything is measured in “reach”. We look at impressions as the de facto measurement standard when it barely scratches the surface of measuring a consumer’s true interest and intent.

The end result, when focusing too much on reach and impressions, is that you might make a boatload of sales, but not be able to map them definitively to any specific campaign or strategy. Even if people first hear about your product through traditional media (TV, print, newspaper), they’re very likely to go online and do some more research – and that’s where things like reviews, ratings and testimonials can make a significant impact.

Another issue is that most advertising programs assume a straight path to conversions, when the result is anything but. The customer could go from print awareness to online research at your website, but then go offsite to look up user reviews, do some comparison shopping, seek out coupons, watch a product unboxing video, look over the company’s Facebook page to see what people are saying, double-back on the comparison shopping engine to find the best deal, and so forth.

The fact is, the conversion path isn’t pretty and that’s because it’s too often tied to wisps of numbers that don’t make any meaningful and measurable impact on the bottom line.

Mapping Campaigns to Results

Changing techniques to focus on revenues and relationships requires a change in how we think about campaigns

So how do you tie your campaigns into the kind of insights that deliver the results you need? Let’s take a look at some common types of campaigns and how they can be adjusted:

E-Commerce Sales

E-Commerce relies heavily on the power of reviews, testimonials and coupons – so combining these in a way that makes sense (such as putting reviews of that particular product below the customer’s item when they go to view their cart) will help reduce cart abandonment rates and seal the deal.

Automatically adding in a coupon (especially for free shipping) only serves to sweeten the deal, and greatly reduces the risk that the customer will go offsite to search for coupons – and potentially to a competitor.

Don’t forget the service after the sale either. Following up to inquire about how the customer likes the product, if they’ve used it yet or have any questions are crucial for keeping your brand front-of-mind in a way that’s helpful, not intrusive.

New Product Launch

New product launches are by far the easiest processes to map. Since initiatives are just getting off the ground, you can more easily segment and monitor them across all channels. But even with that kind of segmentation in place, it’s worth noting that few customers who “Like” a particular brand (for a discount, sample or whatever) seldom return to that page.

Your main goal in measuring results with new product launches should be to get customers to visualize their lives made better as a result of having your product in it. Your best customer may not say a lot or interact a lot on social media, but they will tell friends and family about you – and that speaks volumes more than any advertising can.

Brick and Mortar Sales

If your product is featured in traditional storefronts, there’s a lot you can do to help increase conversions. Create a coupon code for a specific retail chain or even a specific locale so that you can tie results directly to that specific campaign.

Help thwart showrooming (where customers browse in store but buy online) by price matching. Don’t force customers to jump through hoops to get the advertised price, either. Move the conversion needle even more by offering users a social coupon. This is one that can be shared with friends, but must be printed and brought to the store to redeem. You can track the success of the campaign through social analytics or the number of coupons redeemed.

There Is No Best Choice

One of the most common questions from the C-Suite with regard to conversions is “which channel drives the most?” Here again, there’s too much of a focus hinging on pure numbers and not more valuable (but intangible) things like customer sentiment, recommendations, brand awareness and so on. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to discovering which channel brings the greatest ROI – because there isn’t a single channel that does this all the time, for everyone, with every product.

Oftentimes, it’s a mix of initiatives that drive the best results. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Look at the mixes of what’s driving the most engagement or converting the most first-time users into paying customers – that’s the avenue you want to improve conversions on.

How Kissmetrics Can Help

If you’re using Kissmetrics, we’ve made it incredibly easy to see which marketing channels are sending the most profitable visitors.

We do this by using different channels. These channels include visitors who are referred directly to your site, who come by way of a third party, by email, and much more. But simply knowing where they come from is only part of the equation.

What you really want to know is — which visitors are bringing in the revenue?

And because Kissmetrics tracks users, not sessions, you can easily tie revenues to people. This is done by setting up the Revenue Report. Set it up once and let it start tackling the data effortlessly. You can even import your existing sales data if you wish.

An example of a Kissmetrics revenue report segmenting revenue by product category

The most valuable aspect of the Revenue Report is seeing which channels drive your biggest profits — not necessarily the most traffic or even the highest quality traffic — but pure revenues. As stated, you can even segment by marketing channel, so you’ll learn not only which campaigns resonate with your target audience, but what that means in terms of your bottom line.

Map It Out

Always look at strategy from a point of constant improvement rather than a “once and done” campaign

Some of us marketers are just visual learners who perform best when an idea is fully mapped out – so don’t hesitate to do this if you feel it will give you a better idea of how to move forward. Draw a horizontal “timeline” showing the different touch points where your customer interacts with your product or service in any way. Then, draw a vertical line showing the stages of the sales funnel.

Now look at it carefully and see where and how the different areas intersect and mingle with each other. Are there areas where customers are dropping off considerably? Are there touch points where the customer isn’t getting the help or clarification they need? When you map out the process, it’s amazing the findings that will suddenly come to light!

No matter what, going from campaigns to conversions isn’t about looking at the raw data as win or lose. It’s about looking at the big picture of which campaigns cultivated the kind of customer sentiment and brand awareness you want while minimizing friction or cart abandonment. And more often than not, these kinds of results will come from many different campaigns and channels.

It requires a shift in how you think about conversions and how they tie into overall customer retention, to be sure, but making that shift and looking at initiatives in terms of wide-reaching strategies rather than one-off campaigns can make a significant difference in all areas of business.

Have you integrated any of these ideas into your own campaigns? What kind of results have you gotten? Share your thoughts and comments with us below!

About the Author: Sherice Jacob helps business owners improve website design and increase conversion rates through compelling copywriting, user-friendly design and smart analytics analysis. Learn more at iElectrify.com and download your free web copy tune-up and conversion checklist today!

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