Marketing Agency Bedford

Marketing Agency Bedford Renew Marketing Agency Bedford

Marketing Agency Bedford – new premises

Marketing agency Bedford – It’s been a year of growth so far for Renew Marketing, and with that comes the need for a bigger team and a bigger office. Of course, it is no secret that your office not only reflects your brand but also how you think about it’s future. You can now find us on the Elms Industrial Estate at Unit 2, Caxton Road, Bedford. MK41 0HT.

Elon Musk, owner of SolarCity, Tesla Motors and SpaceX, is said to be worth US $12.7 billion. Describing him as ‘the most inspiring entrepreneur in the world’, Business Insider also show photos of him at work in his office. Smart, functional, minimalist, filled with natural light and the ability to switch between being an individual and a collaborative work space, his office is a statement.

Knowing that an office can say a lot about you as a company, Director of Renew Marketing, Ryan Mullins, has created an open and enjoyable work space for his team. Following a light, bright, minimalist theme, Renew’s new office is designed to support and inspire the team. The bespoke bikes racked against the wall on one side are also reflective of the dynamic and entrepreneurial spirit of the company.

Come and visit us on the Elms Industrial Estate at Unit 2, Caxton Road, Bedford. MK41 0HT.

5 ways to use SMS in a car dealership

One of the good things about the motor trade is the amount of mobile numbers they’ve got on their databases. There are still many though who miss out on the advantages of having this information. SMS is an extremely powerful way to generate business. It’s easy, quick and very good value for money.

161 cars sold from 6000 text messages sent

Here are 5 ways to use SMS in a car dealership to generate extra revenue.

1. Use SMS in a car dealership for events

What better way to invite people to your event than send them a personal text? With automatic response you can use the reply to book their attendance and even send them additional information – All whilst your team get on with what they’re meant to be doing.

2. Use SMS in a car dealership for sales

Let your customers know that a new vehicle has arrived or that you’re offering a special deal. Use sms replies to interact with your customer before you’ve even spoken to them.

3. Use SMS in a car dealership for aftersales

MoT reminders and service reminders are 2 places that sms can be great for getting customers booked in. Using automated responses the customer could even book in by text. The ultimate in convenience.

4. Use SMS in a car dealership for servicing

A vehicle in the workshop needs some extra work and authority from the customer. Simply send them a text with the details and let them reply ‘yes’ to authorise the work. Could it be simpler? Easy, convenient and quick.

5. Use SMS in a car dealership for settlement requests

When a customer requests a settlement figure on their vehicle, the chances are that they’re in a showroom looking at a new vehicle. There’s the obvious customer service angle of sending the settlement figure to the customer by sms but there’s also an opportunity to send a text alert to the original sales person to give the customer a call.

Hopefully you’re already using sms to help your customer experience and deliver more sales.

Need more help?

As specialists in marketing and automation, we not only put all the creative together for our customers including writing text messages and producing supporting materials such as banners and email templates, we also handle the whole communication process and database administration with our rmcom system. rmcom is a software system already used by many motor groups in the UK and further afield, simply rebadged to us.

By Ryan Mullins

Top 5 considerations when thinking about marketing automation

When you’re considering marketing automation there are 5 points that need to sit at the top of your decision making priorities. Although marketing automation has clear benefits for many organisations, the key factors for its success are the same.

1. Data you can use for marketing automation

Organisations that have plenty of data are the ones that will benefit most from marketing automation. The reasons are quite simple, without data, it’s going to be an uphill challenge from the off. The kind of data we are talking about begins with basic contact details. Email, mobile and address details are core to communicating with people.

2. Processes that would benefit from marketing automation

Sales processes and buying patterns need to be mapped out comprehensively to gain the most advantage from automation. By mapping processes it not only makes it simpler for setting up your marketing automation, it also helps identifying where there are weaknesses or opportunities to improve and streamline sales processes. You’ll also need to be considerate of the areas where your sales and marketing processes interface with other business systems as these areas can affect the ease of implementation.

3. Commitment to marketing automation

Before you make the decision to go forward with marketing automation, you need to evaluate your level of commitment. There’s plenty of evidence that marketing automation works but overnight success is unlikely. The setting up process can be time and labour intensive so it’s important to be realistic about the time and budget you’re prepared to commit to setting up and evaluating your marketing automation project.

4. Metrics you can apply to marketing automation

How you measure the success of marketing automation is a principle consideration from the outset. It’s important to be very clear and concise about what your marketing automation investment needs to achieve to make it worthwhile. For many, the metrics are sales related, for others, retention is a principle factor. Whatever it is that your business needs, scoping your success metrics are vital to the longevity of your plans.

5. Budget you’ll invest in marketing automation

Moving to marketing automation from campaign driven communication is a major change in the way you operate. Although you can stage budgets, your overall budget needs to be considerably more than your normal campaign type spends. It is possible to gain quick wins and start to benefit from your investment early but you’ll need to be realistic about the size and scope of your marketing automation project and the subsequent budget needs of such an undertaking.

Summary

Marketing automation is not a quick or simple task. The benefits are increases in sales, reductions in administration, improvements in retention and much more. Before you set about implementation of marketing automation in your business, you should speak with a professional who will be able to assess the ease, cost and benefits to you.

By Ryan Mullins

How Email Marketing Automation can streamline your sales process

What is email marketing automation?

Email marketing automation is a valuable marketing tool which enables you to build customer relationships. By automating your email campaigns you can build a profile of your prospects and customers so that you only contact them with information they are likely to be interested in. This is based on their previous interactions, meaning you don’t overload people with information that is of no interest to them.

An example of a simple Email Automation Campaign

A car dealer sends out an introduction email to its database detailing their latest offers on their new models. Our email automation software (rmcom) will automatically record which link each email record clicks on. Based on this information, a second email will automatically be sent giving more information on the model of the car/s they (have previously clicked on) are interested in.

[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”24″ size_format=”px”]Number of email accounts in the world = 3.2 billion
91% of email users check their account daily[/typography]

Read on to discover the many benefits of Email Automation and how it can help your business increase sales.

[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”18″ size_format=”px”]Develop Prospects[/typography]

Email is a tried and tested way of engaging prospects and existing customers alike. With automated email campaigns you filter your marketing campaigns so that you only send relevant messages to your prospects. The more you can relate to people with engaging relevant information, the more likely they are to interact with you and ultimately become a customer.

[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”18″ size_format=”px”]Timing is everything[/typography]

You can programme rmcom to automatically contact records at timely intervals. This can be based around key buying dates (contract renewal dates) or you can send emails one day, one week or one month after a previous email has been opened- Anything is possible!

[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”18″ size_format=”px”]Personalised Communication[/typography]

One of the most basic functions of rmcom is that you can personalise your email campaigns effortlessly.

[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”24″ size_format=”px”]A personalised subject line can increase your open rates by over 35%[/typography]

[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”18″ size_format=”px”]Unopened email still gets your brand gets promoted[/typography]

Every time emails are sent you increase your brand awareness, just by appearing in their inbox. Remember 93% of emails are checked daily, so even if your email is not opened the odds are high that your company name has been seen just by landing in their inbox.

[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”18″ size_format=”px”]Every communication will (eventually) be read[/typography]

If your email isn’t read within a specified time scale, rmcom can be programmed so that your communication will automatically re-send, again and again until it is opened.

[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”18″ size_format=”px”]Work your hot sales leads[/typography]

By automating your email campaigns, you free up your sales team’s time to focus on the hot sales leads your campaigns produce.
Every time someone interacts with your email a notification can be sent to your sales team so that they can follow this up….in real time if required!

[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”18″ size_format=”px”]Ongoing Promotion of your Business[/typography]

Email automation continuously keeps in contact with your customers. The more frequently your name appears in someone’s inbox, the more likely they are to recognise your company name, remember it, and buy from you when the time is right.

[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”18″ size_format=”px”]Reach customers on mobile[/typography]
People check emails on their smart phones. Reaching your customer on their mobile gets your email read, clicked-through and converted. We can also set up campaigns to reach your customers via SMS campaigns.

[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”24″ size_format=”px”]You will increase your website traffic through email automation.[/typography]

[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”18″ size_format=”px”]Drive traffic to your website and record it[/typography]

Email gets people who are interested in your brand to click-through to your website. rmcom will record the pages they click through to and even what time of day they are likely to read your email. All this makes targeted marketing campaigns much easier and extremley cost effective.

Get in touch with Renew Marketing if you would like to understand more about how rmcom can streamline your sales process and generate additional sales using email marketing automation.

By Lorraine Mullins

Sales Performance: 5 Ways to reduce sales costs & improve performance

Where can you cut the costs of sales and improve sales performance?

Improving the performance of your sales people is business critical. Reducing the costs associated with sales is a good place to start in improving performance as it has a direct influence on your bottom line. It is vitally important however to make sure you trim back in the right areas so you have a positive influence on sales performance rather than the alternative.

1. Motivate your sales people

Sales people are the touchpoint with your customers and prospects that turn conversations, presentations, effort and costs into profit. They are often the most highly rewarded people because they impinge so dramatically on the bottom line of your business. Very often in fact, companies recruit sales people because of their motivation for earning money. I’ve worked in a number of different companies and there is often an issue with maintaining the motivation of sales people. When times are good and the money is accumulating, sales people are easier to keep motivated.

Although many sales people are apparently driven by money, is it this simple? I would be the first to say ‘No’, this simply isn’t the case. When motivated, sales people work hard. The best sales people are going the extra mile. They’ll meet prospects outside of working hours, they’ll jump through hoops to win deals. This is the sales hunger, the desire to do better. However, making hard cash isn’t necessarily the driver.

I would like to offer another explanation. It’s not my explanation either, it’s Herzberg’s theory. In basic terms there are positive and negative motivators, Herzberg refers to them as hygiene factors. Positive motivators are the aspirational drivers that make people want to achieve. Negative motivators are the things that drag peoples motivation down.

2. Engage prospects

How people make purchasing decisions has adapted. The availability of information and insight has driven consumers and businesses to form opinions of products and brands much earlier in the buying process. Successful brands and products are managing these opinions and the available knowledge through media channels that their prospects engage with. These channels will fairly obviously vary dependent on your target audience.

The thing you need to keep at the forefront of your activity is that if you don’t control the knowledge, information and opinion of your products and brands, other people will. The trick to engaging customers and prospects is to keep costs minimal, or should I say reflective of the value the activity commands. That equation will be determined by a number of factors, both qualitative and quantitative. If it’s something you’re unsure of, you should consider taking advice from professionals.

3. Increase order/customer value

If each customer spends more with you, the cost of sale naturally decreases. There are many ways to increase order value and/or customer value. The most traditional is the upsell. What else would your customer buy from you if presented to them at the right time? What else do they need? What are they buying from elsewhere that you could sell them?

It may be that you can’t increase an order value at the point of purchase. On the other hand, by statying in contact with your customer, thanking them for their business and providing them information that relates to their purchase and their circumstance, you are more likely to drive loyalty and recommendation. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that a happy repeat customer is worth more to you than a single non-loyal order.

Your business and sales strategy needs to encompass loyalty initiatives and the harvesting of existing customers to increase their value to you. Consider how you can gain the maximum value from every order you gain such as upselling, driving repeat purchases, using referral schemes and providing loyalty programmes. These things work and need not cost you a fortune. If you need any reassurance that these are worthwhile uses of your resources, take a snapshot of the leading ten businesses you deal with and ask yourself what they do to make you come back for more.

4. Work the inbound funnel

Inbound Marketing FunnelThe three preceding points aren’t really anything new in their theory. In reality they are basic principles adopted by most if not all successful businesses. Whether this is a pro-active effort or accidental, the theory still applies.

The inbound funnel however is something that point two refers to. How people make their decisions about you has changed. With over 50% of mobile internet traffic being the use of facebook, your strategy should include how to harness this. Many companies will pay for Search Engine Optimisation, a slick website and possibly some type of pay per click advertising strategy, all of which I would whole heartedly condone. The number of organisations who are applying similar budgets to their social activity is far fewer.

Let’s be honest, not all businesses will see value in being heavily involved in facebook but facebook is not the only social channel. Youtubeis the second largest search engine but do you use video? This article may help you see the value: 5 reasons to include video in your communication strategy.

5. Pre-qualify leads

Pre-qualification is nothing new. The way in which it is done most effectively has moved however. ‘Cold calling is dead’ is an expression I have heard many many times. Admittedly, much of the time this has been uttered by sales people who are struggling with motivation BUT the success of cold calling is limited compared with times of old. There are tons of reasons for this but the most prolific ones being:

You are entitled to unsubscribe from cold calls
Gatekeepers are more savvy than ever
People simply wont give you as much time as they used to

Now this presents a problem for businesses who rely on cold calling as a strategy. Outbound call centres are costly to set up and manage. Event the management of the centres themselves is fraught with challenges, not least of which, motivation referred to above which by design can result in high staff turnovers.

Offshoring this kind of facility has also shown limited successes. People don’t like being disturbed by sales calls, particularly if they can’t understand the person making the call.

So what should a business do?

If we take the lead of the large organisations who sell high ticket value products, they actually have ‘pre-sales’ teams. These are people who work with customers to specify their needs and provide technical information before the ‘closer’ goes in to negotiate the deal. In many businesses this isn’t practical but a valuable lesson can be learned from this practice.

By specifying a customers needs and planning the timing of the purchase, sales peoples’ activity can be more focused, increasing motivation, increasing opportunities to up the order value and ultimately increasing conversion rates. The underlying question is still how to achieve this?

The use of technology enables you to feed information to your customers and prospects that they can access on their terms. What you may not know is that you can be notified of customer interactions even without their knowledge.

Whether you clicked through from an email or simply hit this page from a search engine, we were notified of that action about 5 minutes ago when you started reading this.

How’s that relevant to you? Imagine your top sales people being notified of a customer’s buying signals at the specific time they’ve shown an interest. Would that help the conversion rate?

Improve sales performance and reduce costs by working smarter and harnessing the technology that’s available.

By Ryan Mullins

Why do you need marketing automation? Reduce the cost of communication

Marketing automation is big news in business because it helps reduce costs of communication.

It’s simple, machines do things more efficiently than human beings.

So what’s actually meant by marketing automation?

Communicating can be a costly exercise. When you consider call centres and what it takes to run a call centre. Many businesses have off shored call centres to try to reduce cost. In many businesses this has been criticised as people don’t feel like they get a personal touch.

Personalisation of communication is at the heart of quality information exchange.

Communication has success critical features that, when handled correctly, improve quality, success and efficiency. In turn this reduces cost.

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Timing of contact
Relevance of content
Information Exchange

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Reducing the cost of running a call centre and sales operation.

For a business that has 35 teleappointers making outbound sales calls 9-5, 5 days a week. It would also take a sales team of 15 on the road to sit appointments generated by the outbound team.

This business has access to databases of thousands of businesses around the UK. Each teleappointer makes c.100 calls a day generating 2 appointments each. This means 70 appointments a day are being booked. Of these appointments, around 50% drop out and there is a sales conversion of 25% of sat appointments.

With these kinds of stats it doesn’t take a genius to work out that the sales value of wins needs to be 5 figures upwards to satisfy the wages demand, let alone the commissions and operational costs.

This kind of wastage in sales is undesirable but all too common.

The benefits of marketing automation in sales.

So going on the figures above, the outbound sales team are hitting 3500 contacts a day to deliver 70 appointments. One intelligent e-shot with open and click through notifications would provide enough information to determine warm prospects at the time they are most likely to take a call.

Based on an open rate of 25% and a click through rate of 20%, this activity would generate 175 warm leads, requiring 2 teleappointers to work through. This may provide sufficient leads to convert to 70 appointments. Thats would provide a reduction in cost of 90%.

What’s the cost of marketing automation?

There are 3 major considerations when setting up marketing automation.

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Data
If you’ve already got plenty of data, you’re onto a winner. Data can be costly dependent on how targeted your audience.
Content
If you’re already have tons of content and produce tons of content, you’re in a stronger position than those who do not.
Complexity
The simpler your processes, the less they cost to set up. As you add complexity, programming and testing become more arduous.

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Where should you start with marketing automation?

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

Gain the assistance of providers who done it before.
Set out your objectives.
Determine your budget for phase 1.
Agree Milestones and KPI’s with your team.
Set out a realistic timeline.

[/ordered_list]

Marketing automation is quickly becoming a need of any business that wishes to communicate regularly with any group of recipients. Whether it be new business, existing clients or simply news subscribers, marketing automation is one of the most effective methods of keeping costs of mass communication to a minimum.

By Ryan Mullins

Marketing Automation – Improve Your Sales Process And Increase Profit.

Would you like to increase sales, improve awareness of your brand, or improve your sales and marketing activity in another way. Are you restricted by budget and time?

Marketing Automation will save you time, money & improve results. Here are just a few reasons why:

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Automating your sales process means that your business development strategy is always carried out. No more excuses that you ran out of time to follow up leads.
With marketing automation you can make cold calling a thing of the past. You will automatically know who is interested in your company based on their interactions with your email. That not only saves time when making sales calls, it also gives your sale team a focus and a much better chance of getting the result they are looking for.
You can tailor your messages to prospects, existing customers or previous clients so that they receive relevant information from you. Making sure the right prospects get the right information increases your chances of getting the result you need.
Automatically following up initial enquiries or chasing previous customers means your company will never miss a sales opportunity. Even if an email isn’t read, it is very likely that they will have still seen your brand name appear in their inbox, keeping your company name in their mind.

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SAVE TIME

Sales tasks are automatically triggered and followed up.

SAVE MONEY

Reduce the cost of sale by reducing staff costs

GET RESULTS

No matter how busy your day has been your business development tasks will always be carried out, improving your sales figures.

Marketing Automation helps all types of businesses and organisations to improve sales, profits, retention whilst also reducing costs and effort.

By Lorraine Mullins

Pointers for choosing the right marketing agency

Some pointers for choosing the right marketing agency

The secret of our success? We’re old school![hr]

Why being old fashioned is harming our competitors while being ‘old school’ is bringing business to our door

I never cease to be amazed by things I see on the Internet! Not so much the dancing rabbits and gurning goats—but what companies describing themselves as the right marketing agency are doing to attract business. Take this morning. I went online early to tie up a few loose ends before going on holiday. I contacted a number of people regarding working together in the future and then I had a quick flick through LinkedIn to see what my connections have been up to.

And I was amazed!

The first thing that caught my eye was the number of people looking for freelance designers and copywriters. As far as I’m concerned, this is great—it indicates growth in the industry, and shows that business are seeing more value in these essential skills. This is certainly in line with our own experience—this year we’re already looking at significant growth in both turnover and profit.

But the other thing that drew my attention was how out of date some of our “right marketing agency” competitors’ offerings appeared, particularly from the more established companies. For example, I saw a post from a marketing and advertising agency on whether your business card is eye-catching enough. It may depend on your business, but I actually don’t remember the last time I swapped business cards with anybody. And surely you don’t pick your agency on the strength of their business card designs? Well, I certainly wouldn’t! But good luck to them with that.

Another example—a small, local marketing agency put out a post about using short video in social networking. It may seem perfectly reasonable on the surface but think about it a bit more deeply. In my opinion, if you have to teach your clients something this basic, then you’ll find it challenging to make money out of them. Why? In my experience, if you need to explain basic principles to your clients, you’re already on the back foot with them. If they know so little about marketing, I’m afraid they’re probably the type of clients who don’t appreciate consultancy being a billable service.

You’re probably wondering why I’m launching this barrage of criticism. I’ll tell you—the fact is that I’m concerned that this is a standard that many companies view as acceptable. In my opinion, this sort of sloppy marketing effort devalues the expertise and knowledge of the individuals who work for these companies. I’ve worked with one of them and know that their team is incredibly talented and hard-working—and they can certainly deliver brilliant campaigns with quantifiable results.

I don’t think I missed anything radical or new in their posts such as business cards includig wearable technology or short films going holographic! No, these posts were old hat! Why would they do that? Have they misunderstood the purpose of blogging on social networks?

So what about us? Presumably we’re not using such old-fashioned articles to pitch our business to potential clients? Correct—we do things differently. I’ve pitched for new business many times and I’ve won many times. But not by suggesting business cards or short videos. In fact, our pitching is even more old school than that!

How do you know which marketing agency to choose?

What we do is begin by asking questions.

What are your goals?
What are you already doing?
What works for your business?
What doesn’t?
And many more…

Our questioning process lasts for a considerable time and allows us to get to know our clients’ businesses inside out. It gives us the information we need to make the marketing decisions required. It means our proposals are based on evidence and fact, with outcomes that can be measured.

Additionally, we don’t do all the pitch work involved for free.

Traditionally, many companies do but we favour a different approach. If clients have faith in our process and our strategy, they will be willing to pay for the work involved in creating a bespoke proposal. This gives us the reassurance that our time and effort is justified. In turn our clients can feel reassured that we are providing an individualized service rather than just passing them a standard proposal. Our initial investigation provides an evidential report that will determine a measurable forward strategy.

Old school hard graft beats old-fashioned marketing flannel every time!

Get in touch now.We'll even give you 30 minutes advice completely free[hr]

Successful content marketing: 5 rules of brilliant engaging content

Successful content marketing needs brilliant, engaging content.

Every single one of your competitors that takes their marketing seriously is now working on their content marketing strategy. As a result, the competition is hottin g up and you need to really get it right if you want to stand out from the rest. This blog post is here to help you to get it right with some simple steps.

Content marketing is recognised as being the way to draw traffic into your site. How do you make your content brilliant and engaging?

Content is the king of todays media world. Consumers crave information. The issue for businesses is creating content that their target audience wish to read. Emails get binned so very easily; but we all still read a few. We read articles when we need advice or we are referred by our peers. What is it that make she difference between a great article we share and all those we ignore?

1. Relevance

Why should your audience care? Does your content make any difference to them? If the answer is no or not sure, you’re missing something. It may be something as simple as an introduction that makes your content relevant. It may be that you need to educate your audience to make it relevant.

2. Attractiveness

So, going beyond relevance, this is the question of whether your audience really cares. Lets face it, even when we should care, sometimes we don’t. Part of that is the packaging. Whether it be the way a message is delivered, how it’s dressed up, what it looks like or even whether it is a path to eternal happiness. How attractive is your message? Remember, attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder, what you consider attractive is not always the same as your target audience. Use focus groups, conduct market research and make sure you know what your audience desires before you begin. It will make the journey easier, less painful and more rewarding.

3. Emotion

Once you’ve caught the right people’s attention, you need to make sure your message is memorable. What makes memorable? For me, it’s inspiring emotion, it’s about making someone, the reader, feel. The emotion you inspire is important and fairly obviously it wants to be a positive message. In order to draw out emotion, you may need to provoke, you may need to cite examples or tell a story. Being brutally honest, if your content doesn’t inspire emotion, it will get lost among the world of mediocre. Take your time, tap into the nerve centre of your audience; you’ve worked hard to gain their attention, you just need to do enough to be remembered too. Be daring, be bold, gain criticism and most importantly, gain an audience who are touched by your message.

4. Convenience

With the modern world being the way that it is, consumers want everything ‘on demand’. People have less and less patience, they want to be able to access information on their terms, in their time, at their convenience. Remember, this is not about you, it is not about what you are able to provide, it’s about your target audience, it’s about their routines, their convenience. If your audience wants film and you release hard backed books, take a guess at the outcome. If, however, you provide relevant, attractive and emotive content to your consumers convenience, you have a much greater chance of success. If your target audience prefers SMS once a week, that’s what you should deliver! Make it easy, deliver it in the way they want it and they expect it. Anything less and you may be wasting your efforts entirely. Do the very best you can!

5. Shareability

If you’ve managed to achieve the success of getting someone to read and digest your content, the supreme success comes in getting them to recommend it to others by sharing. Remember, people won’t joust share anything. Even recommending a holiday read can be challenging so recommending content that may make a professional difference to someone needs to be well founded. Assuming you’ve achieved the first 4 points, it may be as simple as having ‘share this’ buttons, you may need to ask for a referral. Whatever you need to do to get the referral, do it, there is nothing as successful in conversion as personal testimonials. Another thought to leave you with is the use of incentives to gain the referral. Be creative, stimulate desire and gain recommendations from your target audience. Achieve these and you’ll be we’ll on your way to a rewarding sales channel with high conversion ratios.

Finally, remember your call to action!

What do you want your recipients to do? Contact you? Share with a friend? Comment?
Make sure you tell them!

If you follow these simple steps for creating more successful content marketing you’re likely to stay a step ahead of your competition and convert more of those all important subscribers.

By Ryan Mullins

5 reasons why to use film in your marketing campaigns

Reasons you should use film in marketing campaigns are clear.

It has long been recognised that film and video are an excellent way to engage consumers. Our appetite globally for tv and moving picture through film and YouTube is staggering. Every marketer would love to be the driving force behind the ad campaign that everyone recognises world over.

What is overwhelmingly apparent in our world of today is that the ‘recipe’ for a global viral hit is not necessarily the same as you would have specified ten years ago. There are, as with any creative success, some guidelines and parameters which make the end result more likely to succeed. To coin a Stephen R. Covey phrase ‘start with the end in mind’. In simple terms, what is it what video / film can do for you and your business?

Here are 5 benefits of using film in marketing campaigns.

1. Get your point across quickly

The stats on how much quicker people absorb information from film are staggering. People have an appetite for fast information, everyone is busy, no one wants to wait too long for anything. Film enables you to quench this thirst, to tell a story and to deliver your message in the shortest possible time.

2. Leverage context

The context of the information you are sharing is important to the relevance to the viewer. Moving picture enables you to set context visually and aurally without relying so heavily on understanding, translation and imagination. Film makes it easier for you. To show the viewer that your message relates to them.

3. Stimulate emotion

Most, if not all, successful campaigns, films, books and music strike an emotive chord within people. The basic nature of film enables you to create suspense, drama, aspiration and many other emotions which you wish to associate with your product or brand. People buy because they are made to feel a certain way. Using film enables you to enhance that emotion in ways other media cannot.

4. Heighten engagement

Trying to pull the kids away from the TV is the easiest analogy to describe engagement brought about by film. Lifting ones head away from an engrossing book or magazine article is fairly easy by comparison. You can mark where you left off with the simple positioning of a thumb or finger, react to whatever has stimulated you and then revert back. Film’s different. Yes you can hit pause but you’re unlikely to do that in the middle of a scene. There’s a fear that you might miss something. Using film enables you to increase that engagement with your target audience.

5. Increase ‘share power’

Social media has brought about ‘likes’ and ‘shares’. Not only are these measures of the stickiness of your content but now they also affect your rank on search engines. You only need to look at your Facebook feed or which virals have been most successful to realise film is an intrinsic part of virality. It is also evidenced that film embedded into email marketing significantly increases click through rates.

Summary

It’s clear that video/film is an essential part of today’s marketing mix. What is less clear is how you should apportion budgets. We would recommend that you make as much budget as is physically available for film. Without it, your message and brand will get lost in the vast stocks of content available at the click of a button. Without film, you just won’t be as memorable as those who do use it. There’s a further point too.

If you are using or intend to use film in your marketing campaigns, you need to ensure the quality is reflective of the quality of your brand. Viewers will make judgements, both consciously and sub-consciously, about your products and brand based on the quality of your film. Put back those marginal improvements on other areas of your marketing mix and invest your budget in video. Do it right and you’ll never look back.

By Ryan Mullins